Page 7 of Forgotten Monsters
The sailor waves in my general direction. “I got that. Your new friends are in a hurry to go back. But you can’t travel through the realms without—” he stops as I draw near.
I offer both of them an awkward wave. “Do you remember…everything?” My brain still throbs with the implications of Onyx being a real-life girl.
“It’s blurry. When I was the jaguar, I shared its instinct and senses, but it’s like I was…lost. Stuck in a body I didn’t fully control or understand.”
“So, you’re not a shifter?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “What about you? How was Faerie? And Cole?” Her face lights up when she breathes the name.
“Does he know about you?” I croak.
“No, but he saved me, and he became a tether for the humanity left in me. When I was with him—or you—I almost felt like a woman again. Everyone else in your realm would flee at my approach.” Mallory’s ice-blue gaze falls to her lap. “Fear thudded and pulsed through me like fine wine—I couldn’t help but prowl on the earthlings…I’m sorry I hurt your friends.”
I press my lips together. “Cole was as much to blame as you. You did it to please him.” Saying his name out loud wrecks my soul, and tears fill my eyes.
My mind flashes back to the rainbow wine Cole so manipulatively held out of my grasp. How I fought him for it, falling for his charade hook, line, and sinker. He fed me a life-altering potion against my will and spiked my drink without hesitation…and yet his actionssavedme. The very fact pours oil on the coals of my anger, because—damn him—he was right. Darkwood didn’t deserve my help, and I’m now stuck on a boat in the Underworld. I didn’t listen to him, which makes me hate the situation—and myself—even more.
Mallory sighs. “You—you’re a Fae princess, now.”
My eyes snap up. “How can you tell?” Celeste saw it with one glance. Erron, too. I never understood how, and I didn’t want to broadcast my ignorance in front of them.
Allie joins us on the bridge—just barely, sitting on the first step leading to the cabin, her back propped on the open door.
Barron offers us all a beer, the Earth-made drink and Yeti cooler reassuring as fuck. We’re not so far from home if he’s got Coronas on ice.
Mallory grips the neck of the bottle with a shaky hand. “A tremble of Fae power now surrounds you.”
Barron squints at me, and the intensity of his gaze tickles my skin. “If yer a Fae princess, how come you’re not all beautiful?”
My forehead creases. “Wow, thanks.”
Allie covers a wry but genuine smile with her hand.
“Ye know what I mean.”
I wrinkle my nose at the sailor. “I’m not a Fae, am I? I’m just married to one.”
He licks his lips, and I feel…naked. His gaze roves over me as though he’s asking himself if he’d like to fuck a Fae princess. “Aren’t you a wee bit young for marriage?”
“I agree,” Allie snaps. Lines appear at the corners of her eyes, as though my trip to Faerie and my marriage to Cole mademeuntrustworthy.
I flip them off in turn.
Barron laughs, the sound gruff and sexual. “I’m messing with ye. I’ve got no qualm with yer choices. Fae are hot.”
Mallory stifles a chuckle with the back of her hand, and long, thick curls bounce around her delicate features. I steal a glance at her tattoos, but they’re not Fae alphabet. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re demonic runes.
I graze her forearm. “Love the ink. What do they mean?”
Her mouth curls downward. “It’s the curse.”
A curse written on her skin…like mine. “A curse?”
With a nod, she tilts her head back and swallows a long swig of beer. “I was cursed to become a shadow of myself whenever I leave this realm.”
“Heavy.” I rub down my face, but the ache between my brows worsens.
Allie crosses her arms around her chest. “Can you take us back to Dark Falls?”
