Page 40 of Kiss of Smoke

I held back a grumble. That was the last thing I wanted, and made total sense of why Robin asked me to stay inside, off the streets, far out of the line of sight of any Unstained Souls.

"We need to have a group meeting.” I stared at my cooling tea, then glanced at the clock. It could be a while before Robin and Jack returned. “Now that…well, now that the task to find the princess alive failed, we need to move on to the next plan. Which is to kill or arrest as many of the Unstained Souls as possible.”

Although I wished with all my heart that we’d found Tanaquill alive, now that we had an answer about her fate, there was something freeing about the next stage of the plan.

Find them, and then….kill or be killed.

Very simple.

Although my gut revolted at the idea of killing more than I had to, I couldn’t leave it to the guys and my father alone. Besides, at this point, I didn’t think there was anything redeemable about the Unstained Souls or their leader.

They were pure evil, in a way that even the Unseelie couldn’t touch.

“That sounds like a hell of a lot of fun to me,” Gwyn said, grinning viciously, but he was interrupted by a muffled shriek from outside.

We all looked at each other, and my stomach dropped to somewhere near my toes, but we raced for the front room together and flung the curtains back.

Sisse perched on top of my head, letting out a soft breath that might’ve been a gasp or a sigh. It was impossible to tell, but her little hands gripped my hair so hard a sharp pain stabbed through my scalp.

Through the gate in the enormous wall surrounding Robin’s house, I saw a human man run by. The howling of angry Fae surrounded him.

“Fuck this,” I growled, and stormed to the front door, flinging it open and dashing over the porch and into the street.

But by the time I caught up, with Gwyn on my heels, the Fae of Thornwood had overcome him as well.

They surrounded the human, driving him backwards, but there was nowhere for him to go.

I looked down at the ground, at the trail of blood drops he’d left behind. His feet were torn up from running barefoot, for the trees only knew how long.

And a Gentry woman reached out and grabbed him with clawed fingers, pulling his head back by his hair as another Fae shoved a mushroom down his throat.

The human choked and gagged, but the Fae forced it into him. Then, full of mocking laughter, they pushed him away.

When mortals ate faerie fruit, or mushrooms grown by the light of a full moon, they became high.

It was almost as bad as evanesce, but usually—before the Accords were broken, and after they were made—the Fae would save mortals from themselves.

Not this time. He danced in drunken circles, weaving wildly as the Fae shoved him back and forth, laughing in his face.

I started to step forward, but Gwyn grabbed my arm.

“They’re in the heat of the moment,” he said softly. “Too many of them, and only two of us. You can’t help him.”

Blood smeared the road in a wide circle as the man danced uncontrollably.

I bit my lower lip, knowing that Queen Titania had made it perfectly possible for any Fae to kill a human on sight.

These ones were just going to play cat and mouse first, which was sickening.

“We should do something,” I told him, and broke free, shoulder-checking a Gentry woman out of the way.

Gwyn sighed, but followed, planting his hand in the face of a Gentry male who tried to come after me.

“Back the fuck up,” Gwyn ordered, giving me a shelter as I reached out for the mortal man.

He danced past me, but I grabbed his sleeve, reeling him in before he could swoop away again. His eyes were rolling in his skull, seeing nothing at all, or maybe to him I looked like a monster.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told him, trying to wheel him around towards Robin’s house. “We’ll get you out of here.”

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