The Ravaged Fairy

Evernight
Publishing

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright©
2011 Anna Keraleigh

 ISBN:
978-1-926950-52-5

Cover Artist: LF Designs

Editor: Stephanie Taylor

ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution
of this copyrighted work is illegal.  No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and
places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

I want to thank everyone at Evernight Publishing from
the bottom of my heart, especially Stacey and my outstanding editor Stephanie
Taylor. You’re both so wonderfully patience and I’m very lucky to be part of
this group.

To my Facebook friends that helped me with the Irish
translations, Hope and Valerie. You ladies rock!

I would also like to invite every one of my readers to
check out Aran Islands Tourism (visitaranislands.com). Ireland is a magical place and I hope you all get to experience its wonders.

THE RAVAGED FAIRY

Anna
Keraleigh

Copyright ©
2011

Chapter One

Ravaged, that’s how Thame felt.

There were no clear thoughts, no
memories, only an immense amount of pain and the drive to survive. He stumbled
through the thick brush on the ground and pushed against trees to catapult him
further. There was no time to rest or to gain his strength, especially with the
sun waning.

His foot slipped in a collection of mud
and his knee slammed against the ground. The pain vibrated up his leg and
straight to his back. Even grabbing hold of the nearest tree base would not
stop his downward plunge. He landed face first in a thicket of grass and his
bare toes sunk into the cold mud.

Thame was a warrior in the fairy kingdom,
a place that held the last of their kind. He should be flying proudly through
the sky instead of lying on the ground with his body screaming in pain. He was
stronger than this, stronger than those who hunted him.

His consciousness flickered and images
assaulted his open eyes. He saw his new queen with her bright smile, the King
that was a childhood friend and the dreadful night when this all began.

They surprised him, a rare occurrence.
The trolls hit him until the blackness was eating at his mind and then they cut
off his wings. Thame pushed to his knees. They ripped off his wings! Ripped
them right from his body and with the Goddess as his witness he swore to
slaughter every troll that stumbled in his path. They had just rescued the Queen
after the trolls kidnapped her and now they decided to take on a warrior. The
damned bastards had succeeded in their quest. Here he was crawling on all fours
like wild animal; he had no idea where he was or how he would get home.

The trees finally thinned out as he once
again climbed to his feet. They were leaden and unstable as he burst through
the tree line. His balance was shaky and the house that lay before him might
have well been a figment of his imagination.

He landed beside a rock fence, holding
his breath to keep from shouting as the pain made his back spasm. Grey rocks
piled high and used in lieu of traditional fences. That was not a common
practice in Ireland any longer.

The big question was, would the lad see
him? Few humans could see a fairy and in nearly two hundred years, he only met
one, their current queen. The little thatched cottage rose beside a dirt road. All
the lights were off but he stumbled over the rock wall and toward the wooden
door painted red.

“Help.” It was a whisper, he could not
yell despite trying. “Help…” The whisper was another soft echo in the fading
light. He pulled himself up the single step and slammed his fist against the
door. A thud sounded, to his relief the knob twisted, and the door opened.

An elderly man stood there adjusting his
glasses. Thame’s hope fell, the man didn’t see him. He squinted through big
glasses and frowned. “Help me!” It was a cracked plea on his lips before the
man shut the door. This was no time to give up. He’d push himself to his feet
and continue on. Someone had to see, someone had to help. He prayed to the
Goddess as he shifted to his feet. Pain destroyed his balance; he grimaced,
each step caused brutal stabbing pains throughout his body. He ground his teeth
together and pushed forward, there was no way he would give up now. Not after
surviving that horror and escaping the trolls clutch.

Footsteps brought him back to the present.
His head lifted and then he laid eyes on the most beautiful woman he had ever
seen. She stopped in the middle of the road. The long white dress she wore
fluttered around her legs. Black hair tangled in the wind and then he fell. He
struggled with all his might to shift so he could watch her. She was still
there and her gray eyes shifted to him. Could she see him? Was she an angel of
mercy to take him to the Goddess? His lips opened but no words would sound.
Thame fought the darkness but it was greedy and his consciousness finally gave
in.

Breena stood motionless as the tall blond
man lay on the bed. She’d found him naked in the middle of her road.

