by ERIN BEDFORD
"What are you waiting for?" I growled as I chewed, jerking my chin in her direction. "Get your things and let's go."
The human should have hopped to it, grabbing her things with fearful glances my way. But no, she moved at a glacial pace as she gathered her things, taking her time to clean down her area and handing things back to Vignette. Then she had to say goodbye to every single girl there, even the ones who were being mean to her.
I shook my head and snickered. Humans. I would never understand them.
We fae were upfront about our feelings. We had to be. It was impossible for us to lie. We could bend the truth, of course, but we couldn't outright lie. Like the person I was trying to be, my first name wasn't Angus, but my middle name was, so technically, it wasn’t a lie.
Little truths were how we lived. It was hard being fae around a world filled with humans who could lie to your face without consequence. That was but one of the many reasons we had to keep them in their place with just a hint of fear in their hearts.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Finch asked, taking me by the elbow and lowering his voice so the humans couldn't hear him but loud enough that my superior hearing could still pick up his words. "You can't hire her out of spite."
"Of course, I can. She needs to be taught a lesson, and I need something to do with my spare time." I shoved another bite into my mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed before going for another bite. Finding my plate empty, I frowned. Turning to the table, I grabbed the whole pan of quiche and discarded my plate. "Besides, I don't trust any of those conniving harpies in my home. Do you?"
I jerked my head toward the whispering and glaring human women who had done everything they could to make sure Ericka didn't win. Joke's on them. A side benefit to my little plan.
Finch eyeballed the humans before sighing. "Very well, you are the king and ultimately it is your decision, but I am telling you I am against this. So, when it all blows up in your face -"
"I know, I know. You get to say, ‘I told you so,’ and I'll just ignore you as always." I smirked and then handed him the empty pan of quiche. Man, that stuff goes quickly. "I'm going to go wait in the carriage, you wait for the human."
"Ericka," he said to my back as I walked away. "Her name is Ericka. You should remember it if you are going to torture the poor woman."
I waved a hand over my shoulder with a smile that I smothered as soon as the villagers realized who I was. With a scowl on my face, I stomped through the market, not talking to anyone and glowering at any who might dare step in my direction. Once I finally reached the carriage, I collapsed inside with a sigh.
It was exhausting being king. One thing my father had taught me was that, if the people didn't fear you and instead loved you, you were only a step away from anarchy. So, I did my best to be loathsome and grumpy, but I made sure they knew I treated everyone that way so they wouldn't take it personally. I was never completely cruel. I was hard but fair. At least, I strove to be.
Finding the right balance between the two was difficult. There was only so far you can go before you were seen as a tyrant, but if you were too easy on them, the citizens and other courts would think I was too soft. Then I would have revolts and declarations of war, and those were always so time-consuming. I was in the prime of my life, I didn't have time for all that.
Shifting in my seat, I glanced out the window wondering how long the human planned on making me wait. I had things to do, and none of them included sitting in a carriage on the side of the road wasting my time where anyone could just come up to me. Not that they would, but still someone might be stupid enough to approach.
My eyes drifted over the streets of the capital, mainly searching for Finch and the human woman. I refused to call her by her name. She wouldn’t last that long. Not if I had anything to say about it.
The capital city, Bloomsdale, such a stupid name, but to my pride, it was cleaner than most of the other towns I'd toured in my court. Many of them didn't care enough about keeping trash off the streets or sewage where it belonged. One would think that the fae didn't take pride in their own homes, but really, it was the humans that caused the lack of cleanliness.
I often wondered why we ever let them into the fae world in the first place. It wasn't as though we were lacking for population. We had an abundance of people, and we didn't lack for anything the human world had, though electricity was a nice one. I could read by firelight just as easily as a lamp. The things we put up with for such luxuries.
