My hand tightened on the iron stake as the buzz of anticipation swept through me. No way should I be excited to see him—and the mere thought of that was so utterly confusing—but I was.
So I ignored the feeling. “You totally just stabbed Elliot.”
His brows lowered as he hooked the stake to what I assumed was some hidden sheath. “I did.”
“You do realize he was one of the missing younglings, right?”
“You do realize you were trying to stab him in the head, which would have roughly the same result as what I did?”
Okay. He had a good point.
“And you do realize he was about to choke the life out of you?”
“I completely had that handled,” I said. “Completely.”
“Is that so?” He folded his arms across his chest as he stared down his nose at me. “You looked like you had everything under control with his hands around your throat. Just like you looked like you had everything under control Monday night, when—”
“I had that fae under control and I was about to stab him in the head,” I reminded him. “Before I was rudely interrupted.”
The Prince cocked his head to the side. “Saving your life is rudely interrupting you?”
“I didn’t need my life saved, thank you very much.” Pushing to my feet, I met his stare with a glare I was rather proud of.
“That’s not the thank you I was expecting, but I’ll take it.” His lips curled into a smirk as my mouth clamped shut. “What were you doing out here, Brighton? I thought we had an understanding.”
“We did? Because I’m pretty sure that I never gave you any indication that we had an understanding.” I turned away from him and then gasped, stumbling a step back. He was in front of me. “Jesus.”
“Not quite.” His arms were at his sides.
“Ha. Ha.” I rolled my eyes as I fought a grin.
“Why are you out here, Brighton?” He was not nearly as amused as I was. “You’re not an Order member.”
“I am an Order member.” And whatever amusement I was feeling evaporated. My hand around the stake twitched and I resisted the urge to lob it at his smirking face—his very attractive, smirking face. “I was born into the Order and I am willing to give my life to fulfill my duty to the Order.”
“I stand corrected,” he demurred, dipping his chin. “However, you are not a hunter.”
“Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious.”
He stared down at me.
Exhaling roughly, I shook my head as anger and a good dose of embarrassment churned inside me. I was a real Order member. God. “Look, thanks for getting involved when you weren’t needed, but I’ve got things to do that don’t involve standing in an alley talking to you.”
“Really? What are those things you have to do? Go to Flux? The Court? Risk being seen again?”
I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth. “Actually, no. And you know what, why are you out here? How did you just happen to be in this alley? Not exactly a place on the must-see list of New Orleans. I’m beginning to think—” I sucked in an unsteady breath. I hadn’t heard him move, but he’d shifted closer.
“Think what?” he asked.
I tossed the stake up and then caught it. “It’s just weird.”
“What?”
“How in the last week, you’ve nearly showed up everywhere I’ve been. It’s almost like you’re following me.”
“What if I was?”
I almost dropped the stake as my gaze flew to his face. His expression was unreadable and I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. “Really? That’s not creepy or anything.”
His sigh was so heavy I was surprised it didn’t shake the buildings. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“What do you want from me?” I challenged. “I mean, really? Are we going to have this conversation every five minutes?”
“What do I want from you?” An emotion flickered across his face, parting his lips. “That’s a loaded question.”
I started to frown as I tossed the stake up again. “Not really.”
His hand shot out with a speed that was both unnerving and impressive, snatching the stake out of the air with gloved fingers.
“Hey!” I reached for it.
The Prince deftly avoided my grasp. “That is incredibly distracting—”
“It’s not my fault you can’t multitask,” I muttered.
“And incredibly dangerous,” he continued. “I really don’t want to see it go through your hand.”
I popped my hands onto my hips. “It wasn’t going to go through my hand.”
“Rather be safe than sorry.” He smiled tightly at me, and that just annoyed me to no end.
I started to ask for my stake back, but he spoke again. “You’re not a hunter,” he repeated, changing the subject. “Why were you out here?”
Back to that again. I sighed. “I wasn’t out here patrolling. I was seeing if I could find one of the missing younglings, which I did. However, that didn’t end well.”
“No, it did not.”
Knocking a strand of hair back from my face, I glanced at the mouth of the alley. “I thought it was a Winter fae first because he was following a woman, so I kept an eye on him—and yes, I know, I’m not a hunter, but I’m not going to walk away and leave someone to fend for themselves.”
“You should have.”
My head swung back to his. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
His eyebrow rose.
“Anyway, I saw his face and realized it was one of the missing younglings. I thought maybe I misjudged what he was doing since he broke away from the woman and walked into this alley, but he knew I was following him,” I explained, troubled by what had occurred. “It was a trap in a way. He came at me.”
“That makes no sense,” he said, head tilting slightly. “The Summer fae do not attack humans.”
“Yeah, well, he attacked me and I did nothing to instigate it either.” There was something pecking away at the fringes of my thoughts. “Wait a second. Elliot said some weird stuff. He said his parents weren’t his parents any longer and he also called them wannabe humans.”
“Did he say anything else?” he demanded.
I shook my head as I saw Elliot’s face in my mind. “But his eyes were messed up.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were pitch black, like I couldn’t even see the irises….” I trailed off as I thought about his eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like that, but….”
He stepped toward me, voice low. “Are you positive that is what you saw?”
“Yes. He was this close to my face.” I put my hand within kissing distance of my face to show him. “His eyes were all black.”
The Prince’s jaw hardened as he looked away.
There was a sudden feeling where I felt like I’d seen something or a reference to eyes like that before, but I couldn’t place it. Like a word that rose to the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t quite grasp it. “Do you… do you know what could cause that?”
“I don’t—” The Prince’s head swung sharply to the left and then a curse exploded out from him. He moved toward me just as a shot rang out, echoing through the alley.