No Faerie Tale Love (Faerie Series Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

  “Halflings display different degrees of power and weaknesses,” Aeric said.

  That sounded like a lame, one-size fits all response. I had hoped for more detail.

  “Still not proving anything,” I prodded.

  “Do you want to practice archery more?” Aeric asked.

  My hand ached from the last arrow I loosed. “No, I’ve had enough for today.” I still felt that restless feeling that had started after Falin kissed me. “Maybe I’ll go for a run before dinner.”

  Falin smirked at me. “Need to burn something off, Baby?”

  “Just take the spell off her,” Aeric said.

  “He spelled me?” I said, feeling outraged. I knew he had done more than glamour me.

  “It can’t be removed,” Falin said. “You have to burn it off. Have a nice run.”

  He was enjoying this too much. I felt all that restless energy focus on him. What would he do if I tackled him out here in the woods out of sight of my parents? I could find every piercing on his body and torment each with my teeth, punishing him in a way we could both enjoy. All I had to do was ensure his obedience so I could stop him from taking things too far.

  “Falin, I know what I want now,” I said.

  He didn’t look that worried, still smirking at me.

  “You have to obey me,” I said.

  He was still smirking.

  Way to waste your favour, Brat. The magic holding him bound to the promise will break with the light.

  Sunset was only a few hours away.

  “I’m going to make it count,” I said, disappointed, but I didn’t want them to know it. Making a deal with the Fae was difficult. My first order wouldn’t be to lie on the ground for sexual torment given the time limit. Falin had a lot of piercings, I suspected, and I had one other thing I needed to know that couldn’t wait.

  Who am I? The question burned my tongue. I could ask but I was sure they would find a way to talk around the answer as I was learning they tended to do to avoid outright lying. I needed to see this for myself.

  “Your order is my command,” Falin said, bowing.

  “Get down on your knees,” I demanded. If anything, his smirk got wider.

  “Are you going to make him crawl for your favour?” Aeric asked. He sounded disapproving. “Don’t forget that once the light changes he can do back to you ten times worse.”

  “I can make him crawl without magic,” I bragged, confidently. I walked over to him and dropped to my knees in front of him. “Remove my glamour, all of it,” I ordered, grabbing his hands and putting them on my shoulders. His touch burned and I moaned against it.

  Falin stopped smirking. “You are going to regret this,” he warned, and then the world turned to flame.

  I dropped to the ground covered in sweat. I don’t know how long it had taken but the sun was still up. Leaves and bits of bark clung to me as I rolled over. Falin remained on his knees above me and Aeric was sitting about half a foot away, leaning against a tree with his bow resting between his knees. I tried to get up and promptly fell.

  “You’re a mess,” Aeric commented.

  “You’re such a sweet talker,” I responded, then shut my mouth. Holy crap, my voice had changed.

  “Dain doesn’t need to know about this yet,” Falin said.

  “Neither does Kheelan,” Aeric added.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “I’m not the Halfling you were looking for?”

  Aeric flicked an annoyed glance at me. “You’re Fae and you’re female. The requirements aren’t that stringent.”

  “Falin, come, pick me up,” I demanded, frustrated with my new body. I couldn’t make it do what I wanted.

  His unglamoured hands touched my sides and I screamed. He ignored my screams and picked me up as ordered, only to immediately slam me back down on my belly, covering me with his own body and a hand over my mouth.

  Quiet, Baby. Your unglamoured form is going to attract enough attention without you shouting your location. Aeric only has so many arrows.

  My ears tried listening for whatever was hunting us, instincts overriding the need to rub up against Falin for a few seconds. His touch still felt burning but not painful. No, now it made my body come alive, every inch of me begging to feel his warmth.

  I bit his hand and even that was sensual, my tongue sticking out to lap at the blood.

  Falin cursed.

  I had fangs. I touched the sharp incisors in my mouth with my tongue, careful not to cut myself, too. Okay, those were new.

  Nobody was coming. I rubbed back against Falin, rolling my hips in invitation.

