The Shifting Price of Prey

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘Gods, this is a mess,’ Finn muttered, before turning to face me with a determined expression. ‘Helen’s been staying at the Morrígan’s castle while we’ve been there. Not that we’re staying together. It’s a big place,’ he finished quickly.

Shock rocked through me and I sat abruptly back on the bed. Ugh! I hadn’t seen that coming. My own green-eyed monster reared up and snarled, surprising me with its strength. But my fury was more than just jealousy. Damn it. Helen the Witch-bitch was pure poison; even if he couldn’t admit that before, surely he couldn’t deny it now, not after what she’d done to him and their daughter.

I balled my hands, glared up at him. ‘How the hell could you let her near Nicky again, after what she did?’

He raked his hand through his hair. ‘Nicky doesn’t know. She doesn’t remember much about what happened, and she was brighter once Helen turned up, so I agreed not to tell her anything.’

I shot him a disbelieving look. ‘You agreed?’

‘Helen . . . yes, I agreed.’

In other words, it had been the Witch-bitch’s idea, and she’d somehow persuaded Finn to go along with it. Nothing had changed there then. After all, Helen had persuaded Finn to keep his daughter a secret from me in the first place, despite the fact that we were supposed to be on the fast track to providing Nicky with a curse-breaking baby half-brother. And how the hell was Nicky going to feel when she found out that both her parents had been lying to her by omission? If my own experience, right up until I was fourteen, was anything to go by – my vamp father had been an expert at that sort of leaving-out-the-important-stuff style of communication (such as, the princely vampire he planned to marry me off to just happened to be a psychotic sadistic murderer) – then I could pretty much guarantee Nicky would be shocked, angry and betrayed. Much like I felt now.

When the fuck was Finn going to learn to stand up for himself? And his daughter?

I blew out searing breath. ‘You haven’t forgotten what Helen did, have you?’

He frowned. ‘No, of course not.’

‘So the fact that she’s responsible for Nicky being pregnant, that she’s lied and deceived you throughout all the time you’ve known her, and she used her position as a police officer to try and ensure I ended up either dead or pregnant, or both, more than once— Oh, and let’s not forget she’s responsible for the death of my best friend and the continuation of the fertility curse. And you still let her stay?’

A puzzled look flickered over his face as if he couldn’t believe it himself. ‘I know . . .’ Then his expression settled to resignation and he held his arms out in surrender. ‘She’s Nicky’s mother, Gen. What was I supposed to do?’

‘Protect your daughter and keep her mother the fuck away from her.’

‘She can’t harm her, not with me there.’

‘She’s already harmed her, Finn! And it’s going to harm Nicky even more once she finds out the truth!’

‘Hell’s thorns, Gen. Don’t you think I haven’t thought about that? If I could’ve stopped Helen joining us, I would have. I’ve told her she had until after the baby’s born, then she had to leave.’

Right. So Helen got to Nicky first. By the time Finn had found out, it was too late. Or she’d made him think it was. Fuck. I wanted to scream with the anger and frustration, and yes, the hurt boiling up inside me.

‘You know she’s wanted by the police?’ I said flatly. ‘She can’t come back here unless she’s prepared to pay for her crimes.’ Though even being burned at the stake was way too good for the Witch-bitch.

‘Of course I do. And so does Helen. She’s not going to return here.’

Not if I had anything to do with it. ‘How long’s she been there?’

He looked down at the pot of violets. ‘A couple of days after we got there. Jack brought her in.’

Jack was Helen’s changeling son. And one of the Morrígan’s ravens. I narrowed my eyes. ‘So Helen was there before the Morrígan took you all out of sync? And you didn’t think to tell me this first?’

He half shook his head, then sighed. ‘I wanted to tell you from the beginning, but . . . hell, Helen said it wasn’t a good idea, and even my brothers said not to. That I should just keep it to myself. That you wouldn’t be happy’ – I wasn’t! – ‘That you wouldn’t understand’ – I didn’t! – ‘That if you thought there was something going on between me and Helen you might not be waiting when I got back’ – Got that right! – ‘Then when I did, they started bringing up Sylvia and Ricou.’

