Page 33 of The Unseelie Court

Rig laughed again. “If you wish to walk away this night, your freedom will be yours to take. I shall do nothing to stop you from acting upon whatever you desire. I have long since tired of my kind eking out contracts with yours in bad faith. We have power, fantasies, pleasure—the fae world has only grown wider, as you humans have chiseled yours into a shape smaller and smaller.” He waved his hand in the air as he orated. “Why would I ever have totrickyou into anything? I have so much to offer in honest exchange…”

He made a good case; she had to give him that. “Then why are all the rest of the fae I’ve met so far such, well—” She didn’t know how to put it.

“Ne’er do wells?” Turning on his heel—well, hoof—he led her along the edge of the pond toward the side of the waterfall. Waiting for them was a Parisian style café table, looking like it had been ripped out of some cliché date scene in a classic movie. There was a candle lit, a bottle of wine, and it was set with white linens. Hell, there was even sliced bread and dipping oil.

“I was going to go for something stronger and far more offensive. Let’s go with yours.” She couldn’t help but laugh a little at how comically over the top the scene was before her. She almost expected a pair of dogs to be eating from a single plate of spaghetti beside them.

“I get the sense that modern language has evolved since my time imprisoned here.” He pulled out the chair for her. The chairs didn’t match, which she noticed was kind of the theme in the Web. It seemed they just collected whatever floated in.

“Regressed. The word is regressed.” She sat in the chair as he pushed it in for her. It was funny. She’d never been on a realdate.Oh, sure, she’d been on dates. But nothing…formal. Nothing with a “gentleman.” Nothing where the guy pulled out the chair for her or kissed the backs of her knuckles.

That had Rig chuckling in turn. “I enjoy it, for what it is worth. And, might I add, that I wish for you to speak your mind with me. The subjugation of females amongst the human populace is irritating. I do not desire ameekormildpartner. Quite the opposite, in fact, which is why your arrival here has given us both a unique opportunity.”

“You’re in luck, then. You hit the jackpot.” She studied him. That was interesting, though. “But I’m curious as to why.”

“Well, then.” He drew out the silence between his words as he poured them both a glass of wine before sitting at his end of the table. “Let our negotiations begin, sweet Ava.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ava took a long moment to study Rig and consider what was happening. She placed the book down next to her on the ground, leaning up against the side of the chair. There wasn’t room for it on the table.

“First, I’d like to start with this.” She reached for her wine. She knew she was going to need it. This place was going to turn her into an alcoholic. “Actually, before my first question, let’s assume we’re going to tell each other the truth going forward.”

“Agreed.”

“My question is this. How did you wind up here?” Asking him that suddenly made her realize she didn’t know how Ibin and Nos had wound up in the Web, yet. Everything had been so chaotic; it hadn’t occurred to her.

“Ah, yes. Well.” He took his own glass of wine and sat back, looking off toward the waterfall. “No one is sent to the Web without good reason, my dear. The fae do not like to keep their most dangerous and undesirable creatures alive. We are here because we are the ones they could not kill.”

“Couldn’t kill, how?”

“For various reasons. Some, like you, because you are now bound to a thing that is fundamentally indestructible. Sure, Iam certain if we were to find a star to pitch both you and the grimoire into, you would be obliterated”—he gestured with his free hand in a circular motion—“but you get my meaning.”

She reached out for some of the bread. “And for the others?”

“Some of it is political. Children of powerful dukes or lords. Others are those that cannot be killed for legal reasons. The fae abide by their contracts and rules like no other. Once they have made a situation binding, they abide.” He huffed a laugh, clearly thinking little of the practice.

“And which of those three options are you? Are you cockroach, is it nepotism, or a legal loophole?”

He barked a laugh. “Oh, I do very much think we will get along. I am the second, my dear. My father is a powerful lord who serves both the King and Queen.” He crossed one of his fur-covered legs over the other. “He beseeched both on my behalf to spare me. Lo, I was sent here.” He gestured vaguely at the world around him. “Tolearn my lesson.”

“And what lesson was that? What’d you do?”

Rig met her gaze for a long moment before speaking. “I am able to control the thoughts and actions of those around me. I tired of wielding it against those upon whom my peers deemed it acceptable.”

It took half a second for it all to sink in. He was a hypnotist. And he’d used it against his own people.

The almost-kiss.

Right.

Okay.

Great.

“I could see why they didn’t like that very much.” That was the best she could manage.

“Everyone in the Web has been wronged by the fae. All the fae do is play sick games upon one another, to one extent or another. YetIwas imprisoned for ‘victimizing my own kind.’And here we are, victims of our own kind! I fail to see why this makesmemore of a monster than they.”

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