around?” she yelled. “Hello? A little help out here.”
A man dressed in head-to-toe denim finally emerged from the dusky interior of the bar and silenced the whirring machine. He glanced at me. After a slow sweep of my leather-clad body, he tipped his oval face to my wrist. “Try again, baby.”
I wasn’t a fan of being called baby, especially by men twice my age, but since I needed to get into York House, and fast—my guards were bound to grow impatient and look up my location—I clamped my lips shut and lifted my wrist. The bot emitted a shrill beep, followed by some more crazy red blinking.
Denim-man cursed the machine under his breath. “Stupid contraption.” Sighing, he made it stop screeching. “Just display your ID for me.”
Three rapid clicks on the shiny black surface, and my face along with detailed information about my physique leaped off in 2D.
“Um, sweetheart, you’re sev—”
The second his eyes locked on mine, I said, “Nineteen tomorrow. I know.”
The man’s dark eyebrows writhed, but his pupils swelled as he absorbed my false statement. Nodding, he scanned his own wristband, and the glass doors of the bar slid open. “Go right on ahead.”
“Thank you,” I said sweetly.
As I sidestepped him, the man inhaled a long whiff of air. My heart came to a standstill, worried he was fae and had smelled my deception, but fae couldn’t be influenced, so he had to be human. Still, I hurried through the short, mirrored corridor that reflected my waist-long black hair, blue-gray leather jumpsuit, and turquoise eyes from a hundred different angles.
Being the Neverrian king’s daughter afforded me privileges, but skirting human laws wasn’t one of them. My parents were always on my case about setting an example, to which I always rolled my eyes, because I’d heard plenty of stories about them. Most from Neenee Cass.
When Cassidy had a little too much faerie wine—a typical occurrence—she would tell me all about my mother and the trouble she got into. Nima would of course deny deny deny, but her tipped black eyes would always tilt a little higher, and eventually, so would her lips. However much she insisted my aunt loved storytelling as much as she loved sampling the casks of fae wine delivered daily to her Neverrian bar and club, I knew my mother wasn’t the goody two-shoes she claimed to have been.
And my father. Well, Iba never pretended to be good. The only thing he ever declared being good at was infuriating my mother and loving us ut Rowan e retri. From Rowan and back.
Rowan was where my mother grew up. Smackdab in the middle of a cemetery filled with human and Hunter graves. My uncle Kajika spent two centuries in one of those graves, preserved by magical rose petals born of faerie ashes. According to his daughter, Giya, this still bothered him to no end.
My bracelet beeped with an incoming call.
“Speak of the Unseelie,” I murmured before tapping the wristband twice to deny the call.
My cousin wasn’t a tattletale, but if I picked up the call and she caught sight of my surroundings on the holographic feed that would rise from her band, she’d ask where the heck I was. Unlike my guards and my parents, she didn’t have access to my Infinity’s GPS.
GIYA: I’m at your house, but you’re not.
I touched the implant behind my ear to convey the answer scrolling through my brain, which appeared like magic on the holo-chat: I’m on Earth. Running an errand. Why are you at my house?
GIYA: Your father’s organizing a big revel tonight, so I came to get ready with you.
ME: Another revel? In whose honor this time?
GIYA: Have no clue, but apparently, the whole family’s convened. Maybe they have an announcement?
ME: You think?
GIYA: No clue, but hurry back. Veroli is chomping at the bit to do your hair and makeup.
ME: OK.
After shutting down our little chat, I squinted to discern the patrons seated at the bar that girdled a thick glass cylinder lined with every alcoholic beverage imaginable. The color-changing bulbs that floated like jellyfish within the wide tube didn’t afford much light, yet it took me mere seconds to spot Joshua Locklear.
The Earthly-born Daneelie, who’d moved to Neverra at seven years old and misbehaved almost every day since, was a big man, with a head of hair so blond it looked almost white. Said head was currently bobbing to a beat layered over sultry female vocals. As though sensing my approach, it turned in my direction.