“It’s clean,” he promised. “I’ll check the whole room but—”
Neldor came into the room with steam about coming out of his ears. “This is my first time entering your rooms. I admit I’ve gone over the line, and multiple times, but I have honor, Princess. I would never use my magic against another royal and—”
I said the three words that could defend anywhere my mind went and actually stopped him in his rant. “Your mother did.” It was harsh but true, everyone giving me shocked looks I went there. I shrugged, keeping Neldor’s gaze. “Her sins are not yours, but I’d be a fool to not worry that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I should check everyone and everything, as we’re in danger. I won’t apologize for that.”
He took in and let out a slow, deep breath. “Your right, you should. But you need to heal, and faster, so you also need to be smarter. You don’t trust me to help heal you, but I can give your warlock the juice to do more by you.” He held up his hand to ward off our arguments. “As you’ve repeatedly reminded me, you’re injured because you saved me.”
“Let him,” Craftsman agreed. I saw in his eyes there was more to it.
I bit back a smile. If he felt more of Neldor’s magic, I was pretty sure he could find the fairy and block any attacks, do all sorts of Craftsman smart stuff.
I nodded, accepting it. First, they fixed the bed and put it all back together. Then, Neldor took my hand, Craftsman clasping both of ours.
Except Neldor pulled a fast one. Craftsman did nothing and the fairy let out his magic the moment he could, letting out a huge burst of healing.
He narrowed his eyes at me, smirking. “Now we’re even.”
I bobbed my head, gasping for air as I felt better than I had in weeks. “And you broke any trust you’d built with me, not gained any points.”
He shook his head at me as if I was a disappointment. “So be it. I care nothing of your respect.” He turned and walked out of the room.
“Who said anything about respect?” Lucca asked.
I didn’t even try to answer, sighing and rubbing my arms. “At least I feel better. I don’t think he did anything other than heal me.”
“He didn’t,” Craftsman confirmed. “He could have done that a hundred times, and easily if he grabbed you last night, but he waited until I was also touching you both so I could tell you for sure it was only high-level healing.”
Well, that was something at least.
Even if I still wanted to throttle Neldor. I had a feeling I would always want to throttle him.
But right then, I had three men to deal with in front of me and I had no idea where to even start.
Luckily, they were kind and let me push it off for the moment.
That would probably end well.
22
The next few weeks went by in a blur of lots of crazy. Things didn’t chill with the whole McGrath issue and so much coming out all the time. It was the distraction of all distractions and for once, everyone was focused on something other than me.
And the hobgoblins. Neldor took that over and was getting them out everyday while I was at school, or we were both hitting places on weekends.
He was also healing huge sections of Faerie and diligently working with Dean White. He ate more than all the animals at a few zoos, but it was going well.
Things were still tense with Lucca and Darby, but they did believe I forgave them. They weren’t happy I turned to Craftsman and still didn’t have all the details on something that he did but were trying. For what, I wasn’t sure. I really had let it go.
Maybe it wasn’t even about them, I felt so meh and blah. Maybe it was the rest of my life leaking over onto my relationships. Fuck if I knew.
School was great and I was learning a ton. I was ready for the semester to end and have a break to focus where I wanted to and power up more so I could plot out what came next.
But I was very ready to close a different chapter in my life.
Ainsworth. I wanted him gone. I would have preferred dead, and painfully, given all of the crimes he’d committed, but after the wolf shifter council looked into what I’d given them… He might not be long for this world once they fought through the politics.
So it was time to spring the trap.
“Sir, I’m telling you that I’m looking at her,” the guard told Ainsworth over the phone, leaning over the unconscious wolf who currently looked like me. Well, she did to him. “I’m staring at Tamsin Vale. We got her.”
“That’s not possible. She’s not that stupid. It has to be a glamour charm,” Ainsworth snapped.
“We pulled off all the charms she had on her.”
“Is she a witch?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Ainsworth growled.
The other guard took the phone from the first guy. “Sir, we picked up the witches we were supposed to and found Vale unconscious here. It looks like she tried to intercept them or made a move, but something happened. I can’t tell if she’s a witch either. She’s hurt and—something was done to her. She’s in bad shape but it’s her. We cannot go against her if she wakes up or—”
“I’ll be right there. Don’t lose her!” he bellowed before hanging up.
The guy shook his head as
