Page 83 of Into The Green

"I'll deal," she said, slipping a few more bracelets on her wrists.

"Cece..." My voice was pleading, making her stop mid-stride.

She turned back and closed in on me, leaning into me, burying her face into my neck for a second. My free arm went around her, squeezing her tight because I knew what it was. It was goodbye. She pulled back and kissed me for a second.

"Take care of Jade and Doyle. I can take care of me," she promised. She dropped the key, turned away, then back. "I think I am really starting to love you, Jasper," she said, making my chest seize, then rushing toward the door and, before I could say anything back, threw herself outside.

The door slammed as I slumped slightly, my arm pulling against the bar it was connected to.

"I think I am really starting to love you too," I admitted though I knew she couldn't hear.

--

Cece

I wasn't exactly sure where the anger came from. The best guess I could come up with was the fear manifested it. I had been living in a constant state of terror for months because of him. I had been unable to sleep peacefully my entire life because of him.

And he was my father?

"That's what you wear?" Cass asked as I stepped outside.

"I'm closing in on thirty, it's too late to pull the 'you're not leaving the house dressed like that' card on me," I replied and, if I wasn't mistaken, his lips twitched the barest bit. Being an Unseelie king, he had to have been used to being obeyed and kowtowed to, but I got the distinct impression that a part of him liked my defiance. Maybe he thought it was a bit of himself in me, that I was headstrong and surly because of him. And, hell, what did I know? Maybe I was. Maybe being part Dark fae was why I had always been a little rough around the edges, a little cool and detached, just a little hard to love.

If so, fuck him again for making me that way.

"Let's go," he said, holding a hand out in invitation.

I walked past him, heading back toward town where the woods were. He walked in line with me, but several feet away. One of his redcaps moved in close enough to brush my shoulder and I whipped my head in his direction. "Stay away from me or the second we cross in, I will grab your arm and give you something that will make a third degree burn feel like you just got a tad too much sun."

"Yes, I heard about the situation in the market," Cass said, completely ignoring the threat to his man who had moved a respectable two feet to my side.

"He was torturing and auctioning something I loved."

"A barguest," Cass said, nodding. "Was that really worth it? They're fickle creatures."

"It's not fickle to take care of whichever woman needs you more."

"Yes, your friend who was working off her debt in the camps."

"She had no debt. She wandered in for the first time in like... twenty years and your men snatched her, dragged her there, beat, and raped her for no fucking reason. And don't even try to tell me you don't know that all this happens under your watch. You don't strike me as stupid. Evil and arrogant, but not stupid."

"Yes, well. No one is getting abused in a work camp now thanks to your little empath boyfriend and his friend."

"What's the matter?" I asked, sensing the tension in his words. "Pissed that a little empath and a nymph-mutt with little in the way of powers managed to tear down an organization that had been terrorizing Light and Dark fae for ages?"

"They certainly created a mess to clean up."

"I feel so sorry for you," I drawled.

"So tell me, Celestine, how is it possible you had no draw to the woods at all? All changelings find their way back into The Green at some time."

"Why was I a changeling at all?" I asked, not really wanting to need anything from the son of a bitch, but knowing he was the only one with answers. "You certainly seemed intent on experimenting on me for a good long while. How did I end up in the human realm?"

He stopped just outside the fence that blocked us from The Green, turning to face me fully. "That was your mother's doing." With that, he climbed under the fence and kept moving. With all his redcaps behind me and no real powers but a little electric shock thing, I took a deep breath, ducked low, then followed.

"And who might my mother be?" I asked, planting my feet when he tried to extend an arm and invite me into The Green.

"I'm afraid that's not information you have any need to know," he said, grabbing my wrist and dragging me in with him.