Fey Regency (Fey Lords #3)

38. Chapter 38

Chapter thirty-eight

A kick to my shins has me jerking awake and bolting up to a sitting position. Memories of being rudely awoken after snatching some sleep in shop doorways are whirling through my mind.

I blink rapidly. I’m in the crypt. It is early in the morning. Emo Boy is handing me a steaming mug of black coffee.

I wrestle my arms out of the blankets and take the coffee. Holy smokes. I ache all over and it is flipping freezing. I have not missed sleeping rough at all. Give me a prince’s bed in a palace any day. I’d suck cock for that, all day long. Even if I didn’t like sucking cock.

Emo Boy pokes the fire and places a pan of bacon on it. My stomach rumbles. At least my captor is feeding me. And giving me caffeine. I take a sip and wince at the bitter taste. Yep, I’m definitely a tea person. Not that I’m going to admit that to Emo Boy. He probably thinks that anyone who doesn’t drink black coffee is a sissy.

“What’s your name?” I ask. Calling him Emo Boy in my head is getting annoying.

“Silas Darkstar,” he says without looking at me.

Wow, I wasn’t sure he was going to answer me, and wow, that’s quite a name. But for once in my life, good sense prevails and I don’t blurt something aggravating out. See? I’m learning and growing as a person. Tristan has been good for me, it is one of many reasons why I need to get back to him.

I take another careful sip of the scalding hot coffee. “Why do you hate the fey so much?”

All that is within my power to do, is to talk Silas Darkstar around. And the only way to do that is by trying to find out what the hell his problem is.

Silas flips the bacon over. “This world doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to us. The paranormal kin who have always been here. And humans, I suppose.”

Okay, I think I’m beginning to understand. “So you, and other things that go bump in the night, have always been here? You didn’t cross over with the fey?”

“We have always been here,” confirms Silas. “And we will not surrender our world so easily.”

I bite my tongue. The fey are here. They have taken over. Any fight about it has already been lost. Resisting seems pointless to me, but saying that won’t make me very popular.

I sip some more coffee. Damn it, Silas is really fucking adamant about hating the fey. Convincing him that they are not that bad, is going to be impossible. I’m going to have to come up with some other angle to get him to let me go back to Tristan.

Somehow, I doubt that professing my undying love for the fey prince is going to have any effect. Silas does not seem the romantic type. And he’d simply continue to put it down to Stockholm syndrome.

Besides, I don’t love Tristan. I…just like him a lot. An awful lot. Enough to want to spend the rest of my days as his pet. And he loves me. Who wouldn’t want to stay with someone who loves them? It is all very sensible.

So what if he is outrageously handsome and has stupid flame red hair and an absurd grin? And being fantastic in bed isn’t everything. Okay, I’ll admit that being able to handle me is a special trait, but that’s why I like him and want to stay with him. It is not love. I don’t do love.

Ouch. Something is really digging into my ass and derailing my train of thought. It feels like it has been pressing into me all night. Probably a rock.

I reach down, and around, to dislodge it, when I suddenly realise what it is. My phone. The fancy new iPhone that Tristan gave me and that I soon got bored with because I only had his and Luci’s numbers.

I’ve noticed the servants slipping it into my robes when dressing me, but didn’t think anything of it. I assumed Tristan wanted me to have it on me, or that the servants thought all humans were massively addicted to their phones.

Oh my god. Whatever the reason, my phone is here, in a pocket of my robe. I don’t think it is even switched on, but if I can reach it without Silas noticing, I can try to text my location to Tristan. I have no idea if the fey understand GPS tracking, but turning my phone on can only help, even if I don’t manage to text.

Carefully, I inch my hand towards my ass. I’m still swaddled in blankets, so Silas can’t see a thing. I gulp down some coffee as my fingers touch the phone.

Silas snaps his fingers and holds out his hand. “Hand it over.”

Fuck. “Hand what over?” I say as I put on my best innocent expression .

Silas frowns. “Give me the phone or I won’t give you any bacon.”

