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

Yet a cold shiver ran up her spine with the notion he could not only
see
her but knew just what she was when no one should have known.
No one human
. She realized that she was feeling as though she was something alien, something that needed to be eliminated in their world.

Why could he see her? Was he partly fae? And the other two boys? Were they also?

This was
so
not good.

She decided to do what she knew she shouldn’t, what she
wouldn’t
do at any other time, but she
was
the fae. She might as well get used to the idea.

Heading for the boy with the phone, who was
not
supposed to be texting in the class anyway, she walked straight through the kids and their desks.

She’d barely reached him when he caught sight of her standing beside him, just before she yanked the phone out of his hand.

He gasped, nearly fell from his seat, staring up at her, his eyes darkening and widening at the same time as if he was looking into the eyes of a ghost. Or something worse. A fae who could kill him.

Trying for sweet and innocent and friendly, she smiled down at him and mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

He still stared back at her with wide-eyed shock. With his phone clutched tightly in her hand, she turned and headed straight through the kids, the closest shot to the door, holding the phone above their heads. The tricky part was that she had no idea what to do about his phone. It was visible when she was not. The only way to make it invisible was for her to appear human, and then return to her invisible state to make the object in her hand invisible also. She couldn’t appear human in class suddenly, or she might cause a wild panic.

Instead, the cell floated over the kids’ heads. Most were too wrapped up in reading their books or other activities that were keeping them occupied that they didn’t see the phone. A couple of girls’ mouths gaped as they watched the phone float toward the door. She couldn’t help that.

When Alicia reached the door, she realized she couldn’t take the phone through the door like this. She opened the door, walked out of the class with the phone in hand, and closed the door.

And screamed as hands quickly encircled her wrists with iron manacles.

Chapter 2

Ena hated being summoned to court at Crislis Castle, home of the dragon fae. She hated the pompous courtiers—the women dressed in all their elegant silky fae gowns and the men in their gilt-laden tunics. She had no need of the ostentatious banquets or the gossiping and intrigue. Preferring the mountains and forests, the caves, her own small keep, and her kind to all this, she bit her tongue, held her head high, and stalked straight for the main doors of the castle where the dragon fae ruled.
The dragon fae
.

She snorted. They were shadows of themselves of a time gone by when they were
truly
the dragon fae. Like
she
still was.

Two men dressed in royal tunics identifying them as part of the servant staff, hurried to open the doors for her.

Women gathered in annoying little clusters twittering among themselves in the marble hall stopped speaking to one another when one of them pointed her out. Yes. She was dragon fae. But not one of
them
.

And she
was
dangerous. She glanced in their direction, studied each of them in turn, made them visibly pale, and she smiled. An evil, calculating smile. What she wouldn’t give to show them what she was truly capable of. They hated her. Every last one of them. Because she was different.

She hadn’t met the king’s granddaughter yet. Had Princess Alicia already learned about her? Most likely. And would shun her just the same. Which wouldn’t have mattered except she would one day rule. Then Ena would have to bow down to the princess, who would be queen, instead of her grandfather, who now ruled as king. Ena hated to bow down to anyone. Not when she felt these fae were beneath her.

She glanced in a gold gilded mirror, her pale green eyes sharp with annoyance, her mouth thinned into a grim pale line, her hands held loosely at her sides. She flexed her fingers, her nails long, black, and wicked-looking. Heavy smoky gray eye shadow and thick black eyeliner and short fringy jet black hair gave her the appearance of a human Goth. But she wasn’t human. And she looked perfectly lethal.

She’d worn a black velvet vest, the front trimmed in gold braid, brass buttons, almost making it look like one of the royal bodyguard’s uniforms, except that she wore no shirt under it and as form fitting as it was, it looked more like a corset. She wore men’s trewes and black leather boots laced up to the thighs. All she needed was a sword if she had wished to make mincemeat of someone. She had a dagger sheathed at her waist instead.

So what was it that the king wished of her now? He’d asked her to perform odd jobs before, but he usually didn’t summon her to court. Within the past week, he’d sent a missive telling her to collect taxes from a farmer, who wasn’t paying his fair share, and to search for a child missing in her area and return him to the family post-haste. That’s how he handled informing her of new missions.

