Page 32 of Bros Come Before Hordes
“He’s right.” I tried to search out the position of her feet, see if I could stomp on them to get away, but I couldn’t turn my head because of the blade at my neck, couldn’t see much past a few inches from my nose. Plus, she was fast and deadly and likely had tricks up her sleeves for days. “You know deep down in your fae head he’s right.”
“Yes, I know, Booklet,” the fae said. “You’re clever enough for a human to take the throne as an outcast thief nobody.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“How long have you been on our land?” Calhoun demanded.
“About twenty-five years, a very short amount of time for fae,” she said, her breath hot and uncomfortable on the back of my neck. “Before Booklet was even born, you believed she was coming to rule your species. Twenty-five years for you to think and wait and wonder until the very idea of her took over your lives, when I didn’t even know Yara existed until a few months ago. I duped you, all with the power of suggestion. All because I told you what you wanted to hear. The queen’s harem.” She spat to the side. “How gullible do you have to be?”
My blood simmered, nearly as hot as Calhoun’s furious energy curling off of him. I could feel it charging the air. How dare she speak to them that way. She could cut me up into dog food, but she needed to leave them out of this.
“Enough with your goddamn gloating,” I shot back. “If I’ve served your purpose as a distraction, then why not kill me?”
“Don’t youdarekill her,” Calhoun barked.
“Because, Booklet, the Civil War won’t really start until you officially become queen tomorrow. The other shifters are so angry at you, so distrustful, that they won’t believe anything you tell them. I want to keep it that way while we continue to pick them off in their weakened state, one by one until they’re all gone, and we can take back our land.”
“Why? What’s wrong withyourland?” I asked.
She leaned in close, and I screwed my eyes shut at the feel of her lips against my ear. “We’ve run out of crunchy humans to eat.”
Dread licked up my back. Humans.Fae ate humans. That was even worse that sacrificing children.
I opened my eyes again, blinking more and more, until finally I could see somewhat. Now to find a way out of this mess.
“You took Léas so we’d be at our weakest?” Tavis asked.
“It’s surprisingly easy to capture a goddess,” the fae said, and I could hear the wicked smile in her voice.
The slightest movement from Calhoun’s direction sounded, barely more than a stir of air as if he were inching closer. “You’ve been listening to see how quickly we would catch on.”
The fae spun toward him, slapping me in the face with her wiry hair. “In part, yes. We wanted to keep close tabs on all of you. But with no power and no goddess to give it to you, there is nothing you can do to stop us.Thisis our official declaration of war.”
“Andthisis ours,” a voice behind us growled. Vance.
Big Mama whirled both of us around, but it was too late. For her, at least.
Vance swung one of the enormous books from the throne room’s pedestals through the air and slammed it into her head with a sickening thud. She went down, releasing me, and landed in a pile at my feet.
I stared at Vance, stunned and feeling sick to my stomach. “H-how many more fae are out there walking around as humans like Bad Mama? Like Madame Theodosia? How many total fae are there?”
“Hundreds. Thousands,” he answered, his shoulders heaving. “It’s hard to say. But now we’re at war with them.”
I swallowed thickly as I stared down at Bad Mama at my feet. “And we have no way of fighting back.”
