Fever Fae

by Meg Xuemei X

  Then I blinked. Wow, I sounded badass. I should have brought a recorder, so I could play it later for Indira. She’d called me a barking sheep. But then, none of these Fae males thought much of my potential as a warrior either.

  “Protect my mate!” Baron shouted, also noticing my reappearance, and fought toward me.

  See what I meant?

  “My mate!” Rowan snarled, stabbing two Hell creatures like a fiend himself to eliminate any obstacles between us.

  Demon corpses piled around the Fae kings in pools of black blood. The kings were all wounded as well, their clothes tainted with their own red blood. And with the Veil staying open, more demons streamed out, besieging us.

  I tossed aside the heavy demon dagger and spread my arms, summoning either my shadow fire or vines—whatever was available.

  C’mon, I pleaded with the dark force coiled in my chest. I know now I have you in me. If you don’t want to see me be impaled by the demons and die today, aid me again.

  My shadow fire sputtered in the pit of my magical well and then whooshed up along the walls, as if pleased to finally be recognized and unleashed. It blasted out of me, crashing into the Veil. As my shadow fire and the Veil’s flames merged, the columns of fire started to move toward each other, still weaving with my shadow fire in the process, until the Veil returned to its original form. The vertical flame connecting heaven and earth cut off the demon horde, and I nearly whooped with exultation.

  A squad of demons screamed and rushed at me. I threw up my hands to meet their challenge.

  Vines, black and thorny, sprouted out of the ground beneath me. Part of them twisted into a living shield around me, while the rest shot toward the three nearest demons. The vines whipped at the hell’s pawns, faster than lightning. When the demons cut one branch, more vines cropped up, binding and squeezing their victims, their long, poisonous thorns piercing the demons’ thick skin.

  The Fae kings stared at me for a moment before continuing their battles to reach me. They hadn’t thought I had this kind of power.

  Me neither.

  I smirked as I watched my vines work.

  A couple demons sniffed at me and my vines, confusion and fear crunching their grotesque faces.

  “Princess?” one demon asked, but my vines strangled him before he became talkative. What was he thinking about? This was a battlefield, not a social event.

  With no more demon reinforcements, I had the luxury of watching the Fae kings combat while my vines handled the rest of the demons for me.

  Rydstrom opted to use his obsidian sword to cut down the demons instead of applying his magic. His shadow power didn’t have much effect on the demons since the creatures came from a dark place. Occasionally, he used his starlight to slow down his opponents.

  The Night King wheeled amid five giant demons, retreating, dodging, and lunging. He slashed at his foes left and right, faster and mightier than them, but the demons tried to overwhelm him with their sheer numbers and height.

  It was a sight to watch as they blurred and crashed. When they broke apart, a few demons had lost either a head or their limbs. But more demons filled the spots their Hell brethren vacated, thanks to the Night King’s merciless killing. Demons were truly a bloodthirsty bunch.

  Rydstrom swung his long blade backward without looking and beheaded a yellow-horned demon. Pride welled up in me. He could take care of himself, though I saw he had some nasty slashes on his left side.

  Rowan alternated between tossing his ice spears at the demons and lunging to swing at them with his broadsword. Demons used their cold hellfire to counter his ice spears most of the time. When the Winter King saw there were still many demons between him and me, he roared in rage and shifted to a massive silver wolf in a shimmering light.

  His wolf was over eight feet tall on all fours. A few demons stumbled away from him before they regrouped and charged him. The ferocious wolf clawed through the demons, tearing into them, his fangs dripping with black blood.

  Baron proved to be the most effective royal warrior among the three in a killing spree. He vanquished a group of demons with his brilliant sunbeams, but the more powerful demons held their ground and countered his solar flare with their cold hellfire.

  While his sun power battered the demon fire, he charged into their rank, wielding his blade like a lethal dancer. He put much more effort in making his slaying more brutal and faster when he noticed me watching.

  All three Fae kings fought their own battle. If they ever fought back to back, none of them would have so many wounds. They probably each hoped the demons took out the other kings.