Okay, so it wasn’t
her
road, just
the path she took every day to her house, and he wasn’t exactly naked. He wore
this tattering of cloth over his good bits, as Gran would say. She also had no
clue what to do. It would be wrong to leave him there, so she hurried to the
house and grabbed her horse. It was the only option to bring the big guy home.
It took the better part of an hour to maneuver their way there.

At the front door of the thatched
cottage, she decided on using the wheel barrel, rolled him in and pushed him to
the guest bedroom. It was the spare room, the one with a bed, a window and
creaky old wooden floors.

“Hello?” her voice echoed in the quiet
house. “Dia dhuit?” she tried in Irish, should it be someone from another town.
The man remained motionless as she inched her way closer. Lord but he was tall.
Had to be near six foot five inches of sculpted muscle, and long hair that
resembled flakes of gold fluttered around his body. He was a virile man, his
thighs thick, and his shoulders broad.

He lay awkwardly on his back, his chest
hunched upward and one hips twisted away from the bed. From here, she could see
his flat nipples on a hairless chest. More muscles ripped under his tan flesh. He
looked like one of those mighty warriors from the Irish romance novels she
loved so much. Of course, that was a wonderful fantasy and this was hard
reality. He was probably some pervert on vacation here.

She dragged him to his stomach and her
eyes went wide at his back. It was torn to bloody bits. “Oh shite, what
happened to you?” Never had she seen such bad wounds, long ragged tearing of
the skin.

This poor man had been stuck out there
with these and he would have certainly died. Not many people traveled her road
as this was not the most populated place.

Inis Mór was not as populated as it used
to be, and she would know having been here all twenty-two years of her life. She
shook her head, grabbed the tie on her wrist and gathered the mass of her black
hair into a ponytail. She rolled her beige sweater sleeves to her elbows and
collected a few items from the small kitchen that looked out at the calm waters
of the Mar De Irlanda. Then she was back at the handsome stranger’s side. The
patches of skin without crusted blood were bronzed and she frowned at her own
pale flesh. Well, he wasn’t a native. Everyone on this island was as colorless
as those vampires the Americans were so infatuated with.

She took a handful of his gold silky hair
and pushed it over his shoulder. They were beautiful, soft and shimmering in
the dim light of the room. Never had she seen something so delicate on a man. What
would it be like to have the strands dragged over her bare flesh?

Breena jerked to her feet at the thought.
What was wrong with her? This man was dying, a stranger who could be a horrible
addition to the human race or a hero. Either way, she was wondering what hung
under his loincloth and that was inappropriate. Gran raised her to be a lady,
not some infatuated girl. She took a breath and settled back onto the edge of
the bed. His body tilted slightly toward her, his hip met hers and she bit her
lip.

“Focus on his back, Breena!” she mumbled
and took the wet rag from the wooden bowl. Each swipe took off some dried blood
and revealed puffy flesh. She could scarcely tell muscle from bone or even skin.
Her fingertips grazed an unmarred section on his back, smooth and hairless. She
dragged the rag across his wounds, first on the left side then the right. She
knew the gaping slashes would need mending and grabbed the needle already
threaded with yellow twine. He didn’t make a flinch as the sharp point pierced
his flesh. Her hand flattened, and she felt the warmth from his skin against
her palm.

She took a glance at his face. His lids remained
closed. What color eyes hid behind them? Did he have one of those stares that
made a woman shiver with heat? A few of the books described that some men had
such an intense gaze; a woman could warm from the inside out. Would this
stranger have eyes like that?

She finished the line of crooked stitches.
Her fingers grazed along his lower back. This was the best possible reward for
saving this stranger. She was able to touch a handsome body for the first time
in her life. She had never been so intimate with anyone before and the taunt
flesh under her hands was her gift for helping him.

At least that’s what she would tell
herself. Besides he was sleeping. She could play with his bits and he wouldn’t
know a thing. Not that she’d do such a thing, Breena grinned widely and then
frowned, maybe she read too much. Her mind was first in the gutter and now in
the clouds. She began seaming together the other wound. The area beneath the
torn skin felt different from the rest of his back. It was hard, almost as if
there was something bone like underneath. With all the swelling, it was hard to
tell anything but where the flesh was shredded.