The Shifting Price of Prey (24 page)

‘Some of the other girls were having problems,’ he replied, his relief evident that I’d spoken. ‘The Morrígan said they and their babies wouldn’t survive the
births without a big intake of magic.’

The other girls were the rest of the faeling victims of the ToLA case. Though, unlike Nicky, they’d all signed on with the mad wizard doctor as well-paid surrogates. It would’ve been
a good gig for them all if they hadn’t started dying. Deaths that Witch-bitch Helen, as the police officer in charge of the investigation, had covered up.

‘So the Morrígan slowed all their pregnancies down,’ Finn carried on. ‘It added another four months on to everyone’s due date, including Nicky’s. Other than
moaning she was the size of a house she never complained, despite ending up pregnant for thirteen months.’ A shudder ran through him. ‘Not like some of the others.’

I gaped. ‘Nicky was pregnant for thirteen months!’

‘Yeah. But like I said, she was brilliant.’ Pride shone in his smile. ‘The baby’s a boy, Daniel Christopher.’

‘Wait! She’s had the baby?’

‘Yeah, two weeks ago. She’s talking about keeping him, but’ – he raked a hand through his hair and rubbed his left horn in agitation – ‘well, he’s only
two weeks old so it’s still too early to know if he’s hers or not. Or who the father is. She was the last to give birth so that’s why it’s taken us so long to get back into
sync with London.’

I sat down on the bed next to him. ‘Wow. That’s unreal.’

He nodded. ‘Yep. It is. Even living through it.’

Briefly I touched his arm. ‘Is Nicky okay?’

‘She and the baby are healthy.’ He grimaced. ‘She’s still got a lot to work through. Psychologically. We all have.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. They weren’t the only ones.

We fell into another awkward silence, then Finn gave the shoebox of petals a sidelong look. ‘Do those mean that something’s going on with someone else?’

My anger blew back up and I almost told him to mind his own business again. But even though the petals might not be the clichéd romantic gesture he suspected, I did have something going
on with Malik and, even if it was still early days, I needed to tell Finn that.

But I wasn’t up for another emotional confrontation. Not right this minute.

I snagged a petal from the box. It still felt velvety soft and real. As illusions went, this one was top of the range. If it
was
an illusion. I held the petal out to Finn. ‘Does
it exist?’

He gave me a searching look, then took the petal and examined it thoroughly before handing it back. ‘Seems real enough. Why?’

‘They weren’t here when I went to sleep. Robur, the dryad sentry, says no one’s breached the Wards, and the only sending spot is inside the fridge. So how did they get
here?’

He stared fixedly at the window for a minute then cupped his hands; a small earthenware pot filled with violets appeared in them. ‘The Wards are set to let whoever is inside them
call
something from outside.’

‘They are?’

‘Yep. It’s pretty standard for this type of defensive Ward, in case you get trapped and need to
call
in food or water. Though usual rules for
calling
still apply;
you’d have to know exactly where an item is before you could
call
it here.’ He held the pot of violets up with a smile. ‘These beauties are from my glade. First thing I
saw last night, when I got back.’

Hmm. I hadn’t been aware of that particular feature, but it wasn’t really a security hazard; not with the way entry through the Wards was set up. Except— ‘There’s
only Robur, Sylvia and me here. Robur’s not the type, Sylvia’s in
Between
and I was asleep.’ Not to mention I can’t
call
anything other than spells, and
only then if I can see them.

‘Then I don’t know how they got here, unless . . .’ he trailed off, pensive.

‘Unless what?’

He stood and put the pot of violets gently on the windowsill. ‘Maybe you
called
the petals without realising it. It’s been known to happen sometimes with toddlers;
they’re asleep and next thing a toy will turn up in their cot even though they couldn’t have known where it was. It’s thought either they were dreaming of it or it’s a
manifestation of a subconscious want.’ His moss-green eyes darkened. ‘Though I guess that theory hangs on what you were dreaming about?’