  Then I sensed the most powerful demon amid the horde—how could I sense their power grade was beyond my perception, and it scared me a little. I faced the direction of the greater power, and the demon’s attention snagged on me.

  He was the last one that had slipped through the Veil. He’d watched the battle instead of engaging the Fae kings. Now he watched me as the cords of my thorned vines separated a few demons’ heads from their necks, or thrust into the demons’ chests and yanked out their black hearts.

  I was shocked by my brutality and violence, but then it was the doing of my poison vines. It wasn’t me, right? I didn’t enjoy killing grotesquely. In fact, yesterday had been my first time killing someone and it had shaken me to my bones.

  The demon’s power ripped through the air, and suddenly I knew what he was—an archdemon.

  He grinned at me and uttered two demonic words, “Inferno Princessca.”

  Icy fear gripped me like no other, even worse than the terror that fueled my cowardly run earlier. This time, the terror froze every muscle in my body. I couldn’t even drag in a breath.

  The archdemon sprang toward me, his icy hellfire piercing my vine-shield and slamming into my chest.

  I was done, I thought, tears flowing down my face. I should have made one of the Fae kings to vow to take care of my siblings when I had the chance.

  “Evie! Evelina!” the Fae kings screamed, but they were too late.

  I waited for myself to drop to my knees in a heap and be burned to a crisp.

  The hellfire fizzled out on my skin like the mist.

  The archdemon’s crimson eyes glowed eerily before he bellowed his order in a demonic tongue, which I understood perfectly. “Take the girl and return home! I need her alive!”

  All the demons abandoned the Fae and rushed toward me. They planned to drag me to Hell.

  The Fae kings roared in rage, and their powers merged.

  A vortex of fire and ice and sunbeam and starlight rained down, hitting the demons and turning every one of them to flying ashes.

  Chapter 27

  The archdemon shifted to a plume of smoke and vanished into the ground before the Fae kings’ combined powers torched him.

  The demon who wanted me the most had escaped.

  When all three kings reached me, my vines had retreated. Baron, Rowan, and Rydstrom held me in their arms, crowding me. Though they glared and snarled at each other, none of them had the strength left to fight each other off.

  “Are you hurt?” they asked me and inspected me clumsily. It seemed that none of them were especially good at caring for other people.

  Kings were pampered, and my mind had finally caught up with the fact that they were the real deal. They were the Fae kings, the most powerful beings in Elfame that existed on the other side of the Veil.

  “I don’t feel too hot,” I complained. Guess I was still a whiner, and that hadn’t changed. “I have bruises and scratches here and there. But it’s no biggie. You, however, need to tend to yourselves. All of you are wounded. Do you have any Fae medics on call?”

  “Don’t fuss over us,” Baron said. “We’re Fae kings. We regenerate superfast.”

  Their gazes lingered on the Veil, the flame waving before burning brightly again, still calling me.

  “Everything has changed,” Rydstrom said, a distant look in his dark sapphire eyes. “Today, the Veil ope
ned for the first time in millennia and let the demons pass through without being summoned to Earth.”

  “The last time it remained opened was ten thousand years ago,” Rowan agreed grimly. “Almost all the worlds were destroyed in the species wars.”

  Baron let out a ragged breath. “If we hadn’t stopped the demons, the horde would have reached the mortal realm.”

  “Lucifer has been trying to bring down the Veil ever since his epic fall from heaven,” Rydstrom said, fire in his words. “The Lord of the Underworld wants his realm on Earth. He’ll soon receive the word that the one who can tear open the Veil has come, and he’ll have his demons hunt down Evelina with all his might.”

  My heart rammed into my ribcage and blood rang in my ears.

  “I’m so very sorry,” I stuttered. “But I put the Veil back, right? I’ll just stay away from it from now on. I know I fucked up so big. What else can I do to fix it for good? I really don’t want Satan and his nasty demons to come after my ass.” I shuddered at the thought of more Hell creatures chasing me—or worse, my siblings. “Is there anything I can do, guys?”

