The first thing he noticed was that they were all humans dressed in royal 19 Century clothing, or earlier periods. Highlanders in kilts, a Native American in buckskins, men and women dressed in leathers featuring silver chains and other silver ornaments that glistened in the sunlight—though he wasn’t sure what the people dressed in such a fashion were supposed to be.
And nearby, stalls for selling food: turkey legs, ice cream, sandwiches, and shops offering the strange clothing the humans were wearing, hats from varying centuries, copper dragon fountains spouting water, and pewter dragons curled around crystal balls in another. He’d never seen anything so strange like this place.
He noticed then a couple of men with a faint fae aura, but they quickly disappeared into a tavern where the sign read, “Ale Served Here.”
Ale. He wouldn’t touch a drop as bad as he was feeling. “Where in the world are we?”
“A Renaissance fair in north Texas. The humans love fairs as much as we do. Look at all the winged fairies,” she said, motioning to women dressed in the craziest garb of shimmering silky colorful creations. Wings were attached to their garments, while long furry tails swung behind them as the women swayed their hips.
Fur tails?
Several of the pretend winged fairies nodded to her in greeting as if Serena was one of them.
He shook his head, guessing she must come here often, but he shifted his attention to the reason he’d let her out of the dungeon in the first place. “Where…do…you…have…the…cure?”
“Oh, it is not here,” she said, her expression serious now. “You know as well as I do, your people will be looking for us as soon as they get their trackers on our fae dust trails. I cannot disguise mine. And I’m sure if you could hide yours, you wouldn’t. So I couldn’t take you directly to where my antidote is hidden. My people could never let yours get their hands on the cure. I wish only to give it to you.”
He understood her need to deter the trackers. But it wasn’t helping his condition any. Yet again, he wondered if her willingness to help him hid some secret agenda. Why else would she offer to undo what she had done to him?
Unless she truly did like him. To a degree.
“Where do we go now?” Niall frowned as the tiredness continued to plague his every step. “You know how badly I feel.” Or maybe she didn’t. He doubted she’d ever had to experience such a thing.
As if she could read his mind, she looked up and said, “Yes, I know exactly how you are feeling.”
He raised his brows as he looked down at her, unable to believe she would. Unless...
“I tried to use the powder on a thief once.” She shrugged. “That day it was just one mistake of a whole mess of them I’d made. First, I shouldn’t have been alone.”
“Like you were on South Padre Island,” he scolded. Even if she hadn’t been painting on their wall, he didn’t like the idea she was a female fae running around on her own with no one to watch out for her. Why wasn’t anyone in better charge of her? She was a royal after all.
She let out her breath. “I was only eight, so it was really foolish of me to stray so far from the castle. You see, I was practicing with my powder, pulling my pipe out of my pouch as quickly as I could, blowing on it with just a hint of pressure so that I could ensure I sent only a measured amount to its destination each time. It’s important to practice, you know. So I was getting ready to blow again, when I heard footfalls behind me.
“I turned and saw a large man grinning at me, not slowing down as he ate up the ground with his hefty stride. His teeth were mottled yellow and brown, his blue eyes hard with speculation. I wasn’t sure what he intended, but as soon as he drew close, I blew the powder at him. Only the breeze was such that it tossed it all back into my face. He was chuckling as he watched me fall.”
Niall tightened his free hand into a fist, wanting to protect the winged child that had been at the mercy of such a brute. “And?”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Here I am, a fae with the power to harness the wind and I hadn’t remembered the direction the breeze was blowing because I was concentrating on the distance the man was to me. If I had been thinking more clearly, I could have used my ability to toss the powder right back at him. Easily.”
“You were only a child,” Niall said, caustically, not angry with Serena, but at any who might have harmed her. “What happened?”
“He stole everything I had and left me sleeping there. My mother’s royal guard found me. If I hadn’t been so out of it when I finally came to, I’m certain she would have lectured me more. She had even contemplated not giving me the antidote. For my own good, she said. A lesson learned sort of thing.”
Niall frowned at the notion.
“But she decided I’d been terrified enough. I never left the castle again without a guard.”
He snorted at that.
“Not until I was thirteen. By then I had become much more skilled in the way of harnessing the wind and controlling the dispersing of sleeping powders and the like.”
This time he humpfed.
She cast him an irritated look.
He looked down at her. “You are still getting into trouble on your own.”
She smiled up at him and the look was pure imp.
But then he felt the tiredness return, and a shop selling hammocks caught his eye. Blue and red and green hammocks hung from the porch roof, offered for sale where two clunky humans reclined, dressed as court jesters in black and white harlequin satiny fabric. Niall gazed longingly at the comfortable looking hanging beds made of canvas.
Niall was dying to try out one of the hammocks, even if it meant tipping it over and dumping the current occupant on the wooden porch. Niall would have to become invisible first, upend one of the hammocks, then return in his visible form to the shop. The other jester would have a good laugh at the expense of the one sitting on the porch, who would be trying to figure out what had happened. It seemed an appropriate situation for a pair of jesters, aye?
