“Because he wants me to kill the fey royals—he wants to rule Faerie,” I said. “And he seemed pretty motivated.”
“Regardless, you’re still asking me to do the impossible—”
“Shut. Up.” Kat’s near-whisper somehow cut through the room like a dagger, and we all turned to where she’d been sitting silently the entire time.
“Kat—”
She shot to her feet and glared at Reinhardt, her blue eyes glowing turquoise. “I said shut up!” Reinhardt closed his mouth like a smart little warlock and let her rage wash over him. I’d never, in all my time with Kat, heard her actually yell at anyone. She got loud at times, yes, but in general, her unending, brazen confidence intimidated everyone around her so she never had to shout, and rightfully so.
Everyone in the room went still.
“If you say the word ‘impossible’ one more time, I will rip your lying tongue from your fucking face, do you hear me? I don’t care what you have to do or who you have to kill, but you will get the man-bear back, or you will die. It’s that simple.”
“Kat,” I said softly, moving to be near her—close enough to see the tears forming in her eyes.
“I will not lose someone else I love…” Her voice shook and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “Not. One. More. Person. I can’t, Piper…I just can’t…”
“I know,” I said, slipping an arm around her shoulders.
“He’s my wingman. That fucking place can’t have him...” And just like that, the glimpse of the soft, vulnerable side of Kat disappeared, replaced with a mask of barely contained rage. “So tell your father to pull his dick out his ass and fix this, or I’ll rip it off.”
I dared a glance at Reinhardt, surrounded by Merc and Knox, and silently told him that if he wanted to make up for every way he’d ever let me down, this was the moment. This was the task.
His furrowed brow suddenly lifted, as though an idea had hit him. I raced over to him and waited for the news I was desperate to hear.
“You said he wants you to kill the fey royals...” he mused.
“Yes...”
He grew silent again, and I nearly climbed out of my skin.
“Perhaps Foust is onto something. If Etherian’s goal is for you to kill the royals and get his body back so that he can rule, then he does not need it before their deaths have been secured—”
“So we tell him that one hinges on the other,” Merc said, interrupting the warlock lord.
“If he is desperate enough to rule, then he should be willing to wait until we have succeeded at that task.”
“That plan could only work if we had a reason why we have to do things in that order,” Knox pointed out.
“Agreed,” Merc said.
Reinhardt thought for a moment. “I don’t have the power to do what you’re asking, Piper. Not without a body powerful enough to withstand that kind of magic.”
“Which we don’t have lying around.”
“But the fey king does,” he said. “If Etherian wants me to give him form, then he’ll have to wait until a suitable body is available.”
“He’s pretty hell-bent on it being his own—”
“His options are this or nothing,” Merc said, “and I imagine nothing is not the decision he will make.”
“But do we really want him to have a body at all?” I asked. “I mean, he’s pretty fucking unstable, from what I can tell, so I’m not sure plopping him into the fey king’s corpse is a solid idea.”
“Which is exactly why we won’t actually do it—he just needs to think we will,” Kat said, stepping forward. “So tell him whatever lies he needs to hear to draw him out of his weird little Faerie pocket so we can free the others and kill the royals. Then do whatever the fuck you want with him.” Her harsh expression fell just long enough to reveal the sadness in her eyes. “All I care about is getting my furry partner in crime back. Period.”
“This idea has merit,” Merc said, silently mulling over the logistics of the proposed game plan.
“And it’s no more dangerous than anything else,” Knox added.
“We need something, though. A show of faith so he doesn’t turn on us,” Reinhardt said.
“Like a talisman?” I replied. “Something we could supposedly use to secure him in the king’s body?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
I let out a sigh and looked at Knox. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Unfortunately.”
“If we go to her, we should see if she can make something for the wolves, too—something that could keep the fey king from using any of you against us,” I said. “I mean, she made us invisible to the fey before. It seems within the realm of possibility.”
Knox nodded, but I could see the strain in his expression; his barely masked irritation at the need for something like that at all. But if the plan was to march into Faerie with his newly-acquired packs, we needed to make sure that the fey king had no power over them—or the Originals.
“What is all this about?” my father asked. “Who did this for you?”
Knox and I answered in unison. “Fucking Sherry.”
“Sherry? Who’s Sherry?”
“We’ll tell you on the way,” Knox said, his distaste at having to reach out to that particular witch clear in his tone.
“Then let’s stop fucking chatting and get moving,” Kat said, heading for the exit. “We need an army and a sketchy witch to make us a couple of talismans. Chop chop, bitches. Time waits for no one.”
Dean looked at Jase and shook his head. “It’s your turn to pony up, man. That witch is too freaky even for me.”
The others turned slowly to look at him. I did what I could to contain my growing laughter, but the absurdity of his statement combined with the morbid timing was just too much. My shoulders jerked and I clapped my hand over my mouth, to no avail. Raucous laughter erupted from me, and it wasn’t long before the others joined in, the break in the tension a fleeting but much-needed release.
Reinhardt, however, just stared at all of us, clearly unaware of the joke—or of Sherry’s reputation for doing business.
But he was about to find out.
Chapter Fourteen
Unwilling to split up for fear the world might kick us in the ass again, we filed into separate vehicles and headed out to kill two birds with one stone. The coven queen had agreed to round up her remaining witches and prepare to return with us to Faerie. Though the details had been left intentionally sparse, Merc had made it clear that he would need a word with both Sherry and her when we arrived. And that discretion was needed.
I wondered why he’d bothered. We were all in so deep at that point that it seemed moot.
Thirty minutes later, we pulled up to the house where Beatrice, Kingston, and I had fought the golems. The coven queen stepped out onto the porch to greet us, though there was nothing welcoming about her expression. Her gaze was stern and her expression severe. She was clearly worried about what was to come, as she should have been.
“Your highness. Alpha,” she said with a graceful nod before turning to my father. “Warlock Lord.”