Page 59 of Fae Reckoning

His multi-purpose grunt was wary.

“Who’s there?” the queen snapped. “Answer me!”

“It is I, Ivar, and—” replied the kiss-ass advisor before Xeno slapped a meaty hand over his mouth.

“Ah, Ivar. Good. Who else is there with you?” Then, as if an afterthought, she added, “I’ve been so worried for you.”

“Yeah, right,” Ryder muttered under his breath.

“Who is that?” she commanded. “Tell me this instant or you will pay.”

Rush sighed, ran a hand along his face. “What do you want?”

The queen was silent for a moment, Ramana’s lips falling limply closed until she asked, “Rush, is that you?”

“Yes.” The monosyllable was flat but his eyes churned.

She laughed a flirtatious trill. “I’d recognize your voice anywhere. After all, we do know each other quite … intimately, don’t we, Rush?”

The veins bulged in Rush’s neck. That was nothing to the rage that swept through me as if my blood were on fire. Ryder, Hiroshi, and Roan wore similar hard expressions, their stares blazing with mutual fury, and for the first time practically since we found her, West looked up from Ramana to his friend. If expressions could kill, West’s would reach through the female he loved to strangle the life from our tormentor.

“Release the prisoners,” Rush told her. “All of them.”

“And why would I do that?” asked the queen, in a weave of sugary sweetness I ached to throttle from her. Then the sugar disappeared, replaced by a sharp steel blade: “No, Rush, they serve me well. As should you be doing.”

“Ivar,” she called, “tell me what’s going on.”

Ivar thrashed against Xeno’s hand. Hiro gloweredat him; the snakes lunged to snap at his throat. Ivar stilled.

“Ivar’s a bit busy at the moment,” Rush said while Azariah clopped and Bertram hopped close.

Clutching a pair of dead spotted armacoons and his bow, Reed emerged from the woods. After absorbing the scene, he dropped our future dinner to the ground and stalked toward Rush and me, still gripping his bow.

“Don’t dare hurt Ivar,” the queen snarled, curling Ramana’s upper lip.

Above Xeno’s hand, Ivar’s eyes glittered, with pleasure, perhaps. If not, maybe gratification.

“We’ll have no reason to hurt him if you tell us how to save the fae you’ve been draining of their power,” Rush said. “That is what you’ve been doing, isn’t it?”

“As astute as you are pretty, aren’t you, Rush? They are my subjects. Anything I need from them is rightfully mine.”

“That’s not how it works. You’re supposed to protect them.”

“No, Rush,” she snapped. “I am supposed torule. What is best for me is best for everyone. I command the Mirror World.”

The air had been still, noticeably so. Now the wind whipped and rustled.

“You don’t command the Mirror World,” I objected, the words spilling from me as if directed by the land itself. “A connection to the land’s magic is an honor and privilege you have not respected.” I was nolonger certain if the thoughts were mine or not. All I knew was that they were undoubtedly true.

The queentsked. “Silly, stupid girl. Why will you not die already?”

Rush and Xeno—and to my surprise, also Einar, Pru, Roan, Reed, and Edsel—growled.

“Because I’m not going anywhere, not unless I kill you first,” I hissed. “Tell me how to disconnect you from the fae you’ve been draining.”

“Or what?” she taunted.

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