She reached the top landing and saw the pompous Prince Grotto, Alicia’s cousin once-removed, narrowed green eyes focused on her, his sandy blond hair tied back in a tail, wearing the highest of fae fashions—a gold embossed burgundy brocade tunic and velvet trewes and high-topped brown leather boots. She gave him an annoyed curtsey, hating to have to acknowledge him. He gave her the slightest bow of his head, conceding he accepted her greeting, though from the scowl on his face, he looked like it killed him to do so.

“King Tibero wants to see you right away. What took you so long?” Prince Grotto growled. “He sent the missive two days ago!”

She snarled at him. “The missive didn’t reach me for a day and a half.” She hadn’t wanted to give him a reason, but she knew the prince could be dangerous. Not that the king would have Prince Grotto kill her or anything. But the prince might take it upon himself to try to have her eliminated and blame the deed on someone else. She knew he was sneaky that way.

She’d heard he’d killed one of her distant male cousins—hunting accident—Prince Grotto had said. And she didn’t believe it one bit. Not when her cousin had had a run-in with the prince the day before. When that happened, whoever was on the outs with the prince was conveniently eliminated. If anyone thought Prince Grotto was behind it, no questions were asked.

The gray haired king was seated on his throne, wearing a navy blue tunic and trewes, gold rings on every finger, some sparkling with diamonds. A young boy stood beside him, hurriedly telling him of her arrival, and then growing quiet as his eyes widened to see her. He quickly faded into the background.

One guard stood on either side of the king. She always wondered if they did so only when she came to visit, or if he always had two guards to protect him.

Prince Grotto stood nearby, arms folded across his chest, looking officious as usual. She wanted to tell him to leave, that they didn’t need him here. If the king hadn’t wanted him to hang around, he would have dismissed him, so she kept her mouth shut. She still wanted to tell him to get lost.

“Good, good, you are here.”
King Tibero
didn’t belittle her for arriving late, which she was grateful for, especially since Grotto was watching the proceedings. “Princess Alicia is missing.”

That took Ena aback. She clamped her gaping mouth quickly, not wanting to appear so shocked. Her first thought was the princess had again disobeyed her grandfather and was seeing Prince Deveron. But she didn’t believe the king would have Ena search for the princess, if that had been the case.

His eyes narrowed and his voice rough with upset, the king said, “She’s
not
in the dark fae kingdom, which is where we looked first.”

As Ena had suspected he would have done without her help. Her skin chilled. If anything bad had happened to the princess and she no longer lived, Prince Grotto would be next in line to rule the dragon fae kingdom, and he had a distinct dislike for her kind. They had an uneasy truce, ever since King Tibero had ruled their people. She had hoped that they’d have the same kind of semi-peaceful co-existence between their people at least with Princess Alicia when the time came for her to lead the dragon fae.

“I’ve had messengers dispatched. Prince Deveron is taking the news badly so I know he does not have her tucked away somewhere. He and his dark fae trackers have followed her trail. She was last seen at the high school she used to attend.”

Ena could just imagine Prince Deveron being upset. He was devoted to Princess Alicia.

She folded her arms and raised her brows. “Okay, so what do you want
me
to do? If Prince Deveron and his trackers have located her already…”

“They have not,” the king said hastily. “We have reason to believe she went to see her human girlfriend, Cassie, and not Deveron as we first suspected. We believe one of the dark fae was seeing the human girl, and Alicia was attempting to break off their relationship.”

Ena took a deep breath. She’d heard the princess was soft where humans were concerned. “And now she’s disappeared.”

“Aye.”

“And you think?” Even if the king’s supposition was incorrect, she still needed to know what the king
thought
she was going up against.

“Fae seers have taken her prisoner. That’s what I believe.”

Fae seers.
Now she knew why he had called on her to take on this mission.

“And…you want me to go because I can hide my fae aura.” Not everyone could.

She gave Prince Grotto a superior look. He might think he was somebody because he was the king’s nephew, but
he
couldn’t save the princess like she could. On the other hand, she didn’t really know if she
could
save the princess, if she was even alive still. She noted Prince Grotto didn’t look in the least bit concerned that the princess might not be returning to the kingdom.

“Aye. You will name your price when you return with the princess in hand.”

“And the fae seers?” She always ensured she knew what her mission entailed exactly. She didn’t want to make the mistake of assuming anything.

“Bring them to me.
Alive
.”

