Page 16 of Welcome to Fae Cafe
Cress watched her roll out of bed and teeter on her feet as she stumbled toward the window. The streets were dark this late at night, apart from a few tall metal lanterns at the roadsides. The curtain only hung open a slit—Kate Kole didn’t spot Cress there.
The human nudged her curtain aside while rubbing her eyes. She opened the window, and Cress held his breath. But human bickering lifted from the alley across the street, and Kate Kole seemed far more interested in that.
His human target sputtered some nonsense to herself. She shut the window, and a moment later, she darted across her apartment. Cress listened to her distant thudding down the stairs. She reappeared below, pushing out of the building with a glowing rectangular device pinched between her ear and shoulder. She aimed for the alley where Cress sensed the two additional human heart rhythms.
Cress released a bored huff. He hopped the rail of the balcony, landing lightly in a shadow, and walked around the building to watch from the darkness.
“Let’s go inside! I’m freezing!” a grumpy male human said. He took hold of a red-haired female’s shoulder.
“Hey!” Kate Kole shouted, swooping in to stand between the male and female.
“Who are you?” the red-haired female asked Kate Kole, and Cress grunted.
He would also like to know.
“Get out of the way,” the male said.
Cress sighed, checking his nails for human realm dirt. His fairsaber handle pressed lightly against his back in his belt. He wondered if he ought to just race into the alley and slay them all. He’d done more reckless things than attack an assassin he knew little about.
“Go find someone else to bother,” Kate Kole said to the male.
The male’s fist lashed out toward the wall andnottoward either of the human females. Yet, Kate Kole leaped into his knuckles, and Cress’s deep laugh rolled out, filling the darkness. When the male’s fist slammed against Kate Kole’s shoulder, the hit was hard enough to send her into a full spin.
But it seemed she got what she wanted. Cress listened to the elevated heart rhythm of his human target, and to her raspy breath. He waited for her to slice the human male open in retaliation like any cruel female assassin would.
But Kale Kole turned back to the white-faced male human and didn’t draw her weapons. She didn’t unhinge him with trickery. She didn’t even make a threat.
“What’s the matter with you? Are there really still idiots who smack girls around in this day and age?” was all she said.
Cress dropped his hand, interested now.
The male human blinked in surprise. “I…” He staggered back a step. “I wasn’t really trying to… I mean you jumped right into that! I was going to miss and just scare you. You made me hit you on purpose!”
Wailing trumpets erupted down the road, and the male’s face paled further. He turned to run, but Kate Kole snatched his plaid shirt. The male nearly dragged her down the alley with him, and Cress snorted another dull laugh.
The male shoved Kate Kole away—she tripped over her own feet and tumbled into the brick wall, barely catching herself on clumsy-looking hands, and her forehead smacked a brick. Her lashes fluttered for a moment as she blinked, and Cress chewed on the inside of his cheek.
What in the faeborn-cursed Corners was she doing?
“Stop! Police!” It was the voice of Officer Lily Baker that boomed down the alley. Her partner Officer Connor Backs was beside her.
The male in plaid came racing around the building where Cress leaned against the wall in the dark. The fairy Prince sighed. With an easy shove of his heel against the male’s fleshy stomach, Cress sent the human spinning back into the alley.
Officer Connor Backs snatched the human in plaid and dragged him to the ground from there.
In the darkness, Cress watched as Kate Kole touched her forehead with a delicate hand.
“Are you all right?” Officer Lily asked her.
Cress folded his arms, his brows tipping in as Kate Kole nodded and dropped her hand from her head.
“You need to come to the station with us,” Officer Lily said, and Kate Kole released a breath.
“I can’t do that after I already showed up there yesterday,” she said. She nodded toward the redhead human whose wide doe eyes took everything in. “She’s a witness though. She saw everything.”
Officer Lily folded her arms and glanced to where Officer Connor hauled the male in plaid toward the four-wheeled chariot with flashing lights. “Then get out of here before my backup shows up,” she said.
Just like that, Kate Kole scampered back across the road and disappeared into her building.
