Cress released a gritty sound into the alley. “That one was hard!” he snapped as Mor shook out his hitting hand. Shayne and Dranian held Cress’s shoulders tight, stopping him from racing off.
The alley behind the café was empty, but occasionally a human couple hurried on by or a frail female shrieked and ran away.
“Since we’re together again, why don’t you tell us why you’re covered in fairy blood?” Mor suggested as he wound up for another hit with the wrath of the sky deities.
“Fine.” Cress grunted as he took Mor’s punch right in his beautiful faeborn cheek. He slid his jaw back and forth to ensure it wasn’t broken. “I was being followed by Shadow Fairies. There were only two of them—Ugh!” Dranian kicked him in the shin.
“I thought you weren’t going to start a war with the Dark until after you had a day to think,” Mor said. “Those were your words, Cress.”
“I provoked them so the human could get away. Now for the love of the sky deities, at least hold your faeborn-cursed punches!” Cress complained.
“Well, that explains it.” Mor nodded. “I’m relieved you were just protecting your fairy crush like any weak-minded, irrational, possessive male.” Pure and fresh sarcasm. “I was worried you were trying to take on the whole Dark army by yourself like a fool.”
Shayne smacked Cress on the back of the head with an open hand. Cress glared at him, and Shayne grinned. “Sorry,” the white-haired fairy said with a shrug. “That one was petty. But I enjoyed it.”
“I still might,” Cress replied to Mor. “But we’re best off to hide until Bonswick requests an audience with me. If there’s even a small chance he’s not here for us, we should avoid provoking him. There’s no point in starting a war over nothing.”
Shayne tapped his chin and looked between Cress and Mor. “What are you two hiding from us? I know you were whispering fairy secrets the other night when you made Dranian and me leave.”
When Cress didn’t answer, Shayne smacked the Prince across the back of the head again. “Dranian and I are risking our lives for you, too. You need to tell us what’s going on, or I’m going to trot back into that café and kiss our human right in front of you.”
Cress’s gaze iced over, and Shayne grinned wide enough that his pretty blue eyes shrank. “I’m sure I can enchant her, too. You’ve been warned,” he added.
“Be careful, fool,” Cress said through his teeth, but he had no chance to give a royal lecture before Dranian tore the Prince to his feet and shoved him back against the alley wall.
“Apologies, Your Highness,” Dranian muttered. “You know I’m not doing this on purpose.”
Cress grimaced when Dranian stomped on his toe.
“Fine. I’ll tell you every terrible thing Mor and I have kept from you. And then, together, we’ll decide what to do,” Cress said over Dranian’s shoulder to Shayne.
“What do you mean, we’ll decide what to do?” Shayne’s face fell, his muscles tightening. “You’re not still planning to kill Kate, are you? Queensbane, Cress, you can bet your faeborn princeship I’ll stop you!” He looked between all the assassins now, backing toward the café. “You three will have to break my bones if you want to lay a finger on her now,” Shayne announced.
Cress rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Shayne, this has nothing to do with her anymore.”
“Wait, are you saying killing the human is off the table?” Dranian asked with a scowl.
“The High Court will demand evidence of the human’s death. They’ll sniff the lies on us if we don’t go through with it,” Mor pressed, though his brown gaze darted warily toward the café.
“I’ll tell the High Court I don’t have evidence of our success, and I’ll pray to the sky deities they believe me,” Cress said. “There’s no point in killing Kate Kole now. Let’s wait Bonswick out.”
The assassins’ heads bobbed with nods.
Cress hoped they were finished, but Mor wound up and pummelled him in the ribs.
Between hits, Mor told Shayne and Dranian the story of the Queene’s crossbeast. It took only a minute, but when he was finished, Shayne didn’t seem surprised in the slightest. Though, a fairy grudge burrowed between his brows for not being told earlier. They’d finally stopped hitting Cress.
“Now,” Cress said through his teeth. He shoved Dranian back, and the auburn-haired fairy spun into the opposite alley wall. “I’m going to make all of you hurt for a moment before we go back in!”
First, he stomped on Dranian’s toe.
Ten minutes later, four North Corner assassins dragged themselves up to Kate Kole’s apartment. Mor moaned through punctured lips as he collapsed onto a chair. Cress tumbled to the floor and leaned against a wall, hugging his midsection, and Shayne sat upon the couch, tipping his head back and pinching the bridge of his bleeding nose. Only Dranian seemed able to stay on his feet, though he was limping from his damaged toe.
Cress looked around at the quaint space. He’d only seen the apartment from the window until now, but inside, the rooms felt smaller. Pictures lined the walls of Kate Kole and Officer Lily Baker, smiling. There was one of Thelma Lewis, too, and another male human. Cress stared at the pictures for a long while as he considered who that male was, why he was standing so close to Kate, and why she had pictures of him.
His attention snapped to the human coming from her room, drenched apart from her clothes. She gasped and halted at her bedroom door. “What happened?!” Her raspy voice filled the space.
“You told us to beat him up if he touched you, Human,” Mor muttered, nodding to Cress.
From the couch, Shayne snorted a laugh. “I would have come and begged you to stop us, but you commanded us never to disturb you while you were in the shower,” he said.
Kate’s green-brown eyes flickered from fairy to fairy. When she looked directly at Cress, Cress was certain she was the most fragile, humany-human in the entire realm. Her lips were parted, her hair was damp, her eyes were wide like a forest doe, and she balanced herself on slightly wobbly legs.
How in the cursed Corners had he ever thought she was an assassin?
Cress leaned his head against an end table. He could have fallen asleep that way, but Kate nudged him with her bare foot. So, he grabbed her ankle, and Kate tumbled to the floor before him. He smiled.
“Tell them I can touch you now,” he demanded from a dry throat. His eyes slid closed, and he decided to sleep there after all as his mind tumbled into places with uneven floors and tipping walls. “Only if you trust me,” he added.
She would be a fool to trust him, even now.
Perhaps Kate Kole ought to keep his brothers bound to stop him from touching her. Perhaps Cress was bad for her. Perhaps… perhaps, in the end, Cress would get her into the exact sort of trouble Mor had warned him about.
As Cress’s mind slipped into slumber, he heard her say to the others, “Don’t beat him up anymore.”
He thought that was the sweet end of it, but then she burst out laughing. Cress’s body tensed to react, but every aching part of him objected. So, instead, he peeled one eye open to see Kate falling backward off balance.
“But I have to admit… This is so funny!” She pointed at Cress’s swelling face and shrieked some sort of obscure human apology.
Cress grumbled and closed his eyes again, the sound an irritating, lovely poison in his ears as Kate could not seem to stop, hard as she tried. He wanted to curse that infectious, hoarse laugh as it became the lullaby to which he fell asleep.
