Page 71 of Speak No Evil

“Thorne, you need to stay here and protect Blackwood. Fortify the wards, check for weaknesses in the workings in case the fae see our surprise visit as reason to make one of their own. We can’t afford an incursion from anyone, let alone the goddamn fae.”

His teal shoulders slump, but he doesn’t argue. “I figured. But it was worth a shot, right?”

“Guess that means I’m staying, too?” Ryker asks.

Vrahs nods. “You must make sure AJ doesn’t escape her cell and keep watch on Veruca.”

“Vrahs and I can handle this,” I say to my demons.

Thorne wrinkles his nose at me. “Of course you can. We don’t want to go because we think you can’t. We want to go because spilling fae blood is a…” His sentence drifts off as he relives a memory. “It’s indescribable. Fae emotions are like juicy, fat ticks. They burst open when fed on, rushing through me like a torrent of every feeling, all at once. It’s quite, quite addictive.”

At his admission, I catch myself putting distance between us. “Ew. Ticks, Thorne? Really? Feel free to keep some things to yourself.”

Ryker nods, eyes locked on Thorne. “You stayed captive in a fae war camp for three decades to continue feeding from them.”

Thorne sighs heavily. “I do miss those days.”

My mouth falls open. “I’m glad I didn’t come back as an incubus demon, then.” Fuck.

Thorne nods at me. “You shouldn’t be. You’ll never know the pleasure of siphoning other’s climaxes to increase your own.”

OK, that was a fair point.

Ryker touches Thorne’s forearm across the table. “You can help yourself to any of my emotions or siphon my pleasure any time you like.”

Thorne’s brow lifts, as do mine, and my eyes bounce back and forth from Ryker to Thorne like I’m watching a tennis match.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pick up what Ryker’s laying down.

“We should go,” Vrahs says, holding out his hand.

“Yup.” I nod and notice we both chose black pants with velvety embroidered sigils and runes going up the sides of the legs. We also both decided to forgo shirts.

I take his hand. “Your portal or mine?”

“Mine,” he says, opening a rift in space-time.

We step through.

Everyone knows where the fae city is. And everyone knows that, like Blackwood and Mordor, you can’t simply walk there.

But not everyone is a demon lord.

In fact, there are very few demon lords in this realm. So it’s no surprise the fae have no precautions in place for demonic portals breaching their city.

No wards against simply portaling into their shrouded-in-mystery city.

We step through directly into a throne room.

Chapter 18

JADE

Watch your thoughts, witch. Vrahs speaks to my mind in warning.

Right. Keep it together. Don’t let them into your thoughts.

Though, I can’t help a certain amount of excitement at portaling into the middle of a high fucking fae court replete with winged lesser fae holding back gossamer curtains. Or the green orc-like sentries standing stoic at each entry point. Or the fleet of fae sitting atop a gilded dais ahead.

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