“I disagree.”
“I’m sure you do,” he replied. “I’ve been incredibly lenient with you.”
I blinked, and almost looked up at him. “Seriously?”
“Yes. I have removed the chain. I have not pushed, and if you think I have, then you haven’t learned anything.” Straightening, he curled his hand around my arm. “I could’ve gotten you to say yes several times over the last couple of days. I haven’t. Should I have?”
“I would’ve said yes only because I’m not in control of myself,” I said, shifting my gaze to the floor. “And I assume the reason why you haven’t done that is because you know it won’t work. Sure, you can get me to agree, but I cannot be under your control, and I am the entire time.”
Drake didn’t respond for several moments and then he dropped my arm. “What do you want to talk about?”
Surprise flickered through me. He was actually relenting? “I . . . I have questions.”
“Then ask them.”
His bored tone irked me, but I let it go. “Do we have to stay in here?”
He was silent for a moment. “I guess not. Where would you like to go?”
Hope sparked alive. “Outside.”
“Not going to happen.”
Out of instinct, I lifted my gaze, but stopped at his chest. “I have been locked in this room and in this house for over two weeks. I would like to breathe open air. Is that really too much to ask for?”
“Yes.”
I unfolded my arms. “Being cooped up in here is going to drive me insane.”
“I thought you already were.”
I was seriously going to throat punch this guy. “All I’m asking for is a couple of minutes outside, in the sun and in the open air. That’s it.”
Drake muttered something in a different language and then pushed away from the dresser. He started for the door and I lifted my gaze. “If you try anything, you will not like what happens.”
Triumph flashed within me. “Also, just a heads up, but threats don’t exactly make me feel comfortable either.”
He held the door open. “And just a heads up, I really don’t care.”
I pressed my lips together as I walked past him, knowing if I ticked him off now, I wouldn’t just be starting all over. He’d have me down in that horrible room and I would be doing terrible things to innocent people.
That horrible cloudy feeling swept over me, and I was cold down to the marrow. Just standing beside him and having to breathe the same air made me feel like there was an iceberg taking up residence in my chest.
I hated it.
But I had to deal with it.
Pushing those thoughts aside to dwell and stress over later, I followed him down the winding staircase. There was an ancient by the front door. He said nothing as he opened it and stepped aside.
Cool air rushed over me, spreading goosebumps up and down my arms. The thin dress was no protection against the chilly temperature, but I wasn’t going to complain. I was outside, and even though I knew I wouldn’t make it far at all if I ran for it, there could be other opportunities. I just needed to . . . behave myself. Ugh.
Drake walked out onto a sprawling, vacant porch. I imagined at one time it had bushy ferns hanging above the railings and comfy chairs perfect for a lazy day of reading. There was nothing human about it now. Just cold. Empty.
A driveway that hadn’t been repaved in ages cut into the dead grass and disappeared into the woods several yards from the front porch. I walked down the old stone steps, stopping in the sunlight. I inhaled, closing my eyes for a few seconds, centering my thoughts. There was a deep, rich earthy scent that reminded me of a pile of grass clippings. I recognized it. I opened my eyes, looking around. I didn’t see it, but I knew we had to be close to the bayou.
“Ask your questions.”
I hated a lot about the prince of the Otherworld, but I really hated his demanding tone. “Can we walk?”
Sighing, he practically stomped down the steps. “Ask.”
I shot a nasty glare at his back, but I started walking. I did have a lot of questions and decided to start with the most important one. “What do you plan to do once you have your apocalypse baby?”
Drake looked over his shoulder at me. “Would you please stop calling it that?”
“What’s your game plan? The baby is born and the gates open. What next?” I folded my arms again as I scanned the landscape. There were no other roads except the driveway we were walking down. I knew there were none at the back of the house, because the bedroom I was staying in faced that portion of land. It was just tall weeds and trees back there. “There are a lot of humans. Like seven billion or something. I know that sounds like an all-you-can-eat buffet, but that’s a lot of humans who aren’t going to want to be on a menu.”
He chuckled as he glanced over at me. “Humans are stupid.”
I shook my head. “Wow.”
“They ignore the obvious. They have a tendency to stick their heads in the sand and fabricate logical explanations that assuage their fears rather than face what’s right in front of them,” he said, and I kind of had to agree with some of that. “They won’t know we have taken control until it’s too late.”
“And how will you take control?” I asked.
He stood in the middle of the cracked driveway and faced me. I immediately lowered my gaze out of instinct. “There may not be seven billion fae in this realm, but there are hundreds of thousands of us now.”
The Order always knew there were a lot of fae, but hundreds of thousands? Holy crapola, that was a lot.
“One fae equals a thousand humans,” he said, and I figured his math was a bit biased. “And once we open the gates, all will come through, and there are millions of us.”
Wind tossed my curls across my face as I stared at his chest. There was no way, for obvious reasons, we could allow that to happen. “There are still more of us.”
“You mean more of them,” he corrected. “Do you think we haven’t been planning for decades? Centuries?” He stepped forward, and my muscles locked up. “We are not barbarians who can only conquer by war. Not that we’d completely rule out that option if it came to that.”
Good to know. I started walking past him, toward the end of the driveway. “But?”
“But we have planned,” he repeated, easily catching up to me with his long legs. “We are everywhere. Some are just ordinary citizens. Others have willed their ways into positions of power.”
I thought of Marlon. He was known as a huge developer in the city, and he had a lot of power locally, but I knew Drake wasn’t just talking about land development. “You’ve infiltrated the government, haven’t you?”
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.”