A frown pulled at my lips. “Longer than a couple of weeks?”
That didn’t make sense to me, especially with him being at a place like The Court where humans were happily on the menu.
He said nothing.
“A month? A couple of months?” I whispered. Knowing what I did about the fae, they had to feed on a regular basis to slow down the aging process and give them their preternatural abilities. The Prince might look like he was in his mid to late twenties, but he had to be hundreds of years old, if not older. The fae metabolism was much like ours. They might not need three square human meals a day, but from the Order’s research, they had to feed at least once every other day.
“You need to go,” he said as the faint sound of sirens could be heard.
“And leave you here to bleed all over yourself, the alley, and perhaps even on police officers?”
“Do you really care what happens to me?”
My fingers twitched. “No.”
“Thengo.” He started to back up.
I should go. I should leave his ass here to bleed out like a stuck pig. He was an Ancient, and even if he hadn’t fed in a few months….
Holy crap.
It struck me then. “You haven’t fed this whole time, have you? Not since the spell was broken.”
He tossed a glare at me over his shoulder through thin slits. “Aren’t you leaving?”
“What does that mean then if you haven’t fed in like two years? Can these wounds—”
“Kill me unless it’s treated or I feed? Probably not, but it’ll take a while to heal.” Grunting, he pushed against the hole in his shoulder. “I just need to get out of this alley.”
“You can’t go to the hospital.” Having a very human doctor discover that fae were a real thing was not exactly on the to-do list for tonight.
“No shit,” he grumbled.
I ignored that. “I can—I can get you back to Hotel Good—”
“No,” he interrupted, and I thought that he might’ve swayed a little. “You will not contact them.”
Confusion filled me. “What? Why?”
“Can you just accept an answer without following up with another damn question?” He let out another curse. “God, you’re infuriating.”
I lifted an eyebrow at that. “You know, if I am so infuriating, then you probably shouldn’t have stalked me into the alley.”
“I wasn’t stalking you,” he grumbled. “And if I hadn’t been then you’d have ended up dead.”
I threw up my hands. “First off, you just admitted to stalking me after saying you didn’t, and we’ll address that, but most importantly? I’m not the one bleeding all over myself, now am I?”
He didn’t respond to that, at least not vocally, but I had a feeling he was mentally cursing me out.
“I’m fine. I just… I just need to get to my place,” he said, and he sounded like those words pained him.
The sirens were getting closer, and I needed to make up my mind. He needed help, whether he wanted it or not.
Taking a deep breath, I walked over to where he stood and decided. “Like it or not, I’m going to help you.”
There weren’t a lot of moments in my life where I had to stop and ask myself what in the fuck I was doing.
For the most part, I lived a practical, boring existence—well, outside of my plan to hunt down the fae who’d attacked my mother and me. Other than that, I was like a bowl of white rice without any soy sauce.
