Without even looking at his face, I knew he was smiling when he spoke. “Local. Federal. Global. We are everywhere, and it’s only a matter of time before we have complete control.”

He made it sound so simple, and in a way, it was. If they got into enough positions of power, they could take over, slowly changing the world into what they wanted.

“It still won’t be easy,” I said. “Once we figure out what’s happening, we’ll fight back. And yes, the fae have abilities we don’t, but we have a reason to fight no matter what.”

“And what reason is that?”

We’d reached the wooden area, and strangely, but not exactly surprising, there were no sounds of life. No birds. Insects. Nothing. “We value freedom above anything else.”

“Except most humans will already be bent to our will and they will fight for us,” he said. “Human cannon fodder.”

Disgusting. Terrifying.

“I’m done with this,” he said abruptly, startling me. “It’s time.”

Heart lurching in my chest, I took a step back. “Wait. We haven’t been out here long enough. I still have questions.”

“You can ask them later.”

Taking another step back, I struggled to keep the panic down. “Can we walk for a little bit longer? I don’t—”

“You’re delaying the inevitable.” Impatience rang throughout his tone.

Sweat dotted my palms. “I don’t have to . . . have to feed. You’ve made your point now. I get it. You can make me do whatever you want. I don’t need to do that. I don’t want to.”

“You obviously haven’t gotten the point since you keep referring to yourself as a human. It’s time for you to remember what you are,” he said. I knew there was no winning this argument with him.

I spun around quickly, prepared to run back to the house.

“Ivy. Stop.”

I stopped.

Just like that, my body was compelled to answer even though my brain was desperately yelling at me to get away, to move—to do anything to stop what was coming.

“Look at me.”

His voice slipped over my skin like silk. My ears buzzed as I felt my body slowly turning to face him. Against my will, my gaze lifted to his. I waited.

Drake’s eyes deepened. “You will do as I say.”

And I did.

It was strange. One minute I was outside, skin chilled from the cold air, and the next I was in that room. There were different people in here now. The woman was gone, and I wondered what had happened to her. Then I was sitting next to an older man I didn’t know. He had silver hair at his temples, and then after a few whispered words, I was . . . feeding, and then I was upstairs, slipping into a deep sleep.

I was shaken awake, a demanding hand biting into my shoulder. I woke to a dark room and a pale, silvery face.

Faye.

I leaned away from her, rolling onto my side. My thoughts were full of cobwebs, and I couldn’t quite recall the last several hours. All I knew was that I wasn’t supposed to be awake yet. I needed more time. My eyelids started to drift shut.

“You need to wake up,” she said, grabbing my arm and squeezing hard.

Confused, I resisted when she tugged on me. “I . . .”

“There’s no time to explain. You must get up now,” Faye said. “It’s your only chance if you want to escape.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“W-what?” I whispered.

Faye leaned over and turned on the bedside lamp. Soft light flooded the room. “You must get up, Ivy. The prince is not here and this will be your only chance.”

Her words tumbled through my brain like tumbleweeds rolling down a vacant street. I was slow to make sense of them, but I didn’t close my eyes again. I pushed myself up into a sitting position. Nausea hit me, clearing enough of the cobwebs for me to realize that was different from when I woke normally after . . . after feeding.

Feeding.

My gaze lifted to Faye’s. “I fed again.”

Frustration pinched her features as she reached toward me, unlocking the band around my neck. She tossed it onto the bed. “I know. And if you keep feeding, you’re going to get addicted. You probably already are.”

“Addicted?” I repeated dumbly. That was the first I’d ever heard of that. “What do you—?”

“Ivy.” She clutched my shoulders and shook me until my head snapped back. “You need to focus. We have to go now. Do you understand me? This will be your only chance before your time is up and the prince will be in this bed, creating a child that will open all the gates to the Otherworld.”

Creating a baby . . .

Holy shit. I tossed my hair back from my face as the remaining tendrils of sleep cleared and the fogginess left my thoughts. “The prince isn’t here?”

“No.” She pushed off the bed and stood. “He left about thirty minutes ago, taking three of the ancients with him. It was a planned trip, but we don’t have a lot of time. There’s only a small window of opportunity.”

Pushing off the bed, I moaned as a wave of dizziness hit me. I fought through it, straightening. “Sorry,” I gasped out. “I’m not feeling too well.”

“Of course not. You have to sleep off the more unpleasant effects until you get used to them.” She walked over to the door, pressing the side of her face against the wood. “Fae don’t necessarily experience the adverse reactions, and only the younglings, when they first start feeding, experience the euphoria and following sleepiness, but for halflings . . . it can be different. But that’s not important right now.”