“So real,” the guy that was touching her way too intimately said.
She wanted to use her faery dust on them and put them all to sleep, teach them to mess with one of her kind. Then she could disappear without them seeing her fae vanishing act. Yet it was already too late. She heard the sound of a troop of fae running on the pavement headed straight in her direction, though none were visible to the teens. And even she couldn’t actually see them because of the teens surrounding her. But she knew the fae would be invisible when they tried to take her into custody. And she knew that’s exactly what had to be running with such determination in her direction.
She sighed, doing what she knew she shouldn’t under any circumstances, but these seemed to preclude all else, and vanished.
Collective gasps from the teens rent the air as the Denkar fae guard pushed them aside and found all that was left of her was her faery dust. If a tracker was among them, they could follow her easily enough.
The hunt would be on.
Nothing had gone as planned.
Chapter 2
Two days later, Niall woke with the most excruciating headache, wondering what in the world had happened to him.
And then he recalled bits and pieces. He had seen the most remarkable Mabara winged fae painting on the wall in South Padre Island and meant to stop her. Now, he was lying in his mostly cloaked bed, although the curtain was opened on one side, which he thought odd, until he rubbed his temple, and a woman gasped. He turned to look at who had made the feminine sound and saw a maid sitting in a chair, watching over him.
Which confused him. A maid wouldn’t be sitting beside his bed, unless he’d been terribly ill, but he didn’t recall having come down with any sickness.
Her eyes wide, she quickly stood, offered a hasty thanks to all the goddesses, curtseyed, and hurried out of the chamber.
She’d tell the queen and everyone he was awake, and he would be questioned mercilessly about what had happened. Which meant he had to hurry and wipe away the cobwebs of his mind so he could remember what had happened to make him feel this way.
Heavy footfalls immediately headed in the direction of his chamber door. He was surprised to see the crown prince stalk into his chamber first, not a physician.
Prince Deveron entered the chamber and closed in on the bed, then stood right next to it, crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at Niall for some time, then grinned at him. “So, what happened? Exactly?”
The most intriguing female Mabara had knocked Niall out with her debilitating sleeping potion! That’s what had happened!
Deveron’s dark hair was windswept, and he was wearing blue jeans and a T—shirt and sneakers, meaning he’d just been human side recently. Rarely did he visit anywhere in his invisible fae form, so he always dressed right for every occasion.
“Here I expect to see my loyal count at my side later in the afternoon, but you don’t return to the castle. Then Ritasia grows concerned for your welfare, although I wouldn’t have bothered looking for you until you’d missed evening meal. And here she finds you sleeping beside a fae–painted wall. She sees the girl who shot you with the sleeping powder. A fae of the royal house of Mabara. Who left a cryptic message for the Denkar. Care to explain?” Deveron continued.
Niall closed his eyes and groaned, his head splitting in two. “Later.”
“No, not later,” Deveron said. “Now. I will go easier on you than my mother. So consider this practice for the real inquisition. She hasn’t been home to hear of this news and no one will send word to her because you know what a terror she can be when angered. Not only did the osprey fae enter our territory, leave a message on our wall, but she put one of the members of our royal house in a sleep–induced state for two days, and she managed to elude our trackers for all that time.”
Niall groaned again. Every word the prince spoke grated on his nerves. He might have slept for two days straight, but he felt he could sleep for another whole year and still need more rest.
“Niall!” Deveron snapped. “Come, come. My sister said she was quite beautiful, this winged fae. So tell me, what did she look like?”
“The devil,” Niall ground out.
Deveron smiled. “Have a hangover, do we?” Then he frowned. “Serves you right for not warning us the winged elf was wreaking havoc in our domain and not seeking help in apprehending her.” Deveron let out his breath. “My mother will be furious. What can you tell me about the girl?”
When Niall didn’t say a word, though he almost smiled at Deveron’s reference to the girl being a mischievous winged elf, Deveron continued, “Ritasia was so shocked to see her, and then to find that she’d knocked you out with one of her toxins, she didn’t get enough of a look at her. Except to say she was beautiful.”
Niall let out his breath on a heavy sigh. “She’s of the Mabara royal house.” His voice sounded groggy and not half as irritated as he meant to sound.
“Yes, yes, this we know. And? What else?”
“My lord…”
“And…?” Deveron insisted. “If you aren’t going to abide by protocol, which means calling for reinforcements when in a situation like you found yourself, you have no one to blame but yourself.”
Niall gave an exasperated sigh this time. “She was beautiful. Blonde, green–eyed, pixie–like, and her wings were black lined windowpanes. She wore a short black dress, grayish stockings, and pink…ballerina shoes.”
Deveron raised his brows. “And?”
“She carries a blow–dart gun in a pocket hidden in her dress.”
“You know they often have them on their person.”
“I…” Niall rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t think she had any way to conceal such a weapon.”
“Ahh. So you tried to apprehend her.”
“Aye.”
“And?”
Niall made a disgruntled face at his prince, who gave him a smug smile back.
“She shot me with a face full of her faery dust—sleeping variety. Thank the gods it wasn’t the deadly kind.”
