“I need the answer to a question, and you can go back to your houses and rot there,” Reed says calmly, as if they hadn’t just treated him like he was the worst kind of garbage.
“What is your question?” the first Fae snarls, his voice drips with venom.
“What does it signify if a creature is eating the eyes and heart of a live victim?”
The Fae gasp, and I sense fear in the air around them. Why are they so scared?
“The creature is stealing magic. It lives in the heart, but it’s given life via the eyes.”
“That’s not how I work,” I protest. My magic is skin deep and instinctive.
“You are not Fae. You are not Nightmare. Nor are you demon. You are not human. You are a perfect combination of all of us and something else. Magic for you would be in everything you do, everything you breathe. You are too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
The Fae lunge for me, but Ronit and Canto clash with them, and then they are gone, and it’s just us again.
I’m not just a nightmare or human? I’m Fae and demon, too?
I sit down but almost miss the seat. Brio grabs me and pulls me onto his lap, resting his forehead against my arm.
He shudders, and I realise what just happened has really upset him.
“Did you want to go back to Faerie? Was that always your hope?” I murmur to him.
“Yes, but only because I didn’t know there was anything else to wish for. What if there was something else? A place for us. Maybe we can find a new home.”
“Are the oceans truly that bad?”
“What is a musician without an audience?”
“A musician singing to the fabric of the universe,” I say back without thinking.
Brio sits up straight, and I can almost feel him mulling my words over.
“So, he’s eating people’s eyes and hearts to gain strength and magic. That’s…sick,” Lirin snarls.
I try to consider it dispassionately, but knowing he was trying to do that so some part of me would continue to exist in him is revolting, and I clasp my hand to my stomach so I don’t throw up.
A moment later, the air gets sharp with temper, and I stiffen in Brio’s lap.
“What’s wrong?”
“Omega,” Canto purrs, “you are oozing some very powerful smells into the world right now.”
I blink and realise they are all focused on me.
“Sorry? I, uh, I’m not sure how to turn it off.”
Brio purrs and scrapes his teeth over my shoulder. I gasp and lean back, giving him more room as his hands slide up under that jumper and cup my aching breasts.
“Not right now,” Ronit snaps. “We need to finish this discussion and come up with a plan.”
“I say we ignore Deux right now,” Reed says in a gravel growl that has me clenching my thighs together. Brio brushes his fingers over my nipples, tearing a gasp from me.
“Brio!” Ronit snarls.
He reluctantly removes his hands from inside my clothes but pulls me tight against his chest and buries his face in my back. I squirm but still when Ronit growls.
“What do you mean, ignore him?” Leaf demands. “We need to kill him. He hurt our Mei.”