  Their attention snagged back to me, no accusation in their eyes.

  Rydstrom traced his thumb across my sooty cheek. Rowan and Baron glowered at him, but didn’t assault him.

  “You need to understand who you are, Evelina,” the Night King said mercilessly. “Time for hiding is over. You’re the prophesized one who can open and seal the Veil.” His eyes sparkled with satisfaction. “And my search is finally over.”

  “What? No, no,” I cried out. “I’m not the one. I opened the Veil by stupidity and accident. I’m not going to open it again and give the demons another free ride. I might be many things, but I’m not a ten-fold fool who loves to court disasters. And I’m not even sure if I can open the Veil again. I don’t feel it in me anymore.”

  I lied. I still heard the fiery song from the Veil flowing in my blood.

  “The war had been waging between the courts of Winter, Summer, Dawn, and Night since Elfame came to existence,” Rowan said. “We only called the truce twenty years ago after the prophecy circulated again.”

  They had a prophecy now? Another hot mess I needed. I rubbed my temples, feeling the throbbing headache with my fatigue.

  “The prophecy said the one queen would save us from destroying each other,” Baron said, a golden light glinting in his eyes, which made me think of his lion form. “She’ll bind us all to her and unite the four courts. She’s fairer than all the queens before her and never cruel. She’ll bring prosperity and strong magic back to Elfame.”

  I peeked around over their shoulders and didn’t see anyone.

  “I don’t envy her, you know,” I murmured, “with all the burdens and unrealistic expectations falling on her slender shoulders, if there’s ever such a queen coming.”

  “The Dawn bitch thought she was the one,” Rydstrom said, throwing his head back and laughing viciously. “She no longer has power over me. Her curse on me has broken. But I’m not sure if I’m glad or upset that you two also haven’t surrendered to her. What’s stopped you?”

  “She wants you to bend the knees first,” Baron hissed. “She wants you to be the first to warm her bed to fulfill the prophecy. She wants to fuck your ass more than anyone else’s.”

  I narrowed my eyes, a murderous rage and jealousy stabbing my middle.

  “I never thought the prophecy would come true,” Rowan said, his eyes shifting to ocean blue. “I never expected to find my true mate after two centuries of a lonely existence. We need to guard our future queen.”

  They were still nuts. And more infuriating now that they also held dark secrets.

  I started to shove them away, needing breathing room and a cool head. Their body heat radiated to me. Their intoxicating scent of powerful males, magic, night, flame, ice, and lust addled my mind and made my pussy clench with raw need even on the battlefield littered with piles of demon corpses.

  “Listen,” I said. “This is getting all confusing. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting out of here.”

  “Shall we all go?” Rydstrom glanced at Rowan and Baron, but he forgot to ask my opinion. That was how the Fae kings operated. No surprise there. Baron and Rowan glowered at him out of habit, then nodded, less hostile toward their sire’s slayer.

  White wind, shadow, and golden light swirled around us, and then I was in the whirlwind where stars in the night sky zoomed away. The next, I landed on solid ground, brisk, chilly air slamming into my face. I blinked away the wind and found myself standing in the courtyard of a picturesque cabin atop a snowy mountain, still surrounded by the three formidable Fae kings.

  “Where are we?” I asked, stunned by the otherworldly beauty of this place.

  “It’s one of my most secured safe houses in the Court of Night,” Rydstrom said. “No one can breach the ward and no one can spy on us here.”

  Rowan and Baron nodded grumpily. They wouldn’t get over a century-old feud in a day, but they were accepting the probably first true peace gesture the Night King had offered them. I wondered what had transpired since I didn’t get their Fae guy code.

  “Lady Evelina.” Rowan sank to one knee. “I’d like to use this opportunity to formally propose to you—our one true mate whom we’ve been waiting for and seeking out for centuries—and pledge my fealty to you.”