Deveron’s expression turned serious again. “Now, she’s a wanted fae. Not only did she leave some kind of message on our wall, but she did it in broad daylight with her wings on full display, she shot one of our royal kind, and she vanished in front of a group of teens.”
Niall closed his gaping mouth. “No.”
“Indeed. Of course, my mother will want her imprisoned for what she has done, and most likely her own people will want her locked away for a very long time in some castle tower for the same reason.” Deveron frowned again. “She’s of a royal house, which means she could be a duchess or countess, or any number of cousins to the main royal house. Did you ask her name?”
Ask her name? Niall rolled his eyes. At least he thought he did. His head hurt to such a degree, he wasn’t certain if he did it properly.
Deveron twisted his mouth in derision. “Why have you, of all people, picked up that annoyingly human expression? Even Ritasia has started copying Alicia’s way of rolling her eyes. At least Alicia lived among the humans so she had a reason to pick up the human mannerism, but…” The prince let his observation trail off with a dark look meant to make his point.
Niall grimaced. If he could have rolled his eyes again without hurting his head, he would have.
Deveron frowned. “Our trackers are still searching for her. The trail seems to have grown cold. And a spy has infiltrated the Mabara house. They are in an uproar. But since our spy was serving as a traveling bard and is not a member of the royal household, no one would tell him anything. A maid did say a young woman had left the palace and hadn’t returned. When he asked which woman, she wouldn’t say. Which makes me think she’s one of the more important women of the household. And the royal family doesn’t want anyone else to know the woman may be roaming alone in any of the other kingdoms an easy target to take hostage.”
Niall grunted. He didn’t think she was in the least bit easy to take hostage. “She would be hard to miss
because of her remarkable wings.”
“Remarkable?” Deveron asked. “Hmm. Did you…were you…able to earn her confidence in any way?”
Niall opened his mouth to speak, then clamped his lips shut. How could the prince even come up with such a conclusion when the woman had poisoned him with a sleeping potion that was making him feel so out of sorts? Not that the prince’s questioning didn’t have something to do with the way he was feeling.
Deveron cleared his throat. “Anything you can recall might be helpful.”
A decidedly wicked gleam of pleasure shown in Deveron’s dark eyes. What was he getting at? Niall could barely concentrate on much of anything. If the prince wanted him to tell him something, he needed to make his request clearer.
Deveron finally shrugged. “Did you kiss her?”
“Did I kiss who?” Niall asked the crown prince, his voice rising in irritation. He thought maybe the drug had affected his thoughts because surely Deveron couldn’t have asked him such an inane question about the winged fae. Niall kissed lots of lion fae, but Deveron already knew that, and he couldn’t have had that thought in mind when he asked the question.
Again, Deveron’s mouth curved up in a smug smile. “We thought that’s maybe why she only paralyzed you. Well, knocked you out because you’d kissed her, but didn’t kill you because she somewhat liked your kiss.”
Niall frowned at him. “Why would I kiss an osprey fae who was painting graffiti on one of our walls?”
“You kiss all kinds of fae.”
“Only of the Denkar kind.”
“And she was beautiful.”
“She was trespassing.”
Deveron didn’t say anything, but he looked too amused.
“All right, so why do you think I kissed her?”
“You were wearing a fae’s shimmering pink lip gloss on your lips—the only kind that can be seen when the lights are out, sparkling like shiny sprinkles of faery dust—a sure sign that you had kissed a female fae. No Denkar fae would admit that you had kissed one of them before your untimely drugged state, so we have to assume you kissed the winged fae.”
Niall closed his gaping mouth. Goddess above, he’d thought he’d only dreamed the winged creature had kissed him. He barely remembered her lips pressed against his, serious, too. As if she was making a point. Not soliciting his response. Soft, warm, and—
“Well?” Deveron asked.
Irritated, Niall scowled at Deveron, hating that he’d hound him in this way. He wanted to recall more of the kiss, now that he realized it had been real, not a figment of his dream–filled imagination. But he couldn’t recall anything further if Deveron continued to question him. Why couldn’t he let it go?
However, Niall had to set the prince straight. “I…didn’t kiss her.”
Not that he wouldn’t have wanted to kiss her back if he’d had the strength. If she’d wanted him to. Or, even if she hadn’t. It was her fault for being in their territory without permission. And for kissing him when he couldn’t respond in kind.
But the winged fae’s kissing Niall put a whole different light on the situation. Why would she have kissed him? Because she felt sorry for having knocked him out? Or was it a case of her attempting to make him look foolish with his own kind? He didn’t feel foolish in the least, but more than intrigued.
With a devilish look as if he knew better, Deveron smiled. “Sorry to say that no one will believe you. The rumors have already spread to the sphinx and turtle fae kingdoms by now. You were trying to kiss the winged fae, managed a good deal, too—as evidenced by how much lip gloss you were wearing, so it wasn’t a really brief, barely–there peck on the lips—and she shot you with sleeping dust. Good thing she wasn’t carrying around the more lethal dust. Although, knowing their kind, she probably had it concealed in another hidden pocket. Maybe she even got the two mixed up and meant to use the other.” Again, Deveron smiled.