He noticed then, Serena was motioning with her hand every once in a while, and though he thought she had been waving at other faux fairies, he realized a surge of a breeze carried his and her unique fae dust trails off into the woods with every wave of her hand.
So she might not be able to hide their trails, but she could scatter them to a degree, using her air elemental powers. Which suited him fine. He didn’t want the dark fae guards to track them down before he was cured.
“Serena!” a man said, wearing a knight’s silver chainmail, a black tunic covering the mail, a red lion emblazoned across the front of it as he spied her and the man who was holding hands with her. A sheathed sword hung at his side. He gave Niall a dark look that could kill.
“The Black Knight,” Serena said to Niall. “He’s the bad guy who fights the king’s champion in the jousts.”
“He’s a fae,” Niall said, scowling, seeing the knight’s fae aura at once. “Who is he? He’s not one of your kind.” Which meant she shouldn’t have been so friendly with him. Unless he was old enough to conceal his wings, and he was a winged fae after all. He could have been her older brother, for all Niall knew.
But then Niall studied the knight stalking toward them further, the hard jaw, the turned down mouth, the narrowed, nearly midnight blue eyes. His dusty blond hair was pulled into a knot at the top of his head, and his skin was tan. The sun glinted off his gold medallion with the fighting dragon on it—signature of the dragon fae royalty, and then Niall knew the truth. He was one of the dragon fae! Not Serena’s brother.
Why was he jousting in a human event though?
Serena squeezed Niall’s hand and smiled at the knight as he approached them.
“This is Sir Reginald of the dragon fae,” she said in introduction.
The lion fae and dragon fae had been at odds for centuries, though circumstances in that regard might be changing. But still, Niall suspected, or maybe it was wishful thinking, Serena shouldn’t have known the dragon fae. Not when she was o
f the royal house of Mabara, alone, without anyone’s supervision from her castle.
“A sword instead of a bow?” Niall asked the dragon fae, a barbed jab at the man’s skills. The dragon fae were known to be expert with the bow. He’d never heard of one who used a sword exclusively instead.
Niall let loose of Serena’s hand and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her snug against his side. He did so, he told himself, because he was protecting the lady from the unscrupulous dragon fae. Her people would appreciate that Niall was taking good care of her while in the company of the knight. Niall’s own queen would commend him for taking the lady well in hand, for her protection, of course.
For another thing, he well outranked the man.
Serena glanced at Niall and the way he held her so close. Her heartbeat quickened, and her eyes were wide with surprise. She parted her lips as if to say something, but didn’t, then quickly looked back at the knight to see his reaction to Niall’s action and question. But Niall noted she did not make any attempt to pull away from him. And he self–contentedly smiled at that.
The knight’s eyes narrowed. “We had an agreement, you and I,” he said to Serena, his voice cutting. Niall could tell Reginald didn’t like him touching Serena in so familiar a way. But the knight had no business wanting the lady when Niall was certain her mother knew nothing about her dalliance with the dragon fae.
She sighed. “It didn’t go as intended, Reginald. You know how I sometimes mix up my languages. It seems the Denkar were not able to decipher my message.”
He glowered at Niall. “Who is he then?”
“Count Niall of the Denkar.”
The knight put his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“No,” Serena warned. “He’s unarmed, Reginald. He freed me from the Denkar prison.”
The knight’s mouth gaped. “You were imprisoned?” Then he frowned again. “Why would he free you?” Before she could respond as if he really didn’t like what he might hear and said in a commanding way, “You are to be mine.”
“That remains to be seen,” Serena said, her back rigid. She apparently didn’t like the knight’s underhanded comments any more than Niall did. “Unless the queen agrees to release me from my mother’s vow to her, we can do nothing.”
Niall noted she did not tell the knight why he had freed her.
“Then what is one of the Denkar doing here with you?” The knight motioned to the way Niall held her possessively.
Niall didn’t know what made him say it, except that he had the greatest urge to rile the knight further, and it was the first thought that came to mind, as he asked Serena, “Have you kissed him also?”
***
Deveron was in the middle of securing two trackers to locate Niall and the winged fae named Serena when his mother sent a messenger to him, requesting his presence in her throne room. At once.
Just as he had expected, she would be in a dreadful mood. Only he hadn’t thought this would be the reason.
“Deveron,” she snapped, her dark eyes ringed with gold, as she wore bright red silk gowns, warning all in not so subtle a manner that she was in a furor over something.
She motioned for the courtiers who were standing about to leave at once. Her advisor stood planted by her side as though he thought he was needed, but when his mother gave Deveron the dark look she did now, he knew this was for his ears only.
“Out,” she told her advisor, and the gray–haired Lord Haverton quickly bowed and exited the throne room, the guards shutting the doors immediately.
Deveron began to explain. “The winged fae was apprehended and taken to the dungeon where she was interrogated, but—”
His mother waved her hand dismissively. “I know all that goes on in my kingdom,” she said hotly.
“I was about to send two trackers to run them down.”
“Do you know who she is?” his mother asked, her brows arched with the question.