There were a few other human inventions we had brought into our world, indoor plumbing being one and television another. I was thankful most days that we had put our foot down when it came to motor vehicles. They were unnecessary in most courts with the short distance between the towns and the vast majority of the fae being able to fly or teleport. Cars brought a lot of pollution to the world, something we fae did not need. On top of the fact that a lot of them were full of iron, anathema to my kind, and besides, we didn't have the resources to keep them fueled in the first place. While carriages were a bumpier ride than a motor vehicle, horses were far cleaner than the smoke that came pouring out of the former.
"Ugh," a low groan of disgust drew my eyes away from the road to the side of the carriage. The human stood there with her arms full of bags and an utter look of dismay at my carriage.
Ignoring her disapproval, my shoulders bunched up as I asked, "Where is Finch? What have you done to him?"
The human's eyes drifted from the side of the carriage to meet my eyes. Black orbs met my blue ones, and her thin brow lifted up as she glared at me with no fear. "Finch? Who's that?"
With an incredulous look, I growled through clenched teeth. "My adviser. He was just with you. Where is he?"
Blinking her eyes big and innocently at me, the human then asked, "You mean the hot guy flirting with Vignette?"
Irritation filled my chest at her description of Finch as the 'hot guy.' Already my adviser had more of her attention than me. I'd have to fix that.
I shoved the carriage door open and bounded down the two short stairs. Standing tall, I used our two-foot height difference to my advantage and loomed over her with a menacing glare. "If you want to keep your tongue, you will never refer to my adviser in that way ever again."
I expected the human to cower away from me, her eyes to go to the ground where they belonged, but once more she defied me. Her eyes twinkled with amusement, and her lips ticked up at the edges. "Why? Jealous?"
“Of Finch?” I scoffed and crossed my arms, jerking my head to the side. "No. Never."
She shrugged. "There's no need to be. I'm sure you have plenty of admirers." I turned my gaze back toward her as she shifted her bundle from one arm to the other. "There have to be women out there who like guys like you. Somewhere. Out there." She jerked her chin toward the town and beyond as I snarled.
Leaning down so our noses were inches from touching, I bit out, "I'll have you know that women fawn over me. They throw themselves at my feet as I walk past and beg to be in my bed."
"I'm sure they do.” She nodded her head with a hint of a smile on her lips. “Where do you want me to put my stuff?"
Throwing my head back, I resisted the urge to let out a beastly roar of frustration. Instead, I pointed a finger at the box on the back of the carriage. "There."
"Thanks." She skipped passed me, not all aware of how close she was from being ripped to shreds by the monster lurking inside of me.
I watched her struggle to get her bag into the box with my arms crossed and a smirk on my lips. The box was far too high for her to reach, and she was too short to do anything but hop up and down as she tried to get the lid open.
Sighing in frustration, she glanced my way a sheepish grin on her lips. "Care to give me a hand?"
I opened my mouth to give her a resounding no when Finch appeared, looking a bit disheveled. My adviser didn't even stop beside me but hurried to the human's side and picked up her bag with a grin. "Here, allow me."
T
he human thanked him, her eyelashes fluttering flirtatiously.
My jaw tightened until it might break from the strain. As they chit-chatted about the journey to the palace, my anger only grew. This was not going as planned.
"The kitchen is nothing like you have back home, I assure you." Finch continued, delighted at making the human grin and giggle. "You will have so much space that you won't know what to do with yourself."
"What about the other cooks?" She chewed on her lower lip. "Will they be okay with a..." She leaned her head toward his, lowering her voice to my agitation. "... newbie invading their territory?"
For a moment, I thought she was going to say human, but that was ridiculous. We had humans working all over the palace. It wouldn't be anything new. If anything, they would be happy to have another one of their kind to work besides, but I didn't tell her that.
Finch smiled mischievously. "Oh, they might give you a hard time at first, but I'm sure that if you just feed them some of your pie, they'll be putty in your hands. His Majesty certainly seemed most taken by it."
My eyes widened and then narrowed on Finch who winked in my direction.
