Page 54 of The Forbidden Fae King

He grabs my wrist lightly, playfully tugging me back to him. “Not exactly what I meant.”

“Well, you should have specified.” I slip my arm away.

Silvan and Drake approach, unintentionally blocking my escape. Their focus is on Aldrin alone.

“We found Cyprien’s camp. It’s exactly where we thought it would be.” Silvan frowns profusely. Despite the tight curls of reddish-blond hair that drapes down to his shoulder, he looks mean, with the other half of his head shaved and his eyes permanently narrowed.

“Gods be damned,” Aldrin grumbles. “It's going to be bloody difficult to root him out. We’ll go for plan B.”

I glance between all three men, utterly lost by the undercurrents. Not for the first time, I feel like a rabbit surrounded by wolves, holding my breath and hoping they don’t notice me.

Aldrin stands and scales a stone table that still has food spread out on it, his boots bringing mud to the clean surface. His features pinch with anger and eyebrows furrowed in a deep scowl. Those branching horns grow at either side of his head, a crown of twigs. Beneath his tanned skin, black bands emerge, streaks that highlight the sharpness of his cheekbones, jaw, and brow.

The man I had been teasing a moment ago is gone, and this fae who took his place half terrifies me all over again. I came close to forgetting what he is.

“Everybody listen here!” Aldrin’s voice booms through the space, enhanced by the wind, and they all crowd around him, even the kelpies. “Cyprien and his men have set up their encampment at the Frozen River Fortress, on Winter’s border. While this makes it harder to penetrate their defenses, it also has benefits. The location is an hour’s hike tothe Dividing Cliffs, where weknowthe evidence is laid bare to support our claims. No one can look upon those lands and still disbelieve us!”

Muttering breaks out through the amassed people. I scan them wildly for any hints as to what they are talking about.

“Will we be able to come out of exile?” Drake with eagerness.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Aldrin says. “You know how stubborn the man is. It could be an effort in itself to get him to look at the view from the Dividing Cliffs. Not to mention we need to infiltrate his camp first. Having one ally will not get the council to believe us, but it is a start. You have all been incredibly loyal, and as always, it does not go unnoticed and unappreciated.”

Aldrin claps his hands. “Pack up the camp. We leave immediately. It is a day’s hike to get there and I want to strike tonight, in the early hours, when their sentries are at their weakest.”

The space around me turns into a frenzied flurry of action. I am an island within a churning mass of movement. An incredibly awkward one.

People work with swift efficiency to clean away the breakfast spread and pack any belongings. I sit back down on my log, feeling incredibly useless, especially after a fae rips the unfinished coffee from my hands, throws it on the fire and rinses the mug with a splash of water magic.

My satchel is already packed and around my shoulder. It always is. I grope around for something to do, but it seems this dance is so well practiced, it is complete before I get a chance to join.

I am all but collected by the crowd as the march through the forest begins. The muscles in my legs protest after the strain of the night I just had, but I push through.

Our band stretches out in a long line through the duration of the trek, people clustering in groups of twos or threes to talk. The scouts at the front disappear from my view and the kelpies whizz up and down the line with a tremendous amount of energy. I can’t help wondering how much faster we would get there if we had enough kelpies for us all to ride. Perhaps such a thing isn’t commonplace here.

I find Klara at my side, crunching on a large, crispy fruit with navy blue skin that has iridescent, milk-white flesh within. It almost looks like an apple, and I wonder if it would taste similar.

She sees my curiosity and pulls another from her pack, offering it to me wordlessly.

“Is it normal for kelpies to join a roaming band?” I ask to fill the silence. I turn the fruit over and over in my hand, considering it. “Shouldn’t they be linked to a specific body of water?”

Klara tosses her core into a bush and licks the juices from her fingers. “No. Kelpies are nomads and typically travel the realm to visit different rivers and lakes and oceans. They don’t normally swear allegiance to anyone, but Aldrin fights for the survival of all fae. Their pack has been greatly affected by the corruption. Kai, Iris and Freya are all that are left. That is why they have joined us.”

I open my mouth to ask about the corruption, it must be whatever is creating the Twisted Ones, when a grating voice cuts through my thoughts.

“I would like to taste the water of the human realm.” Kai trots beside me, half horse and half man.

My gaze reaches the navel of his bare chest, and having to slide up all that skin to his eyes.

I hadn’t noticed before that his humanoid skin has a blue sheen to it, flecked with transparent scales where a human male would have chest hair.

During the battle, Kai had a thick layer of hard, blue scales coating his shoulders like armor, but they are gone now.

His nose is wide and almost completely flat, with two long slits at its base and his hair is the color of old seaweed, a green so dark it's almost black with streaks of navy. Kai’s eyes are the most unnerving, the brown iris occupying the entire space with no white shown, the eye of a horse instead of a man.

It is unsettling, how his features change so much between forms and the way they blur sometimes. I have seen his face look much like that of a high fae, with regular eyes and a straight nose. Sometimes,his cheeks have scales and long fins that drift on the air like they would in water.

He can pull at will any aspect of the three shapes he can take, without having to commit to a full transformation.

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