“Take her back to the house,” he’d told Albigard. “I’ll join you there shortly.”
At which point his body had swirled away into a cloud of vapor, leaving me on my own with a hotter—and much more disturbing—version of Legolas from Lord of the Rings. The Fae had opened the same kind of magical portal he’d used to transport us to my father’s home in the first place, and when I’d stepped through, I was back in the basement cell we’d left earlier.
Alone.
With a member of a species that apparently wanted me dead.
“I’m not having sex with that vampire bastard again until he apologizes for this,” I stated, scowling.
Albigard stared at me with flat green eyes. “This is the sort of information that I’d really prefer not to have,” he said, “if it’s all the same to you.”
I stared back, confused, since I hadn’t been talking to him. “Huh?” I asked, only to cut him off as another thought surfaced from the murky depths. “Oh! Right, I remember now. You were saying about the demons...?”
That was kind of important, wasn’t it? I should try not to forget about it again. Albigard had remained here in the basement under the guise that he was still interrogating Rans and me. I’d been asking him about the treaty between his people and the demons. That was right before I mentioned I was thirsty, and he’d conjured the magical cup of roofie-mead out of thin air for me to drink.
More fool him. Didn’t he know that if he tried to take advantage of me, I could pull his life force out through his dick?
Succubus, baby. Suck it!
I laughed, surprised when it emerged as a stupid sounding, high-pitched giggle. Oh, yeah... drunk. I’d forgotten about that part for a second as well.
“Wow, this really blows,” I said, as the walls started moving again. After a moment, I steadied my shoulder against the nearest one so I wouldn’t accidentally fall over if the floor decided to get in on the action.
Albigard’s expression said he didn’t intend to argue with my assessment.
“If you’ve quite regained control of yourself,” he began in that snooty Fae tone that I was growing to hate, “then I’ll continue.”
It was the kind of tone that said anyone who wasn’t Fae must clearly be an idiot. But I could choose to be the bigger person here. I waved a careless hand. “Whatever. Do go on.”
He sighed, long-suffering. “I was saying that the reason you and your father have become such sought-after targets is two-fold. You already know about the treaty provision forbidding demonic interference in the human realm.”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded sagely, trying to keep my serious business face in place. Nigellus had told me about that part when we were in Atlantic City, after all.
“There is a larger concern among the Fae, however,” Albigard continued. “The entire point of the treaty is to limit demonkind’s ability to grow in strength. They must not be allowed to gain so much power that they once again threaten us.”
But that was stupid.
“Look, Tinkerbell,” I said, jabbing a finger at him. “My dad’s just a normal guy, right? He’s a fucking accountant, for god’s sake. And look at me!” I gestured up and down the length of my body, gaining steam. “I’m a waitress! Not even that—I’m an ex-waitress! Because you and your creepy blond faerie friends lost me my job!”
My righteous anger seemed to be entirely wasted on my current audience. Which kind of sucked, to be honest. I settled for frowning at him severely, since if I tried to go over and kick him in the kneecap, I was afraid I might fall down. Or, y’know, die a horrible, agonizing death at the hands of faerie magic.
One or the other.
Albigard sighed again. He seemed to be doing that a lot. “You’re a second-generation succubus-human hybrid. You are aware that until now, demons have never been able to sustainably reproduce?”
I picked my way through the words, most of which seemed to have too many syllables. “Kind of?” The brief conversation with Nigellus ran through my head again. “I know they can’t die, and that subbucusses... succubuses...”
“Succubi,” Albigard offered, long-suffering.
“Succ-u-bi,” I echoed carefully, “have to hijack humans to make babies.”
“Offspring which should be completely sterile,” Albigard continued, “not that such behavior is permitted anymore, since the treaty came into force.”
“Didn’t stop my grandad, did it?” I muttered.
“Clearly not.” The Fae sounded like he’d tasted something sour. “If the demons discover that they can... breed... generationally, they may decide to make a grab for power, and damn the treaty provisions. It would mean war again.”
He’d looked positively green when he was talking about demons breeding, but at the mention of war, something about his face changed. If I wasn’t so busy trying to keep my knees locked so I stayed upright, I might’ve wondered at it.
“This whole thing is really, really stupid,” I decided.
His expression changed again. That one was easier to decipher. It was anger.
“You’re talking about my race’s survival,” Albigard ground out, something dangerous and alien peeking out from behind the paper-thin facade of that pretty-boy face.
I tried to push away from the wall, only to decide that standing unaided was overrated. Instead, I settled on jabbing a pointed finger toward him again. “Yeah?” I asked combatively. “Well, your buddies don’t sheem all that worried about my shurvival, now do they?”
Was I slurring again? Damn it...
“You are one person,” Albigard said in an icy tone. “There are countless thousands of Fae lives in the balance—”
A vaporous mist swirled through the high basement window above us. I watched in fascination as it materialized into the solid form of Rans, the process more riveting than the coolest CGI imaginable. His blue gaze flicked between us.
“And we all know how quick the Fae are to sacrifice individuals to the greater
