Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

had stood against attacker after challenger after troublemaker in the years she’d known him. Being Alpha in the desert was not without its difficulties. The difference this time was in the treachery of the assault. Striking another faery with iron wasn’t done lightly—or forgiven easily. Either Sionnach or Rika would have to discipline the faery, make clear that such assaults could not happen in the desert, and they’d need to do so with enough force that no one else would attempt to do so again. First, though, she needed to remove the poison from Sionnach’s flesh.

He’ll heal. He has to.

More steadily than she expected, she told Jayce, “I need to go.”

She wasn’t sure if it was the fear she was failing to hide or the anger that floated just under that fear; either way, Jayce looked even more worried.

“Should I follow?” he asked.

Rika shook her head. “No. Not right now. Tomorrow. I’ll come get you if I can leave him alone long enough. . . .” She paused. “Do you have your phone?”

“Yeah . . .” Jayce pulled it out. “Who do you need me—”

“Call Del. Go be with him,” she interrupted. “Even if it wasn’t her that did this, Maili is dangerous, and Shy is too injured to enforce rules. You need to go where you’re safe. She won’t approach a group. Witnesses can cause trouble with the faery courts. She’ll avoid that. Stay near lots of steel. Faeries can’t abide iron or steel.” Her gaze dropped to Sionnach, his injury proof of how badly the toxic metals could wound a faery.

Jayce hesitated, as if he would speak but wasn’t sure if he should.

“Please? I need to get him to safety, but . . .” Rika wanted to let him know that he was something rare and precious, that his safety mattered to her more than he could know, but she wasn’t sure of the words, and she’d already asked him to accept things far more quickly than he’d liked. He was trying to understand her world, but it wasn’t easy.

“If Maili hurt you, it’d destroy me,” Rika said. “If you . . . I need you safe, and I don’t trust that you are if you are alone.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “You be careful too, okay?”

“I’ll come to you as soon as I can. . . . I need to get him home and remove the poison,” she tried to be careful with her words. “I can’t take you both, and it’s not safe for you to follow me on your own, and I can’t let Del know where I live, and—”

“It’s okay,” Jayce interrupted. “Go.”

She nodded as she faded to invisibility with Sionnach in her arms and began to run home with the unconscious faery held tightly in her arms.

CHAPTER 11

Rika wasn’t sure how long it took to get Sionnach to the safety of her cave, nor was she certain how many faeries saw her carrying him across the desert. She knew it was best to hide his injured state, but trying to find a stealthy way across the openness of the desert wasn’t an option. If anyone were foolish enough to further threaten the faery in her arms, she’d deal with them. Being remade as a faery strong enough to hold the weight of winter inside her skin meant that Rika—like every other former Winter Girl—was stronger than most any solitary faery. She’d never used that strength to assert dominance in the desert, never felt the need to do so, but she was willing to do so now. She’d thought she’d surrendered the anger she’d felt over Maili’s behavior on the cliff and in the club a couple of weeks ago. She’d written it off as faery posturing, but now that she was lowering an unconscious faery to her bed, she wasn’t feeling anywhere near forgiving.

The bed upon which she’d lowered Sionnach was nothing more than a pile of various blankets and furs. Furs weren’t truly the sort of thing that made sense in the desert, but she’d never had reason to explain it to another faery. Her bed made her feel comfortable because of its familiarity; it was an admitted result of having lived in a simple home both as a mortal and as a Winter Girl.

Sionnach hadn’t opened his eyes yet. Despite the jarring journey across the desert, he remained silent and unconscious now even as he rolled restlessly.

Rika started a fire. It wasn’t the first time she’d tended his injuries, but familiarity with the process didn’t make it any more palatable.

She filled a basin with water and cleaned away the blood and dirt. The skin around the wounds was already hot to the touch, and a fever had begun to consume him. She soaked a cloth in the water, tried to cool his feverish skin, and hoped that the fox faery’s body would begin to push the metal out. Time and again, she put ice-cold water on Sionnach until the fever let up a bit. Time and again, she poured the red-tinged water into a crack in the cave floor where it would vanish into the depths below her.

“Wake up, Shy,” she ordered.

The bits of metal that had broken off the rusty weapon were caught in his body, but the natural antipathy faeries had to iron should cause his body to try to expel the iron that was battering around inside his body and sickening him. She watched for any sign of the metal and continued to work to keep his fever down.

Still, he stayed that way—thrashing in her bed but unconscious—as night fell.

Finally, a piece of metal worked its way out of his body; it writhed under his skin, and Rika tried not to flinch away as she pushed it toward the still-open wounds and extracted it.

She lit candles and sat beside his bed. At her side were a ceramic bowl, a tiny carved bone knife, a water- filled basin, and the bloodstained wet cloth. In the bowl was the small misshapen piece of metal. If he didn’t wake by morning, she’d have to try actively locating the rest of the iron in his body or send for a healer.

“I hate this,” she told the unconscious faery.

Still he said nothing.

A second piece of the poisonous metal pressed against his skin as his body tried to expel it. This time, she had to cut into his skin to remove it. He gasped, but he didn’t wake.

She stayed by his side, watching for more of the iron pieces. They were so small that once they were removed they didn’t hurt him or her unless they actually touched them. Unfortunately, most of them were also inside his body.

By the time he finally opened his eyes, it was midday, and the cavern was illuminated by a blazing fire that cast dancing shadows over the stalactites and stalagmites, and the candles were dripping wax on various surfaces of the room.

Sionnach had dark shadows under his eyes and sallow skin. He looked around the cavern, his gaze taking in every detail before looking back at her. “Where’s Jayce?”

Rika knew she shouldn’t be surprised: Sionnach had been supportive of her interest in Jayce. That didn’t change the absurdity of his question. He’d been stabbed, and his first question was about a mortal boy he barely knew. “Jayce is with his friends; I couldn’t bring both of you.”

“I’m here. Go get him.”

Rika shook her head. “I can’t leave you alone and unprotected.”

“Rika—”

“No.” She grabbed the basin and walked away from him, trying to hide her frustration. “You have iron bits in your body. It was rusty and parts shattered inside you.”

“You can’t leave him where Maili can reach him.”

Standing in the middle of the cavern, basin clenched in her hand, she stared at the injured faery. “No. What I can’t do is leave you here with iron in your skin, Shy. The pieces need to come out. I have two of them, but there are more.”

“So?” He shook his head. “Jayce is vulnerable. I need you to be with Jayce.”

“You need—” She cut herself off and walked away. Slowly, she poured out the water and then went to the little stream that ran through the cavern. She knelt and scooped up a basin full of fresh water. Convinced that her temper was back in check, she said, “You need taking care of. He’s staying with friends. Just—”

“He’s a mortal.”