New World Order (War of the Fae: Book 4) (41 page)

She pulled away.
 
“I’m glad to see you guys too.
 
You have no idea how happy I am to be here.
 
I just wanted to give you a quick hug – I have to go talk to Naida.”
 
She cast her eyes around the room, trying to find her.
 

“She’s at the door.
 
Why don’t you just teleport over there?”

Becky frowned slightly.
 
“I’m not allowed to yet.
 
Not until I pass their loyalty test.”

“Oh.
 
Bummer.”
 
I meant it too.
 
I’d hate to have my talents grounded like that.
 
I remembered what it had been like in the Dark Fae dungeon when I was blocked from connecting with The Green – it was a horrible feeling.
 
I patted her on the back.
 
“Don’t worry.
 
I’m sure you’ll be fine.
 
Hopefully it won’t hurt.”

Her eyes got huge and her smile disappeared.
 
“Oh my gosh.
 
Do you think ... ?
 
I didn’t expect ... ”

I smiled.
 
“I’m just kidding.
 
I’m sure they aren’t going to hurt you.”

Ben and Chase walked up as I finished calming her down.
 
I looked at Ben as I said the last part.

“We’re not Dark Fae.
 
We don’t torture our own kind.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

Chase’s face was completely expressionless.

Becky looked nervously between Ben and me.
 
“Okay, well, I’ll see you guys later, hopefully.
 
Nice cloak, by the way.
 
It looks great on you.”
 
She gave me another quick hug and then ran off.

I yelled, “Thanks!” after her, but I doubt she heard.
 
She was too anxious to go find her siren mentor.
 

I walked up to Chase, hoping when I got there that he’d give me a hug – I wasn’t so sure what his deal was right now.
 
He seemed much more serious than the last few times I’d seen him.
 
Except for the fact that he’d said a lot of stuff today, he was pretty much back to normal.
 
When I got close enough, so that I was standing in front of him, Chase looked down at me.
 
“Hi,” I said, nervously.
 
“What’s up?”

He grabbed me and crushed me to him for two seconds, before taking me by the shoulders and pushing me back away.
 
“Good.
 
Missed you.”

I smiled.
 
“Me too.”
 
I put my hands up on his arms that formed a bridge between the two of us.
 
“A lot.”

Ben cleared his throat.
 

Chase dropped his arms, forcing my hands to drop to my sides.
 

I shot Ben a cold look.
 
“So you finally made it into the inner sanctum.
 
Happy?
 
Get what you wanted?”

Ben smiled at me.
 
“Yeah.
 
So far.
 
Now I just have to work on the rest.”

I refused to be baited, instead turning back to Chase.
 
“So, what’s this meeting going to be about?”

“Getting the fae to unite.”

“Oh,” I said, laughing, “is that all?
 
Piece of cake.
 
No problem.”

“Maybe I should dust him again,” said Tim in my ear.

I turned my head to the side so Chase and Ben wouldn’t hear me.
 
“Don’t even think about it, Farticus.”

“I’m just sayin’ ... ”

I cleared my throat and looked back at Chase, ignoring Ben.

“Can you stay to eat with us?
 
We’ve got your favorite wiggly meats.”
 
I smiled, using my most tempting tone to try and convince him.

He shook his head.
 
“No.
 
Have to get back.
 
Ben and I have to try and persuade the Dark Fae to have this meeting with the Light Fae council.
 
Tell Dardennes I’ll send a message about the time and place.”

“How are you going to do that?” I asked, already feeling a little upset about him leaving, wondering when he was ever going to come and stay for good.

“Gus the wrathe will go into the Gray looking for Tony.
 
Tell Tony to go into the Gray and meet him near the Infinity Meadow around ten tonight.”

“There’s an Infinity Meadow in the Gray?” I asked, not sure if I understood.

Chase cocked his head to the side.
 
“Of course.
 
You and Tony haven’t discussed the Gray?”

I shrugged, kind of embarrassed that I knew so little about what Tony did with his talents.
 
“No, not really.”

“He’ll know,” was Chase’s mysterious and unsatisfying answer.

I looked at Ben and he was smirking.

“What?!” I demanded, testily.

“Oh, nothing.
 
I just wondered why Tony’s hiding things from you, that’s all.”

I was instantly pissed off, which I’m sure was the whole point.
 
“He’s not hiding anything from me, waste of space, so back the hell off,” I growled.
 
“You’re in
my
house right now, you know.”

“Tell him, Jayne!” said Tim excitedly.
 
If I didn’t know better, I’d think my pixie friend wanted to see some sparks fly – or some elements fly – whatever.
 
But I wasn’t going to cause a scene here on my first day as a council member.
 

“I may be in your house, but I’m not alone.
 
So I’d think twice about starting something you can’t possibly finish.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.
 
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged at me.
 
“Whatever you think it means.”

“Well, you’d better not be suggesting you have spies in here, because if I find out you do, I’m going to feed them to Gorm.”
 
It suddenly crossed my mind that I hadn’t seen him since I’d been back.
 
I had put him in the hands of Scrum before I’d left, and Scrum was here but he wasn’t escorting that buggane.
 