  “Get her under control,” Aeric muttered.

  Falin kneeled up, taking my body with him. Aeric got an eyeful of my writhing form. I was embarrassed but I couldn’t stop myself.

  “Try calming her down yourself,” Falin said, shoving me toward Aeric. “I’ll only make it worse.”

  Bastard. I landed on my hands between Aeric’s knees, nearly smashing my nose on his bow. I looked up and saw Aeric’s blue gaze narrow on me. At first, I thought it was disgust, but then I heard his heartbeat and it was racing. His breaths came faster and sweat formed on his upper lip, those firm lips I hadn’t tasted yet. He swallowed and his pupils dilated as I crawled closer to him.

  “Kiss me,” I ordered, placing a hand on his chest as I leaned forward. It burned like Falin but this time icy cold, still not painful. My body seemed to crave the contrast to my own skin’s moderate temperature.

  “This is your fault,” Aeric said to Falin before he sealed his lips to mine.

  Aeric was just as bossy when he kissed. He nibbled my lips when I pressed too hard, then fisted my hair and slanted his mouth over mine to direct my head back, leaving me clinging to his shoulders while he plundered me at his pleasure. His tongue invaded my mouth, quickly exploring the feel of my new baby fangs. His tongue tangled with mine, gentler but harder to pin down, not letting me suck him into one place, able to dart back out without fear of banging a piercing on my teeth unlike Falin when I didn’t do what he wanted.

  I growled and dug my claw-like nails into his shoulders, feeling like my hands were truly pricking his skin to grip. He growled back and tugged on my hair, tightening his fistful of my locks until I relaxed my hands. I had sucked his tongue back in my mouth when Falin interrupted us.

  “Your mother is calling for you.”

  Supper. How long had we been out here?

  I tried to push up out of Aeric’s arms, but I fell back on my ass. My body was all wrong, limbs too long and out of proportion to the petite frame my mind remembered.

  “Order me to return your glamour to you,” Falin said.

  I couldn’t show up in front of my mother like this. “Glamour me,” I said.

  “Not like that,” Falin said, sounding like he was fighting something although he was just kneeling there. “Repeat after me: return my glamour to me, Falin.”

  I did, and he immediately picked me up like a rag doll from the ground, body dangling half a foot. The burn of his touch became almost unpleasant. I started to scream, but Aeric was suddenly there and slapped a hand over my mouth.

  “Bear with it a few more moments, Brat.”

  I knew when they were done because their touches no longer felt hot or cold, just hands supporting my body.

  “Are you still my bunny-itch?” I asked Falin.

  He laughed. “If that means what I think, then yes, for another hour at least.”

  “Can you stick to orders that won’t land us all in trouble?” Aeric asked.

  “If you promise to tell me what happened,” I said.

  “No,” Aeric answered. “Now is not the right time. Half the things you know about Fae are completely wrong. You need to be better prepared.”

  “I could order Falin to tell me.”

  “If you wait, I’ll teach you to use a sword,” Falin offered.

  “I’ll help you practice archery,” Aeric added.

  Weapons were tempting. I could
use the help because one thing was certain. “I really am Fae,” I said.

  “Yes,” they both answered.

  “Piggyback me to the house,” I ordered Falin.

  He complied, even making a horsey sound when I told him to giddy up.

  Aeric loped beside us, making it look easy. I was surprised I outran him this morning.

  I wanted to push them for more but already I had learned enough to give me something to think about. Not only was I Fae and attracted to a harem full of guys with a magical touch that made me forget my vow to die a lonely virgin, but I had been given a new lease on life. A dreaded weight had been lifted from my shoulders and although I couldn’t tell my mother yet, not even sure what I would say, I know she would realize something wonderful had happened when she saw me.

  Ai Lung had been wrong about the lottery. Sometimes us unlucky bitches still won.

