Page 60 of What did you do?

By now, the mystery creature inside my purse was clawing frantically at the box, trying to get out.

“What the fuck kind of pet did you get?” he asked as we both stared at my noisy pouch.

I widened the opening of my purse to grab the top of the stiff box. “I got a…” I braced myself and opened the tabs to peer inside. “Oh my god,” I said, my vision blurring as I locked my knees in place before I could fall.

“What is it? Must be something cute,” Eli said, moving to look at the creature.

“It’s—it’s a brown rat. A brown rat with sweet eyes.” I swallowed the hard, thorny lump of emotions in my throat that I couldn’t show and scooped up the very familiar brown rat.

“Ew, he’s big.” Eli cringed at the rat crawling up to tuck into my neck. “You know, if you just want to cuddle something furry, I’d have been more than happy to shift into my fox to snuggle you,” he said with a smirk. “What are you going to call that thing?”

Brown Rat grumbled at him and burrowed farther into the back of my neck, under the curtain of my long hair.

“His name is Walter,” I said, unable to stop my shaking voice as a tear dripped down to my chin.

Mistaking my emotions for fear, Eli straightened to his full height and gave me a wink. “Don’t worry, Caly, nothing can get inside the castle. It is warded far beyond any other power. As soon as we are inside the walls, we are safe. I promise,” he stated.

I supposed now wasn’t the time to tell him about those nighttime visits from Mendax.

17

PRESENT DAY

Mendax

Inside the Seelie castle, I paused to kick the marble pedestal below the statue, knocking over the bust of some ancient, dead Seelie. My wings quivered as I walked down the hall to Caly’s room. Neon sun bounced off my black cloak. The statue behind me toppled onto the marble floor with a crash as I continued my stroll toward my pet’s chamber.

No glamour concealed me now. I was bored of hiding, and I was sick of this place.

I stopped abruptly outside of Prince Fuckhead’s to take a hard look at the white-wood door of his room. He would be in there. Everyone in the castle was asleep. I knew because I had watched them all.

Ever since following Caly to this reprehensible place, I had watched everyone in the castle. How else was I to learn what their level of pain would be when they died?

Everyone would die. The more they were involved in hurting my Caly, the more they would suffer. The ones who made herleave me would hurt so fiercely, so relentlessly, their ghosts would weep for an eternity.

I heard nothing from inside the fae’s room.

Aurelius confused me. Caly seemed to actually like him, even be close with him.

For that alone, he would suffer severely.

I’d never had feelings like this before. I didn’t know what to do with them, but I did know even the most minuscule thought of her finding joy in the company of another male made me yearn to pull the veins from someone.

I was also struggling to figure out exactly how involved with this he was. He was spineless and weak, always had been, mostly doing what his mother told him to like a good little marionette as she pulled the strings. Oddly enough though, I’d seen him lie several times to his mother in defense of Caly.

The Seelie prince had a bigger target on his head than the others. Sometimes, he made her smile—the only reason I hadn’t killed him already was because he made her smile and laugh like no one else…including myself.

In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined the beauty that emanated from her face when she smiled. It started deep in her devious blue eyes as an innocent sparkle, but before I could even prepare for it, the laughter emerged, happy and rapturous. Three lines formed at the edges of her eyes. Four would collect on her left side if she was exceedingly happy. If she didn’t try to stop the smile and pulled her lower lip into her mouth, then her nose would wrinkle just above the cluster of freckles shaped like the Tardeki stars.

I wanted to make her smile like that.

My queen smiled a lot around Aurelius. Therefore, I found myself divided between watching him bleed out or watching him make her smile more. I would ascertain what it was that made Caly smile, and then I could kill him.

I let out an impatient breath and continued walking to her room.

As it stood, I doubted I would be able to end the night without killing him. Unlike him, I wasnotsoft and gentle, and it was probably best if my pet learned that now. She would most assuredly be easier to make smile after she cried anyway.

I stilled outside of her door, hearing a quiet shuffle on the other side—there were two heartbeats.

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