True Love's Kiss (A Slow Burn, Orc Romance)

CHAPTER X

VULTOG

"Everything was going well until you decided to brag about your connections," Rayna condemned me. "You should have kept quiet!"

"They wouldn't have upheld their end of the deal without a guarantee of payment," I defended myself. "A decent friend wouldn't dump their companion into fae debt so carelessly..."

"Ever heard of improvising?"

Our getaway carriage was a red double decker bus, enroute to a place I didn't care to remember. We were sitting at the back of the top deck, and I was thankful that we were the only passengers populating the level.

My chest heaved and my thigh muscles ached. The last of my energy had been reserved for arguing with Rayna about the disastrous events of our encounter with the faerie.

From her seat across the aisle, Juno looked at both of us absurdly. "So, we're just gonna ignore how you were prepared to trade that innocent kid? That's fucked up, man."

I didn't bother feigning guilt. What was done, was done. And technically, Rayna and I hadn't gone through with sacrificing that child. So we had done nothing.

On the contrary, Rayna hung her head in shame. "I wasn't really going to, I swear. I was just pretending so I could get the bean."

After witnessing her switch effortlessly between the roles of ruthless negotiator, babysitter and fighter, I couldn't tell if she was being genuine.

Interesting.

I'd never known a mortal to be so confident at bartering with the fae.

In her seat next to me, Rayna withdrew a broken acrylic nail from her nested hair and dropped it on the floor. A collection of cuts decorated her face, the deepest being a nasty scratch that bisected her cheek. She paused to gingerly touch her left eye. Her pupil was a black dot floating on a sea of red.

"You are hurt?" I took her wrist, my thumb brushed over her inner wrist long enough to perceive her pulse jackrabbiting through her veins.

She tussled and scooted away from me, holding her wrist to her chest. "Keep your hands off me! You manhandled me in there, I didn't forget."

"I posed no danger, I just wanted to make you see the faerie," I explained.

"I can see just fine on my own," she insisted, even though she had slapped down every suggestion that magic existed, prior to my forced introduction.

Juno emitted a rasp of frustration. She was watching a video on her phone. "I couldn't see anything. And neither did my camera. This ain't fair, man, I wanna see the fae too!"

As much as I would've liked to return to the Tower of London at a later date, the possibilities seemed grim.

"Please..." I took a deep breath in, and set aside my pride. "Please accept my apology for man-handling you, Rayna. That was not my intention."

My charm offensive was back, on the grounds that she fascinated me. The recent catastrophe had taught me two things. The first being that I needed to handle my affairs with more tact. The other; I had severely underestimated Rayna. If I wanted to go back to Terraork, I needed to be in her good graces. Juno had been right in saying so. Rayna was...intelligent, in a way that I was not. Shaping a relationship with her would be a helpful tool, not munition to harm her with.

I needed her with me, rather than against me.

"Whatever." Rayna repositioned herself so that she could look out of the bus window, to the streets below us.