Page 25 of The White Stag
“We still don’t know why Reagan is detoxing the way she is, but she already seems to be doing a little better. Alastair doesn’t know any of that and will think he has more time to search for her. We can get her home to safety and stay behind to pretend she’s still here. When they come, we’ll be waiting.”
“What do you mean the Seelie king doesn’tknowabout any of this?” Oisin demanded.
“He’s been trying to entertain Nova and pretend like he’s too busy to hear her out.”
That was some king-sized balls. I fucked with pretty much everyonebutNova. She had a history of biting things off, and I was attached to all my bits. It wasn’t even a fair fight. She was a Hydra, so she grew her parts back, but that Ifrit was forever missing a finger. I wasn’t fucking with that.
“Is he aware Nova is a psychopath who bites off fingers?” I asked.
“She only does that if you deserve it,” Oisin said.
“The Seelie king has it coming,” I pointed out.
“He can’t put her off forever. He’ll want to hear everything when he finds out Alastair is dead. But then, he can only blame himself for not nutting up and talking to my ambassador sooner to do something about his son before it got to that point,” Estrella said.
Iadoredmy queen. She always had an angle, and she always won. Even if there was a setback like a fuck douche getting his hands on her daughter, shealwayscame out on top.
“Where is he now?” Oisin asked.
I loved it when a plan came together. We all wanted to kill him. We just needed permission first. Now that we had it, I was going to unleash the hobgoblin and fuck some shit up. Cyrus better not take this from me and bogart all the murdering.
“On a plane. He owns a hotel in Scotland, so he’ll be staying there. I’m guessing the iron bullets he’ll be handing out will be here too. Alastair doesn’t have time to do the necessary paperwork to fly ammunition overseas. He’ll land in the morning, our time. We have enough time for him to adjust to the time difference and get his people here before they start hunting.Theycan’t get too close to the border without being naturally repelled, but their weapons will have the range to take us out.”
The magical border was theonlyreason we’d have this chance. Alastair couldn’t beat us one-on-one, so he would send humans with guns. They couldn’t just shoot up the cabin because they would risk hitting Reagan. His filthy assassins couldn’t get close enough to grab her.
I’m sure he had two different scenarios going on in his head about how this would work. He either expected Reagan to hide, in which case, he would burst into the cabin once we were dead and drag her out, or he thought she would be scared and run out into the woods.
Alastair wouldn’t trust men who killed for money to bring her back to him untouched. He’d be here himself to collect his prize.
And we’d be waiting to kill him.
Reagan
My monsters didn’t look all that happy when they came back outside. I’d been starfished on the blanket while Tucker told me about his family. Yeah, I needed to know all about Unseelie customs and how that world worked, but I was also curious about the everyday life of ordinary families.
Tucker had the right idea. All of his boyfriends brought something different to the table, and he didn’t have to pick because society said he had to. I fully supported that because I couldn’t pick a favorite monster out of the three I had. Maybe I was being greedy, but I wanted all three of them. And based on everything Tucker told me,theyprobably wouldn’t expect me to pick either.
I didn’t know the first thing about flirting. Alastair and the rest of the men in his house were terrible. The only way I would have pissed on them if they were on fire was if Alastair put that thought in my head with his stupid tea. None of them were remotely likable.
Tucker told me not to force anything and just be me. Problem was, I was still figuring out who that was. When I told Tucker that, he informed me everyone our age was still doing that, even if the enemy hadn’t kidnaped them. That kind of made me feel better.
Something was up with my monsters. We’d been apart for a long time, but I just knew when they didn’t want to tell me something.
“What is it?”
They told me what they talked about, and I hated everything about that plan. I didn’t know what kind of Fae I was or if I’d even be good at fighting, but I wastiredof being afraid of Alastair Rex. If he was going down, Idid notwant to be hiding in my mother’s palace while it went down.
“No,” I said.
“What do you mean,no, Reagan?” Cyrus asked.
“After what he did to me, Ineedto see him die.”
“I know,” Cyrus said. “It’s just too dangerous. When they find us, the mercenaries will be as close to the border as they can get, but they can still get us with their guns. Alastair is the only one who can see the magical border and get close to it. So he’s going to expect us to leave to take out the mercenaries. Alastair doesn’t care if they die or we do. He’s going to sneak into the cabin while we’re fighting to snatch you away.”
“And it won’t be so easy this time. He can’t use the tea trick again, and I’ll have my magic.”
“Alastair is a peacock, which means he has the ability to control time. He can slow things down for you, but speed them up for him and have you out of there before you can blink,” Cyrus said.