  Then Baron and Rydstrom also dropped to one knee, and since Rydstrom clasped my left hand in his large one, so Baron and Rowan each grabbed a few of my fingers from my right hand. With my arms spread eagle-style, the four of us looked ridiculous in this posture.

  And the whole thing was crazy. One moment, we’d been battling the demons. The next, they were all proposing to me. How could their mood shift from a brutal killing to romantic in a blink of an eye? I could never switch on and off like that, especially when I was still running on the tail of adrenaline and worried and very much afraid and also relieved at still being alive.

  I admitted that all of them were beyond gorgeous, but—

  “Wait a second!” I tried to yank back my hands but failed. “I didn’t even know your kind existed a week ago. I thought you were featured only in some paranormal fantasy romance novels. Yep, those fictions also mentioned how your kind claims your so-called fated mates, and I assure you that biting, clawing, moaning, and roaring aren’t my gem. And regarding your proposal, I’m flattered, but my answer is a no, a very firm one. We haven’t even gone out on a date yet.” I tried to pull my hands back again. “I don’t want any of you to kneel in front of me and pledge whatever. Let’s pretend that nothing happened, and no hard feelings.”

  “You want to go out on a date first?” Rowan asked, blinking in bewilderment.

  “If it’s a date you want, you’ll get it,” Baron said.

  And it puzzled me to no end that all three of them no longer fought over me while merely an hour ago they’d gone for each other’s throat. It seemed they’d silently reached an agreement on sharing me.

  “Dudes, that’s not the point,” I said exasperatedly. Yet I kind of got where they came from. They didn’t think like human males. They were ancient Fae. They all admitted that they were like two hundred years old, which was super ancient. But Baron had insisted that he was considered young as an immortal. In my understanding, for old Fae, it was in their nature and culture to take what they wanted, when they wanted it.

  “You still don’t understand who you are, Eve,” Rydstrom said softly. “Come.”

  He stood and led me across the courtyard and up the marble stairs until we stood in front of the full window of the blue cabin. Reflected in the dark glass, a stunning woman lit by starlight stood next to the magnificent Night King.

  And she was me.

  My hair was still golden, but flowing and radiating. My green eyes were so deep and bright that they seemed to be the greenest thing I’d ever seen. My face was soft, creamy, and fair, and my full lips were light pink, like the loveliest spring roses. Every feature
was intensely refined and beyond exquisite. I now held the beauty no human girl could dream to possess.

  My hand slid over to my pointed ear and I jumped.

  “This is bad!” I cried out. “How am I going to blend in now? I still live in the human world and I don’t plan to leave it behind soon. What about my siblings? They’ll freak the fuck out. And how am I going to keep them in line looking like this?”

  “You’re High Fae like us, Evie,” Rowan said and there wasn’t any sympathy in his cool, velvet voice. He stood right behind me. The three of them seemed unable to stay away from me. “The spells that once bound your essence and magic had worn out when you linked to the Veil. Your glamour finally dropped. It’s incredible you came to power even before your Turning.”

  “No,” I whispered, not wanting this reality. It felt like I’d been plucked out of one future and placed in another terrifying one.

  “You can’t deny your true heritage, Evie,” Baron said as he leaned toward me, inhaling my scent as if it was catnip to him.

  “You don’t get it,” I said, wanting to lash out at them, at fate, at the universe.

  “No, you don’t get it, my daring Eve,” Rydstrom said, but he spoke gently now. “You have no idea how long we’ve been waiting for you. You aren’t just any High Fae.” He breathed out a wisp of starlight. “You’re the lost princess heir, the true Queen of the Court of Dawn.”

  Preorder Frost Fae (Dark Fae Kings Book 2)

  Author’s Note

  Dear reader,

  Thank you for reading Fever Fae! Are you ready for the Wild Hunt?

  Frost Fae is scheduled to be released in October since I want to give myself plenty of time to make this second book as good as it can be without feeling the pressure of the looming deadline. And you know I always release the next book out earlier than planned.

  Join Meg’s Legion of Hellions to keep up with latest news and fun stuff. I also love to do giveaways in my group. I hope to see you there!