Page 13

Chapter nine

The Drunken Ram was full to bursting.

Rae squeezed her way past the Fae crammed into the space, jostling more than a few drinks.

Horns and Hooves, mostly, and a few Shifters too.

Wings tended to be a little difficult to navigate in busy spaces, so by default, there were usually fewer of those, but she spotted a few on her way through the throng.

The crowd was dressed largely in shades of green, and Rae muttered a curse under her breath as she realised it was a festival celebration for one of their gods.

She caught sight of Ezekias in one of the smaller booths at the back of the bar, hunched over an ale and tapping away at his PAD.

Rae tucked a loose pink wave behind her ear, discreetly tugged her top down an inch, and plastered a bright smile on her face.

She’d picked an outfit similar to what one of the girls had been wearing in his porn flick because she needed him distracted, if he wasn’t already after the night before.

The crappy dark blue fabric creaked as she sunk into the booth to sit opposite him, reaching for his ale and taking a hearty mouthful. “No nice to see you ? No compliments for my outfit?” No glass of visk like she’d definitely requested he have ready and waiting.

Ezekias shook his head. “I—I don’t even know your name.”

“Zeke. We both know you know my name. How old I am. Where I work.” Rae winked, sliding his glass back over to him.

The Fae swallowed. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all.

Smart move, given that Aidan would probably be tracking him.

For a brief moment, she wondered what had made the bloodsucker spare him at all, but she was certain she was about to find out.

Music pumped through the bar, and Rae took count of the handful of humans amongst the crowd out of habit.

She turned her attention back to the Fae before her. “Shall we start again?” She traced a finger around the rim of his glass and looked up at him through her lashes. “Good to see you, Zeke. Thanks for joining me.”

He glanced towards the bar—or the door. Probably both. “Rae. You look…” He swallowed, his gaze dipping to her cleavage. “Good.”

Rae narrowed her eyes. “We’ll need to work on that.” She slid around to his side of the booth, her arm brushing his. “Now. Order us another round and tell me about these tests, and I’ll make sure you’re hidden from Vale when you leave here.”

“Y-you can do that?”

Rae flagged a waiter with one hand, downed Zeke’s ale with the other, and pointed at the empty glass, holding up two fingers over the crowd.

“Sweetie, I can do anything you want.” She let the comment settle over him, let those little cogs of his spur into motion as a female Horn brought a round of drinks to her friends in the next booth over, a mixture of Hooves and Shifters, a few of them whooping in delight.

The waiter returned with their drinks, a sweet-looking Shifter, shirt sleeves rolled up and his fluffy brown hair falling to one side of his face.

A bear maybe. Rae ordered two glasses of visk because the ales were for Zeke, and then she glanced at the Fae beside her, waiting for him to pay.

He tapped his PAD against the waiter’s without complaint, taking a deep swig of his beverage.

“Start from the beginning.” Rae pulled Zeke’s name badge from under her bra strap and tucked it into his front pocket with a pat, knowing without needing to look up that he tracked her every move.

The cord of a necklace peeked out of his shirt, the pendant sitting just over his heart.

Something important then. “What tests are being carried out?”

Zeke swallowed again.

Rae’s PAD chimed, and she made a scene of reading the notification discreetly, eyes widening as she took in the message.

“Better hurry. Vale’s asking me where I am.

” It wasn’t Aidan. It was Nim, sending a selfie of her and Reed, Nim’s eyes glassy with whatever they’d been indulging in.

Weed if Rae had to guess. Reed had that look in his eyes as he stared down at her friend, that look that was far too telling.

The lights from the fairground rides at the docks lit up their faces, Nim’s smile as soft as Reed’s.

The Fae shifted beside her. “They—” he started, but a quick glance about the room told Rae no one around them was paying any attention.

Even if they were, she’d slipped another of her market charms around their booth anyway.

Best to take precautions. She tapped her knee against his, offering him some reassurance.

“They’re taking a piece of every Vampire house and testing it on humans and Fae,” he said quietly, fiddling with the tension in his prosthetic hand, fingers flexing open and closed.

Rae had guessed as much the minute she’d seen the vials.

It surprised her, really, that some sick human hadn’t come up with the idea sooner.

A group of Hooves cheered at the bar, one of them hanging upside down on a stool and downing a bottle of something green.

Nasty shit. Beside him, a Shifter choked, his friends laughing as he fell in a heap on the floor.

She’d forgotten what Friday nights at the Ram were like—another on the list of venues she tried to avoid.

Not only were the clientele young and reckless, but none of them made the kind of money worth pickpocketing, and that meant they were of absolutely no use to her.

She turned her attention back to Zeke. “What’s the purpose of the tests? What do they hope to achieve?”

“To create something better.” The Fae eyed his glass, a frown pinching his features.

“To tip the scales,” Rae murmured, watching the way he slumped over his ale.

Zeke nodded.

Rae thanked the waiter as he dropped off her drinks. “Another two in about”—a quick glance at Zeke—“twenty minutes?”

The male laughed, tapped her order into his PAD, and left them to it.

“Torrin?” she asked Zeke, eyeing her first glass of visk. Another nod. Goddess, he was a male of few words. “And which human faction?”

“The ISA, I think.”

In Support of All, the acronym stood for.

Though Rae hadn’t exactly seen any evidence of that.

