Queen Me

“I’m so sorry,” I said as sweat beaded on my forehead. “I didn’t see you.”

“As was initially intended.” He stared down at me with inhuman grey eyes that slowly began to shine like the moon itself. “But now it’s time…”

A warning blared in the back of my mind, cutting through my alcohol-driven haze with every screech of its siren until my body went rigid with realization. His aura of power was undeniable, but it was the way he analyzed me with those gleaming silver eyes that gave him away.

He was the villain of the legends and tales my mother had told me for as long as I could remember. The ghostly fae assassin made of moonlight and shadow. A killer to best all killers.

And he was standing right in front of me like a sexy beacon of death.

My mind begged my body to run, but it held fast, too paralyzed by fear to react. There would be no escaping the beautiful nightmare before me: the recently usurped fae king of the House of Air and Amethyst.

The notorious Moonlight Wraith.

I pulled my hand away from the infamous killer and staggered back a step, still too drunk for my own good, but sober enough to know I was in deep shit.

“It seems my reputation precedes me,” he said in a quizzical tone.

“I… I…”

“But what I really want to know is: who are you?”

“Me?” I repeated, inching backward toward the door. “I’m no one. Nobody…”

Those perfectly shaped lips lifted at the corners. “I beg to differ.” He closed the distance between us in a blink and I flinched, expecting him to hit me or stab me or do whatever it was fae assassins did, but nothing happened. Instead, I opened my eyes to find him looming above me, a curious expression on his perfectly chiseled face. “Because none can see what I really am unless I want them to. And there is only one being I’m searching for.”

“Well, unless you want a useless human, I’d say your magic is funky,” I said, hoping I’d just made a good point in my addled state.

His eyes narrowed at my words, and an angry rumble shook his chest. “Are you saying I’m wrong?” he asked, pressing in closer to me. My pulse raced and my chest seized as Death himself leaned against me.

“Are you going to kill me if I say yes?”

His brow quirked slightly at my response. “Maybe I’ll kill you if you say no…”

I stared at him, my heart slamming against my ribs. “That logic doesn’t give me much reason to answer at all.”

“Unless I kill you because you refuse to.”

I gulped back a wave of fear and nausea. “But then you wouldn’t get your answer.”

He canted his head and dipped his face lower to stare into my eyes. “I think you are the answer to my current predicament,” he said, raking an elegant hand through his short platinum hair that shone silvery-white in the moonlight, “which means you’re much more valuable to me alive than dead.”

“Well, that’s a plus—”

A wicked smirk tugged at his lips. “Only if I’m right.”

I leaned away from him, my throat dry and my heart racing with his proximity. The weight of his presence was too much to process in my current state; I needed space—room to breathe. Instead, I found myself pressed up against the door I desperately wanted to disappear behind.

So I could get away from the violent being before me.

So I could pretend his proximity wasn’t as thrilling as it was terrifying.

So I could gaslight myself into believing the whole event had only happened in my mind.

But there was no escaping him. He caged me in with his body, his coat straining over the muscles in his shoulders as he pressed his hands against the door on either side of my face. I had to crane my neck so I could look up at his face, now cast in shadow. “You don’t seem like the kinda guy who’s wrong very often.”

Another expression that came dangerously close to a smile tugged at his mouth. “No. I’m not.” The intensity of his gaze was too much, and I fumbled behind me, trying to open the door, but damn if it wasn’t locked from the inside. “In a hurry to get back to something?”

“It’s girls’ night… my friends are going to wonder where I disappeared to soon. Especially Danni,” I said, officially rambling now. “She’s overprotective of me and likely to come looking for me soon if I don’t get back in there.”

He canted his head. “And you don’t want her to find us alone back here?”

I gripped the door handle harder, wishing I had Danni’s strength so I could just rip it open. “I don’t want any trouble—for her or me.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” he said, “but you already know that, don’t you, Miss…?”

“Little. Regina Little,” I said without thinking—like I hadn’t grown up hearing that giving a fae your real name was a terrible idea. “But I go by Rowe.”

Bonus stupidity points for throwing in the nickname.

That strange almost-smile widened at my reply as he reached forward to brush a stray red curl from my face. His proximity set off every warning alarm in my body, but I didn’t move. Like a cornered rabbit, I stood and stared at the beautiful death before me and tried to ignore that things other than adrenaline coursed through me as his finger grazed my ear when he pulled away.

“Little queen…” His whispered tone was wistful and distant, and he sounded like he was lost in a memory for that fleeting moment. Then a scuff on the pavement echoed toward us, and our collective attention snapped to the opening of the alleyway and the voice calling from just beyond.

“Rowe! Girl, you can’t hide from the dance floor forever… I’ll finnnnnd youuuu…”

His hand clapped over my mouth before I could do something drunk and reckless like scream for Danni to help me—or to run for her life. Because if he really was the Moonlight Wraith, I wasn’t sure if she would stand a chance against him, even with Nova at her side.

“I’ll come for you soon,” he said in my ear.

Then I watched with bated breath as he disappeared into the shadows as though he were one himself.