- NINETEEN #2
"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.
What struck me first was the change in seasons.
I knew it moved differently in The Green than it did in the human realm, but I didn't know enough to know how it worked.
But where The Green was in the armpit of summer when I had last been in, now it was the chilly first kiss of spring.
I was suddenly thankful I was wearing sweats.
"Don't worry," Cass said as I looked around, smiling at a gnome I saw picking up a baby bird who had fallen out of its nest. "I won't be dragging you to the Dark Court by foot. We have a carriage waiting about half a mile up."
"Less time in your company sounds good to me," I said with a shrug, moving along ahead of him.
"You'll need to learn some respect for your elders. As well as your betters."
"Betters implies you're in some or any way better than me. You're not. You want my respect, earn it. Otherwise, just shut up and make this trip as painless as possible."
"I know you grew up in the human realm, but this level of insolence toward your king will not be tolerated," he said, losing his patience, and grabbing my wrist.
Yeah, well, one could guess what happened next.
The shield shot out of me like a sun, burning, molten, making my own skin start to blister.
"Fuck," Cass yelled, yanking his hand back.
I looked and found raised, oozing blisters where my fireworks had landed true.
What I didn't find was rings from where my bracelets should have burned him.
I tucked that information away for later, though, because his face was a mix of pain, anger, excitement, and joy.
The first two I was happy about. The latter two, yeah, they made my belly twist ominously. "I figured the talk was exaggeration."
"It wasn't," I said, lifting my chin a little. "I'd like to see your men try to pull a knife on me now."
"Oh, well," he said, waving his hurt hand, "they have their ways," he shrugged, then turned to walk away.
Maybe a part of me had been expecting him to tell me that he had no plans to hurt me, that what he had done to me as a child was a mistake, something to that effect.
But, no. He absolutely planned to torture me again.
I guess at least he had the decency to not lie about it to me.
That was something. He was an honest asshole.
And what I had learned from various jackasses over my life was, I much preferred the douchebaggery to be right there out front for all to see.
Nothing was worse than getting your hopes up only to have them thrown to the ground and stomped under someone's boot.
We walked in silence until we reached the spot where we came upon the so-called wagon.
I stopped short, the plummeting sensation in my stomach making me feel sick.
Because of course it wasn't a normal wagon pulled by normal horses.
This was The Green and the man beside me was the king of the worst of the worst. So the carriage we were about to ride in, yeah, it was driven by fucking fauns.
As we approached, one of them turned his head slightly to me, his eyes on me.
And there was regret and betrayal in his eyes. And I knew who he was.
"Why?" I said, barely more than a whisper.
"Why what?"
"Why are they being treated like animals?"
"They are animals," Cass said casually, like I was an idiot.
"They're only half animals," I objected, thinking of Drake. Granted, I'd almost become a sex slave to that damn faun right in the front, but that didn't mean I felt it was right for them to be put to work like a freaking farm animal.
"That bleeding heart better learn to clot really fast," Cass said, holding open the door to the wooden coach. "Lord knows there's no place for that where we are going," he said as I climbed in.
And something about that struck me as off.
The fae were a strange lot. Some seemed practically human both in looks and speech.
Some were oddly formal or more crass. But there was a consistency in their phrasing, in the words they used.
And short of maybe Doyle and Jasper and Jade who had spent a large chunk of their lives in the human realm, I was quite sure they didn't reference a god.
I sat back, my hand going under my sleeve to toy with the iron bracelets.
The iron that didn't burn me even though I was part fae.
I looked across the small space to where Cass was watching out the cut-out makeshift window.
On a whim, I ripped off the bracelet and pushed it down on the top of his hand he had sitting on his knee.
His attention snapped to me, brows drawn together, but with otherwise no reaction.
He didn't burn.
He didn't even hiss a little.
He was immune to iron. Like me.
He was part human. Like me.
"Oh, man," I said, my smile going a little wicked as realization dawned on him. "Do your loyal Dark followers know you're not fully fae? I mean I haven't spent a lot of time around fae, but they do seem to frown on halflings."
"Clever girl," he said, his tone dark. "But don't worry your head about it. You won't be given the opportunity to spread that information far and wide."
I sat back, slipping the iron onto my wrist, surprised when he didn't demand I take them off and toss them. "So if no one is going to have access to me, then you won't have an issue answering some questions, would you?"
"You can ask," he said with a dismissive hand wave that seemed to silently add: but I might not answer.
"How do you get so high in rank if you were half human? How did your parents hide that from your... subjects?"
"You haven't seen the Dark Court. When you have, you'll see there are all kinds of secrets that can be hidden in its depths."
"Who was human? Your mother or your father?"
"My mother. She was a human slave."
I closed my eyes a little, exhaling hard, trying not to conjure up any godawful images. "I'm assuming she wasn't married to your father."
"Hardly," Cass scoffed as if the very idea was disgusting.
"My mother never conceived. My father got...
inventive in his quest for an heir. He tried all kinds of fae out," he went on and I knew, I just knew none of those fae he 'tried' had been willing.
"No one conceived but the human. She was killed to protect the secret and I was raised as full-blood. "
"Why do you talk like a human then?"
"My step-mother took me out of The Green to punish my father for his incessant affairs when I was five or so. We stayed out until I was maybe ten before we got dragged back. She was sent to the camps. I was welcomed home with flair."
"What about... powers?" I asked, shaking my head.
"I have some from my father's side. They get hindered by the human half and when I was an adult, I started some experiments to try to offset that."
I swallowed hard. "What kind of experiments?"
"Blood magic. I drained fae with strong powers and injected myself to see if any of it would stick."
"Did it?" I asked, trying not to sound as horrified as I felt.
"Most of it, yes. But not in the same strength."
"No wonder the fae are getting weaker. You take the strongest and kill them." I paused when his eyes went to me, hard, cold, but so familiar. "Tell me, Dad, were you planning on draining me too? Was that what was going to happen to me as a baby?"
"Don't be ridiculous." I almost sighed in relief before he went on. "You can't drain a baby. Their powers aren't fully manifest."
Oh, Jesus Christ.
"So that's why you're bringing me back now. My powers are fully manifested and you can drain me."
"I haven't seen a power like yours ever. Your mother was strong, but even she paled."
"My mother?" I repeated.
"Dany," he said, smiling almost a little wistfully. "At the time, she was princess. Heir to the Light throne."
"At the time," I repeated. "Did you kill her too?"
"Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance."
"You wanted to?" I asked, not willing to believe he was so fully evil.
"She stole you from me. If there was a fate deserving of death, that was it. But the Light court intervened before I could deal the fatal blow."
"Why would a Light princess get involved with a Dark king?"
"I was a prince at the time. She was young, naive, and foolishly obsessed with humans. She liked the stories I had to tell her. She thought humans were sweet. Though, only someone who never lived in the human realm would think humans are anything but base, violent, selfish creatures."
"Right," I snorted. "Because you are so evolved, giving, and passive."
"Your mother's fascination was her undoing. I bedded her. I got you. All under the nose of the Light court. Idiots, the lot of them."
"Did she take me because she knew you would kill me eventually?"
"Yes. How, I still have no idea. You should have been drawn back here. Especially being a child of both Courts. It should have been overwhelming."
An image flashed across my mind, of the pixies, of the invisible necklace they stole from me that had seemed to completely confound Jasper.
"Magic," I said with a shrug. "She had someone spell a necklace. I never even knew it was there until pixies pulled it off me. It must have kept me away from the woods with some kind of fear of being mauled."