Page 6 of Magic Betrayed

I shrugged. “We were lucky to survive. At least next time, he won’t be able to catch us off guard so easily.” A thought hit me. “Did you help him escape, too?”

Shane shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember him, and I’d have killed anyone who tried to leave with her stockpiles.”

Her. Elayara Elduvar. Former queen of the fae, now dead, but once the engineer of my torment and that of so many others. Her experiments were the real reason why I—and Logan and Ari—needed the Shadow Court’s protection in order to survive.

Which made me wonder… Shane was in the business of freeing Elayara’s prisoners, and the Shadow Court had helped end her reign. By my estimation, that should have made them allies, but his response to Kira suggested they were anything but.

“How do you know Kira?”

His glance was as sharp as Irene’s chef knives. “Leave it, Kendrick.”

Okay then.

“Why’d you want to talk to me?”

His expression shifted to something softer. On anyone but Shane, I would have called it concern.

“There’s a new bounty up.”

I grimaced. “The one those goblins were after?”

He nodded. “They were the first and the dumbest. Most know better than to hunt openly on Shadow Court territory, so whoever tries next will be smarter. Faster. Quieter. Willing to accept the risk in exchange for the payout.”

I’d known it was only a matter of time before one of the courts sought retribution for what they saw as my crimes. Never mind that the magic I possessed had been given to me against my will, and there was nothing I or anyone else could do to change it.

“Which court?”

“Not a court.”

Oh.

“And it’s not for you.”

That was a surprise. I’d made myself the most visible of my little family for a reason.

“Are they after the kids?” I was going to have to have another talk with them about safety.

“No. The only one mentioned is Ke… your fae friend.”

Kes. Well, crap. I’d known this was coming, but it still left me with a sick feeling of dread in my chest. “It’s Blake, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible. The request specifies she’s wanted alive, and it’s popped up in some unsavory circles. Ones that I don’t normally swim in. You might ask the assassin, but if he’d heard something, he’d probably have told you.”

By assassin, he meant Draven—Kira’s fiancé. Their past association must be darker than I thought if he wasn’t even willing to use Draven’s name.

But whatever his reasons, I owed him—more now than ever.

“Thanks, Shane. I appreciate the warning.”

And I did, even if I could never tell anyone else he’d issued it. If I asked any questions about this bounty, they would want to know why someone wanted Kes—a quiet, easily frightened, seemingly harmless half-fae woman with no known magic. And that was an answer I could not, would not give.

I half expected Shane to just walk off without another word, but he stayed put. Eyed me with a complicated expression I couldn’t quite read. My hunches didn’t seem to be offering me any help, so I just waited for him to decide what he wanted to say.

“Are you staying somewhere safe?” He didn’t quite meet my eyes after asking the question.

“It’s an apartment building.” My eyes narrowed a little as I watched him. “Faris owns it, so it’s definitely more secure than average.” We had to scan in through the outer doors, then there was an elevator code and a door code for our apartment. The windows and doors were alarmed, and the balcony door had metal bars between the glass panes. “And I think he keeps eyes on the place.”

While I hadn’t seen any physical guards, that didn’t mean they weren’t there, and I knew for sure there were security cameras in place.

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