The Winged Fae (The World of Fae) (2 page)

She glanced back at the human males. They were both watching her with intrigue, but neither ventured any closer. “Cowards,” she said under her breath.

If she took the Denkar with her, she could hide him for a couple of days, at least until he woke.

Or not. Where would she hide him but in her own kingdom? And if anyone found out, there would be the devil to pay. Both for her and for him.

She should leave him here. Let the Denkar find him. But they’d know that one of her kind had done this to him once they analyzed the shimmering pink dust on his hair and skin and clothes.

She glanced back at the wall. Well, the message couldn’t be any clearer.

“Niall!” a woman called out, her voice sweet but worried at the same time. Commanding, too, as if she expected the fae to suddenly appear and bow down to her.

Serena whipped her head around and saw Ritasia, the Denkar princess, Deveron’s sister, headed for a shop sporting beach wear, beach towels, and other touristy nick–nacks. The woman’s dark hair was swept up into curls over her head, her eyes dark as midnight, while she wore typical royal attire—shimmering peach silk gowns flowing in the muggy breeze with every step she took, gold sandals, and a string of pearls woven into her hair. But no one could see her like the fae could as the princess moved about invisible to humans.

Uh–oh. Not good. Serena had meant for a lowly Denkar fae to discover her. Not all these lofty royals. She could twist a non–royal around her will, if he was not of the royal house. But the royal fae? Really not good.

As soon as the princess saw Serena with one dead–looking Denkar fae, Ritasia would call on her mother, Queen Irenis, and well, curses, Serena would be done for. This was not at all how she had planned this.

Ritasia hadn’t spied Serena yet, thank the goddess. But she was tracking his faery dust trail to the beach–ware shop and would soon see just where Serena crouched beside the sleeping fae. Since Serena was visible to humans, she couldn’t just blink out and vanish. Not unless no one was watching. Since the two men were still studying her, she couldn’t use fae travel in front of them.

Dash it all anyway. She scrambled to her feet and instantly caught Ritasia’s eye. Oh well, it was sure to happen. The fae’s dark eyes widened. Yep, no winged fae would be caught dead on Denkar—claimed territory.

Nor would they knock out a Denkar, royal or otherwise, without paying the consequences. She smiled a little.

Princess Ritasias’s gaze quickly shifted to the sleeping fae, and Serena imagined that the man was Niall, the one who Ritasia was searching for. The woman’s mouth dropped open.

Time to make a hasty retreat.

Serena stalked off to the edge of the building, whipped around it, and intended to vanish, but a whole group of teens wearing shorts and T–shirts were standing there talking. They gaped at her. The wings made people do that sometimes. She usually only appeared at Renaissance fairs where lots of humans ran around dressed as faux fairies wearing fur tails—who knew why—although she speculated some were going for an elf look. Though she was fairly certain no self–respecting elf would wear furry tails either. Must have been the humans’ fanciful notions.

She loved to trick–or–treat for goodies at Halloween, wearing her wings. Woe to the human who wouldn’t give her some really good treats—chocolates were her favorite. No pennies. No hard, sticky candy. Chocolates. The rich dark variety. Milk chocolate was pretty good, too. And mint chocolate, her absolute favorite.

And no apples. Whoever heard of eating anything healthy for Halloween? It was a time to be decadent.

One of the male teens drew close, staring at Serena’s wings. “Wow, those are too cool. They look real.” She could see in his fascinated expression that he wanted to feel one of her wings. He reached out to touch one.

She tried to couch her anger so that the golden ring didn’t glow around her eyes, a sure way to tell a fae was pissed. “Hands off, buster,” she quickly said, sidestepping his grasping fingers.

It wasn’t like he could hurt her wings or anything. But it was just too…
personal
. It would be like him trying to kiss her, or stroking her arm, when she didn’t even know the dude.

“Back off,” she said, when one of the other males crowded her.

“What’s wrong? Think you’re too good for us?”

Oh, yeah, she did. But she was more concerned about getting out of everyone’s sight so she could vanish before Ritasia called for the royal guard and Serena was clamped in faery irons—the special kind that prevented fae travel.

She tried to move around the teens, but they encircled her, touching her wings, ignoring her protests, and the fact that her eyes were glowing. The golden aura reflected off a girl’s nearly black eyes as she stared open mouthed at Serena’s eyes.

“Wow, look at the contacts she’s wearing. Where did you get those? I gotta have me some of those. Take them out. Let me see them,” the girl said.

The humans were ordering her about? A royal fae? She was supposed to play with them, not the other way around!

Fingers traced her back where the slits of her dress fit comfortably around her wings and hid the fact they were permanently attached to her body. At home, they normally wore backless dresses to more easily accommodate their wings. But in the human world, she couldn’t chance them seeing her like that.

“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.