She curtseyed. “As you wish, Your Kingship.” She gave Prince Grotto a look that could kill. If he dared try to stop her in her mission, she would eliminate him first. With or without anyone’s—including the king’s—permission.

“I will see you out,” Prince Grotto said, as if they were best of friends.

“No need,” she growled, turned, and stalked out of the throne room. She could have vanished and gone to where she was going, but she would rather make her presence known as she left the castle to ensure that everyone knew she was in the king’s good graces, not carted away to the dungeon for some misdeed.

She took a deep breath and let it out. She hadn’t been practicing keeping her fae aura hidden. No need in the fae realm.

In the human world? She hadn’t bothered there either. She hadn’t run across any fae seers—that she knew of. She would have to concentrate on hiding her fae aura. Everyone had to see her as nothing more than a human Goth.

***

Prince Deveron paced across a hotel room, not sure where else to turn. His cousins Micala and Niall were with him, and so was his bodyguard, Herlinkis. Deveron’s mother, Queen Irenis, wanted to send an army with him, but the fewer the better, he thought, when trying to determine what had happened to Alicia. If they needed an army, he could always send one of his cousins to the queen and request one.

The school had already been closed by the time they had learned Alicia was missing, though that hadn’t kept them out of the building, searching for evidence of where she’d gone. They’d found that Alicia had been at the school office, a girls’ restroom, and one classroom, and then disappeared outside in the parking lot. Which meant?

He suspected she’d gotten into a vehicle with someone. He’d prayed that she had gone home with Cassie. But when they had arrived at Cassie’s house and asked her if she’d seen Alicia, she’d said they were to get together for lunch. She never saw her at school ever. He wiped her mind of having seen them, not about to let Micala do the task as much as he couldn’t quit seeing the girl. She was lovely, a dark eyed and dark haired beauty. But she was also strictly human.

Now he and the others were staying at a hotel room until the next morning when everyone returned to school, and they could try to figure out who might have taken her, because that was what Deveron feared. That she had not gone with anyone willingly.

“King Tibero was angry when he thought you had taken the princess somewhere for a rendezvous, but now I suspect he wished she’d been with you,” Micala remarked.

“
You
are the whole reason for this crisis!” Deveron roared, barely able to keep his fist from hitting his cousin. “If
you
hadn’t been after Cassie, Alicia
wouldn’t
have come to her rescue!”

Micala mumbled an apology. Herlinkis and Niall tried to fade into the background. No one wanted to face Deveron’s temper when it came to worrying about someone he cared this much about when she could be in a world of danger.

“She’s used to being with humans,” Niall finally ventured. “That should give her an edge.”

“She is
not
human,” Deveron growled. “She is
fae
. And whoever’s got her
knows
this. And he
knows
how to keep her from traveling in our way.”

Niall swallowed hard. “We’ll find her.”

His stomach churning with upset, Deveron took a deep breath, trying to get his anger under control. He couldn’t help Alicia, feeling the way he was now. But if a fae seer had hold of her, he feared the situation would only get worse.

***

Alicia woke with the worst headache. Wherever she was, the odor of concrete and mold assaulted her. She cast a small fae light between her hands and peered about. She was lying on a black sleeping bag that smelled of pine trees, earth, and mustiness. She sneezed. Her wrists were manacled in iron to a thick gray steel pipe. She groaned. Where was she?

Concrete block walls surrounded her, the concrete floor beneath her of the same gray color. At first, she thought she was in a dungeon.

She thought back to what had to have happened. She’d been leaving Cassie’s classroom as she held onto the fae seer’s phone to eliminate his ability to get word to his friends about her. As soon as she’d left the room, the two other boys had grabbed her wrists, slapped the iron manacles on them and dragged her off. To anyone else seeing them in the hallway, it would have looked like they were holding manacles between them. If anyone else had been in the hall, that was. She had thought to turn herself visible, scream for help as the two football player-sized guys tried to whisk her away to who knew where.

It was a good plan if it had worked. She became visible and opened her mouth to scream. But one of them nearly drowned her with something sickly sweet. And she was out just like that.

Now she was suffering from a goddess-sized headache. She looked around the room, but it was devoid of anything. No furniture, the walls were unfinished cement blocks, the ceiling covered in pipes and wires. Which most likely meant no one visited the basement except for whoever had put her down here in the first place.