“Really?” The human's gaze moved over to me with a hopefulness in her eyes. "You really liked it?"
"Tell her how much you enjoyed her pie, Your Majesty." Finch smirked. He added on the title though he rarely did it out of the public eye.
My fingers itched to wrap around his neck and squeeze for putting me in such a position but then I paused. A slow wicked grin slid over my lips as I peered down at the human woman before me.
"No, I won’t,” I utterly coldly. “There was nothing I liked about your pie. Or your quiche." Not a flat out lie because I had loved every single bite I had taken. There was no like to it.
The human gasped in surprise as Finch frowned at me in disapproval. Tears welled in the human's eyes and I suddenly felt guilty.
"I knew it. I'm such a fuck up." She shook her head the few brown strands falling into her face.
I stared at her in horror, my eyes widening and then going from the crying human to Finch and back. This woman had faced me down without fear and now she cries? What the hell?
"Stop crying already, geez." I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and shoved it in her direction. "It wasn't that bad."
“Really?” She took it from me and blew her nose loudly. Sniffling, she peered up at me beneath those dark lashes hopefulness in her voice. "You didn't just pick me because you just wanted to be done with it. You really like my cooking?"
I frowned at her reasoning and then shook my head. "No, I didn't pick you to be done with it though now that I think of it, I did get out of tasting all those pies." I swallowed thickly against the likelihood of what would have happened had I been subjected to that very thing. My stomach churned at the very thought.
"Oh, thank you!" the human squealed seconds before she threw herself at me, hugging my middle like her life depended on it.
My hands went up in the air not wanting to touch her or knowing what the hell was going on. I cast a helpless look to Finch who only watched with amusement.
"You have no idea how much this means to me." the human continued her voice muffled in my abdomen. "Everyone said you were a tyrant, a bully, and I'd be an idiot to want to work for the palace, but I knew it would be worth it. I just knew it."
My brows bunched together. Well, I couldn't have that.
Grabbing her by the shoulders, I pushed her into Finch's hands. "You misunderstand me. I didn't choose you because I liked your food. I choose you..." I leaned in, a cruelness curling my lips as I lowered my voice to a rumbling growl. "I choose you because I need a new toy, and you look like a challenge. One I'd love to break."
Chapter 4
Ericka
My heart shuttered in my chest at the king's words. It took me several seconds to recover from my shock to get more than a gasping sound out of my mouth.
"Come again?" I arched a brow. Surely, I'd heard him wrong. There was no way the king has specifically chose me just so he could mess with me. I wasn't that interesting. Ask anyone. They'd tell you, 'Ericka Burner is the most uninteresting person on the planet. Besides, the fact that she is a walking hazard waiting to happen and can't bake anything but two items to save her life.' They would say that. They actually have said that on more than one occasion. Story of my life.
However, no one would have ever thought I would garner the new fae king's attention simply by being a klutzoid. He must need his head examined.
King Balefire's lips curled further into a malicious smile, his eyes twinkling with pleasure, no doubt at my reaction. He'd been trying to rile me up for a few minutes now, but I was used to people like him. People who needed to feel better about themselves by stepping all over someone else. I grew up with a whole village of them. Nothing he could say would have made me react. Bullies lived off of the reaction of their victims and I was nobody's victim. Except I only thought I wasn't. Now, from the way he watched me like a lion who'd caught a mouse and was having way too much playing with it, I wasn't so sure.
Instead of answering my question, Balefire turned his eyes to his adviser, Finch. "It's time to go." Turning away from me, he bounded his large form up the few stairs into the carriage and dropped into his seat making the wooden structure shake.
I gaped after the fae and then shifted my eyes to Finch. "He isn't serious, is he?"
Finch seemed to fight back a grimace before nodding. "I'm afraid so. Don't take it personally..." he trailed off as I scoffed.
