Reign Check

anything but.

“I’m not dangerous or deadly,” I said. “Or particularly dark.”

His eyes narrowed. “Well, that’s what I’m here to find out.”

“At my high school using a glamour.”

“Consider me undercover.”

“And there’s nothing I can do about this?”

“Less than nothing.” He was close enough now that I saw his brown eyes also contained gold flecks.

“And what happens if you mistakenly decide you’re right about me?” I had to ask.

All feigned friendliness vanished from his expression. “Then I’ll do what I have to in order to protect my kingdom.”

A shiver raced down my spine as I got another flashback of that sharp sword nearly touching my throat. If he decided he was right — that I was evil — was he seriously going to kill me?

I really didn’t like this guy.

While I tried to figure out what to say next to make him leave me alone, I noticed Mr. Crane standing directly in front of us. He was saying something, but I couldn’t hear what it was for a moment.

“ … it’s like you’re not even listening to me.” His words suddenly became loud and clear. “I don’t want to have to repeat myself again.”

“What?” I said. “Sorry, uh, I was focusing on something else.”

“Yes, I see that, Nikki.” Mr. Crane looked at me sternly. “But you’ll have lots of time to get to know Rhys better after class. Okay?”

He thought I was so taken with the new student that I was oblivious to everything else going on. How embarrassing.

A small frog, smelling of formaldehyde, was plunked down between us. Belly up. Greenish gray, dead and slimy.

“Rhys, I’m not sure if they already covered this in your previous school,” Mr. Crane said. “Let me know if you have any questions. Otherwise, I’m sure Nikki will be happy to help you out.” He then moved on to the next pairing.

“Happy” definitely wouldn’t be the word I’d use when it came to the undercover faery king.

Deadly, dark, and dangerous. That’s really what he thought I was? How could I prove I wasn’t anything like that?

I’d been told there hadn’t been any other human-demon offspring in a millennium. That’s a thousand years Darkling free until I was born. It was forbidden for humans and demons to have children together due to the whole “Darklings are dangerous” thing. Also, it was very rare for a demon even to be allowed to enter the human world, to prevent their meeting any humans to mate with.

Obviously my father had totally broken the rules to be with my mom. It was kind of romantic, really. My mother, on the other hand, never knew he was a demon. She knew him only as a college student who’d abandoned her when she was eighteen, alone, and pregnant, and I’d promised my father I wouldn’t tell her any differently. For now, at least.

I forced myself to look at Rhys again, surprised to see that his face had paled, his jaw had tightened, and his attention had now shifted from me to the frog.

“The frog is dead,” he stated.

“You’re so observant.” I picked up the X-Acto knife — better to have control of a potential weapon than to let him grab it first — and realized my sweaty hand made it difficult to get a good grip.

His lips thinned. “It’s barbaric.”

“It’s fairly disgusting, sure, but we have to do it.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “We just have to.”

Anger flickered in his eyes and the gold flecks there appeared to swirl. “You agree with this disgusting human practice of murdering innocent animals for meaningless experiments?”

Okay. Overreacting much? “If I don’t, I’ll get a failing grade on this assignment. If it grosses you out, I think you can do a simulated dissection on the computer instead.”

Without another word, he brought his hand down on top of the frog.

I cringed. “What are you doing?”

“Be quiet, I’m concentrating.” His hand began to glow with a strange, dim light and his brows drew together. After a moment, he shook his head. “It’s too late. I can’t save it.”

Before I could say anything else, he swore under his breath, got up from the desk so quickly that his chair skittered backward, and stormed out of the room, casting a very dark look at the teacher.

“Nikki,” Mr. Crane said when Rhys was gone. “What happened? Where’s he going?”

“He, um, wasn’t feeling very well.”

Mr. Crane nodded with understanding. “Not uncommon during this particular experiment, I’ve found.” He watched as a girl, covering her mouth with her hand and gagging, ran out of the room next.

I felt off balance. First from having to talk to Rhys at all, and second from his furious reaction to the dead frog (may it rest in peace). And what had he meant by saying it was too late to save it? Was he trying to bring it back to life? Could he really do something like that?

Apparently not, since the frog was still majorly dead on arrival.

I didn’t know all that much about faeries, other than they were territorial and dangerous and had wings and pointy ears that could be covered up with a glamour.

Now I knew they might be card-carrying members of PETA.

At least Rhys was gone. But I didn’t feel relieved. Not yet.

“Check it out,” a guy named Pete two rows up from me said. “I totally slayed the slimy beast.”

He’d cut the frog’s head off and had mounted it on the top of his knife like a frog lollipop.

The sight of it made my oatmeal breakfast suddenly decide it wanted to make a reappearance. I clamped my hand over my mouth before I hurled right then and there. Thankfully, I didn’t. But it was hard to breathe. My eyes burned and my back and temples itched. Worried equally about vomiting in public and turning into a horned, winged Darkling, I got up from the desk, grabbed my things, and ran out of the classroom.

“There goes another one,” Mr. Crane said, and sighed to himself as I whizzed past him.

Luckily, he didn’t try to stop me.

3

After a few deep breaths in the hall outside the classroom, I began to feel better. I didn’t see the girl who’d run out, but I did see Rhys sitting halfway down the hallway with his back against the lockers.

I’d hoped he’d taken the dead frog as a bad omen and gone back to the faery realm.

My first instinct was to return to class, but instead I marched over to where Rhys sat. He glared up at me, anger at my biology class’s mistreatment of innocent amphibians still apparent in his expression. I also saw something else there, something a bit more raw. Sadness and … grief? That’s what it was. But why would a dead frog affect him so much?

It surprised me a little and I lost some of my determination.

“You need to go back home,” I said simply.

He got to his feet and I took an automatic step back from him, suddenly reminded how tall he was. Before I’d met him, I’d always thought faeries were small and delicate. And, well, not real. But Rhys was very real. And not small or the least bit delicate.

“I’m not going anywhere until I accomplish what I came here to do,” he said firmly, despite that strange grief-filled look in his eyes.

It wasn’t just the frog. Something else must have happened to Rhys. Something bad.

“And what was that again?” I asked, then held up my hand. “Oh, right. The ‘Is Nikki Donovan a threat to faery life’ thing. Well, trust me, I don’t have any deep, dark secrets.” I paused. “Except for the one you already know, of course.”

He studied me for a moment. “Have you told anyone else what you are?”

“No.”

Chris didn’t count. I hadn’t technically told him anything. He’d seen it with his own