Page 10 of Crowned By the Fae King

"Ow," I rasped, pissed, even though it didn't hurt. The hard length of the knife felt like I had a bone lodged in my throat, a line of stillness in my body that made me want to puke. "What the fuck, dude?"

He staggered back. They all did.

The taste of iron tingled at the back of my throat. I grimaced and twisted my arm behind my back to grab the handle. It took two yanks before it slid out, the grating sensation of the blade on my ribs making me gag. Only the fact that puking in front of these punk assholes would ruin the effect of not reacting badly to getting stabbed kept me from vomiting.

I wheeled and pinned Chainsmoker with a flat stare, all the sense of wrongness vanishing within a heartbeat. There was blood on my shirt, though, and I could feel the breeze through the knife-holes.

My blood dripped off the knife. I didn't walk towards them. I didn't want them to break and run.

"Here's the deal," I said, giving him a pleasant smile. "I want Pervert's clothes, and all the money and weapons you assholes have on you." I flashed my teeth in a feral grin. "Thank your lucky stars I'm in a giving mood. Be good boys, and maybe I won't ask the Court to bury you neck-deep in bedrock."

I had no idea if the Court would do something like that for me, but standing there uninjured and holding a bloody knife, I was pretty sure they wouldn't make me find out.

"…Pervert?" Chainsmoker asked. I could see the whites of his eyes.

Without looking, I lifted the knife and pointed it at the dick who'd wanted to sell me to a brothel.

"I'm not—" Pervert started.

"You fuck'n are," the big one said. "Do it. We don't fuck with the Deathless."

Deathless? Was that a thing? It must be, or he wouldn't have said it.

I heard sounds as the two to my back started doing as I commanded. The knives hit the ground and a bitter taste took up residence on the back of my tongue. Worked iron didn't belong on faery ground. I wanted it gone—

"Shit!" the leader said. He danced backwards, visible in my peripheral vision.

I darted a glance back and narrowly avoided blanching. The knives they'd thrown onto the ground were rusting away into nothing, the corrosion happening so quickly it looked like the metal was bubbling.

That didn't happen normally, at least in my experience. You could set knives on the ground and expect them to be there when you came back. Faery things hated iron, but Faery itself didn't do anything about it.

Except, apparently, in my presence. Another unsettling thing to add to the growing list of unsettling things about my life.

I lifted my eyes to the leader and gave him a cutting smile. When I turned back to the other two, Pervert was in his filthy underwear and Chainsmoker had his hands up, backing away into the forests. Behind me, I heard the big man cut and run.

Hot victory coursed through my veins. I'd never, not once in my life, been frightening. The power of it hummed under my skin, making me bare my teeth.

You should do something about them, too, I thought to the Court. I didn't know if it was listening, but the next person who came down this road wouldn't be the Court's favorite mortal. They were cold-blooded murderers. They shouldn't be allowed to just get away—

Pervert's eyes rolled up into his head. He collapsed bonelessly, hitting the stone of the road in a graceless heap. I heard a thud behind me—saw Chainsmoker put his foot down wrong and collapse.

The blood drained from my face as rot consumed them with the same merciless speed as rust had taken the knives. They bloated—split—melted into green liquid that shriveled into black sludge, all in the span of a seconds. Lumpy white fungus bloomed in a soft blanket across the rotten flesh. Bone started crumbling, going flaky, as if it had been sitting in the sun for decades.

I had to swallow, over and over, to keep from puking. Holy shit. It had happened so fast. I hadn't intended… had I?

I didn't know.

They were still dead, whether or not I'd meant it.

I closed my eyes and took careful breaths, trying to achieve something approaching meditative calm despite my circumstances. The Court was dangerous. I had to remember that. Even with the horror and the terror, the sense of the Court all around me was becoming natural. Comfortable, even.

A lot of that had to do with Cass. Our mutual connection to his Court gave me so much of him that it was hard to remember that the Court wasn't him… or, at least, wasn't only him. It irked me that he never turned his eyes towards me. I knew he had a whole great big Court to pay attention to, but his Court loved me. Why couldn't he just see me? Why did I have to hike all the damn way to his palace? Why couldn't I just be found?

Deep breaths, I told myself, taking my own advice. Nobody had ever gone out of their way for me but Bà and Auntie, and it wasn't as if they were going to let their own blood die in the streets. It was stupid to expect a fae King to give a shit about the piece of flotsam his Court had decided to acquire like a child picking up a battered penny off the street. It was stupid to expect him to even notice at all, except maybe out of annoyance.

My thoughts drifted gently in his direction. My body relaxed as I did, warmth seeping into me as I focused on the sensations of his body. He was… hah! He was doing pull-ups, one after another, with the grim focus of someone trying to burn off negative emotions. Perfect form, too, the tension distributed through his powerful body.

More than the deep breathing, the sense of movement soothed. I glanced around, chewing on my lip, then figured, what the hell. It wasn't like I was going to waste any energy exercising. Under any normal circumstances, I would be a rotting corpse, too.

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