Page 35 of My Fae Lady

Rich autumn hair spilled from its pins and into my face. I brushed it back worriedly behind the point of her ear, looking her over. She was disheveled but appeared otherwise unscathed. Something wet and sticky leaked down the side of my face. One of her hairpins had gotten me.

“I’m whole,” she breathed. “But the dratted heel of my shoe got caught in the seat, and I turned my ankle . . . Are you in one piece?”

“I’m fine,” I said, wincing.

“You’re not very convincing,” she scolded. Giselle dabbed at my brow, and her fingers came away bloody.

“You can patch me up later.” I scooted her out of my lap. Then I put a finger on her chin and made her meet my eyes so I could see the color of them. They were a ghostly pale yellow: shock. “Stay put,” I commanded, and her irises shot through with a flustered green. “No,” I said more firmly. “You’ll let me handle this. If you climb out after me, it’ll only encourage the brat.”

“I’m in no fit state to argue,” she groaned, “but I’d really, really like to.”

I plucked my feather boutonniere out from below my collar and tucked it away inside my pocket for safekeeping. For better movement, I stripped off my traveling coat and the waistcoat beneath until I was down to my shirt and suspenders, then I climbed out the window. One of the wheels continued to wobble and spin.

The youth circled overhead. His whooping laughter carried on the wind. We’d spent so much time in the human realm that the scent of their false fragrances hid well what I was. My hair was shorn short, my claws were tucked away, and I didn’t have wings to challenge him with. I crouched low beside the carriage and waited for trouble to find me.

It didn’t take long.

He thought I was a fancy Seelie man, but I leapt into the air like a fae of the forest. I caught him around the leg, and I threw him to the ground. He cried out in surprise when I pounced upon him. My claws were out and at his neck, and I hauled him up against the nearest oak tree, pressing his back to the bark.

Lips at his pale throat, I growled, “Mine.”

It was a language he would understand. A language of nature and survival. I had meant only to make a point, and yet muscles in my stomach clenched. My chest tightened. A fire lit in my belly, and my mouth filled with saliva. If my wings had ever grown back, they’d have been stretched out behind me, unfurled like a great bird of prey descending upon its meal. I felt the phantom ache of them.

“Whoa, hold on now,” he muttered. His sharp cheekbones were smeared with dirt, and he smelled like wood smoke. “I thought you were—”

“Doesn’t matter what you thought,” I said, lips pulled back so he could see my fangs. I shook him until he whined. “You hurt my wife.”

His light wings beat anxiously at the air before stilling. I towered over the lad. He was scrawny and long-limbed, and he defiantly met my gaze.

“If the wife gets a vote,” Giselle called from inside the toppled carriage, “she’d very much like for you to pummel him within an inch of his life.”

“Perhaps I ought to,” I said coldly.

The youth’s angular face fell. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“You definitely don’t get a vote here. If it’s what the lady wants . . .” I said, and I released him to begin rolling up the sleeves of my torn shirt.

“Wait, wait,” he pleaded, though he seemed more bored with the prospect than frightened. “I’m willing to make a deal.”

“I don’t bargain with children.”

“Not a bargain then. Just my word as a man,” he said.

“A child,” I insisted. “The word of a child means little to me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Have it your way. I’m just a wee child, even though amongst the humans I could be someone’s granddad by now. You ought to just let me go, then, gaffer, since I’m just a boy to you. I won’t bother you or your old lady anymore.”

“You’ll make this right first. You’ll see to it that every bag and every box, every single item, including that carriage, is brought safely to Rook Manor.”

“Even the carriage?” He scoffed. “What do I get out of it?”

“Your limbs unbroken.”

He snorted at that. Then his eyes, the same gray shade as his wings, lit and he raised a brow at me. “Big fancy house like Rook Manor, I bet you’ve got all sorts of fun goodies to eat in there.”

I rubbed at the scruff on my jaw, considering him. This youth was thin and underfed, and Giselle was injured. Violence wouldn’t get me far here. Not when he might run off and return with friends to challenge me with. “What do you want?”

“I can’t help but notice that I’m not hearing any pummeling!” Giselle yelled, her voice muffled by the damaged coach.