Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

CHAPTER 15

Rika wished she could have talked to Sionnach without Jayce there, but she admitted to herself that she wouldn’t have felt the need to confront Sionnach without her mortal boyfriend’s influence. He saw Sionnach without the filter of friendship and gratitude, and in doing so, he enabled her to see the fox faery more truly. While she might have been able to understand objectively that Sionnach was impish and unreliable in his way, she also trusted him as she’d trusted no one else in her life. She saw some of his flaws, but tended to overlook many of them.

She and Jayce followed the passageway to the room with her murals. They both kept art supplies in the chamber now. There were easels and wooden crates with jars of paints nestled in straw. She’d only ever let Sionnach and Jayce into this room, and only Jayce had slept there. Quietly, they both rolled out their sleeping bags.

“We could stay in the room where Sionnach is,” Jayce offered quietly. “If you need to hear him so you can take care of him, I mean.”

“I can hear him just fine from here.” Rika ducked her head, bashful even now. “And I wanted to be with only you.”

Jayce kissed her and then said, “I like that plan.”

“You don’t have to use the salve,” she said gently, moving away from him and not meeting his eyes. “They —we—aren’t all good. Seeing them is dangerous, so you might be safer without the Sight.”

Her words skirted near enough to a lie that she felt them like physical things rolling over her tongue. Was he safer? Maili had already stabbed Sionnach, and she’d shoved Jayce off a cliff. Maili was just one faery, though. If the court fey knew of a mortal with the Sight, they might come looking for him.

The Summer Queen had the Sight when she was mortal.

Rika didn’t know if the new queen’s mortal life would change how things were done, and even so, she was one faery regent in a world of centuries-old creatures with traditions even older than they were. She stared at Jayce, struggling with what and how to tell him without making herself sound like a monster too.

He stepped closer to her, reached out, and stroked her face. “I’ll do it. I can pretend not to see them if I have to. It makes it easier on you if I can see threats near me, right?”

She nodded.

“Tomorrow then.” He wrapped his arms around her. He comforted her, erased her nervousness, and it took but a moment.

Rika motioned toward a blank section of the cave and offered, “You could do one of the open spots if you wanted.”

“I’d feel weird defacing—” He stopped himself. “Not that what you did was . . . I mean—”

“I’ve lived here for a very long time. I didn’t have access to many other supplies when I came here. Most faeries can’t create art.” She shrugged, trying not to make too much of her difference even though it was something that filled her with pride.

“Why can you create?”

“Because I used to be human, I guess.” She looked at the bit of the wall visible in the firelight. “I don’t know what I’d have done without my art.”

He stepped away from the sleeping bag and stood nearer to her, his gaze taking in the portraits on the wall. Miners and farmers stared back at them as if the past could look into the present. Buildings filled the spaces around them; most were ones that had long since fallen under the weight of time and nature. “What was it like here? When you came?”

“Emptier. There were some humans here already, but the others that came and built small mortal towns were often violent.” She thought about other faces and places long gone, of a home she’d known on another continent, of other towns that she’d visited before the desert. There she’d felt too crowded by the mortals that she was no longer like. Here in the desert, she’d discovered open spaces. Even so, the people had frightened her. She admitted, “Some of the people who came here were interesting for a heartbeat or two, but I stayed in the cave a lot.”

“And the faeries?”

“Those too weak to survive the growing winter out in the rest of the world or trying to escape notice or hoping for autonomy . . . they came here.” She gave him a wry smile. “Much like the mortals, I suppose—seeking freedom, power, or escape.”

He didn’t comment, waiting in that way of his that made her want to keep talking, that made her think that her words were interesting.

“Much like me, too,” she confessed.

“Which were you seeking?”

“Probably all of it—freedom, power, and escape.” She nestled closer to him, thinking to herself that she still sought escape and freedom, but now she sought it in Jayce’s arms. When she’d started dating him, when he had looked at her and seen her, she’d thought she could have everything she wanted with him. Tonight, though, thinking about Maili had made her accept that she hadn’t been truthful with herself for a long time. Quietly, she told him, “I didn’t admit that I wanted power back then. I didn’t need to because Shy had the power, and he was no threat to me.”

“And now?” he prompted, and she realized that he knew. He had seen her confrontation with Sionnach, a fight that could’ve easily become a challenge for Alpha.

“Now I need to keep Maili from having power and keep Keenan from messing with my freedom.”

Rika needed to go out into the desert and let the faeries see her. Since Sionnach wasn’t up to it, they’d decided that she needed to be the reminder that there were faeries stronger than Maili. That meant leaving Jayce behind for his safety. Walking through the desert had always helped clear Rika’s mind, but she now felt strangely off-kilter being alone. Being with Jayce and Sionnach lately had reminded her that she used to like being around others. Years ago, the solitary life she’d led when she first became fey had been hard, more so because she’d never been on her own until then, even more so because she’d wanted to be with Keenan in the throng of frolicking faeries that made up the Summer Court. Over time, though, she’d grown accustomed to isolation and to the quiet that came with being the Winter Girl, but she’d never chosen that life. She admitted now that choosing to be alone in the desert may have been a way to protect herself from the devastation that she’d felt when her loneliness had been beyond her control. If one chose to be alone, it was easier than being forced into it—at least that was what she’d told herself.

As she walked, she saw humans scaling the rocks. In the desert, climbers were as common as coyotes. They were part of the landscape. Mortals from all over came to the Mojave to climb and to hike. She’d learned not to notice them overmuch. These mortals were surrounded by faeries though, and she couldn’t help but think of how Jayce had fallen.

In a blur of motion, she ran toward them. “Back off.”

The mortals, of course, didn’t react: this time, she’d remembered to stay invisible.

A faery who looked very much like a barrel cactus, squat and whisker-covered, stepped into her path. “Since when is it your business what we do?”

“Since I decided it was.”

In a nearby crevice in the rock, Maili watched. Rika opted not to look her way yet since she had, in essence, promised Sionnach that she’d not go looking for trouble. She was doing as she’d agreed, but if Maili began a confrontation, Rika would have to respond. No one could expect anything different.

Instead of answering, one of the faeries shoved a human. It wasn’t a true attack; the boy was low enough to the ground that it wasn’t much of a fall. At most, the boy would be bruised and scraped.