  My mother met us on the porch. She was swinging, walker close by. I slipped from Falin’s back. There were so many questions buzzing in my head but I didn’t want to talk to her with the Fae so close. Another day, I would ask her about my father and tell her the hope that had sparked in my heart when Falin had proved beyond a doubt I wasn’t merely human. Fae didn’t carry disease. Could they cure it as well?

  “You looked like you rolled around in the bushes,” my mother said, unaware of my whirlwind thoughts.

  “I did,” I answered, picking off some leaves and taking a deep breath. Patience.

  “So do you two,” my mother said to the guys.

  “We do,” Falin said.

  “Look at all this dirt,” Aeric said, picking off some leaves of his own.

  “Excellent,” my mother said, accepting Aeric’s offer of a hand up and Falin’s offer to wheel her inside.

  “You two are a good influence on her,” my mother said as we rolled down the porch.

  We all looked like we rolled around in a pigsty. Where did she get the idea that was a good influence on me? “We’re filthy, late to dinner and coming in from God knows where, and I think I scraped my knees,” I said, picking off another leaf and playing it cool.

  Falin lifted my mother up over the sliding door entrance.

  “Exactly,” my mother agreed, slowly standing up. She kept a hand on her walker for a moment and then let go. “You were so afraid to fall, you stopped running. Somebody had to chase after you to make you run again.”

  I met her eyes and realized she saw the hope in mine.

  “I found somewhere new to run,” I said.

  “Never stop,” she told me.

  Chapter 13:

  WHEN WE LEFT MY PARENTS’ house after supper the sun had already set with my control over Falin. It hadn’t been as much fun as I’d anticipated, anyway. I had promises from both Fae to teach me their respective weapons -although, Falin said he didn’t need weapons, he did know how to use them. Today I’d confirmed I was partly Fae and something was terribly wrong with me that we had to keep secret. I had already known the latter.

  I still thought they ought to tell me the basics. There hadn’t been a mirror out in the forest, so all I had to rely on was what I had felt different about me, such as the fangs. Did the rest of them have fangs? Wasn’t that a vampire thing?

  “So, am I Dark Fae or Light Fae?” I asked. Fangs seemed like a dark thing because drinking blood was monstrous.

  Aeric was bent over in the backseat of Baby and glowing. I looked over to Falin in the passenger seat for answers.

  “We agreed to not discuss it yet,” he said.

  No, they had told me I wasn’t ready to know things and I had disagreed but had been bribed. “I’m going to keep asking questions and if you feel there is something you want to say, go ahead,” I proposed in my never-going-to-give-up voice. I would pester the answers out of them.

  Falin grunted.

  Fae couldn’t lie but could they grunt dishonestly?

  “I had fangs,” I said.

  “Is that a question?” Aeric asked. His voice sounded heavenly, almost hypnotic. Maybe this was a Light Fae thing, and if so, that would make pretty boy, Orin, Light Fae since I think he had hypnotized me.

  “You licked them,” I said to Aeric.

  Falin snickered. “How cute,” he said. “She bit me.”

  “She didn’t know what she was doing,” Aeric muttered. He sounded jealous of me biting Falin. Seemed strange when Aeric had been the one kissing me.

  “I can bite you, too, if you want,” I offered Aeric.

  “Do not offer to bite Fae randomly,” Falin ordered me. Now, he sounded jealous.

  “I can kiss you again, too, if you want,” I offered Falin to be fair. “Anyway, you both bit me, so why am I the only one not allowed to bite?” I argued.

  “Marked,” Aeric clarified.

  “Can’t I Mark Aeric?” I asked.

  Aeric made some sort of choking sound and Falin snickered again.

  Wow. It was grade six all over again except we weren’t talking about holding hands and who was going out with who in notes thrown across the class. I had crawled right over to Aeric and demanded he kiss me after rubbing myself against Falin and I remembered the whole embarrassing incident.

  “My fangs are gone now. Are they glamour?”

  “Forget about the fangs,” Falin said.

  “Do you have fangs? Sometimes your teeth look awfully sharp.”

  “Yes,” Falin admitted.

