Courts and Cabals 2 G.S. D'Moore (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📖

a pretty princess at the top of the social ladder. She was the descendent of those who’d conquered the wild tundra. Her bloodline bested the vicious race of malks: large creatures that looked like the bastard offspring of foxes and sabretooth tigers. They’d made grizzly bears look like neutered puppies. The remains of their ancient foes decorated her mother’s throne. She was an amazon warrior, daughter of a literal goddess, and would one day wield the Coldstone; an artifact of great power.

Her glamour shimmered and shifted with her attitude. Instead of white ski gear more at home on a snow bunny, she was wearing hunter’s camouflage. She found the part of herself from when she was younger; when she walked the battlefields of the Faerie Realm and took the lives of weaker Fae in the name of Winter. If anyone looked, they would see the shift in her eyes. They’d always been a cool silver, but there was now a fire in them that gave her chosen glamour a fierce appearance. This wasn’t the #fierce that some pampered mortal tween could post on Twitter because they managed to get out of bed in the morning. Aveena was here to kill whoever got in her way. This was a fierceness born in war.

To win the coming battle, she needed to prepare. Proper preparation was the first step to victory, and for that, she needed to develop a plan. The mission was clear; she needed to retrieve Cameron Dupree from the hands of her whore, half-sister’s cabal and deliver him to her mother. If she did not, her mother would remove Aveena from the line of succession. There was no doubt in Aveena’s mind that if that occurred the little brat festering in her mother’s womb would have Aveena killed at the first opportunity. That was the Fae way, and the reason most powerful families only had one heir. A lot of people died in the House civil wars that occasionally plagued her race.

If the mission was clear, the environment, the battlefield where she would fight, was less so. A reconnaissance of the school showed there was still a lot of commotion. Cloaked in glamour, she investigated. Local police, augmented by NYS troopers, were going through Lilith’s room with a fine-tooth comb. She didn’t understand why the mortals were dusting for fingerprints in the whore’s bedchamber. This was obviously her room, and if they used the blacklight Aveena spotted in their bags, they would see horrors they couldn’t unsee. Cam’s room was next door, and she slipped in when the forensic specialists were focused elsewhere.

She’d never been to Cam’s room before. Killing him was beneath her station until now, so she delegated that task. “And Chloe died for it.”

Despite the water nymph’s lesser blood, Aveena had been fond of her. The only other full-Fae bound to her House in the area, it was easy for them to keep in touch and talk about home. The changelings Aveena was normally surrounded with had never been to the Fae’s home realm, and likely wouldn’t unless they accounted themselves well during their service. In other words, changelings were fucking useless back in the lands of the Fae and would just die a quick, impractical death. They were of more use here.

She scanned through Cam’s belongings carefully and quickly. Her glamour was strong enough to conceal her from the forensics team, but if a human mage wandered by on the lookout for foreign magic, they would spot her. She went through his belongings looking for anything that would give her an advantage over the man. He’d proven to be more than she anticipated, and discounting him as a weak human had been a fatal error. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

For the most part, his room was like any other teenage male’s: pornography, smokes, and a variety of low-cost clothing. She set aside her dignity and looked through his underwear drawer for anything that might be hidden. The only thing she found was a couple hundred dollars concealed in a pair of socks. She frowned and moved on to his desk.

“Here’s something,” she grabbed a plain wooden box and opened it.

Inside were trinkets and a spark of magic. There was a picture of a woman, who judging by her face was Cam’s biological mother. Aveena had extensive files and surveillance done on Cam’s foster family in case she needed to leverage their lives, so she knew this wasn’t them. The woman was smiling, and was not unattractive, but she lacked the true beauty someone like Aveena possessed. Still, she pocketed the picture just in case. Sentimental items that someone kept with them every day had interesting magical properties, and she might be able to use it to her advantage.

Carefully, she reached for the pocket watch. That was where the real spark of magic came from. Even more interesting, it wasn’t human magic. It also wasn’t Fae; it was something different.

“Interesting,” she’d have to find someone willing to divulge its secrets. She noted the inscription on the inside, but didn’t have any more idea what it said than Cam had.

Because she wasn’t an idiot, she made sure to make a buffer of glamour around the object before tucking it in her pocket. There was plenty of magic out there that ate other magic to gain power, and she wasn’t about to get killed by a mysterious timepiece. With the two mementos secured, she gave the room a final look and stepped.

She walked three paces and stepped back into the mortal realm on the far side of the football field between the school and Vincent’s Hollow. She took a moment to listen, look, and extend her senses outward in search of threats. There was nothing, but assuming there was nothing could be a fatal error she couldn’t afford to make. Secure in her safety and seclusion, she continued planning.

Time was a factor.