Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

“Now.”

At that, he stood and told his friends, “I’m out.”

Del’s expression wasn’t friendly. “Too good to be around—”

“Stop,” Kayley hissed at him. She flashed a smile at Rika and said, “Sorry.”

“We’ll be back,” Jayce offered. “We just need to talk.”

Kayley nodded, and Del made a shooing motion with his hand. “Go.”

When they reached the open desert, Rika took his hand in hers and reminded him, “Remember to run.”

Then they raced across the desert as they had when she’d taken him to her home the first time. It was an unsettling feeling, as if the ground didn’t quite exist but was instead almost like water. He felt his feet touch and slide, but it wasn’t the same as stepping on solid surface. He couldn’t decide if he liked it or found it frightening. What he did know was that it was different. She was different, and out here where the world was a vast expanse of the same thing, different was extra exciting. He loved the desert, the way the sky seemed to stretch out endlessly and the air sometimes seemed to leave a trace of a taste on his lips. He loved the fierce and sometimes odd creatures that thrived in what some would call an unfriendly land. None of that changed the fact that he’d lived here his whole life and was excited by the prospect of someone unusual.

They reached the cave where she lived, and he stiffened at the sight of her friend Sionnach, who sat on a small ledge, kicking his feet like a child and watching them with an unreadable expression. He’d obviously seen their approach, but he made no move to greet them.

“Shy,” Rika said, her tone holding something of both a greeting and a warning.

He flashed teeth at them in a smile that didn’t look very friendly, and Jayce tensed. He’d thought that the two were friends, but right now, he wondered if they’d argued or he’d misunderstood their friendship. He stepped closer to Rika. Sure, she’d more than held her own in the fight at Dead Ends, but for some reason, Sionnach seemed more menacing than that group.

For a fraction of a moment, Jayce could have sworn that Sionnach’s ears were pointed and—disturbingly— that he had a fluffy fox tail that flicked to the side. He blinked to try to clear his eyes, thinking maybe he had sand in them and it was messing with his vision.

“Something wrong?” Sionnach said in a teasing voice.

“Shy!” This time Rika definitely sounded like she was warning him.

“Seeing things maybe?”

Jayce looked at Rika and then down at his ankles. “Maybe I was bitten.” He lifted one foot and looked at his hiking boots. There were no holes where something could have gotten to his skin. He didn’t feel like he had heat stroke, so he suspected he wasn’t hallucinating. He looked back at Sionnach, who was now standing at the mouth of the cave.

Rika sighed while staring at Sionnach, and then she looked at Jayce. “You’re not seeing things.” She motioned toward the rocks. “Climb up. We can talk inside.”

Mutely Jayce did as she asked. Sionnach was standing inside the cave, his back against the wall and body angled to the side. It was dim enough that Jayce couldn’t look at his ears without going over close to him. He didn’t need to do that though because in the next moment, Sionnach said, “I’m not human.”

He pushed his hair away from his ears, revealing pointed tips. He flashed his teeth at Jayce again, showing sharper-than-normal incisors. Finally, he stared at Jayce as he flicked his tail forward.

Jayce didn’t fall to the ground in shock, but he did lower himself to the cave floor. “Huh.”

“I’m not either.” Rika’s voice was soft, but it still felt loud in the silence that followed Sionnach’s little show. “I used to be. I told you that.”

“I thought it was, I don’t know, a metaphor or something.” Jayce looked from her to the guy with the fox tail and back. “Do you have a tail too?”

“No.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I was human, like you.”

“And now you’re . . . what?”

“Faeries,” Sionnach answered. “We live for pretty much ever, and we have some traits that are different.”

“I thought faeries were little winged—”

“No,” Sionnach all but snarled. “We’re not the things of children’s stories. I don’t know when that rumor started, but we’re not going to throw glitter at you and simper. We’re the things that nightmares—”

“Shy,” Rika cut him off. She sighed and walked closer to Jayce. Cautiously, like she expected him to flee, she sat down beside him. “There are faeries who are frightening, but not all of us. I don’t mean you any harm. I like you, and I hope you still want to . . . be around me now that you know.”

Jayce looked at her and then at Sionnach. Some part of his mind wanted to explain this away, to have an answer that proved that they were messing with him. The rest of him realized that this was real. He was talking to creatures that shouldn’t exist. He wasn’t afraid, though. Mostly, he was fascinated.

“So why didn’t I see the tail before?”

“Glamour. We can hide our true appearances from mortals, or”—Sionnach vanished and then reappeared crouching down beside Jayce a moment later—“hide from you completely.”

“Whoa!”

Sionnach laughed, turned away, waved over his shoulder, and then vanished again.

“Is he still here? Can you see him?” Jayce asked quietly.

“I can. Faeries can.” She smiled nervously before adding, “But he’s gone now. It’s just us. Is that okay?”

Jayce reached out and traced her cheek with his fingertips. “I’m alone with the girl I like who happens to be even cooler than I already thought. It’s very okay.” He leaned closer and kissed her. He’d known she was different, but he couldn’t have guessed she was this unusual. He was kissing a faery. The thought made him pull back and grin at her. “This is awesome.”

CHAPTER 9

For the next two weeks, the desert fey were quiet. Sionnach had called in what favors he could to assure that Rika had time alone with her mortal boy. Seeing her come out of her shell to be romanced by the human boy was exactly what Sionnach had planned, but as he’d watched them smile tentatively at each other, his heart hurt at the sight—enough that he’d increasingly sought comfort in a mortal as well. He’d let himself grow closer to Carissa, although he’d almost called her the wrong name more than once.

But the more time he’d spent with her, the more Sionnach realized that she was nothing like Rika. The two shared the same tiny stature, but Carissa was lighthearted where Rika was serious. Carissa was quick to laughter, teasing as if she were fey, happy to dance in the middle of the desert. There were no long-carried sorrows in his Carissa, and as the days passed, Sionnach had lost himself a little more in her affection. At first, he thought only to distract himself, but as time passed, he remembered why he had enjoyed frolicking with mortals: there was something pure in the lives of the finite.

Sionnach found himself temporarily enchanted by the girl with whom he spent his days. Today, though, he was interrupted before he could reach his evening date with the mortal girl. Maili had waited in the shadows. She stalked toward him, looking like something darker than should be in his town. At Maili’s feet a mortal teen lay facedown on the ground. One arm was flung out so the fingertips were in the edge of a puddle. The streetlight at the end of the alley cast enough light to illuminate the blood that the boy had lost. The mortal was either unconscious or dead.

“You need to rein it in,” Sionnach said warningly. “I’ve been patient.”

“I get bored, Shy. Before you got so close to someone who used to be one of them”—she wrinkled her nose like she smelled something unpleasant—“you used to understand that.”

“Things change.” He was so tense that his tail flicked to the side. He didn’t bother pointing out that Rika had been fey far longer than she’d been mortal. Mildly, he added, “People change; faeries change.”