I stared at him. My own dysfunctional family wasn’t any better than Finn’s. But at least they didn’t try to run my love life for me. Oh, wait, they did. They’d stuck me with the Fertility spell and all its problems. Fuck. ‘I don’t have a clue what to say, Finn.’

He took my hands in his. ‘Gen, I want you to know there’s nothing going on with Helen. I don’t spend any more time alone with her than I can help, and I don’t want to. But she likes to play happy families with Nicky, and she’s using it to . . .’ He trailed off, colour staining his cheeks. Embarrassment? ‘It makes things difficult,’ he finished lamely.

Why the fuck would he be embarrassed if nothing was going on? Something broke inside me. I’d had enough. I couldn’t listen to him tell me any more about the Witch-bitch. He’d always had a blind spot where she was concerned. The suspicious part of me thought she’d sicced him with some sort of spell, in fact he’d sort of admitted that she had, which just made his continuing acceptance of their relationship worse. And if he couldn’t break away from her, especially now, then I was done.

I jerked my hands from his. ‘You need to leave, Finn.’ His brows knitted. ‘Leave?’

‘Yes.’ I strode from the bedroom through the living room to the front door and yanked it open. ‘Now.’

He followed me, an earnest frown on his face. ‘You truly want me to go, Gen?’

Part of me wanted to say no. I didn’t want to lose Finn. He was my friend. And he had a place in my heart. But his Witch-bitch ex was as toxic as nuclear slag. Almost everything bad was down to her, and no way did I want her to get her evil claws back into Finn and Nicky. But I couldn’t stop him from letting her. He had to do that himself. And if she was part of their lives— If he let her stay part of their lives, his life, then I couldn’t stay his friend.

Whatever had broken inside me turned jagged, my throat ached and tears stung my eyes.

I looked at him straight. ‘Yes. I want you to go.’

‘Is this because of that sucker? Are you seeing him?’

Fury filled me and I opened my mouth, ready to tell him, hell, no! Then, at a nudge from the magic, my rage muted and I snapped it shut. Was this about Malik? Okay, yeah, I wanted both of them. And I knew there was no way I could have my cake and eat it with the two of them. And truth was, I didn’t want to. Sharing might be Sylvia and Ricou’s thing, but, right now, it wasn’t mine. So I’d known a choice was always going to have to be made. And that choosing one would mean losing the other.

But Finn playing happy families with Helen meant the end of Finn and me, even if Malik hadn’t been in the picture. So yeah, Finn’s half-arsed confession was making my choice easier, but it wasn’t the reason I was telling him to go.

‘This is about you and Helen,’ I said flatly, ‘which you’d realise if you took the time to think about what you’ve just told me.’

‘Gen, he’s a sucker. A sucker who can order you around against your will. Or have you forgotten?’

‘I haven’t forgotten anything. Like I haven’t forgotten how Malik gave his protection to every fae and faeling in London when I asked, and wanted nothing in return. Or how he was the one who put himself in danger helping me during the demon attack last Hallowe’en—’

‘I would have come if I could, Gen,’ Finn interrupted, his expression stricken. ‘You know that.’

‘Yeah, I do,’ I snapped, my anger mounting again. ‘But you couldn’t, could you? And why was that? Oh yeah, because Helen stopped you.’

‘Because I would’ve broken her circle. She was working to keep the demon contained.’

She was working to let the demon kill me, you mean. Rage rushed through me. I grabbed his arm and shoved him through the Ward on the flat’s door.

‘And I haven’t forgotten,’ I shouted, ‘that without Helen, Nicky, your daughter, wouldn’t be pregnant and Grace, my best friend, wouldn’t be fucking dead in my place.’

He stood on the landing outside, eyes wide with shock, then he shuddered as if casting off a heavy coat. ‘Gen. You’re right. I’m sorry—’

I slammed the door in his face.

The rage drained out of me, leaving me empty and hollow. Pain flooded in to take its place. I sank to the floor, hands over my mouth, until the sound of his footsteps faded.

Then I let my tears fall.