Bad Fae | romantasy | Bad Fae #1

Chapter Twenty-Two

We travelled all day, Legacy somehow keeping up with the shadowy fae steeds as easily as if he was one himself. Perhaps I wasn't the only one to have latent fae-ness awoken by the seduction of the Darkrealm. Dain didn't rest us until we reached an inn that was full to the brim of dark fae critters, who eyed me off like prime meat.

"Yana is with me tonight," Dain told Venali, who merely nodded and looked like he wouldn't dare even think otherwise and didn't much mind either way.

Despite how busy the inn, Dain procured us four rooms. We ate a quick meal downstairs before making our way up to the room I would share with Dain. We sat around for a while, and I could feel the tension wafting off the four of them. It had only grown the closer we got to Henmar's border. They made small talk; of sidhe they would see at the High King's court, who they were and weren't allowed to kill or maim, reminiscing about a few of their previous visits.

I sat on the bed, my legs crossed as I looked around the small room. A bed, a window, a few scattered chairs around a small fireplace Phin had lit on our way in. The room was so very slowly starting to warm up, but I still shivered. Somehow, this place in the Darkrealm refused to bow to the last of Summer's heat.

In a lull in their conversation, I asked them, "Why did we stop? I'd have thought fae stamina would get you all through the night."

I watched Venali and Ninleyn exchange looks, as Phin looked at Dain. None of them took it sexually, which went to show how tense they were.

"It would have," was Ninleyn's careful answer when Dain was clearly not going to say anything.

"One more night," Phin said, as though she could read Dain's mind, and Dain nodded.

"One more night before what?" I breathed, knowing as soon as I spoke that I should have kept my mouth shut.

"Before Feyrith..." Venali started, then paused.

"I thought Dhuschane was the worst of your kings?" I asked no one in particular.

"That depends on your definition of worst," Venali huffed without any humour.

I hadn't been all that worried about meeting Feyrith after Dhuschane. But I should have known that the Vodreylian king would have nothing on the High King.

"What's he going to do to me?" My voice was barely a whisper. It was more an echo lost on a forgotten wind.

Dain growled, and the others stood hurriedly. They bid their goodnights and disappeared, leaving Dain and me alone in the room. He was still sitting on his chair, his elbows resting on his knees as he stared at the flickering flames. His face was shadowed, and I couldn't tell what was the natural shadow of the room and what was creeping in due to his mood.

"What's he going to do, Dain?" I asked again.

Dain said nothing. He licked his bottom lip and his hands fidgeted like he was trying not to punch something. He stretched his neck, and I could feel the stiffness of him from halfway across the room. Something was concerning him. Something had this paragon of terror not just worried...but possibly even scared.

I crawled to the edge of the bed. "One more night before what?" I tried.

Dain finally looked at me, his eyes shining black pools in the darkness. "Before he will try to take you from me."

I frowned. "Why? What would your High King want with a hybrid bastard?"

"Usually, nothing."

"What's so special about me, then?"

There was a pause. "You are mine." The truth, but I felt like it wasn't the whole truth.

Before I could say anything else, he stood fluidly and strode over to the bed. He reached out a hand slowly and flowers bloomed to life across the canopy of the bed. Bright, big, wondrous things. Blooms I had never seen before. Which shone with an ethereal light so beautiful that I knew they were not of this world. They never would be, no matter how much fae magic had seeped once more into its bones.