Ella's Masquerade: A Midnight Fae Academy Prequel Read online

  “I’m taller than you,” I pointed out, waving at Belinda behind the bar before following Kols outside. “And I don’t want to get laid.” Well, I did, but not by a random chick. I wanted Ella and only Ella.

  “Well, you might not want to, but I do.” He led me to a fancy sports car—one he’d borrowed from the garage of the Darlington residence. We kept it as a base for the family, which was why I’d taken up residence for school purposes. “You can feed without fucking, and I’ll do it the preferred way.”

  I shook my head, sliding into the passenger seat beside him. Refusing him would be a moot point. He’d just talk me into heading out with him.

  “You could invite your Ella to join us,” he suggested, causing my blood to warm.

  “And have her watch me feed from another woman? I’d rather fuck a gargoyle.”

  He grimaced. “Ouch, dude.”

  “Truth, dude,” I returned.

  Kols started the car, then paused, his expression darkening. “Actually, we should bring her.”

  “I just said—”

  “Yeah, I heard you, but think about it for a second. She can’t access her powers, right? Why do we drink human blood?”

  Holy shit, I thought, my eyebrows lifting. “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you’re too busy making out with her to think straight. Not that I blame you. She’s gorgeous.”

  “Yeah, she’s also mine,” I reminded him. “So don’t get any ideas.”

  “Not entirely, T. You haven’t bitten her yet,” he mused, tapping his jaw.

  “Careful, K,” I cautioned. “I would hate to have to tell our father how his preferred heir died while in the Human Realm.”

  He chuckled, totally unfazed by my very real threat. “Call your intended. Invite her out to play so we can test our theory.”

  Yeah, this would be a fun conversation.

  Let’s drink blood together, baby.

  Yes, please!

  Like that would happen.

  With a barely suppressed sigh, I dialed her number—I’d gifted her a phone shortly after our trip to the Midnight Fae Realm—and prepared for the worst.

  Ella agreed to the plan. And not after several rounds of bickering over the issue, she’d accepted the idea immediately.

  Apparently, she was as desperate as I was to figure out her missing link.

  I glanced at her, admiring the way her fitted black dress cut off at the middle of her thighs. Similar to Homecoming, she hadn’t owned anything club-worthy. So we’d made a stop on our way to the portal and she’d chosen this sexy little number. Her blonde hair was tied up in a messy bun, her face devoid of makeup, and a pair of black heels on her slender feet.

  Perfection.

  Beautiful.

  Mine.

  I squeezed her hand and brought her wrist to my lips.

  I leaned down to ask, “You okay, El?” El had become my preferred nickname for her. While she’d protested it at first, her cheeks seemed to redden every time I said it now. Like she enjoyed me having a special name just for her.

  “I’m still reeling from the portal experience,” she admitted against my ear, the music vibrating the club around us. “I can’t believe one exists in the Darlington Library.”

  “We have them all over,” I informed her. “All the fae use them, not just Midnight Fae.” Like a network of teleporters, but they required unique codes to reach different realms and locations. If a human stumbled upon one, it would function like a standard elevator within the building. However, enter a specific code in the pad, and it took the rider to a whole new world of fun.

  In our case, we ventured off to London since it was several hours ahead and prime nightclub hour for a Friday night.

  She glanced around, her cocktail forgotten on the tall table before us. Her gaze fell on my brother dancing near the edge of the floor with a cute little brunette. She had her arms draped around his neck, pushing her breasts into his chest in a clear offer. While he grinned down at her, I caught the tightening of his jaw.

  He wanted a challenge, not an easy conquest.

  So he might only feed tonight after all.

  “Tray?” Ella placed her palm on my chest and pressed her lips to my ear again. “You’re going to have to teach me how to, uh, do this.”

  I released her hand to wrap my arm around her back and tug her into my side. “Let’s watch Kols,” I said into her ear.

  “No.” She curled into me and gripped the lapel of my blazer. “I want you to show me.”

  I gaped at her. “You want to watch me with another woman?”

  She scowled. “What? No.” Her emphatic response left me frowning.

  “Then what, Ella?”

  “Bite me,” she said. “I want to know how it feels and all that. And also to, uh, see how you do it. Well, to understand it. Like, do the teeth sharpen?” Her eyes widened a little. “Do you have fangs?”

  I chuckled, despite the weight pressing down on my chest. “No, El. No fangs.”

  Her relieved expression only increased my amusement. “Well, that’s good, then. So you’ll show me?” She arched her neck to indicate what she meant, her nose scrunching. “Just don’t take too much.”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not happening.” And I wouldn’t feed on someone else in front of her either. “Let’s just watch Kols.” It appeared he was close to seducing his little brunette into a cove, where he would kiss her deeply, move to her neck, and nibble. She’d liken the whole experience to receiving a hickey—one that may or may not result in an orgasm. It depended on her intensity levels pre-bite.

  “I don’t want to watch Kols,” Ella snapped. “I want you to bite me.”