I glare at the annoying bastard. If he was human, I’m pretty sure I could take him, but he isn’t, and I’m not stupid enough to get into a fistfight with a werewolf. Besides, I really want some bacon. It smells delicious.

I pull the phone out of my robes and slap it down onto his hand aggressively. He turns it on and starts nosing through it while dishing up the bacon with his other hand.

Okay, so he clearly doesn’t think the fey know about GPS tracking. My plan was shit.

“Who’s Luci?” he asks.

I hold out my hand and glare pointedly at the bacon. Silas shakes his head in exasperation, but he gives me a plate.

“Luci is a vessel who told me about vessel stuff,” I say. Then I shove some crispy bacon into my mouth. God, it tastes good.

I look up to find Silas staring at me with one eyebrow raised.

I sigh. I really don’t know what else to say. Luci hasn’t got anything to do with any of this, but I guess Silas needs to understand that for himself.

“Tristan took me through a portal to meet him. He is posh. A count or something. Wears dresses.” He really is totally harmless.

Silas’s eyes widen. “Are you talking about Lucien Colville? Count Consort Felford?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” I say warily. Shit, I haven’t dragged Luci into my drama, have I?

Silas takes a deep breath. “Lucien Colville is the traitor that opened the portals to allow the fey into our world. ”

Bacon nearly falls out of my mouth as my jaw drops open. I had heard that it was someone from Earth who had let the fey in. But Luci? Sweet little Luci? My tentative friend? It can’t be. Fucking hell, am I really that shit at judging character? Are all people really not at all what they seem?

Am I wrong about Tristan?

A cold shudder shakes my entire body. No. No, I’m not wrong about Tristan. It is gossip that is false. Luci is lovely, I know it. Him opening the portals is either a lie or he must have had a very good reason.

And Tristan… Tristan is wonderful. I am right about him, I know I am. I love him and I want to be with him.

Oh fuck. I love him. I’m in love. With Tristan.

Suddenly, Silas jumps to his feet and runs out of the crypt like his ass is on fire. I hastily put my plate of bacon down and scramble out of my blankets. Talk about timing. Maybe the universe does like me after all. It is sending me distractions just when I need them the most. Because I really don’t want to sit here thinking about how in love with Tristan I am.

Whatever the hell Silas is up to, is far more interesting.

I find him by the edge of the graveyard, right by a very rusty and rickety waist high iron railing. His arms are crossed and he is glaring at the tangled overgrowth on the other side.

“Fuck off!” he snaps at the bushes.

Jesus Christ, has he lost his mind? Am I stuck with a crazy person?

A raven caws loudly, and I jump out of my skin. I see it now, perched on a low branch of a spindly tree.

“You can’t get past my wards,” growls Silas .

The raven shimmers. It grows and changes shape. It turns into Dyfri.

I gawp and shake my head to try to clear it, but it is still Dyfri standing on the other side of the iron railings. A very naked Dyfri. I quickly avert my eyes, but not before I see enough to make me feel all kinds of inadequate. Dyfri’s body is frigging stunning. So very beautiful it doesn’t seem real. Seeing it is honestly more shocking than the fact he can turn into a raven.

“Taking the pet was not part of the deal,” Dyfri says calmly.

What. The. Fuck? Dyfri is working with Silas? He is plotting against his brothers? Oh my god. For a very brief moment, I thought he was here to rescue me. But no. He hates me and he can’t let me live now that I know his secret.

“Return him,” Dyfri says coldly.

A shiver runs down my spine. He must want Silas to hand me over so he can kill me. But wait a minute, that doesn’t make any sense. He didn’t have to disclose his secret just now. I’m so confused. Nothing makes any sense anymore.

“No,” says Silas with a proud toss of his head.

Dyfri’s expression is utterly blank. He stares at the necromancer for a moment. Then he turns back into a raven and flies away.

Oh fuck. If Dyfri is helping Tristan, then I am as good as saved. If he still hates me and is secretly Tristan’s enemy, then I am so very fucked. And not in a good way.

Now what the hell am I going to do?