Carrick liked it better when he was the one making her eyes outshine the stars, but he’d give this one to Maddox right now.
“I’m going to go hang with them a bit,” Finley said to Carrick since he was the only one she genuinely cared about explaining her actions or whereabouts to. It was implied they were down in the library, but that wasn’t said aloud as Pyke didn’t know about the secret room filled with millennia of information.
Carrick tipped his head, but there was no stopping his subtle smile.
Pyke watched Finley practically trot through the living area and down the outer hall that led to the south side of the penthouse before turning back to the other men. He picked up the beer Zaid had put on the counter, took a long pull, and then leaned his forearms on the island.
Once more, he glanced over his shoulder where Finley had disappeared, and then brought his attention to Carrick. “Are you still feeling overt displays of possessiveness and jealousy where the human is concerned?”
Maddox snickered while Carrick kept his expression bland. But he put to rest any doubts that Pyke might have had. “Finley is off-limits to anyone but me. I hope that’s clear enough for you.”
Pyke laughed, clearly enjoying the fact he’d exposed Carrick’s feelings. But he had always been a good sport, so he picked up his beer and held it up in a toast to Carrick. “Congrats, my friend. As far as humans go, I like her better than any others I’ve met.”
“Glad I have your approval,” Carrick muttered dryly.
“What brought you to Faere?” Pyke asked curiously.
There was no way Carrick could keep the nature of the visit completely a secret from Pyke, despite the binding Nimeyah agreed to submit to. There would be no reason for Carrick and Finley to be there other than the prophecy, so no sense in hiding it.
He was confident Nimeyah wouldn’t give away any details, because as powerful as the Light Fae queen was, she would never get her tongue back if she divulged what Carrick had told her. He knew her well enough to know that she was smart enough to give some vague story to her husband and children that Carrick had sought her help with the prophecy, but she’d declined.
Even though he didn’t fully trust Pyke with all that had been learned of late, he would still feed some of it to him, because Pyke had always been a useful ally over the years. He was an unusual royal because he liked to spend a lot of time in the human realm, and without any real responsibilities or duties to perform away from Faere, he basically partied and socialized his way around the globe and other realms as his whims saw fit.
That meant over the centuries and millennia, Pyke had a monstrously wide net of connections among all the fae—Light and Dark—daemons, sorcerers, occultists, priests, magicians, historians, and other immortals.
It meant Carrick was going to take advantage of that knowledge. So in response to Pyke’s question as to why they were in Faere, he replied, “We’d learned a bit more about the prophecy, and I wanted to share it with your mother to see if we could get her help.”
“Oh yeah?” Pyke’s demeanor was nonchalant, vaguely bored.
“We learned that your dear aunt has escaped the Underworld and is here on Earth.”
Pyke frowned. “You’re talking about Kymaris?”
Of course he’d be slightly confused because he’d never met Kymaris. When the angels fell from Heaven, Kymaris went straight to the Underworld, and Nimeyah became pregnant with Pyke much later. But Carrick was sure he’d heard all kinds of things about his “aunt”.
“Apparently,” Carrick drawled, “she somehow escaped the Underworld.”
It was a broad statement, calculated to be such. Carrick wanted to know just how interested Pyke was in the prophecy, and if this had piqued his interest. He would surely have questions, but Carrick wasn’t going to tell him everything.
For example, he didn’t want Pyke to know they were aware of the changeling ritual because he didn’t want Pyke to know anything personal about Finley. This included the circumstances surrounding her birth, the fact she had angel powers, and, most importantly, that she had an identical twin in the Underworld she was apparently connected to. That was information that only his brothers, Zaid, Titus, the Scooby Gang—and now Nimeyah, who was bound to lose her tongue if she told—had for now. Of course, Ozigeor had hypothesized about the identical twin theory—which to Carrick had been proven by Finley’s dream and the surge of dark power in her not long ago in Faere—but he didn’t know any of this was fact. He was counting on Ozigeor loving his head and balls more than he loved telling someone about this, but regardless… Carrick would be going back to visit Ozigeor very soon to see what he knew about a potential ritual Kymaris could use to bring the veil down.