  “Am I the same type of Fae as you, then?”

  Falin didn’t say anything.

  “Falin is fairly unique and rare,” Aeric drawled out as if thinking about it. Was that code for something bad or good?

  “Do you have fangs?”

  “Forget about the fangs,” Aeric said, repeating Falin’s advice. “And don’t mention them to Dain.”

  I think Aeric was getting flustered. It was hard to say with him bent over and hiding his face behind the heavenly glow. “Are we keeping secrets now?” I asked as I pulled into my apartment lot and parked Baby. I backed her in just in case I needed to make a quick escape.

  Falin was out of the car before I could even unbuckle my seatbelt. He had the door open for Aeric a moment later. I knew an escape when I saw one, quickly unbuckling and getting out myself.

  “So, when do we start weapons training?” I asked, unlocking my trunk.

  The Fae didn’t answer, and I looked up and behind me. They were already halfway to the apartment entrance.

  “Hey, who’s going to help me with your stuff?” I yelled. The Fae clothing from both of them and the weapons I had peeled off Aeric on top of the weapons we had bought were a real armful. I had left the bows for my parents and the twins at their house, but I had mine and the case of arrows.

  “It’s part of the training,” Aeric yelled back to me.

  I had to use various parts of my body not meant for closing the trunk to do so since my hands were full. I’m sure it looked hilarious, but the Fae were already inside and missed the show. I kicked the apartment front door once I got there, barely able to see over my bundle.

  The door quickly opened.

  “Where are the keys?” Falin asked.

  “Back pocket,” I told him. “Do you think you can help-”

  Falin already had my keys and was running up the first flight before I could finish asking for help. Aeric reached for the sword on top of my pile.

  “Can you take the arrows-”

  Aeric was back out the front door before I could ask for more help, which clued me in that he wasn’t trying to help at all. He just wanted the weapon I had been holding. He had his bow. Why did he need his sword? I thought Dark Fae were better with swords, anyway.

  “Who’s going to open the door for me?” I asked out loud.

  Nobody answered. I counted to ten, but I had been deserted. Closing the trunk had been difficult. Opening the door to my apartment building was impossible with my arms full of mostly their stuff.

  I dropped everything on the ground, cursing. The case of arr
ows hit my big toe on the right. I jumped up on one foot and grabbed my broken toe, then fell off balance, swaying dangerously backwards and into someone’s arms.

  “What are you doing?” Dain asked.

  You’re a clumsy idiot was left unspoken.

  I tried to straighten up. “I dropped some things,” I defensively explained, looking at the mess at my feet.

  “Aren’t those Aeric’s daggers?” Kheelan’s voice asked from behind. I supposed he didn’t have a good view since I was blocking the door with Dain.

  “Why are you alone?” Eloden asked. He sounded a bit more concerned than the others.

  I wiggled out of Dain’s grip, tentatively stepping on my sore foot to get out of the way. I picked my way over daggers and arrows to enter the lobby.

  “I’m not alone,” I said. “I’m training.” I didn’t want them to think I had run away from my guards. If I had to keep secrets from Dain then they ought to keep mine, too.

  Dain gave me a once-over, then sighed and put me over his shoulder.

  “I can walk,” I protested.

  Dain ignored me. “Bring the rest of it upstairs,” he ordered the others.

  “I’m not an object to be lugged around over your shoulder like a knapsack,” I complained, annoyed.

  If he knew I grew little baby fangs that could put a nasty bite on his ass, he wouldn’t carry me around so carelessly. My head bumped on his back with each step, target a half a foot away. I couldn’t even reach it, he was so tall.

  He put one hot, heavy hand over my own butt and asked, “Were you a good girl, Eve?”

  “Absolutely not,” I answered. He wouldn’t dare smack my bum in this undignified position with Eloden watching as he followed us up the stairs.

  “Dain might not punish you, but I will for playing with my charm,” Eloden threatened.

  “Falin did it,” I protested, ratting him out in a second. “And Aeric,” I added. “They bled all over it.”