My dreams had been of Malik, of gatecrashing his memory, or whatever the blood-spattered snowy plateau scenario was. And yes, the crimson petals on my white sheets had reminded me of that, and
of our time in the hotel penthouse, but no way could I tie the two together as any subconscious want, not when the rose petals had felt like a threat. A threat, I decided, I’d be better
talking about with Malik than with Finn.

‘Okay, thanks,’ I said, then dived into a subject change. ‘So, when are you going back to the Fair Lands and Nicky?’

He eyed the shoebox with a frown. ‘You don’t want to talk about these and your dreams?’

I don’t want to talk about Malik and his dreams
with you
, no.
‘Not right now.’

For a moment he looked as if he wanted to argue, then he nodded. ‘I’m going back later today. Look, I know you think I’m an idiot for letting my brothers rile me up about you
and Sylvia and Ricou—’

‘If the hat fits.’

‘Guess I deserved that.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘But if I’m honest, in a way I wanted to believe them.’

My jaw dropped. ‘What?’

‘I know, sounds crazy even to me.’ Bafflement briefly crossed his face, and he scratched behind a horn. ‘I mean, I hated the thought you might have found someone else, but at
the same time . . . Hell’s thorns, that is crazy,’ he said, almost to himself. He shook his head then turned to stare out the window, tension tightening the broad muscles of his
shoulders under the thin T-shirt. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Gen.’ His hand against the window frame curled into a fist. ‘Something I don’t want
you to find out from anyone else.’

I stood, dread settling like lead in my gut. ‘Okay, so tell me.’

‘G
ods, this is a mess,’ Finn muttered, before turning to face me with a determined expression. ‘Helen’s been staying at the
Morrígan’s castle while we’ve been there. Not that we’re staying together. It’s a big place,’ he finished quickly.

Shock rocked through me and I sat abruptly back on the bed. Ugh! I hadn’t seen that coming. My own green-eyed monster reared up and snarled, surprising me with its strength. But my fury
was more than just jealousy. Damn it. Helen the Witch-bitch was pure poison; even if he couldn’t admit that before, surely he couldn’t deny it now, not after what she’d done to
him and their daughter.

I balled my hands, glared up at him. ‘How the hell could you let her near Nicky again, after what she did?’

He raked his hand through his hair. ‘Nicky doesn’t know. She doesn’t remember much about what happened, and she was brighter once Helen turned up, so I agreed not to tell her
anything.’

I shot him a disbelieving look. ‘You agreed?’

‘Helen . . . yes, I agreed.’

In other words, it had been the Witch-bitch’s idea, and she’d somehow persuaded Finn to go along with it. Nothing had changed there then. After all, Helen had persuaded Finn to keep
his daughter a secret from me in the first place, despite the fact that we were supposed to be on the fast track to providing Nicky with a curse-breaking baby half-brother. And how the hell was
Nicky going to feel when she found out that both her parents had been lying to her by omission? If my own experience, right up until I was fourteen, was anything to go by – my vamp father had
been an expert at that sort of leaving-out-the-important-stuff style of communication (such as, the princely vampire he planned to marry me off to just happened to be a psychotic sadistic murderer)
– then I could pretty much guarantee Nicky would be shocked, angry and betrayed. Much like I felt now.

When the fuck was Finn going to learn to stand up for himself? And his daughter?

I blew out searing breath. ‘You haven’t forgotten what Helen did, have you?’

He frowned. ‘No, of course not.’

‘So the fact that she’s responsible for Nicky being pregnant, that she’s lied and deceived you throughout all the time you’ve known her, and she used her position as a
police officer to try and ensure I ended up either dead or pregnant, or both, more than once— Oh, and let’s not forget she’s responsible for the death of my best friend and the
continuation of the fertility curse. And you
still
let her stay?’

A puzzled look flickered over his face as if he couldn’t believe it himself. ‘I know . . .’ Then his expression settled to resignation and he held his arms out in surrender.
‘She’s Nicky’s mother, Gen. What was I supposed to do?’

‘Protect your daughter and keep her mother the fuck away from her.’