"How else am I supposed to take it?" I glared toward the open carriage door and into the shadows where the king hid. "He blatantly said he wanted me so he could fill his time fucking with me. It sounds a bit personal to me. Sure, I did hit him in the face with a pie, but was that really worth this?" I threw my hands up in the air and groaned long and loud. "I didn't even know it was him when I did it. Did I not lick his boots enough afterwards is that it? Is he so insecure he has to pick on a little nobody human?"
Finch's face as I rambled on and on became more worried by the second. His eyes flicked to the carriage and back to me as if he was expecting the king to come barreling out at any moment. Let him. If he thought he could break me, he had another thing coming. I was nobody's whipping boy, er, girl. I don't know how that goes. It's not like I'd heard it anywhere but from my parents.
I grew up in Elphame, or the otherworld as some still called it. Only the humans though. The fae would be offended if I ever called it such. My grandparents had made the move after the last great war. Unfortunately, that war had left the majority of the human world in ruins. The sky had been slashed red from some kind of explosion. I didn't know all the details. The humans who lived here didn't like to talk about it. They were ashamed of how their ancestors had treated our world.
Our race might very well have been extinct had the fae not opened up their arms and homes to us. Some of the humans found our subservient existence inhumane, but we were living in their world, not ours. We couldn't expect them to trust us right off the bat. Especially since we could lie, and they couldn't. It would take centuries for them to trust us enough to let us be a part of their government or have a say in anything that happened in Elphame. At least, we were able to have a say in our own lives where we lived.
For the most part, the fae left us alone. We went about our lives how we would have back in the human world. We had representatives we elected to run the towns, and we found jobs in our respective trades. Some worked in the homes of fae, like I was about to do, some preferred to only work with humans. The fae were the same way. Not all of them despised us, and many of them treated us fairly well.
Really, it could be worse.
"Are you coming or not?" Balefire's gravelly voice called from inside the carriage jerking my attention away from Finch once more. "Time is wasting away, and the way I hear it, you humans don't have much of it."
With a tight frown, I stepped toward the carriage only for Balefire to ca
ll out once more. "Not in here. In front."
My eyes darted to the front of the carriage where the driver sat and it's no handle or strap seat. Chancing a look at Finch, who gave me an apologetic smile, I walked toward the front of the carriage, my legs shaky beneath me. Finch was there at my side when I struggled to climb up to the tall seat. One hand on my elbow and a boost of strength and I was in my seat. At least, there was a cushion on it.
Giving Finch a grateful smile, I turned to the fae beside me. Four long sinewy arms held the reigns of the horses attached to the carriage. They were encased in a long silvery coat, its sleeves ending at the elbow. The head that angled in my direction had large black eyes with no iris that blinked at me with interest. The fae had little hair, and what it did have was short and pale, almost as translucent as its skin. The mouth that smiled at me was paper thin and gave me a full razor-sharp grin.
"Greetings. I'm Cailean," the fae said in a surprisingly low-pitched voice.
"I'm—"
"What's the hold up?" A banging on the roof made me jump in place, and without delay, Cailean clicked his reigns. We jolted to a start. My fingers curled around the edge of the seat, digging in until I felt the wood beneath the cushion. My jaw clenched, and I forced myself to take long deep breaths.
"Are you alright?" Cailean asked, his head turning in my direction. I didn't take my eyes off the road and watched him out of my peripherals.
"Fine." I gritted out and then gasped when we hit a bump, my nails breaking in the wood I had a death grip on.
"You don't look fine...?"
"Ericka," I bit out.
"Ericka." He nodded and then slowed the horses to a trot. Slow enough for me to relax my hands slightly, but I didn't let go of the seat. "Have you never ridden before?"
Before I could answer, Balefire growled out. "Why are we slowing?"
Angling his head, at least I assumed Cailean was a he, toward the back of the carriage, he answered, "The horses need to realign."
Accepting the answer, Balefire didn't say anything else.