Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

she couldn’t help but see them watching her. Like most desert dwellers, they peered from where they were half- hidden behind the shelter of canyon walls, eyelet canyons, and caves. The faeries who were out in the direct sun moved with a languid gait that said time was somehow more than infinite here.

Although they didn’t approach, they did call out at her from various directions, making it clear that she was surrounded. Although the desert might look empty to those unfamiliar with it, there was always life—both natural and supernatural—all around her.

“Rika. Hey Rika.”

“Come ’ere.”

“No, over here.”

Numerous faeries smiled and beckoned her nearer. Some smiles seemed friendly; others appeared menacing. Rika looked around, tracking where they all were, assessing whom she’d fight first if necessary.

Too many for me to handle if they attack me.

She didn’t expect an attack, but they undoubtedly knew that Keenan had visited her. They’d be tense as a result. The desert faeries didn’t belong to the faery courts; they existed in a hierarchical system of strength and dominance, not under the control of monarchs. Like all solitary faeries, the desert fey had an Alpha or co-Alphas, faeries who were the strongest and kept order of a sort. If a faery didn’t like it, she could simply leave—or challenge the Alpha for dominance. If Rika challenged the Alpha, she’d win, but she’d never wanted power—even when she’d risked everything at the chance of being Keenan’s missing queen. All she’d ever wanted was to be loved as she’d first thought Keenan had loved her.

“Where’s Sionnach?” Rika called to the watching faeries. He was their current Alpha, had been so as long as Rika had lived in the desert. He was also the closest thing she had to a real friend. He’d long ago decreed that she was not to be overly harassed. For solitaries, that was as good as it got.

“He’s out playing,” said Maili, a faery girl with sand-striated skin and short spiky hair. Her face was expressionless, and her eyes were solid black. She fluttered her two-inch-long nails, making her already elongated fingers look even more stretched.

Another faery, mostly hidden in shadows, said, “Sionnach is out wooing mortals again.”

“Which means he’s not anywhere near here.” Maili grinned. Aside from Sionnach and Rika, she was the strongest of the desert fey. If not for Rika’s decision to stay out of the politics and power squabbles in the desert, they’d have been at each other’s throats a decade ago. That didn’t mean Maili didn’t try to provoke conflict at every opportunity; it merely meant that they’d never come to serious blows.

As Rika watched, Maili waved at a group of faeries just a bit farther away—near the humans standing atop a small cliff. The faeries scrabbled up and across the rocks like misshapen crabs. They were almost human in their appearance, but with a worn meanness. Unlike Rika, they’d never been mortals, but always something Other. After so long in the desert, Rika didn’t usually notice their Otherness, but her conversation with Keenan had unsettled her and reminded her of their differences. No matter how long she’d been this—and it had been far longer than she’d been a human—she’d always be an outsider to them. She had been mortal; she had been a part of the faery courts. She was the reason Keenan, a faery king, had just walked across their desert. No matter that he’d cost her more than he would ever be able to cost them, she was not one of them.

Rika wanted to argue, to tell them that she was a part of their world now, but she’d held herself apart for so long she wasn’t even sure she could be a part of the solitaries.

A word rang out, loud in the still of the desert. “Oopsy.”

Suddenly, Jayce was pushed off the rocky ledge where he’d stood. He shifted with surprisingly quick reflexes for a mortal, angling himself to take the impact with his hip and side.

Rika didn’t think, couldn’t think; she simply reacted. In a breath, she was a blur across the remaining distance. The world felt like it sped and slowed all at the same time. The mortal—the person—who had finally made her feel like life was worth more than enduring, like living again could be possible, was falling.

And then she was under Jayce, catching him, and becoming visible in the process. She knew she looked far too frail to catch a mortal in her arms, so after a brief hesitation, she let her legs give out from under her and collapsed to the sand with a mortal atop her.

With Jayce touching me.

Limbs tangled, they were still on the desert floor. Neither spoke or moved for an awkward moment. Rika tried to soak in every feeling, to notice as much as she could since he was finally touching her.

Then he rolled to the side so he wasn’t. “I’m so sorry. Did I . . . Are you . . .” He looked from her to the cliff and back at her. “Don’t move. I’ll get help and—”

“I’m fine.” Rika scuttled backward. A rush of panic washed over her. Despite the usual comfort she found in the vast openness of the desert, she felt suddenly cornered and stood, poised to flee. As calmly as she could, she repeated, “I’m fine.”

Even in her panic, her gaze slid over him. Jayce’s sleeve was torn, and his jeans were sand-caked. He had scratches on his face, and she knew that he must be in pain from the impact. Yet, despite his injuries, he was completely fixated on her. “You’re in shock or something,” he said. “Just sit down and—”

“You’re bleeding.” She pointed to the blood seeping through the sleeve of his badly ripped shirt. His clothes were often tattered and worn, and he’d been injured from climbs and skateboarding, but she’d never seen him bleed so much. She didn’t like how it made her stomach feel.

One of the other mortals, Jayce’s friend Del, came into view atop the cliff. Like Jayce, he looked pretty grungy, unlike his skater girlfriend, Kayley, who now joined him. Rika had watched them enough to know that Kayley might look like she didn’t belong with a boy whose electric-blue hair stuck out from the edges of his bandana, but she was every bit the adrenaline seeker he was, often more so.

Del called down, “Kayley wants to know if you’re broken.”

Only Rika could see the faeries who circled Del and Kayley in a mockery of a dance.

“Want to see if you can catch two at the same time?” one faery asked. He ran a hand through Kayley’s hair, lifting it and letting it fall into her face.

Absently, Kayley shoved her hair out of her face and stepped to the side.

The faery smirked.

Kayley might not know the cause, but she felt something. Mortals often reacted without knowing what they were evading, chalking it up to wind or insects. Faeries took amusement in it. Such was the normal order of things.

This time, however, Rika tensed. These mortals mattered. Even though they’d never spoken to her, they were the closest things she had to friends in the human world. The faeries who circled them knew it; they knew exactly how to hurt her—and right now, they wanted to hurt her.

All because Keenan had visited.

“Jayce?” Kayley prompted, sounding a bit more concerned now.

Oblivious to Del and Kayley’s danger, Jayce stretched, bending both arms, shifting weight from foot to foot, testing his body before answering Del. “Just bruised and bloodied . . .”

Del stepped forward and tossed a rucksack down. “Steri-wipes and bandages in here. Use ’em. We’ll be down soon.”

Then the two mortals walked away, breaking through the ring of faeries that they couldn’t see, going farther back on the cliff where they were out of sight.

While they were talking—and Jayce wasn’t looking at her—Rika had started walking away. She wasn’t up to dealing with the confrontational faeries or the fact that she’d revealed herself to mortals. She couldn’t become invisible just yet in case one of the mortals looked her way and caught her, but she might be able to quietly slip away.

When Jayce turned, he called “Hey!” and came after her. As he reached her side again, he added, “Hold up.”

“I need to be gone.” She stepped farther away.

Jayce held his hands up. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was an accident. . . .” He glanced briefly at the cliff. Del and Kayley were well away from the edge, and since he couldn’t see the faeries on the edge of the cliff, he saw nothing amiss.