‘She can’t harm her, not with me there.’

‘She’s already harmed her, Finn! And it’s going to harm Nicky even more once she finds out the truth!’

‘Hell’s thorns, Gen. Don’t you think I haven’t thought about that? If I could’ve stopped Helen joining us, I would have. I’ve told her she had until after the
baby’s born, then she had to leave.’

Right.
So Helen got to Nicky first. By the time Finn had found out, it was too late. Or she’d made him think it was. Fuck. I wanted to scream with the anger and frustration, and
yes, the hurt boiling up inside me.

‘You know she’s wanted by the police?’ I said flatly. ‘She can’t come back here unless she’s prepared to pay for her crimes.’ Though even being burned
at the stake was way too good for the Witch-bitch.

‘Of course I do. And so does Helen. She’s not going to return here.’

Not if I had anything to do with it. ‘How long’s she been there?’

He looked down at the pot of violets. ‘A couple of days after we got there. Jack brought her in.’

Jack was Helen’s changeling son. And one of the Morrígan’s ravens. I narrowed my eyes. ‘So Helen was there before the Morrígan took you all out of sync? And you
didn’t think to tell me this first?’

He half shook his head, then sighed. ‘I wanted to tell you from the beginning, but . . . hell, Helen said it wasn’t a good idea, and even my brothers said not to. That I should just
keep it to myself. That you wouldn’t be happy’ –
I wasn’t!
– ‘That you wouldn’t understand’ –
I didn’t!
–
‘That if you thought there was something going on between me and Helen you might not be waiting when I got back’ –
Got that right!
– ‘Then when I did, they
started bringing up Sylvia and Ricou.’

I stared at him. My own dysfunctional family wasn’t any better than Finn’s. But at least they didn’t try to run my love life for me. Oh, wait, they did. They’d stuck me
with the Fertility spell and all its problems. Fuck. ‘I don’t have a clue what to say, Finn.’

He took my hands in his. ‘Gen, I want you to know there’s nothing going on with Helen. I don’t spend any more time alone with her than I can help, and I don’t want to.
But she likes to play happy families with Nicky, and she’s using it to . . .’ He trailed off, colour staining his cheeks.
Embarrassment?
‘It makes things
difficult,’ he finished lamely.

Why the fuck would he be embarrassed if nothing was going on? Something broke inside me. I’d had enough. I couldn’t listen to him tell me any more about the Witch-bitch. He’d
always had a blind spot where she was concerned. The suspicious part of me thought she’d sicced him with some sort of spell, in fact he’d sort of admitted that she had, which just made
his continuing acceptance of their relationship worse. And if he couldn’t break away from her, especially now, then I was done.

I jerked my hands from his. ‘You need to leave, Finn.’ His brows knitted. ‘Leave?’

‘Yes.’ I strode from the bedroom through the living room to the front door and yanked it open. ‘Now.’

He followed me, an earnest frown on his face. ‘You truly want me to go, Gen?’

Part of me wanted to say no. I didn’t want to lose Finn. He was my friend. And he had a place in my heart. But his Witch-bitch ex was as toxic as nuclear slag. Almost everything bad was
down to her, and no way did I want her to get her evil claws back into Finn and Nicky. But I couldn’t stop him from letting her. He had to do that himself. And if she was part of their
lives— If he let her
stay
part of their lives,
his life
, then I couldn’t stay his friend.

Whatever had broken inside me turned jagged, my throat ached and tears stung my eyes.

I looked at him straight. ‘Yes. I want you to go.’

‘Is this because of that sucker? Are you seeing him?’

Fury filled me and I opened my mouth, ready to tell him, hell, no! Then, at a nudge from the magic, my rage muted and I snapped it shut. Was this about Malik? Okay, yeah, I wanted both of them.
And I knew there was no way I could have my cake and eat it with the two of them. And truth was, I didn’t want to. Sharing might be Sylvia and Ricou’s thing, but, right now, it
wasn’t mine. So I’d known a choice was always going to have to be made. And that choosing one would mean losing the other.