City of Fae by Pippa DaCosta Read Free Book Online Page B

our homes. You could find them at the post office, at tourist information hubs. Anywhere and everywhere. How best to avoid the fae, and what to do if you messed up and touched one of them, found yourself wanting to touch them. Yeah, I could relate to that.
    “Thanks for this, but he’s not bespelled me.”
Yet,
I added silently, placing the pack on my lap. “A fae was killed at Reign’s after-party.”
    “It was an accident, but yes, a fae died.”
    “An accident.” I repeated, watching his face for any glimmer of deceit. Nothing. He believed it. “Can you tell me what sort of accident?”
    “No.”
    “How did she die?”
    “I can’t tell you that.”
    “Do you know?”
    He frowned. “The FA aren’t big on sharing information.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me this when you came with Miles to question me?”
    “Because you’re a reporter,
and
I wouldn’t be a
good cop
if I told members of the public details they didn’t need to know.”
    “How do you know they don’t need to know?”
    Andrews looked at me, eyebrows up, face tilted away, humor playing in his eyes. “You don’t stop for air, do you?”
    I blinked, trying my most genial big-eyes routine on him. “Did Sovereign have something to do with it?”
    He moistened his lips, and in doing so, banished the smile. “The Fae Authority is going out of their way to hunt him down, even going so far as asking the Met for assistance. I’ve not been with SO-Thirty long, but apparently the FA never ask for help. If Sovereign wasn’t directly involved, he knows someone who was.” He paused, all traces of humor gone. “He might seem to be charming, Miss O’Connor, but the fae are dangerous.”
    “I’m not some love-struck groupie, ya know. I’ve met enough fae victims, willing and unwilling, to not want my fingers burned. I’m a big girl, Detective.”
    “Don’t investigate this any further. Let the professionals deal with it. I don’t want to be on shift when the call comes in with your name in it.”
    Well, wasn’t everyone so nice just looking out for little ol’ me. First Sovereign tells me to go home, and then one of the Met’s finest warns me off. I placed my hand over my heart and fluttered my lashes. “It’s almost as though you care.”
    His soft lips curled. “It’s just … I know how they work. You’re alone in the city, no immediate family, recently made redundant from your place of work.” I winced. “A fae like Sovereign could easily make you disappear.”
    Was he talking from his experience as a cop, or had he dealt with fae bespellment firsthand? “I appreciate it, but … No offense, you don’t know me. I can handle Reign.” I waved the pack. “And if not, I’ll hit him with this.”
    Andrews sat back in his seat and rested his wrist over the steering wheel. “You expect to see him again then?”
    I considered how Reign had wrenched me out of a room full of spiders, and then his less-than-friendly reaction when he’d learned what those spiders had collectively said to me. He seemed suspicious of me, as though I was the untrustworthy one. But, the fact he’d been loitering outside Northcliff House meant he was curious before the spiders attacked. “Maybe. Probably. I think you’re right. He knows something. What happens if the FA catch him?”
    Andrews’s lips twisted, as though he’d tasted something bitter. “If he’s involved, they’ll first revoke his roaming rights, if they haven’t already, so he can’t walk freely in public without an FA escort. For someone like Sovereign, it’d ruin his public image, his career.” Andrews averted his gaze, focusing somewhere outside the car. “We suspect they lock up their more deadly suspects, although we don’t know where.” He settled his gaze on me again, this time with a sparkle of intrigue brightening his eyes. “They’re exceptionally secretive people. We’ve tried to find out more, but they’re as tight-lipped about their methods as we are about