Something flashed in the Fae’s eyes, and his lips pressed tight.“You thralled that man!I will break your thrall on him, one way or another, and he will give me his gratitude if not outright his favor.”
“You think I compelled him?As if.”
“But—”
Peter let the knife drop into his palm, and while the movement was small, the Fae’d seen it.He took a step back.Small knives didn’t normally get Fae to retreat.
“Did you set anyone on him?Or are you just some excuse of a Fae, out here to snatch unsuspecting humans to your realm and keep them there against their will?Tell me, or I’ll go slow about detaching those balls.”
Peter took a step closer to the Fae.He stepped back.Had it been anyone else, he’d have enjoyed it, but he couldn’t quite believe this.It was surreal.Fae believed they were superior to everyone else in the same way some of Peter’s past and non-Viking battle mates had believed in the endless feasting they’d have in Valhalla.They’d fought with everything they had as a result, often recklessly and to the end.Fae were a lot like that.
“I would never treat a human so!They—often, they do not know what they want and need guidance.”He puffed out his chest and placed one hand over his heart.“One such as I, who knows better and has tasted the wisdom of Faerie has a duty to guide them.And to free them of any bloodsucker’s thrall.”He frowned.“I thought for certain he was thralled.I sensed the aura and the lingering faintness.”He narrowed his eyes.“Regardless, you fed on the poor creature!”
Poor creature?He might want your balls for that sort of insult.“My beloved is anything but poor and hardly what you’d call a creature.”
The Fae frowned again.“Your…beloved?You cannot love.Your heart has lost the skill.”
“Says someone whose kind drags people from their homes and keeps them at some Faerie court against their will.”
The Fae set his jaw.“Not I!Never I.It is… Skies above, to think I’d side with one like you, but I agree.It is deplorable.You are naught but vermin, and yet you have the right of it.”The Fae snorted and looked at the ground.He seemed…sad?
“What?”Peter lost his concentration.This really wasn’t how it normally went, fighting a Fae.If it continued, he’d have to chase this one with a butter knife.
Peter glanced up when he heard the low patter of footfalls.
“Getrude, I found them!Quick, quick!”
Peter knew that voice.He had to suppress a groan.The Fae took another step back and turned.There, rounding the building and coming up behind him, was Lord Laurette of the Silver Moons, or LordfuckingLaurette, as Peter called him in the privacy of his own mind.
“Gertruuude!”the Elven lord hollered once more, running at them.“I have him!Peter’s still in one piece, too!”
Peter huffed.Laurette was a flavor best enjoyed sparingly.His blond hair was long—Elven custom, Peter was pretty sure.It was also practical that way, easily able to cover the slightly pointy Elven ears much less pronounced than those of a Fae.Not that Laurette needed that when he had enough magic to hide those points and then some.Peter was reasonably sure, just from the way Laurette made the back of his neck prickle, that the Elf was exceedingly skilled at wielding his magic.
The lord had dyed the ends of his hair a bright pink that faded to pale lavender about two hands above the ends, the natural golden-blond showing above that.On anyone else, it might have looked like a bad dye job that had grown out, except that wasn’t what it was.Laurette had arranged the top part of his hair in a high updo, pink and lavender fringes now framing his fine-boned face while the rest fanned out behind him, clashing with light beige riding pants worn for fashion, not for horses, and a tight-fitting pink T-shirt that perfectly matched the hair.
The Elf should’ve looked garish.He didn’t, and Peter sort of hated that about him.
“Lord Laurette,” he said, sighing with some relief and sketching a quick bow.
“Lord?”the Fae said, confusion filling his voice.
“Oh, damn,” Laurette said, putting his hands on his knees and breathing heavily.“I forgot how bad running is for my composure.Tarts and tits, my side stings.”
“Tarts and—” The Fae swallowed tightly, as if he was scared of that particular piece of anatomy.
Laurette waved a hand at him, then fanned himself with it.“Why, the bird, not the breast.Although if you’d rather think of breasts, you may be my guest.Personally, I enjoy both—bird and breast—though perhaps not at the same time, as it were.My, aren’t youtalland all that.”He stepped right up to the Fae and felt along the hunk’s shoulder.“Very tall.Hmm, not sword muscles, these, nor a bowman’s arms.”
“I-I will have you know—” The Fae seemed at a loss for words, his cheeks pinking.
Laurette focused his cool green eyes on him.“Have me know what?I love a confession.Go on.”
“I know my way around a bow.And a blade.”The Fae’s voice had turned into a small thing, a flame about to reach the end of the wick.
“My lord.”Laurette’s servant jogged up to them.She was a pixie, and wore the pointy hat they preferred.Like all pixies, she was perhaps half as tall as Peter, but unlike her lord, she didn’t seem to mind the running.She handed Laurette a thin silver chain.
“That is wonderful to know indeed.”Laurette could sound like a predator, and he did so now.With a movement so quick that even Peter had trouble following it, he took the chain from the pixie and snapped it around the Fae’s neck.It tightened like a very thin collar with the long end in Laurette’s hand.“There.That’s better.”
The Fae’s eyes went wide, and his hands flew to his neck.“M-magic!You dare shackle me with magic!But you are Elven.”
