She let it go, then walked down the line of cages, checking on her charges. They were all there, coiled around heated rocks and blinking jewel-bright eyes at her when she passed. She could talk to them too, and she sure as hell had in the past two months, since beginning her service to Bitterroot. Another ten and she’d be going home with her own dragon. Though what a werewolf like her was going to do with a dragon, she hadn’t a clue. At least she had ten months to figure it out.
She was just admiring the blue dragon she called Beau because, well, he was a beauty, when Bitterroot came into the nursery. He appeared as he always did in this place—tall, dark, and arrogantly handsome. And damn if he didn’t make her knees go weak when he smiled at her like a little boy with an ice cream treat.
“What have you got there?” she asked, referring to a bundle wrapped in silk that he carried in his arms.
“The salvation of my realm.” Then, at her surprised look, he extended it to her. “Also, a present for you.”
He was always giving her presents, some of them sweet, some of them downright silly, and a couple that were really bad ideas. The fae did not understand the human mind, that was for sure, but Bitterroot was trying, and for that she gave him a smile, all while bracing herself for whatever it was he held. It was roughly the size of a piglet and squirming, so she wondered if she was about to be both dragon and pig keeper.
Until she looked down and saw a human face. A human face on a baby.
“What is that?” she gasped.
“A human child. You said you wanted children, so I got you one.”
“You what?” she cried, backing up against the dragon cages. “You can’t go get a child the way you’d pick up a loaf of bread at the grocery store.”
“I did not go to a grocery store!” Bitterroot said with indignation. “I had to barter very hard for this one. It was very expensive.” Then he frowned down at the squirming bundle in his arms. “But I didn’t think it would be so twisty. Or smell so bad.”
Now that he mentioned it, there was a very foul scent coming from the bundle. And he was having a terrible time holding on to it. But her mind was still back on the fact that he had a child. And he thought he could give it to her!
“Are you serious?” she said, gaping at him. “You bartered? For a baby?”
“Yes,” he said, irritation in his tone. “For you!” He offered her the squirming baby. “I don’t understand your reaction—”
“No kidding! Who would give up their child?”
His expression sobered. “They didn’t want to, but that was the arrangement. A firstborn child. Very standard.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care if it’s the law, you give that child back! You can’t go trading for children!”
His expression tightened and he shot her a furious glare. “You do not understand. I need a human child. My realm, my home—” He made an expansive gesture with his hand. “All of this will disappear unless I have one.”
“I don’t care!” she snapped back.
She would have said more. She would have said a lot more. But at that moment, Bitterroot lost control of the baby. It was squirming so much, he couldn’t hold on, and it began to fall.
Emma dove forward to catch it. She might be horrified by what Bitterroot had done, but she wasn’t going to let a child plummet to the ground. Thank God for werewolf reflexes. She caught it just before the infant brained itself on the floor.
Except what she caught didn’t feel like a baby. It seemed to squirm and disintegrate right through the silk wrapping. She gasped, thinking she had hurt it. Then she thought it was deformed. Then she didn’t know what she thought, because it started sprouting people—tiny people jumping out of it and running in all directions.
This was no baby—it was a piñata filled with tiny fairy creatures.
“It was a joke,” she realized, completely appalled. “This was a stupid practical joke! How could you? I thought you’d dropped a baby!”
“If it is a joke,” Bitterroot said, his voice low and angry, “then I am not its author.”
She frowned. “What?” She pointed to the dozens of leaping, huddling, squealing creatures dashing around the place almost too fast for the eye to catch. “What are they?” And why did they smell like cheese?
Suddenly Bitterroot straightened up, his spine nearly cracking with the sudden tight cast to his entire body. “Earth sprites!” he hissed, revulsion in every word. “Pixies!”
It took a moment for her to process this. She’d seen many strange sights in Fairyland. Enough to make her seriously doubt her senses. But before her eyes were little girl fairies cavorting about screaming “whee!” And beside them were little boy… she didn’t know what. But they smelled like cheese. Like really old, really rancid cheese. And all of them were growing.
As in really growing. Hand-size to knee-size to man-size and more. Thank God they’d all moved out of the nursery to start running around the outdoor grounds.
“They’re getting huge,” she murmured.
“In Fairyland, they will be as big as my house!” Bitterroot said as he scanned the area between the dragon nursery and his castle. “Or bigger,” he whispered. His eyes were wide, and his jaw went slack with horror. And then he gripped the windowsill hard enough that his hands grew white.
“They told me it was their son! They deceived me!”
“Would that be the child’s parents?”
“Yes!”
She folded her arms and grinned. “Good for them.”
He whipped around and stared at her. “What did you say?”
“Good. For. Them.” Then she looked out, watching the creatures dash around. The fairies seemed to be throwing fireworks everywhere, which exploded in colorful displays. And
