The Bastard Queen (Viciously Yours #2)

Chapter Forty-Eight: A Tasteful Event

I shook my head and countered, "Covering my hair will do nothing, they'll still see my eyes. Not to mention the, I don't know, treason tattoos spanning my entire body."

All three paused and I laughed, obviously they didn't think about everything. Here we were, standing on the side of the main road that led into the Unseelie Kingdom and they ambushed me with hair dye. Fucking hair dye. A vine whipped out from it's position curled around a tree to smack the bottle out of Puck's hand. The glass cracked and brown gunk slowly crawled free of its prison to cover the poor dirt underneath it. Satisfied, I looked up from the broken bottle to be faced with the unamused faces of my troop.

Rolling my eyes, I sighed, "Look. There's a lot that I'm willing to do for this war and all of you. A lot. But dying my hair is not one of them." I lost my hair once and that was enough for me.

Erick looked ready to argue with me but Dani placed a hand on his shoulder, "Okay."

The single worded agreement took me by surprise but instead of replying, I yanked the hood of my cloak over my head and gave my gloves a tug. With my long hair tightly secured in a bun at the base of my neck, we didn't have to worry about a lock coming loose at the wrong time. The gloves covered the silver swirls on my hands while the sleeves of my cloak and tunic added extra protection to my arms. Shadows casted by my hood hid the tattoos on my neck so the only thing we couldn't cover were my eyes along with my lashes and eyebrows. Though if someone demanded I pull my hood down, I had a plan for that too.

"We'll have to be more careful to avoid the guards but I think we'll reach the Burns Estate without a problem." Bria announced, breaking the silence that we had fallen into.

Puck nodded, "The Burns are having some kind of event tonight so we should be able to sneak in easily."

"Let me guess, your informant told you this?" I asked.

He nodded with a small smile, "Yes and thank you, for not pushing to know who it is."

Cause I'm waiting to get you drunk off sugar wine, Babes. "Of course, I trust you."

Puck's smile turned into a full blown grin that had to hurt before he nudged Bria who shook her head in return.

"Let's get moving." Erick muttered, stepping back onto the road and starting up the path.

Nodding to the others, I stepped out after him and searched the area along the side of the road. We would have already been at the Burns Estate if it wasn't for the fact that Fae couldn't travel into kingdoms. You could travel to just outside the Unseelie or Seelie gates but not inside. Once inside, you could travel anywhere you wanted besides the castle itself. It was a necessity in a realm that was almost constantly at war with one faction of Faekind or another.

We traveled as close as possible without being seen which ended up being about a mile away from the front gates. Boots grinding gravel into the road, I tipped my head further down the closer we got to the entrance. Dressed in casual attire and spread out to look as inconspicuous as possible, we sailed past the guards without issue. However, walking around inside the kingdom was another challenge all together.

The ring of houses along the wall of the Kingdom were rundown and shabby looking with Fae in tattered clothes eyeing us closely. Suspicion and crime ran rampant in this area of the Kingdom where the Fae were too poor to garder Mab's attention but not her punishment. Colorful eyes peeked out from behind crumbling walls and between bent window shutters, tracking our every move. The dirt roads dividing the rundown houses were littered with wood and rubble from the eroding homes.

Slipping my hand into the left side of my cloak, I tapped at the bottom edge of my breast plate and pulled off a small chunk. Rubbing my thumb over the metal, I smirked lightly when it thinned out and started to clink together. Glancing at the others, I pivoted smoothly on my right foot and turned down the small alley alone. Halfway down, I disappeared from existence to reappear in front of the caved in building we passed by a while ago. The letters painted at the top of the faded pink building had withered away with only the white O remaining.