Deveron was getting a very bad feeling about this. “A royal winged fae from Mabara.”
“The queen’s own daughter!” his mother exclaimed with irritation.
Deveron let out his breath and folded his arms across his chest. So he was in trouble for imprisoning the pixie–like fae. “What do you wish for me to do, my lady mother? I will not marry the girl. I fully intend to marry Alicia. You know I have my mind set on this.”
The queen shook her head and tsked. “I do not intend to wed you to every princess who is eligible. Serena is to wed your cousin, Micala. The alliance will do us good.”
Deveron stared at his mother, wondering when this had come about. Would she never let any of them know what she intended before she made the arrangements herself? “Does Micala know about this?”
His cousin hadn’t any plans to settle down any time soon. And Deveron knew if his mother had spoken to Micala concerning this, he would have told Deveron the news right away and not been happy about it.
“Of course not. I just made arrangements with the queen a few days ago and have been celebrating with her ever since.”
So that’s where she’d been…and why.
Thinking he might get Micala out of the bind he was in and fix Niall for freeing the winged fae and possibly getting Deveron into hot water for it at the same time, he said, “But she’s kissed Niall, my lady mother, and must have some fondness for him. And now he has freed her from our dungeon. So he must return the interest. Think you he would be a better match for the winged creature?”
“Nay,” his mother said, waving her hand in dismissal. “The agreement has been signed. The princess will marry Micala and that will be the last of it. Send off the trackers, and tell them…” She paused and frowned. “Did she not tell you that she was the princess?”
“No, nor would she tell us her name.” Not that Deveron had asked her, only having questioned Niall when he was in bed half asleep. But Niall hadn’t known her name either.
Although when Niall had tried to learn of her name in the dungeon, Deveron had stopped him from doing so. He’d only thought she was some minor royalty and it didn’t matter who she truly was at that point. Who would have thought the princess herself would have being painting graffiti on their wall? All he thought important was that they learn what message she’d painted there. He reminded himself that this was one of those little life experiences to learn from. In the future, he would be more careful to discover who he was dealing with before he made the wrong assumptions.
“Be sure that Niall learns who the woman is before he becomes too interested in her,” his mother warned.
“He wanted to strangle her after what she did to him,” Deveron admitted.
His mother smiled at that, then scowled. “He should have known not to approach her without back up.”
“Aye, as I have told him.”
“Go,” she said in way of releasing him from his meeting with her. “Find them before her mother learns what has become of her.”
He stalked toward the door, paused, turned, and asked, “Did the princess know what her mother had intended with regard to Serena marrying Micala?”
“Of course.”
“Was she pleased?”
“Of course not. Such is the task we mothers have to face. Ungrateful children who do not know enough about the politics of running kingdoms and the importance of alliances.” She gave Deveron a pointed look, assuring him she included him in that category.
He didn’t care as long as he didn’t have to marry someone other than Alicia.
“Serena will grow to care for Micala. Now go, before her mother learns she is off with Niall, goddess knows where and what doing.”
Had Serena written something discouraging about the Denkar because of the impending marriage arrangement between her and his cousin?
Great. Deveron left the throne room, motioned for three servants, and said, “Go at once to South Padre Island dressed as human painters. Under Queen Irenis’s orders, paint the wall that the winged fae illustrated with her artwork. Te
ll the scholars who are trying to decipher it that there’s no need to learn what the message had said.”
“Aye, my lord.”
The three men hurried off while Deveron returned to the two trackers. “I’m going with you. More is at stake than I ever thought possible.”
He’d kill Niall himself if he strangled the girl before he knew who she was and ultimately caused a war between their kingdoms.
Chapter 5
While the music from the Renaissance fair continued to serenade them, and tons of humans in their strange costumes passed them by, Sir Reginald glowered at Serena, then at Niall. “You lie. She would never have kissed the likes of you. She abhors the idea of marrying a lion fae.”
Niall glanced at Serena, who looked horrified that he’d even mentioned she had kissed him, which made him smile. If her concern was because he had told on her, it served her right for kissing Niall without his being able to respond. But he also wondered about the knight’s remark that Serena hated the idea of marrying one of his kind. Why would that even be an issue that she would consider?
“I challenge you to a joust,” Sir Reginald told Niall.
“No! You can’t!” Serena said angrily. “He’s still under the influence of my sleeping potion. You have no reason to challenge him anyway.”
The knight stiffened. “Why had you put him to sleep? You wouldn’t have done so unless he’d threatened you.”
“He startled me when I was writing the message. I didn’t mean to put him to sleep,” she said, irritated.
The knight would not allow her to dismiss his concerns. “He would have arrested you. You said yourself you were in the lion fae dungeon.”
She folded her arms and scowled at him. “You knew that might happen if one of the royal fae and not one of their underlings caught me writing the message. We agreed it was a risk I had to take.”
A risk she had to take? For what? For this pompous aristocrat? Why didn’t the knight paint the graffiti on the wall if both had agreed to do it? Why didn’t he take the risk and not the lady? Coward!