“I’m real,” she assured him. That part she could say with certainty.
“Are you sure? You seemed almost like a dream earlier, vanishing when I looked away.” He was flirting, but there was an undercurrent of something else there. He might not consciously know that she wasn’t human, but an instinctive wariness in him tangled with a desperate hopefulness she’d seen when he drew his more fanciful images. Jayce caught her gaze as he said, “A beautiful girl shows up, saves me, and vanishes into the desert. . . . It’s either a dream or magic.”
Rika couldn’t speak.
“You did save me, you know. I’m not broken anywhere. Just bruises,” he said in a voice so low that it felt like it was only the two of them in the world.
They were not alone though: not only were there faeries, but Del and Kayley also stood nearby. Del was watching them. Rika could see the couple in her peripheral vision. Kayley spoke to him, but his attention was fixed on Jayce. Despite the twinge she felt at their protective gazes, she was grateful that Jayce had such good friends.
Jayce turned to look over his shoulder, noticing that Rika was looking past him. “They’re okay.” He looked back at her and smiled. “Are you always this shy?”
Without having quite meant to, Rika nodded. She wasn’t used to talking to people. Months would pass when her only conversations were with Sionnach or with Jayce—who until today didn’t hear her because of faery glamour. When she had been the Winter Girl, she hadn’t exactly been beset by social invitations either. She spoke to whichever mortal girl Keenan tried to seduce, to Keenan, and to his advisors and court members. None of them had been faeries she could call friends: they all wanted Keenan to succeed; her job was to thwart him. Those were the terms of the curse that had ensnared her when he’d picked her for the test. If she’d been his missing queen, she would’ve freed him, been beside him for eternity. If she had refused the test, she’d have been his subject—one of the flighty Summer Girls who frolicked and danced. When she took the test and failed, she’d been cursed to carry winter
She forced herself to look only at Jayce. After an awkward silent moment, several heartbeats too long, Rika blurted, “I’ve watched you climb before.”
Jayce smiled though. “I wish I’d seen you then . . . maybe you wouldn’t have run away earlier.”
Tentatively, she said, “I don’t need to run right now.”
Despite how awkwardly she’d handled everything, he still seemed interested. “So do you want to walk”—he gestured at the benches—“or sit? We’re probably both too sore to walk
Faeries clustered closer, surrounding the bench. They didn’t speak, chortle, or react. They just pressed too near, their bodies brushing against hers and his, making Rika tense. She should tuck him into some safe steel- walled house.
“Later,” Jayce called to Del and Kayley. Then he put a hand on the small of her back. “There’s a quiet spot out this way.”
At the feel of his hand against her—even though there was a shirt between her skin and his hand—she hesitated, and then, shakily, let him guide her to a bench. Lingering with him felt more dangerous than anything she’d done since becoming a faery. There had only ever been one other boy she’d trusted, and he’d stolen
“You said you didn’t need to run; remember?” Jayce said. She nodded and took another tentative step.
Behind them, faeries whispered. A number of them vanished in different directions, and she was silently grateful that they weren’t going to challenge her here. Maybe Sionnach was wrong about the threat; maybe the faeries had better things to do. She didn’t know, and just then, she didn’t care.
All that mattered was that she was with Jayce. They walked toward a bench, and she realized that he still had his hand on her back. He was touching her, and they were alone together.
CHAPTER 5
Sionnach amused himself by flitting in and out of visibility around one of the somewhat nearby towns: starting a quarrel between strangers, kissing a mortal girl and fleeing while her eyes were still closed.
Dealing with Rika was one of the difficulties of being Alpha . . . or maybe it was a difficulty of being a fox faery . . . or maybe of trying to balance his personal goals and his duties to the desert fey. Sionnach wasn’t sure what the
“Sionnach?”
He turned and was relieved to see one of his fey spies.
The faery who’d come to deliver the report stood like a corpse, emaciated to the point that his eyes seemed vast in the narrowness of his face.
“Well?” Sionnach’s whole body nearly twitched in expectation. “Is she with him?”
“She is.”
“And?” Sionnach felt the curl of excitement, of
But then the Summer King had arrived, setting things into motion a bit sooner than Sionnach had planned, causing troubles as court faeries often did. Sionnach’s tail twitched at the thought of the disruption. He’d adjusted, but it made for a more harried plan than he’d have liked. It was messier than it should be. Despite everything, he was finally near to seeing progress. Rika saw the lure and was tempted.
“And what happened?” he prompted his spy.
“She’s with the mortal.”
“Annnd?” Sionnach drew the word out while his hands flitted in the air as if he could gesture his way into bending reality to his will. Sadly, he couldn’t.