Still, of the three human factions currently operating throughout the city, it didn’t surprise Rae that the ISA would be the ones to work with Torrin, the Fae with a greasy hair problem and an inclination to start fights with Vampire Lords.

Nor was it a surprise to her that Torrin was stepping on Elred’s toes, since the murmurs suggesting the Fae king was close to meeting his end had become more frequent lately.

“Was Vale tested?” She thought of the way it had taken five Fae to take him down, the way he’d fought against whatever they’d injected into him with the savagery of a Fae in their animal form. A wild beast, far from the tamed Lord he’d been at her side in the moments before.

A shake of Zeke’s head. “No. He was due to be.”

“I saw him injected with something.”

“Just a tranquiliser courtesy of Calder. The Witch he slaughtered.”

Rae didn’t let her disgust show. Calder could have been spared—should have—

“And the rest of the test vials?”

“Destroyed.”

“Oh?”

Zeke’s brown eyes slid to hers. “Also courtesy of your colleague.”

So Aidan had some brain cells in his thick skull then. She’d considered asking him to destroy the facility but didn’t want to muddy their agreement. Didn’t want to give him any loopholes in what she knew was already a weak deal. She was just banking on his desperation for him to follow through.

Rae sipped at her visk in silence, contemplating in which direction the night should go. Zeke stole glances at her from time to time, but he didn’t make any attempt at conversation, and that suited Rae just fine.

The Fae wasn’t as young as she’d first thought the night before.

Now, beside him in slightly better lighting, the scattering of freckles across his nose close enough to count, Rae could see he was nearer her age, perhaps even a little older.

He ran the prosthetic hand through his tight red curls, the colour a shade darker than Nim’s, and pushed his glasses up his nose as if it were a nervous habit.

He was a little more skittish than his fellow Hooves, and Rae supposed it might have been charming had it not been for the very vivid memory of his work-time entertainment choices and the crusted tissues scattered over his desk.

“Why did you meet me tonight?” she asked after finishing her visk.

Zeke blew out a breath and glanced around them again, beyond their booth.

“Because what they’re doing is not what I signed up for.

It’s sick. I hate Vampires as much as the next guy, but the effects the tests had on the subjects…

it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Vale did me a favour smashing that place to shit.

It gave me an excuse to get the fuck out of there. ”

The truth, all of it. She didn’t need Aidan’s Provident abilities to know that. The Fae was terrified. “What about your data, all your files?”

“What about them?”

“Where do you keep your backup?”

“I don—”

Rae reached for her second glass. “Come on, Zeke.” She tipped it towards him in a salute. “We’ve watched porn together. We’re friends now, and friends don’t lie. You’re too smart not to have a backup. Too smart to keep it on your PAD.” She flicked her chin at his device on the table. “Where is it?”

His hand drifted to his chest, and Rae leaned into his space, slid her fingers into his shirt, and clasped them around the necklace she’d spotted earlier, easing him closer until she could smell the ale on his breath.

His eyes drifted down to her mouth. “See,” Rae whispered, glancing up at him through her lashes.

“Smart. Keep it safe. Now buy me another drink, the waiter’s forgotten about my twenty-minute rule. ”

The waiter came and went, depositing more drinks with a swift apology for being late, and Rae peppered Zeke with questions about the ISA.

Weyland, the human who led the faction, had always coveted power.

Rae wondered if Bax knew, whether he’d known when he knocked on her door earlier that evening.

They’d worked together in the past, Rae was certain of it.

Zeke seemed to relax after a few more drinks, words spilling from him a little more freely.

How he’d got involved with Torrin, what he knew about the facility.

Snippets of information Rae tucked away for another time.

More messages from Nim lit up her PAD—updates on where Reed was taking her on their epic date , as she’d put it—when Rae realised two things: it was getting late, and she’d gotten every last bit of useful information she was going to get out of her latest drinking partner.

Zeke’s phone chimed, and he frowned at the screen. “I have to go.”

“Shame.” Another spell. This one, a quick illusion.

He’d get home and realise there was never any message.

Rae leaned in, pressed a hand to the side of his face, and kissed his cheek, her lips close to the corner of his mouth as she unfastened his necklace with nimble fingers, the Fae none the wiser. “Let’s do this again sometime.”

He sucked in a breath, nodded, and then slipped out of the booth on unsteady hooves, nodding again as if he’d decided something. Rae suppressed a chuckle.

“Good night, Rae.”

She waved once, casting her attention back to her PAD. Her last message to Nim had been left on read, asking her friend if she wanted company for the walk home. Rae tried to shove down the worry that mixed with the alcohol, trusting that the little Witch could take care of herself.

A wolf Shifter whistled as she left the Ram, but the night was otherwise quiet once the door slammed behind her.

She reached for her PAD, fingers fumbling in her bag to find her earpiece, her attention fixed entirely on why she couldn’t find the fucking thing—which was why it registered a second too late.

Movement, behind her. A hand fisting into her hair, an arm around her neck, slamming her back against a hard body.

Rae thrust out an elbow, the heel of her boot connecting with a foot.

A male groaned behind her. “You stupid bitch.”

She didn’t turn around to look at him and instead launched into a sprint. Rae only made it a few steps before a body barrelled into her.

Fuck her luck. A bastard Horn, and he’d rammed her like fucking cattle.

The thought barely lasted a second. Rae lost her footing, all the air rushing out of her as she fell under his weight, the night going dark as her head collided with the pavement.