Chapter Two
“I’m glad you agreed,”Brooke said, walking beside me. She carried a small bag filled with her meager possessions. Things that seemed hardly worth coming back for.
“It gives me a little more of a break,” she continued. “Solin is a machine in bed. Zero recovery time needed.”
“Uh, I’m not sure what to say to that.”
She shot me a grin. “I think ‘you lucky lady, you,’ works well.”
Brooke and I weren’t far off in age. Maybe a year or two. Yet, I felt like we were on completely different levels. I absolutely wouldn’t call hours of sex a good time. The five minutes it took Wayne to finish was more than enough. But I could see the happiness in her expression and couldn’t rob her of it.
“I’m glad he found you then.”
She laughed. “Oh, no. I found him. The best decision I ever made was making my move on him. Pay attention when we meet them at the wall. He has a ring on his finger. He wanted it like a fashionista wants purses.”
Her genuine joy baffled me.
“So how many human-fey couples are there now? And how many are pregnant?”
“Well, there’s Mya and Drav, the OG of human-fey couples, and Solin mentioned maybe a dozen others. Mya’s the first and only human-fey pregnancy that they know of. But there’s a human who’s close to her due date. Obviously, that baby is all human. I honestly wouldn’t mind being third on that list.”
“Really? You’d want a baby?”
“I know motherhood isn’t for everyone, so I’m not judging if that’s your angle, but it’s mine. Can you imagine a little grey-skinned baby? Or better yet, a fey girl? That child would be so spoiled, it wouldn’t even be funny.”
“Don’t you worry about how you’d provide for a baby or keep one safe? They cry. A lot.”
Brooke shrugged lightly.
“Nope. I don’t worry about any of that. The way Solin talks, we’ll have sitters lined up waiting for a turn until the kid’s sixteen. It won’t have a chance to cry. And if you saw how stocked Solin keeps his cabinets, you’d get why I’m not worried about food. It might be hard for us to get to it, but not them. Considering their burning desire for kids and family, they wouldn’t take one on and let them starve. That’s just not how they work.”
Her face lit up suddenly, and she waved. I followed her gaze and saw three fey waiting by the wall. Even from this far away, I could see how huge they were. Distance blurred their other scary features, but not the memory of the one I’d witnessed pulling the head off of an infected.
One of the three lifted his hand, returning Brooke’s greeting. He didn’t move to meet us, though. There were too many people gathered around them, glaring. The fey weren’t exactly welcome in Tenacity.
“Solin brought you options,” Brooke said in a side whisper. “Isn’t that sweet?”
Finding myself the object of intense focus for two fey was far from sweet. I trembled with fear.
“Maybe I should talk to Wayne about this first,” I hedged.
“Why? He’s the one pushing for you to trade up the stuff in the basement. And we’re going to get a far better trade in Tolerance than you will here. Everyone is food-poor.”
I knew she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to close the distance between us and the fey. The people glaring extended their hateful stares to us, and I recognized one in the group. Aaron. He gathered wood with Wayne, and like many here, Aaron wasn’t a fan of the fey. Which was slightly ironic because rumor had it that he’d been rescued by them. However, unlike many people here, he and his friends were more vocal about their dislike.
His gaze locked with mine, and I saw the surprise flash in his eyes before disgust took over. I quickly looked away.
“I’m Brooke,” Brooke said, holding out her hand to the first fey.
“I am Groth,” the bigger one said, accepting her hand.
“I am Azio,” the second one, only shorter by an inch, said. His gaze was on me.
Brooke glanced at me, too.
“And this is Terri. Terri, pick your ride.”
My throat closed as I stared at the pair then slowly shuffled toward Azio. He still towered over me with shoulders that probably brushed the sides of any door he passed through, but smaller was smaller, and I’d take it.