Niall couldn’t believe the tales that were spinning wildly through the kingdoms over the mischievous fae’s actions. That brought a new thought to mind, not one that he liked at all. Maybe she did this just to prove to him that she’d had the situation well in hand. Which meant, he had been powerless to prove he was in control. And by kissing him, she’d let the whole fae world that might learn of it, know so. Devious fae. She had sealed his fate. It would take forever to live this down.
His head pounding with frustration, Niall scowled. “She kissed me, not the other way around.”
At once, he regretted his words. It sounded as though she’d had him under her power. He certainly hadn’t been in any shape to take advantage of the situation. But he was the dark fae in his own territory and should have been the one in charge!
The smile disappeared from Deveron’s face. “Really?” Then he grinned. “The story gets better and better. Sleep, Niall. My mother will be a terror when she returns and questions you. Best if you’re well rested before that happens.”
“Did you…did you decipher what she was trying to say?”
“It’s in a language none of us have seen before. Our educators are searching the books for clues as we speak.”
***
Never in a millennium would the Denkar suspect Serena would return to the scene of her crime as she invisibly watched through a beachfront store window across the street as five scholarly—looking fae dressed in their royal blue robes, studied her graffiti–covered wall. She had changed into her royal fae gowns of pale blue silk and matching ballet–like shoes, since no humans would see her this time.
What were the dark fae scholars doing? The message was perfectly clear.
But the way they scratched their heads and conversed with one another for so long made her think they didn’t know what she’d said.
Like her, they were invisible to the humans and had already had to deal with a couple of human painters wearing white jeans and T–shirts who had tried to whitewash the concrete block wall. Before one of the painters could climb a ladder to reach the top of the wall, one of the Denkar toppled it. Another knocked over one of the opened cans, splattering the white paint all over the sidewalk.
She smiled, thinking she’d have done the same thing in their place to stop the humans from painting over her message.
Both men cursed almost as good as a pissed–off fae could, but they looked unsettled, too. Which was the fae’s whole purpose in messing with them as if they were a ghostly presence to be reckoned with. They would force the humans to leave the wall alone, one way or another.
The fae could have photographed the wall, but they normally didn’t use human cameras to take pictures of objects or subjects. They lived too long to be bothered with saving hundreds of thousands of pictures that they could take over the years, and what would they need with photo albums? Or why would they gather about on Facebook and show off their photos? Although many were on Facebook to play tricks on the humans. They borrowed pictures they loved to use as their own, too, when they felt moved to do so.
But the fae lived for today and for tomorrow. So no sense in keeping pictures of the past.
Besides, physically observing the actual wall might give the Denkar clues they’d otherwise miss. For one, they couldn’t see Serena’s dust trail in a photo.
She studied the wall and wondered if she’d used the wrong fae language in the message. She was always mixing up the symbols in the languages, which was probably due to trying to study too many at the same time, even a couple of them that were considered dead languages since the fae who had used them no longer existed. She was the only one in the family that even attempted to learn of the other written languages, finding them fascinating. Her kind thought the rest of the writings were inferior to their own, so why try to learn anyone else’s? But if she was to play with the other fae, she wanted to leave a message in their own language.
Only, she guessed this time the game was on her.
Fine. She’d try it again. Different wall, different spot near the beach. And this time she’d write i
t out on a piece of paper beforehand to ensure she got it right, then transfer the message to the wall.
Bringing her attention back to the store Serena was standing in as she watched out the big picture window, she heard a clerk say to a woman trying on a beach dress near the dressing rooms, “Oh, yes, that looks just lovely on you.”
Serena turned around to see what looked so lovely on the woman and stared at the ugly monstrosity—the dress, not the customer. Although anyone wearing the dress would instantly look nearly as awful—the gauche colors, the hideous billowing sack, the ragged edging on the sleeves and hem of the dress as if the seamstress had forgotten to hem it.
Her faeness coming to the forefront, like a ventriloquist, Serena threw her voice, making it sound close to the clerk almost as if she was the one speaking again and said, “That is the most hideous—looking dress in the store. The color makes your skin look splotchy and sallow. The style, if it could be said to have any style at all, adds a hundred pounds onto your weight.”
If that didn’t do it, nothing would discourage the woman from buying the dress. Yet, Serena loved the gaping look on the customer’s face, and on the store clerk’s, too, and couldn’t let well enough alone. Although if she’d been truly in a mischievous mood, she would have encouraged the woman to buy the goddess–awful dress.
“Not only that, but it looks like something you dragged out of a rag bag. The colors clash in such a horrible fashion that they wouldn’t look good on anyone, no matter—”
A hand seized Serena’s shoulder, and she was so startled, she shrieked.
Chapter 3
“She’s in the dungeon, clamped in fae irons so she cannot use fae travel to escape,” Deveron informed Niall, who still didn’t have all his wits about him as he rested in his bed only half awake.
The last time Niall had felt this bad, he’d been drinking tequila at one of the lounges in South Padre Island and had lost count of the number of drinks he’d managed to get down while flirting with a human girl. Big mistake. The girl had laughed at him, not with him, and he’d suffered a hangover the size of the Denkar’s kingdom. He had never planned to repeat that folly.