Trent’s expression shifted. “You are responsible for Lee’s being abducted, Ms. Morgan,” he said coldly. “I’m sure the demon has an ulterior motive for allowing Lee to cross the lines for something as frivolous as a wedding. The least you can do is try to get him back.”
“A rescue!” I yelped, spinning to see him face-on. “Do you know how hard it is to survive a demon, much less trick one’s familiar from him?”
“No,” Trent said, his dislike for me coming through very clearly. “Do you?”
Well, I did, but I wasn’t going to tell Trent that there was another elf of pure descent living across the street from me. He’d use her badly in his biolabs.
Pulse fast, I braced myself when Quen stopped short at a light. We were almost to my neighborhood. Thank God. “Why should I help Lee?” I said angrily. “I don’t know what you heard, but he took me into the ever-after, not the other way around. I tried to get us both out of there, but your friend wanted to give me to Al, and since I like where I live, I fought back. I warned him, and after Lee beat me to a pulp, Al took him instead—the better witch. I will not take the blame for that. Trying to give me to Al to pay off his debt was inhuman.”
Trent’s face lost none of its hard accusation. “Isn’t that what you did to Lee?”
Teeth gritted, I held my arm out, palm up so he could see the demon scar still on my wrist. “No,” I said flatly, shaking for showing it to him so plainly. “I’m sorry, Trent. He was going to give me to Al, and I fought back. I didn’t give him to Al. Lee did that to himself through his own mistaken beliefs. I didn’t gain anything but my freedom.”
Trent’s breath came out softly, the sound seeming to wash away all his tension. He believed me. How about that? “Freedom,” he said. “That’s all anyone wants, isn’t it?”
I looked at Quen to figure out what he felt about all of this, but his expression gave no clue as he drove through the city’s quiet residential area, eyes ranging over the small houses and tidy yards with blow-up pools in back and fallen bikes in front. Most humans were surprised at how normal an Inderland neighborhood was. Old habits of hiding die hard.
“I’m not judging you, Rachel,” Trent said, pulling my attention back to him. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping you could free Lee from the demon—”
“There isn’t enough money in the world for that,” I muttered.
“I want you to be in my wedding in case there’s an attack against me or my fiancée.”
I flopped back around, feeling the cushions enfold me.
“Rachel…” the elf started.
“Stop your car and let me off right here,” I said tightly. “I can walk the rest of the way.”
The car kept going. After a moment Trent said slyly, “It would really grill Ellasbeth’s tomatoes if she was forced to make you one of her bridesmaids.”
A smile flickered over me as I remembered the tall, icily beautiful professional woman seething when she found Trent treating me to breakfast in his robe after I had pulled his freaking elf-ass out of the frozen Ohio River. They didn’t even pretend to be in love, and their marriage was happening only because she was probably the purest-blooded elf out there for Trent to marry and have little baby elves with. I wondered if they’d been born with pointy ears and had them docked.
“It would cheese her off no end, wouldn’t it?” I said, my mood lightening.
“Five thousand for two evenings.”
I laughed, and beside me Quen’s grip on the wheel tightened. “Not even if it was ten thousand for one event,” I said. “And besides, it’s too late to get the dress.”
“They’re in the trunk,” Trent said quickly, and I cursed myself for even bringing it up as an excuse, since it implied that all he needed was to find my price.
Then I did a double take, turning to look at him. “‘They’?” I questioned.
Trent shrugged to shift from powerful drug lord to frustrated fiancé. “She hasn’t decided between the two of them. You’re an eight tall, right? Long in the sleeves?”
I was, and it was flattering he remembered. But then so was Ellasbeth. “What color are they?” I asked, curious.
“Ah, she’s narrowed it down to a modest black shift and a full-length sea green,” he said.
Unflattering flat black and cucumber-puke green. Grea-a-a-a-at. “No.”
Quen gently applied the brakes and put the car in park. We were at the church. I grabbed my bag to look into it and make sure I still had the focus. They were elves. I didn’t know what they could do. “Thanks for the ride, Trent.” The tension rose as I unbuckled myself. “It was nice seeing you, Quen,” I said, then hesitated, meeting his green eyes as he sat with his hands on the wheel and waited. “You…ah, aren’t going to show up tonight to convince me, are you?”