The Sharpest Blade by Sandy Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

and are all but shunned. At least they were when King Atroth was in charge. Lena accepts them, though. She and her brother were friends with the
tor’um
in Vancouver. In fact, Sethan died trying to protect them from Atroth’s fae.
    Of course, the reason Atroth’s fae were there to begin with was because the
tor’um
were sheltering rebels.
    I shake my head, dislodging thoughts of the Vancouver
tor’um
from my mind. This man can’t be Kynlee’s real dad—human and fae can’t have kids—so he has to have adopted her.
    “I’m sorry,” she says. “I had to get another ride home.”
    “Who are you?” the man asks me.
    “My name’s McKenzie,” I say. “I met Kynlee—”
    “She works at the library,” Kynlee says quickly. “I had to wait for her shift to end.” She looks at me with wide, pleading eyes.
    “Um.” He’s human, but he knows about the Realm. That means he has to have the Sight. He has to know what his daughter is. And if he’s her legal guardian, he has a right to know where she was, doesn’t he?
    Her father stiffens. He looks at his daughter, then at me, then back at her again.
    “Kynlee.” His voice is low. “Where are your gloves?”
    She’s not wearing either of them. Her arms are bare, and the lightning striking across her skin is pale and erratic. Is it more frequent than usual?
    It must be. He grabs her wrist as if that will help him inspect her
edarratae
more closely. “What have you been doing?”
    Kynlee sighs in defeat. “I was just helping her, Dad.”
    “Helping her with what?” He eyes me.
    Ah, hell. This is going to go so badly.
    I clear my throat. “She fissured me to the Realm. I shouldn’t have let her. I wasn’t in my right mind, and I’m sorry.”
    He doesn’t immediately slam the door in my face. He peers up and down the street, searching for fae, I presume, then he shoves Kynlee inside, and says, “Stay the fuck away from my daughter.”
    If I had been standing one inch closer, the slamming door would have bloodied my nose.

FIVE

    I T’S JUST AFTER 10:00 P.M . when I pull into my apartment complex and turn off the engine. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I climb the steps to my second-story apartment and unlock the door. My place is tiny—a six-hundred-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment in a bad part of town—but it was renovated just before I rented it, and I can actually afford the rent without help from the fae. It’s mine—so is the used car I parked outside—and there’s something satisfying in knowing that I can make it on my own.
    “Sosch,” I call after closing and locking the front door. The
kimki
has been living with me these last three weeks. I’m not sure if that’s by choice. He showed up in the hotel suite I was staying in a few days before I moved out, and since a fae hasn’t been in my new apartment, Sosch has been stuck with me. The only way he can get back to the Realm is by piggybacking through a fae’s fissure.
    I expect to find him curled up on my couch. He’s not. He’s on the kitchen counter—a place where I’ve explicitly told him not to be half a hundred times—and he’s glaring at me like I haven’t fed him in a week.
    “I fed you this morning,” I tell him, grabbing a box of Goldfish out of the cabinet. I pour the crackers into a bowl on the floor. Sosch still doesn’t look pleased. He holds grudges worse than any person I know.
    Whatever. I’m too tired to cheer him up. I leave my keys on the counter, then walk to my bedroom door.
    My
closed
bedroom door, I realize only after I’ve already started to push it open. I never shut it.
    Instinctively, my muscles tighten, bracing for someone to come barreling out at me. The someone doesn’t. He doesn’t because he’s tied spread-eagle to my bed.
    What the hell?
    The man is awake, his mouth is duct-taped shut, and he’s glaring at me with murder in his left eye. His right eye is swollen shut. His lower lip is split, and I’m pretty damn sure I see