Page 115 of Taken By the Fae

Nikolai chuckles. “Relax, Aurora. I have no desire to kill you or to see you dead by any other means.”

My responding laugh is breathy. “Good to know.” I set my mug down. “I’m kind of surprised you’re still being nice to me after how meeting your queen went.”

“You were quite bold,” he says. “Ophelia would never say it, but I think your resolve impressed her.”

“Really?” I ask with an arched brow.

Nikolai shrugs. “It impressed me.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “But you should know that being unaligned could pose further challenges for you. It leaves you unprotected from both courts.”

I frown at the similarity to the situation Allison faced being with Evan. I suppose it’s pretty hypocritical of me not to choose a court when I harped on her about the potential of not having one.

I can’t argue with what Nikolai said, so I pose another question. “What were you doing the day we met in my hometown?”

His brows lift. “Hmm. I figured that would’ve been your first question when I ran into you last week.”

“To be fair, you caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting to see you on stage—or anywhere, really.”

He nods. “What did you think?”

“About what?”

“My performance.”

“I told you. You shouldn’t feed off humans like you did.”

He rolls his eyes. “Not what I meant. We’ll come back to that, though.”

I shake my head. “Okay?” I run my fingers across the soft cotton throw on the back of his couch. “You meant your singing? Are you seriously fishing for compliments right now?”

He grins. “Nah. I know I’m awesome.”

I refuse to stroke his ego, even though his voiceisamazing. He doesn’t need me to tell him that.

“All right, all right. So, the day we met. Before I knew much about you, like before Jules targeted you, there was a small group of us who were tiring of the guy.”

A shiver runs through me, and I frown. “So youweregoing to let them kill me?”

He waves me off. “Chill out, gorgeous. They weren’t going to kill you. They were going to use you to get the shit they wanted from Jules. He wanted to use you to get to Tristan, and they wanted to use you to get tohim.”

Nikolai’s explanation doesn’t make me feel any better.How were they going to use me?I suppose it doesn’t matter now that Jules is gone.

“Anyway, that plan was ruined when your annoying Prince Charming got involved.”

I scrunch my nose. “He’d kill you for calling him that.”

Nikolai smirks. “He’d try.”

I shoot him a look. “I still don’t understand why you’re trying to help me since I’ve made it clear I want nothing to do with the fae world you seem to think I’m going to change.”

“You’re right,” he muses. “I should just let you go to your fae friends for help.” He leans in a little and lowers his voice. “Oh, wait. You won’t.”

I press my lips together and stay silent as my eyes narrow. I can’t disagree with him, though.

“Hey, I don’t blame you. I get it. That’s what’s so great about me—well, one of the great things about me. There are many.”

“Nikolai,” I mutter, rubbing my temples. This conversation was supposed to make me feel better; it’s just giving me a headache.

“You’ll let me help,” he says, “because I mean nothing to you, so you don’t care what I think of you.”

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