On closer inspection, it was clearly dark, spiky gold.
It took me a moment to realize he was enchanted—a little.
I was getting an image of how I looked to him, and it was much like reality—pale blue hair, soaked with river water. No transparent thong for him—instead, it was skin-tight shorts that hugged my curves and red high heels. He liked the heels more than he wanted to.
He saw my big green eyes, heart-shaped face, pink lips. I’d look innocent if it weren’t for the gun, and the sharp-lined tattoos curling over my tan skin. He liked the innocence, but reminded himself it was a lie. His gaze took in my breasts, peaked in the cold air, headlights engaged.
I glanced down for a second. That was all real. He saw the real me—slight, curvy, and dirty. And cold, it seemed.
But the overwhelming feeling emanating from him was disdain.
Deep under the surface, desire flickered as he took in the shape of my legs in my tiny shorts, eyes lingering at the apex of my thighs. But it felt kind of like that lust only made him hate me more. For whatever reason, I was someone he’d spent a lot of time thinking about. And I didn’t even know who he was.
This had never happened with an enchantment before, and it was throwing me off. I couldn’t get a good read on him at all. It was like he wanted me and hated me in equal measure.
But despite the warning bells ringing in my mind, he was stirring something in me, a buried energy. He intrigued me.
Why, though? In my long life, I’d learned that men were generally just trouble not worth your time. Even if they looked like gods.
I gripped the gun hard. Shoot him, Aenor. Before he kills you.
But my eyes strayed down to his perfect mouth again, and an image blazed in my mind of the two of us against a tree trunk—him shirtless, me in only that white thong, pulling it down for him. My pulse raced in the heated air.
Was he enchanting me? He must be, because I didn’t even like sex. And if I did, this shiny-haired jerk would not be my type.
Shoot him, you idiot.
This was the thing about the fae. We had the power to make people feel things—rage, sadness, lust. And while this beautiful man stood before me, I felt his magic stroking my skin, a strange and powerful pulse. I had an overwhelming urge to get closer to him, to feel his body against mine.
River water slicked my hands as I gripped the gun, fingers wet.
His gaze slid down me, taking in the filthy clothes that clung to my body, and they suddenly felt too small and tight on me. Once again, I felt his disdain. My muscles tensed as I tried to focus.
This was all backwards. I was supposed to entrance him. I wasn’t supposed to be imagining him grabbing me and stripping the clothes off my body.
With the gun still trained on him, I took a step back. A shiver danced up my spine. Something about his deep blue eyes looked strangely familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The power of his magic overwhelmed me, and for just a moment, my knees felt weak. I felt strangely inadequate before him, painfully conscious of my dirty little clothes. What was he?
“Aenor.” The quiet way he spoke my name sounded like an ancient curse. “Using a gun. Iron bullets, I suppose?”
I nodded, my finger on the trigger. Why in the gods’ names didn’t he look scared? He was about to die. And how did he know I had iron bullets? It’s not like they were easy to come by. Everything about this was bizarre.
His lip curled away from his teeth, baring his canines, and he snarled. He seemed part divine, part beast. Like a beautiful god dredged up from a grave of moss and soil.
“Why am I not surprised?” Disdain laced his voice.
My skin felt hot. Why hadn’t I shot him yet? Something about him made me want to drop to my knees. To worship him. To stick out my tongue and—
“I’m pointing an iron weapon at your heart,” I said, interrupting my own fevered thoughts. “Why aren’t you scared?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He prowled closer, and I took a step back, my legs shaking. “You won’t escape me, Aenor. I will find you again, and I will make you suffer.”
“No. You won’t.”
I gritted my teeth, then unleashed two iron bullets into his heart.
Tendrils of dark magic burst from his body, transforming into shapes that looked like ravens flying away into the night sky. My enemy fell to the ground, and the pavement trembled at the impact of his fall.
“You should have modernized.” It was a whisper, my voice shaking.
Everything about this felt wrong, but I didn’t linger over his corpse. These fae had come to kill me, so they had to die. It was as simple as that.
I let out a long breath. Now, I had to make sure Gina was okay.
Already, I was diving back into the Thames, heading back to Gina. I plunged deep into the river, swimming until I found the tunnel’s entrance. My body undulated in the water.
As I moved further through the tunnel, the water level grew lower. When it became too shallow to swim, I trudged through it until at last I could run.
With burning lungs, I burst through the door into my shop, cold mud streaking my body.
I found Gina standing on the countertop, staring down at the filthy water that had flooded half the room. I heaved a sigh of relief. She was fine.
“Are you okay?”
She beamed at me. “You’re alive!”
“Of course I’m freaking alive. I’m a major badass. Scourge of the Wicked.”
“Right.”
Gina hugged herself, shivering. “Shop’s totally wrecked. The dried herbs and demon hearts aren’t so dried anymore, and everything stinks. Can you still sell them? Those hearts are worth hundreds.”
I rubbed my eyes. “We can fix it. We’re both alive, that’s the important part.”
“What happened to the assassins?”
“I killed them. I told you, I’m Aenor, Flayer of Skins, Scourge of the Wicked.” I’d meant it to sound light and fun, but I just sounded sad.
Gina was only a teenager. I needed to stop her from thinking about the supernatural chaos. She shouldn’t worry about iron bullets or fae corpses, or how she almost drowned in Thames water. She should be thinking about normal teenage things.
I took a deep breath. “What happened to your stuff? Is it all wrecked?”
“Yep.”
“Even your schoolbooks?”
Gina shrugged. “Everything’s online now. But my computer's dead, so… You know what? Who cares. I don’t need to know how to graph linear equations.”
Gina’s school grades had been plummeting recently. I had no idea what linear equations were, but apparently they were important. “Is that accurate, though?”
“Do you know that some girls make a hundred thousand pounds a month dressing up in Lolita outfits on Snapchat?”
“Oh my gods, you are not doing that.”
“Why? It’s just a lacy dress with ribbons. You don’t take the dress off or anything.”
“You can’t do that because the creepy men who watch those—”
“How do you know it’s creepy men? It’s not, like, the book Lolita. It’s an anime thing.”
“That is not a long-term life option for you. And you are human and don’t have to live in a tunnel like I do. You can live in a house! So you need to talk to your teachers first thing in the morning about your computer situation.”