That was another standard clause I deeply regretted, though it had also made sense at the time. When I was an assassin, my contractors were always concerned I’d turn on them.
I could feel the pressure of the geas, making it difficult to think about the fiend in my own thoughts.
I growled under my breath. The desire to pull out a dagger or sword and smite something was overwhelming, but I didn’t want to flash any extra magic in the area now that I had destroyed all possible evidence.
Sloppy work begets mistakes.
It rankled me to know I’d accomplished my mission—I’d discovered the information I wanted and successfully hidden my presence so Leila’s enemies were ignorant that I knew it all.
But I couldn’t even tell Chase, Leila’s director of security, or point him in the right direction. I couldn’t even write or sketch out anything related to the issue.
I’ve learned my lesson, I grimly thought. I don’t intend to take on any more jobs as an assassin since I became Leila’s consort—there are too many possible political ramifications. But if I ever agree to enter a geas again, I am going to ensure much more loosely interpreted rules.
I waded uncaringly through a snowdrift, making my way to my car—which was covered in a blanket of snow.
The one bright spot in this mess of my failure, was that it was over. Unable to swipe anything that could prove their identities—Leila’s enemies didn’t have any notes or letters sitting around confessing their guilt—my best move now was to return home and see what I could accomplish.
Leila can read my expressions. I might be able to get her to correctly guess what I’ve done and who is responsible.
If she wasn’t spitting mad, that was.
I’d disappeared for two months in the middle of the night. There was no way the Night Court Queen wasn’t going to shout at me.
For the first time since I’d left, I was tempted to crack a grin.
She was going to bluster for certain. I didn’t rightly know what to call our relationship. I knew I trusted her—more than I’d trusted anyone else before—and I knew she had to trust me as well based on her willingness to sleep in front of me despite our…explosive first meeting.
I snagged my daggers from my bracers and spun them across my palm, just to give myself something to do.
As little as I’d wanted to admit it, I was looking forward to seeing her, looking forward to the banter, and the late nights when she’d tuck herself against me and sleep.
I’ll have to survive her wrath, first. But maybe she’ll guess what I was up to, and these two months won’t be for nothing.
I brushed snow off my car and glanced back at the clearing I’d left behind. Only the one spider body remained. The snow had covered the dark smear the other bodies had left behind.
Maybe it wasn’t entirely for nothing.
I turned my car on and let my shoulders relax.
It will work out. For now, it’s enough that I’m going home.
Chapter Three
Leila
I rubbed the back of my neck and stifled a yawn as I peered up at the crumbling castle that was slowly disintegrating even under the protection of the Night Realm.
It was dark—it was always dark here—but the full moon cast just enough light to make the place seem creepy.
I leaned my magical artifact—a tall staff topped with a huge, metal crescent moon with a glass prism jutting out of the base—against one of the stone patio bannisters that still stood.
“We’re going to have to do something about this place,” I said.
Skye, my steward, looked up from her tablet. “The Night Realm, or the castle?”
“Both,” I grimly said.
“Things have been going better, though.” Skye flicked to a different screen on her tablet, which cast a blue light on her heart shaped face. “The wards haven’t failed since before you synchronized with the staff. I believe it’s the first time in over a year that we haven’t lost land on a monthly basis.”
The Night Realm was a part of the bigger and broader fae realm—all the big Courts owned a slice of it. Unfortunately, the realm itself was toxic. That’s why we had to have wards, which kept the sludge that had invaded the rest of the realm out.
But the wards were ancient and unfortunately prone to occasionally failing under the toxic onslaught. Ideally, I was supposed to supplement the wards with my own power and hold the territory line, but I hadn’t been able to successfully pull that off since becoming queen. Instead, we lost territory.
That wasn’t exactly unexpected—we weren’t the only Court to lose land in our realm—but the last time I’d lost acres and acres of it instead of just a few feet, and that wasn’t good.
“Yeah.” I uncomfortably shrugged. “But there’s no guarantee the next time the wards fail I’ll be able to keep that record, though.”
“I imagine you’ll have an easier time of it now that you have your full royal artifact at your disposal,” Chase Washington, my director of security, said. His gold eyes almost seemed to glow in the dark—a dead giveaway that he was a werewolf.
I glanced at the glowing orbs of light that I’d created for us when we first stepped into the Night Realm. They floated in the air and dotted the stone patio we stood on, which was snuggled into the base of the busted down castle.
Across the patio I saw Lord Linus—he’d insisted on coming with us—prodding a crumbling statue with curiosity. I narrowed my eyes at his back, but stayed focused.
“It has been a lot easier to use magic,” I said. “And I’m hoping you’re right and it will make a difference, but I don’t want to count on it. Especially since none of the animals have changed—or put on weight.”
Sensing I was talking about them, two of my pets stepped out of the shadows—Muffin and Kevin.
Muffin was what the fae called a gloom. Roughly the size and shape of a cougar, she had patchy black fur that was swirled with gray and red. She was almost skeletal with her ribs showing, even though I’d doubled the stable’s budget, and they fed all my pets high quality feed with all the nutrition supplements my baffled human vet could think of.
Kevin looked just as skeletal, but as a shade he wore it differently. The shades were wolfish in shape, but they were huge—every last one that I had met was as tall as Indigo. Their fur was black, and it looked almost blurry and shadowy from a distance. It wasn’t until they were up close that you could see the mats in their fur—which felt damp and greasy when you stroked them.
“The glooms, shades, and even the night mares will improve.” Skye tucked a brown lock of her perfectly curled bob behind her ear—I had no idea how she got those perfect, frizz free curls in her hair day after day. “As the Court continues to flourish and improve, they will physically change.”
I crouched down and scratched Kevin’s ears for him and tickled Muffin under her chin. “Yeah, that’s what everyone told me, but it’s been over six months since I got stuck with this queen job, and they haven’t improved at all. Neither has the castle—which is what I was actually referring to when I meant we had to do something.”
Skye flicked her dark eyes at the castle. The low lights seemed to bring out the golden tone of her skin—which was a little unusual for a night fae as most of us had more bronze complexions, and was probably from her human blood. Like me, Skye was half human and half fae. “What do you wish to do to it?”