“Wait!” a small voice calls out. I pull away from Finn, despite his annoyance, and follow where the voice came from to find a little boy behind the bars. He has bright purple eyes, a nasty scar on his right eyebrow, and thick but dusty blond hair. In his arms is a toddler, a baby really, tiny and wrapped around his neck. “Are you going to save us?”
I sigh, feeling hopeless right at this moment. “I’m no hero, kid, but yeah. I’m going to do everything I can to get you and every Unseelie fae out of this place.”
“Then you’re a hero,” he tells me, flashing me a toothy grin. “My mother died last week from disease, but she said she saw me in a field, holding the hand of a girl with black hair. She said we would be in the Otherworld soon.”
“I hope you are there soon. I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you right now.”
“You give us hope,” an elderly woman nearby cuts in, and I meet her bright blue eyes. “Hope is worth its weight in gold.”
“We must leave,” Finn demands, placing his hand on my shoulder. I see the boy’s eyes as Finn uses his magic to portal us away, and I feel the boy’s eyes haunting me, haunting every decision I make going forward from now on. There is a face to who I am rescuing, and that makes my stomach almost drop from the weight of it. I turn to face Finn, needing an escape, something to distract me.
So I do the most selfish thing I can think of. I kiss him even as the gold dust still floats in the air around us. He doesn’t push me away; instead, he pulls me hard against his body and sinks his hands into my hair. His tongue invades my mouth in the best way, and I swear I could come just from his kisses alone.
“This is disappointing,” a female voice drones. I jolt, and very slowly Finn breaks his lips from mine, pulling me to his side. An Unseelie stands in the middle of Finn’s apartment, her eyes glowing gold and her feet floating off the ground slightly, a gold haze to them. The Unseelie is clearly a slave, judging by her clothes.
“Who are you?” I gently ask. “I mean, you’re welcome here—”
Finn pushes me back. “That’s my mother, Artemis, and she is using moonlight to possess the Unseelie fae woman.”
Damn, there is a goddess in Finn’s apartment, and I was just making out with her son.
I am speechless.
“Son, I did warn you that mortals can offer such pleasure, but they must be resisted for the mission at hand,” Artemis replies, her voice changing in tones with every word, making it hard to listen to her. I can feel her power now, like sunlight cracking through holes in a steel box. There but distant.
And her power is extreme, it is just like Aphrodite’s.
“Mother—”
“No, this one has no goddess or god blood. You will marry the Riverlite girl that isn’t in the test and complete your mission with a child from her before coming home. You will find the next queen of the Reaper Realm and make sure the crown is on her head soon. This was why you were sent to Messorem, have you forgotten?”
The goddess’s words take a second to hit me, but when they do, my heart beats faster than ever, even as I feel it being ripped apart. Finn and Laelia?
“I have not forgotten. I was side-tracked.”
“I can see that. I am glad to hear you are on track. I will be back soon,” she promises, her eyes never leaving Finn before her eyes fade from gold to purple, and then the woman stares blankly ahead for a second. A gasp leaves her lips, and then she collapses onto the floor. I rush over, turning her on her back and feeling her neck for a pulse.
“She is dead, trust me on that,” Finn somewhat coldly replies. I grit my teeth and lower my head, sucking in a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” I tell the woman, not even knowing her name, as I close her eyes. I can get Sebastian to help me bury her with the other Unseelie. I pull myself up and finally look at Finn. Angry words escape my lips. “You’re fucking engaged to Laelia? When the hell were you going to tell me that?”
“It hasn’t been agreed yet—” he tries to defend.
“I don’t give a shit. You...,” I drift off. “I thought we had something real, and the whole time it was just a distraction to you?”
“Fuck no!” he roars, storming right up to me. He reaches out, and I move away, slipping his own dagger out of my pocket. He keeps walking to me as I hold the dagger out, not even sure if I could hurt him with it. My back hits the wall, and he corners me, so I lift the dagger to his neck, holding the tip right under his Adam’s apple. His eyes stare down at me, not fazed by the dagger at all. “I told my mother that so she wouldn’t look closely at you, she wouldn’t see who you really are or how much I will protect you.”
“Are you going to marry Laelia?” I demand.
“It’s my mission. If I fail, the gods will kill me,” he tells me. I gulp and shakily lower the dagger. He lets me step away from him.
“The irony in the fact I’ve fallen for a demi-god who will die if he is with me and I’m immortal is endless,” I respond, refusing to let the tears fall as I call for a shadow portal. “But it’s true. It’s so true, and it hurts so much.”
Finn doesn’t stop me as I jump into the portal, getting away from him, needing space before I really let the pain settle into my heart.
Chapter 18
“Persephone Riverlite!” I shout as I walk out of the shadow portal I cast where I landed perfectly in our apartment. Mossy runs out of her door first, jumping onto my shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Mossy asks just as Poppy comes out of her room.
“Hey! Mossy and I were playing Monopoly, you could join—”
“Did you know about Finn and Laelia being engaged?” I cut in. The instant look of guilt on her face answers my question right away, and a sharp sting of betrayal cuts into my chest.
She rushes to me, placing her hands on my upper arms. “I found out not long after we came here because my parents sent me a letter explaining the engagement. It isn’t real, and I knew Finn would never go through with it.”
“He is.” I shrug her hands off. “And you knew we were getting too close. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tears fill her eyes as I step back, needing space. “It was a mistake. I did try to tell you once, but we got interrupted, and then it seemed pointless because I see how Finn looks at you. I assumed he would find a way to change the engagement to you once you’re on the throne.”
“I’m never going to be on that throne, Poppy! Don’t you get it? I won’t,” I snap, and she jolts back. “As for Finn, he knows the only way we both survive this is if he marries her. And if I knew, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him!”
A silence builds between us as we both stare at each other, a big wedge building in our friendship. She should have told me about this, and I don’t know why she didn’t. She could have saved me so much pain, so could have Finn. I’m furious at them both.
The elevator bings, and I turn to see Toth walk in the apartment, pausing in his steps.
“Everything okay?” Toth asks.
Poppy wipes her tears away. “You’re mad at me, and I deserve it, but you are really upset with Finn and the situation. I might be an idiot, but I think true love will find a way.”