Besides, there was something cool about flying that I couldn't get anywhere else. It was almost like using a glider to slowly descend down a mountain. How many books and stories had I heard about girls getting flying horses and riding them everywhere while they conquered evil and tried to look good doing it?
I didn't need some pretty pony to take me to the sky; I had dragons.
The flight was quiet. We stayed above the clouds until I felt as if I was going to freeze to death. The whelp in my pocket never noticed, though I made certain that he was kept close to my body heat as much as I could. We began the descent and I wrapped the blanket, and my arms, around the eggs to try to keep them from falling off.
It wasn't going to happen. Iyadre had the same alpha spikes along his back, keeping anything within them mostly safe.
The forest was incredibly silent when the flight touched down. Then she appeared.
I wasn't interested in women, but she made me pause to question that. She was the most perfect person I'd ever seen. The old Renaissance masters couldn't have created a more beautiful work of art. With full, dark lips, snapping blue eyes, and skin the color of a fall sunset, she approached us in a mauve dress that clung so tightly to her curves yet fell away at the elbows.
Everything about her spoke of sin and sex, of the mysterious dark side of the moon, and I bristled. If my dragons took one look at her I was going to-
But none of them were. I realized their eyes were trained on me, Iyadre giving me a concerned look. I must have tensed against his back and his concern drew that of the others.
"Olivia, sweet, come off of that dragon and have a word with me," the woman ordered.
She reached for me and I took her hand, sliding off of Iyadre's wing. She smiled at me, perfectly white teeth a little too pointed to be human.
I hadn't even seen the wings from up above. A double pair of dragonfly-like wings protruded from her back, falling like a cape over her back. She kept them loose, relaxed, and chuckled when I noticed. I yanked my hand away like I'd been burnt. "Oh fuck, you're a faerie."
"Did you think I would be something else? Perhaps another dragon for you to claim?" she asked, the smile still present on her face.
My heart hammered my ribs. The fae were tricky supernatural creatures, though I could faintly remember leaving them milk and honey, maybe a little bread, when I was a child. I shivered and wiped my palm on my clothing over and over again. "What is this going to cost me?"
"Naught."
"What?"
The fae shook her head, making her mane of henna-colored hair dance along with the belled sleeves. "I ran up a considerable debt with your mother. You are owed this and a great deal more. Safe passage, safe hiding, it is well within my power to give it. No cost necessary, so long as you are willing to accept the debts I owed her."
"Yes, absolutely," I said, immediately. "We need a place to hide. The human law is after us, trying to find a way in which to capture me again; and maybe them, too."
She flashed her smile again. "I am well aware of the trouble you are in. I apologize for my earlier tone. I had thought you were another human attempting to sell me insurance."
"You know, that's something we've never tried," Iyadre muttered behind me. "We would be excellent in insurance and I imagine the money take from it is exceptional."
Eskal grumbled. "Yet when you are forced to pay it out, the tragedy strikes and you are left with less than you had. Why would I be interested in a gamble, especially one in which I may lose multiple times?"
I flapped my hand at them to try to get them to stop. The fae laughed. "Dragons care little for anything other than adding to their treasures, Olivia." She cleared her throat and stood a bit straighter, taking on the air of someone trying to become a bit more professional. "I, Nerida Finn, ruler of the Blackstalk Fae, offer you residence in this forest for so long as you require it. You are welcome to share in the fruits of our labor as you must. One would assume you prefer the dragons to stay with you?"
"If that lies within the rules of your um. Queendom?" I said, hesitantly.
Apparently, Mom's address book was more dangerous than I'd thought. No one toyed with fae royalty. They'd rip your heart out in minutes; or so the stories said. One bad deal was enough to drive them off of a single person forever and, though she'd said that she was indebted to my mother, I somehow doubted that it was enough to keep her from trying to pull the rug out from under us.
But what choice did we have? Both the human and supernatural communities wanted us gone; one behind bars, the other simply not around anymore. There were other phone numbers in the book, but the rest had tiny red x marks next to them. And if Mom considered a fae queen safe and not the others, did I really want to reach out to them and take a chance?
Queen Nerida bowed her head at me and lifted her hands, clapping them twice. From the shadows of the forest came eyes, haunting and animalistic. I took a step back toward the dragons, even as Eskal rested his head against me, trying to be a comfort.
Bears, lumbering beasts with human eyes, plodded into the clearing. I assumed they were shifters immediately; how many different sorts were there? I'd only really been aware