“That would be difficult since Gorm is now with us.”
 
Ben spared a glance at Chase.

I laughed.
 
“Well then, the joke’s on you, because first of all, Gorm’s disgusting and is hopefully going to eat a few of you and, second, because unless you have a little short-term memory problem, Chase isn’t exactly
with
you.”
 
I smiled as meanly as I was capable of.

Ben looked at Chase again, looking a little miffed, but then he looked back at me, returning my wicked look.
 
“Well, I guess that makes two of us, doesn’t it?”

I felt my face getting red and the link with The Green went on autopilot.
 
My cloak started to shimmer and come alive, causing the few fae left in the room to gasp in shock.

“Jayne, power down,” said Chase.
 
“This is not the time.”

I dropped my connection instantly, the hurt blossoming across my chest.
 
“You heard what he said, Chase.
 
It’s not true.
 
You’re with me, right?”
 
I hated how pitifully needy I sounded, but I couldn’t help it.
 
It was how I felt.
 

Chase stared at me for a second and then said, “I’m with you, Jayne.
 
You and only you.”

I nodded my head in relief.
 
That was good enough for me, even though I’m not sure that I totally got what he was saying.
 
I decided that going all girly on him and demanding some sort of explanation or commitment was the last thing that needed to happen right now, even though a small part of my heart kept urging me to do it.
 
Damn my inner weakling!

Ben was clearly disgusted with the way this conversation was going.
 
“Whatever.
 
Let’s go.
 
We have some campaigning to do.”
 
He turned to leave and six ogres converged in on him.
 
He held his hands up in surrender and backed up towards Chase.
 

I smiled and caught his eye when he looked back at us nervously.
 
It felt so good to have the upper hand with him for once.
 

He scowled at me but said nothing.
 
For a second I was reminded how good-looking he was ... if you went for that exotic, possibly-dangerous powerful-guy type.
 
Not me though.
 
I was more the all-American guy type.
 
And that was Chase.

He leaned in quickly and gave me a kiss on the cheek, his mouth gone before I could even turn my head and try to make more of it than he intended.
 
Damn.
 
Foiled again
.
 
I wondered if I was ever going to see what it felt like to kiss Chase.
 
A real kiss.

I watched as he and Ben were led away between armed guards.
 
A witch followed behind when they reached the door, casting a spell of some sort on her way.
 

“What’s that witch doing?” I asked Tim.

“Putting a blinding spell on them.
 
They won’t remember anything they see outside this room.”

“Couldn’t someone undo the spell and bring the memories back?”

“Only the original spell caster or someone in her line.”

“I hope she’s not one of those fae that has a sister or a
spouse
over there.”
 
That was definitely a big, fat hint to Tim, who had yet to come clean entirely about his own wife being in the Dark Fae compound.
 
And we still hadn’t talked about his son either.
 
I vowed to myself that we’d talk about it tonight.
 
After that day-long nap, I was going to have a hard time getting to sleep anyway.

Tim, Finn, Scrum, Tony and I decided to kick back for a couple hours in my room until dinnertime.
  
As we walked down the hallway, Spike and the twins caught up to us.

“Where’re you guys headed?” he asked.

“To my room.
 
What about you guys?”

Spike was all smiles.
 
“Dunno.
 
Want us to come with you?”

I looked at him sideways and knew right away he wanted me to say no.

“Why don’t you take the twins and show them the forest a bit.
 
I’d bet they’d love to go for a run.
 
Or whatever it is you nutty cube-eyes do out there.”

“Cube-eye?”

“Suc
cubi
, in
cubi
... cube-eyes.”

“Ah-ha, I see.
 
Okay, well, we cube-eyes are going out then.
 
See you at dinner.”
 

I kept walking, leaving them behind.

“Come on girls,” said Spike, “I’ve got something really cool to show you.”
 
I felt the air move past me as they sped away on hyper drive, up the hallway towards one of the symbol doors.

I smiled.
 
Spike had looked positively electrified, he was so happy.
 
And the twins had looked pretty intrigued with Spike in general.
 
Seemed like a match made in heaven.
 

“Danger in the forest tonight,” said Tim, flying past me.

“Do you think so?” I asked.
 
I still kind of wondered what cube-eyes did when they got together.
 
Did they hunt other fae or humans?
 
Or did they just hunt each other?

“I
know
so.
 
Those guys get in a pack and ... well ... watch out.
 
I’ve seen what they can do.”

I shivered, a vision of my friends smiling as they came to suck the life out of me in the darkness of the trees, invading my mind.
 
That was not something I wanted to ever have to deal with.
 
I turned my thoughts to somewhat happier subjects.
 
“Tony, I want to know all about the Gray.
 
According to Chase there’s an Infinity Meadow there and probably a lot of other things I’m totally clueless about.”

We’d reached my door and Tony pushed it open.
 
“Sure.
 
Whatever you want to know.”

Everyone found a spot to sit, me on my bed, Tim on his, and everyone else on the floor.
 
Before we could begin though, a sudden movement in the corner of the room caught my eye.
 
I almost screamed bloody murder before I realized it was just Becky appearing out of nowhere.