Brave (A Wicked Trilogy 3)

I couldn’t sit or lay in this bed. My thoughts were racing along with my heart.

What did they do to me?

Hands shaking, I broke the restraints around my ankles and swung my legs off the bed. I stood on bare feet, surprised to find that I wasn’t dizzy. Raising my left hand, I first noticed the red, angry scar on top. The same scar was on my palm. Squeezing my hand closed, I could easily remember the stabbing pain of the branch shooting through my hand.

Now it barely even hurt.

There was no ignoring the glimmer when I twisted my hand and caught the soft glow of light. My heart dropped. A thousand questions erupted, but I already knew what the answers were going to be.

Had I fed too much and it had changed me?

Who knew that was possible? No one. Or maybe everyone, and they just failed to tell me.

A riot of emotions crept up, sealing off my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t believe this. On top of everything else, I was now . . .

I didn’t know what I was.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, I opened my eyes. My gaze flicked over the room. The walls were bare, but there was a bathroom to my right. I hurried over to it, flipping the light on.

I stopped in front of the oval mirror above the porcelain basin, ignoring the mess of tangled, red curls.

“Oh God,” I whispered.

The light was brighter in here, and as I tilted my chin up, the sheen to my skin intensified. My face looked like I’d taken one of those high-end highlighters and smeared it all over my face.

Which was what I normally looked like when I tried to contour.

Tink was right though. It wasn’t that noticeable, not to a stranger or a normal human who had no idea fae were a very real thing, but to me?

I noticed.

But that wasn’t all. My features were . . . sharper. More refined. Again, not entirely noticeable but my face was different.

Clutching the basin, I leaned in and stared at my reflection. There were only faint bruises where I’d taken punches I should’ve been able to deflect. There was a tiny red mark on my lower lip. A barely-there purplish bruise along my jaw.

It was almost like weeks had passed since the fight where I got my ass handed to me. A fight I should’ve been able to handle with one arm tied behind my back, but I had to be honest with myself.

My head hadn’t been in the right place—it still wasn’t, and I hadn’t been eating or sleeping right. I’d been weak, and look at what it got me?

Two stab wounds and more.

Were my eyes paler? They’d always been a light blue, but they were almost . . . iridescent now, the pale blue so stark against the blackness of my pupils.

Lifting one trembling hand, I pushed my hair back as I turned my head to the side.

I gasped.

The tips of my ears were definitely pointy. Nothing extreme, and again, a normal person probably wouldn’t notice it, but these were not ears.

This was not my skin.

Dropping my hair, I faced the mirror and bared my teeth. Normal. A sigh of relief shuddered through me. At least they didn’t look oddly sharp like most fae, so there was that I guessed.

The door to the room opened, and I whipped around. What if it was Ren? My stomach tied up. I wasn’t ready to see him. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to see him, but I—

“Ivy?” Faye’s voice rang out.

Definitely not Ren. A wave of disappointment washed over me. I didn’t want to see him and yet there was a part of me somewhere deep inside that wanted it to be him. The same part of me that had wanted it to be Ren sitting there, waiting for me to wake up.

Things had been weird between us before. Now, it would be hella awkward . . . if there was anything left.

Sighing, I stepped out of the bathroom. Faye was alone, staring at the bed and probably at the broken restraints.

The anger resurfaced. “You used a compulsion on me.”

Faye lifted her chin. “I hadn’t wanted to. Trust me. I know what was done to you while you were with the Prince. I told them that. They didn’t want to let you die.”

I remembered her reluctance and Tink’s threat. “Maybe letting me die was the right thing.”

“Ivy, you can’t feel that way. Truly.”

“You don’t know how I feel,” I shot back. “You have no freaking clue.”

She was quiet for a moment. “You’re right. Allowing you to die would’ve been easier. It would’ve definitely solved the problem with the Prince. At least, temporarily.”

My lip curled. “I thought you said all human life is valuable.”

“It is.” She walked over to the chair and sat down. “But what I made you do wasn’t natural. What you’ve become isn’t natural.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “Well, that makes me feel so much better about everything.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel worse.”

“Then you should try harder,” I snapped.

Her shoulders tensed. “I know you’re upset. I get it. I sympathize with it, but what’s done is done. You’re alive.”

“At what cost?” I asked, stepping toward her. “You don’t even know what I am.”

Her gaze flickered over me. “I’m guessing the feedings while you were with the Prince and this last one triggered the part of you that’s fae, making it more dominant. That must be why you have more fae-like characteristics. Whatever fae genes you have in you now are simply stronger. I don’t know what that makes you, but you’re not completely fae. You’re still Ivy.”

Seeing my skin shimmer and having pointy ears didn’t make me feel like Ivy. “And this is something you knew would happen?”

“I’ve never seen it, but I knew it could. I wasn’t thinking about that at the moment. I was saving you, like Ren and Tink demanded.” She paused. “How are you feeling? Hungry?”

I ignored the question. “Where is Ren?”

Her lashes lowered. “He’s currently interrogating every fae in this building to see if they had anything to do with the attack. He’s not here with you because we wanted to make sure it was safe for him. Something that took an absurd amount of time to convince him of.”

Turning away, I thrust a hand through my greasy, nasty hair. “He . . .”

“He’s okay,” she said, a lot quieter. “And it doesn’t appear like you’ll attack him, so he’ll be here the minute I tell him it’s okay.”

I closed my eyes, sucking in a deep breath and holding it.

Faye was quiet for a moment. “I know you’re mad at him—at all of us, but he did it because he loves you.”

But would he still love me once he saw me? Once he realized I was turning more and more into a fae? Once he really thought about what he’d done, allowing me to feed off him like the bitch Breena had?

“Ivy?”

Exhaling, I opened my eyes. A knot of fear crept up my throat. “I’ve changed. That’s obvious. But you all don’t know how much. Like am I going to need to feed now?”

“No fae needs to feed to survive, Ivy. It’s a choice. You should live a normal lifespan, but you may be stronger than before. There may be other things that have changed. The thing is, we really don’t have a precedent for this. It’s not like there has ever been a huge population of halflings in the first place. I only know of one or two who’d fed on humans and those halflings had been in the Otherworld. We only have records of their existence. They changed, like you.”