  “No.” And I refuse to discuss it further. “Focus on—” I caught her wrist as she started to walk away. “Where the hell are you going?”

  She yanked out of my hold and continued moving without a word.

  I glanced upward and prayed for patience before stalking after her. I found her outside of the club on the sidewalk, walking in the general direction of the portal we’d arrived through. “Isabella,” I said, trying again to grab her. But she moved out of my reach and spun around to thrust her finger against my chest.

  “Don’t you ‘Isabella’ me, Trayton Nacht. If you’re not going to show me what to do, then I’m just going home.”

  I folded my arms. “Yeah? How? You don’t even know the code or how to activate the lift.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  “Wow, we’re back to square one already?” I feigned shock. “Here I thought it’d be at least another hour before you picked a pointless fight with me.”

  Her hand lifted, but I caught her wrist before her palm could connect with my face. I walked her backward into the alley, pressing her up against the wall. My powers triggered, igniting a cloak of sorts to hide our quarrel from anyone passing by. A natural response that I’d used countless times to disguise my feedings, but I had no intention of biting Ella right now.

  No, I wanted to fucking throttle her.

  “Were you just about to hit me?” I demanded.

  “You’re being a dick.” She tried to extract herself.

  I pinned her thighs with my own and caged her smaller body between my arms. “Stop, Isabella.”

  “You stop, Trayton,” she retorted, her blue eyes glimmering with fury and restrained power as she glowered up at me. “If you want Kols to teach me about biting so bad, then I’ll ask him to show me. But I want a real demonstration, not just to watch from the kid’s corner.”

  “Did you just suggest you want my brother to bite you?” Flames erupted on my fingertips with the words. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  “No, but you clearly have! What was the point of bringing me here if you weren’t going to actually teach me anything?”

  “I was teaching you until you
stomped off like a little princess throwing a tantrum.”

  She gasped. “Fuck you, Tray.”

  Jesus! “What the hell is wrong with you? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “You’re being an obstinate jerk and not explaining anything to me.”

  “Do you even hear yourself?” I wondered out loud, flabbergasted. “I’ve spent the last month doing exactly the opposite.”

  “So why won’t you bite me?” she asked, her gaze narrowing.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, my head falling back. “Is that what this is about? The fact that I won’t bite you?”

  “No,” she said, the word too fast for it to be believable. “It’s that you won’t tell me why. You’re acting all high and mighty, saying it won’t happen, that I should watch Kols, and refusing to elaborate.”

  I softened a little at her explanation, hearing the words she refused to say that were carefully threaded between the admission.

  She wanted to know why I wouldn’t bite her.

  Because she wanted me to bite her.

  I palmed her cheek and pressed my forehead to hers. “Ella, when a male fae bites a female fae with a compatible bloodline, it initiates a mating process. If I bite you, you’ll become mine. Permanently. Because there’s no going back once a male fae has initially claimed a female fae.”

  Her only response was a puff of air.

  “It technically takes three bites,” I continued softly. “The first is more the dating phase, the second is an engagement period, and the third is a mating for life. And it can only be initiated by a male fae.” Which was a source of contention among the Midnight Fae.

  Our females were rarely given a choice in the higher circles. Even Ella’s mother, who had chosen a human, would have eventually been called back to fulfill her familial obligations.

  Just as Ella would one day be forced to accept me.

  That I wanted her to make the choice herself was merely a personal preference on my part. Not all male fae felt that way.

  But Kols and I were raised a little differently. Our mother was rather keen on the human modernist movements, as she called them.

  “Wh-what about me being a Halfling?” Ella asked softly, her blue eyes wide and holding mine. “I’m still part human.”

  “Your fae bloodline overrides the other.” I lowered my hand from her cheek down to her hip, gently grasping her as I placed my other arm against the wall over her head.

  “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. “I sensed it the moment we met in that alley years ago. Your royal line was like a buzzing energy that warmed my skin, marking you as a potential mate. It’s why we tend to get carried away when we kiss.”

  Her pupils flared. “Because our blood makes us want more…” Her cheeks flushed a pretty shade. “Things.”

  I chuckled. “Things?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Sex?” I suggested. “Intimacy?”

  That only made her cheeks darken to a gorgeous red as she bobbed her head in affirmation.

  “Oh, Ella, that’s not just our magical compatibility.” I slid my thigh between hers, my grip tightening on her hip. “We want more because we’re attracted to one another. Our Elite bloodlines are only a small piece of the puzzle.” I knew plenty of mated pairs where one side—typically the female—despised the other.

  “But our connection adds to the, uh, heat, right?” She cleared her throat. “Like, that’s why I want you to bite me?”

  My blood heated at her question. “You want me to bite you?”

  She nodded shakily, her eyes holding mine. “I… I, yeah. I think I do.”

  “Do or did?” I asked, arching a brow. “Knowing it’ll bind you to me, I assume you meant did.”

  Ella’s tongue slid out to dampen her lips, her throat working as she fought to swallow. “Do,” she whispered.

  My heart actually stopped. “I don’t think you understand, Ella. When I bite you, there is no going back.”

