What did you do? (Infatuated fae #2)

2. Present Day

2

PRESENT DAY

Mendax

W arm blood trickled down to the dried leaves that blanketed the ground, making a soft noise that would have gone unnoticed by most. But not by me.

My ears always searched for that sound, perking forward with the hopes of being blessed with its sultry notes. It was the orchestra that fueled and ignited me, the essence of my soul that demanded I hear the song of blood being shed—that I be the maestro.

I stole the deepest breath my aching chest was capable of and let the humid forest air push into my immortal lungs. Even the earthy forest scent made me think of her.

Everything made me think of her.

Not yet , I sang over and over in my head as I let out my breath and willed some of my impatience to exit with it.

I was faltering already. I could feel it. The impatient rage had already commenced its siege on my body and mind. Faster it came, every day since she had left. Simply beating this man’s face in wasn’t enough.

“Do. Not. Hide her from me,” I warned the man.

Not yet! I pleaded with myself while feebly attempting to loosen my grip around his throat. The pads of my fingers rebelled, pressing tighter into the coarse stubble on his neck.

“I-I told you, I kn-know nothing. I would never keep her from you, My Lord,” the wiry man stammered.

“Dirac! Take him now!” I shouted as I lost all composure. I threw the trembling man to the only other fae in the dim and smoggy forest.

My friend, if that’s what he was, gathered the weathered TreeTamer and slammed him against the tree directly behind us.

I was losing it, and I couldn’t afford to lose it—not now. Not when he might have answers. Different answers. Answers that I needed to hear.

Dirac spared me a concerned look before turning back on the man with a smirk.

“You feel it, don’t you, mate?” the large fae whispered. Dirac grinned wide at the bleeding man and pushed the smooth, gray blade harder against the weathered skin of his throat. “You thought him unhinged before, eh? Look at our prince now.” He nodded in my direction with a smirk. “We have word you were seeing to the whispering oaks a few miles from the Elf and Hanabi portals the same day the human assassin left.”

Of their own accord, my feet began to pace in an all-too-familiar rhythm. The skin covering my knuckles tightened until I was certain I would crush my own bones.

She belonged to me .

I wanted to kill him for putting the goddess— my goddess—in the man’s mind.

She was fucking mine .

She didn’t belong in anyone else’s head but mine. Stars knew she had taken up every empty space of it in her absence. She was all I could think about.

I snarled in frustration while my fists started to pull tufts of wild, black hair from my head. The scar on my back where she had stabbed me stretched with tight, new flesh, further reminding me of how much I ached to get ahold of her.

Both men shifted uncomfortably. My wings of smoke pulsed, but like usual these days, they remained pinned to my back. Black smog billowed around me, inching its way closer to where Dirac held the villager.

“I swear!” The man grew frantic at the sight of my smoke.

A Smoke Slayer was only as dangerous as his smoke, and I was practically fuming wisps of acid.

His heart beat like drums in my ears—drums that pounded out a symphonic crescendo, begging me to include his cries of pain.

“I swear, I saw no one! There was no one in the woods that entire day. You—you know who was behind this. We all know it! Just like all the other traitorous humans! Everyone knows she’s with the Seelie prince?—”

His head snapped in my hands with a resounding crack the instant I grabbed him. It sent enough relief down my spine, I may as well have cracked my own neck.

My eyes burned a hole in him as I dropped him to the ground and coiled my smoke around each of his arms and legs while replaying his final sentence in my mind over and over.

I watched the man’s limbs pull free from his body with a soothing sound. He had been dead since I snapped his neck, but I desperately needed to release some of my fury.

If I couldn’t get a handle on myself, all of Unseelie would soon be dead, and I would have a throne but no one to rule.

Even that—a thought that would have normally shaken my soul—didn’t matter anymore. If she and I were the only two left in all the realms, I wouldn’t care.

I would rule her.

I would worship her.

I would punish her.

My chest vibrated with a growl, thinking of that worm calling Callie—or whatever my pet’s real name was—a traitor. I pulled his lower jaw off with an easy tug and threw it into the misty forest. A bit of tension ebbed as the sharp tang of black blood teased my nose.

“You know he’s right,” Dirac said.

Nearly tripping, I spun to throttle him. Friend or not, he wouldn’t speak about her.

The dark forest where he had stood was now empty. He was smart and fast, I would give him that.

“He was not right,” I barked into the empty forest air, my desperate voice echoing off the old trees.

I couldn’t take it if he was right.

If he was right, it meant that I may never get her back—not really.

“Who else in all the realms would send a human to do their killing, Mendax? You know she is with the Seelie. You’ve heard the rumors.” His disembodied voice echoed behind me now.

I spun to shout at him. “She is not with the Seelie. Those rumors are nothing more than peasant gossip,” I bellowed, feeling my body shake from the scream.

Distant cicada chirps blended with my heavy breath and the scratch of bare branches in the cool night breeze.

The space in front of me blurred slightly before the seven-foot-tall tank of a fae reappeared in front of me with palms held high in surrender. His sharp eyes pierced mine with concern and gentleness that made me want to stab him.

“If you had a brain, I would impel you,” I grumbled as my shoulders sagged.

“You mean like everyone else you’ve tried to interrogate?” He grinned, showcasing his missing incisors.

I had been unable to harness myself since the day she left. I had no control without her. The last four people who I had tried to interrogate died significantly harsher deaths than this TreeTamer.

Once inside their minds, I hadn’t been able to stop myself.

I hadn’t wanted to.

I needed them to snap and break so I didn’t have to.

I missed the way she made me feel, and if the only thing I could feel was their pain, then so be it.

This was on her hands.

She had forced me to feel something powerful and deep, and then just took it all away, along with her soft skin and fiery eyes. Their deaths were her fault.

Needless to say, we hadn’t gotten the most promising answers out of anyone before I melted their minds into unhelpful puddles that sloshed about inside their thick skulls.

“You know where she resides, mate. I came back to help you—or should I say help all of fuckin’ Unseelie with the way you’ve been rampaging. Stop dickin’ around killin’ everything with a pulse, and make a plan,” Dirac said firmly as he slapped my arm. “I’ll hold things down while you’re gone. Go get her, Mendax. Teach her a lesson for leavin’ ya. Don’t worry about nothin’ here. I heard your mum likes the company of Hanabi commanders,” he said with a wink before vanishing from sight.

Deep in the back of my mind, I knew who had sent my pet—I had known all along. She had said as much, but still, I refused to believe she had joined the Seelie. Not after everything they had done to the humans already. If it was the Seelie that she worked for, then she was in a lot more trouble than she realized.

Which meant so was I.