  “But it makes you mine, too?” she asked.

  I’m already yours, I thought. Out loud, I merely confirmed with, “Yes.”

  “So it’s a two-way commitment. Is that why you won’t bite me? Because you don’t want a mate? I mean, you don’t want me as your mate?”

  Wow, how she’d turned this conversation around.

  My lips parted without sound. Because I didn’t know how to answer. Never in my wildest dreams would I have anticipated having this conversation now, here, in London, outside a club. She had to be freezing, too, with the wintry temperatures settling in around us. Yet her cheeks remained a rosy red.

  Because she’s a fae.

  I wondered if she even realized her immunity to the chill surrounding us.

  No, she was too consumed by the biting inquiry.

  She thought I didn’t want to claim her. It was written in the uncertainty of her expression, the way her lower lip wobbled just slightly as if she expected my rejection.

  How far we’d come in a month.

  Hell, how far we’d come in the last hour.

  She’d just tried to hit me ten minutes ago. Now she wanted me to mark her.

  “I do want a mate,” I told her softly. “All fae males crave the bond, but it’s often one-sided. Our society—the Council—assigns royal pairings. Kols, for example, is betrothed to Emelyn Jyn. But they hate each other.”

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Emelyn absolutely wanted to fuck Kols. However, her familial line was known for using physical persuasion as a way to manipulate their mates.

  Fortunately, my brother thought with his brain more than with his dick.

  “Oh.” Ella’s nose scrunched, her body stiffening. “Wait. That means you’re promised to someone already?”

  “I am.” I lowered my arm from the wall, my palm wrapping around the back of her neck. I could already see the anger brewing in her gaze, the assumptions being made. I killed them with a statement I knew would either destroy our tenuous connection or strengthen it.

  I really hoped for the latter.

  “The Council assigned me to you, Ella. You are my betrothed.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ella

  You are my betrothed.

  Those four words reverberated in my head on repeat, my mouth opening and closing without sound.

  A thrill ran down my spine, chased by a chill of reality.

  “That’s why you’re here,” I managed to say on a breath. “That’s why you want to help me. The Council made you.”

  He snorted. “I’m here because I want to be. Unlike my brother, I was provided with options for my mating. I chose you.”

  I blinked. What? “When?”

  “Six months ago.”

  Okay… that was, well, unexpected. “Why?” I croaked out. He didn’t even know me then. Well, outside of running into me in an alley. That hardly even counted as an introduction.

  “Why did I choose you?” he asked, his gaze searching mine.

  Sure, we can go with that. I nodded because speaking required air, and I seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.

  He released my neck to palm the back of his own, his opposite hand still on my hip. “It’s complicated.” I expected him to leave it at that, but he surprised me by continuing. “That night we first met, you were so utterly broken. I’d never seen anyone so shattered in my life, and the sight honestly took my breath away. Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt overwhelmed me. I wanted to kill the human who put you in that powerless state.

  “But I couldn’t. So I followed you home to ensure you were safe. Then I gave the information to the Council. Your identity was clear to me through our instant blood connection, your royal line a famous one. My father looked over your situation personally—you saw his notes in the file.”

  I recalled the documents he’d given me last month and nodded. There’d been detailed reports about the death of my parents and my subsequent upbringing by Clarissa. The early notes didn’t comment on my treatment, just
stating I was in a home with means and would receive a proper human education.

  It was the last two years of documentation that included information on Ryan, Carmen, Dash, and Charlie.

  “Well, your file was given to me about half a year ago as a potential candidate. And when I saw how much you’d endured, my heart broke for you all over again. But then, I saw the fighter in the details. The way you handled every situation thrown your way with grace and determination. And I knew then that you were the one for me.” He released his neck. “Fuck, I think I even knew the night we met. Your touch was magic. I’d never felt anything like it in my sixteen years. And I never forgot it.”

  Sixteen years? “Wait… How old are you?”

  His brow furrowed. “Nearly twenty, why?”

  “I didn’t realize you were older than me.” Some sense settled into me with that admission. “Wait, how much do I really know about you?”

  He gave me a look. “We’ve spent the last month together, where I’ve outlined every detail of fae life, including that of my history. I’d say you know quite a bit.”

  “But I didn’t know your age or that we’re apparently betrothed by a council of fae.” I frowned. “Saying that out loud makes it sound insane.”

  “Because you’ve grown up in the human world, where mortals date for endless months or years, wed, divorce, and start all over again.”

  “That’s a bit of a generalization. Not everyone divorces,” I pointed out.

  “But they do spend an awfully long time—given their short time spans—dating before marriage.”

  Okay, he had a point, but… “Again, not all of them.”

  “Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that your standards are dictated by your human experience. Fae are very different.”

  I twisted my lips to the side, a memory of something he’d said about my mother’s marriage to my father nagging at me. “You said my dad wouldn’t have been able to move on had he been a fae.”

  “Right. Because fae mate for life.”

  “Meaning, if you bite me, we’re together forever.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to explain.”