The bandages even covered his face other than one cream colored eye. He followed her movement, waiting for her to reach him without attempting to rush her.
“What do you want?” she snapped when she finally stood in front of him. She crossed her arms over her chest and blew a strand of pale hair from her face.
“My queen,” the faerie said. He dropped into a low bow, but it was his voice that made her skin crawl. The deep sound was the bellows of wind rushing through a canyon. He was one of her own kind. An air faerie who had somehow made his way to the human realm.
“I’m no one’s queen,” Ayla replied. “I’m a nanny, as you can clearly see. The boys are mine.”
“You’ve had children?” He snapped up straight as an arrow. “We were unaware there were princes.”
She shook her head. “No, they are my brother’s. But they are important to me.”
“Brother?” The strange faerie pressed a hand against his chest. “You have no siblings, Ayla of Frostborn.”
Sure. They might think she was the queen of their people, but clearly she wasn’t. Her family had cast her aside, sent her to live with humans because she was worth nothing to them. They’d rather trade her for a human child. A slave.
Ayla had been forced to grow up thinking she was human. She could do things the other kids couldn’t. Make the wind rustle her hair, turn the air frosty, make snow fall from the sky on a whim. She wasn’t like the humans and she’d scared them because of it.
She’d only realized what she was because an errant faerie had told her when she’d turned sixteen. Horns grew atop his head and his feet were hooves.
“You’re a changeling child,” he’d said with a leer. “No one wanted you, so they sent you away to live with the humans. Poor dear. You’ll never even know who your parents are.”
Until much later, when her parents had died, and the court shifted power to someone new. Then they all wanted her back.
She had her pride.
Shifting her stance, she cocked her hip out to the side. “I’m not interested. I’ve told a hundred people before you. He can keep the throne. I don’t want it.”
The faerie dropped to his knees, shuffling forward with bandages snapping in a sudden wind. “Please, my queen. Your people are dying, and we need you to save us.”
“I’m no savior, and I’m no queen.” Ayla turned to leave. He could stay on his knees as long as he wanted, but she wouldn’t go with him. The boys needed her. The family needed her. And that was more than any faerie had given her.
He flinched and shuffled forward again, reaching out and grasping onto the hem of her button down yellow shirt. “Please, mistress. At least hear me. The mad king took the throne when your parents died, but none of us knew what would happen if he did. The air court is dying. He is killing us all.”
“Then find someone to stop him. Surely there are a hundred faeries out there willing to do the job.” She shook him off her shirt. “Let go.”
“No, my queen. No one can stop him; we’ve tried. He is all powerful and holds within him an elemental who wants to destroy the human realm. If you don’t stop him, if you don’t take back what is rightfully yours, then it won’t just be the faeries who die. It will be everyone. The whole world.”
She could only imagine this was the newest tactic to get her to come home. Faeries attacking humans? They wouldn’t. They didn’t have the resources.
Ayla snorted and tried to peel his hands off her shirt. “Nice try. Maybe tell the next guy threatening my family was a bad idea.”
“I’m not threatening anyone!” he shouted. “I’m telling you the truth. If the elemental takes over the king, then we are all lost. All the faerie kings, all those who rule the Season courts, will soon be overwhelmed. This is how the world ends, my queen. And you are the only one who can stop it.”
His words settled on her shoulders like an omen. She hated to admit he’d gotten into her head, but the man definitely had. Somehow, he’d made her nervous.
Glancing over her shoulder, she made sure the boys were still on the swings. When she had ensured they were behaving, she turned back to the man and held onto his hands with a firm grip. “I don’t know if you’re telling the truth or not, but I’m not the person you’re looking for.”
Ayla released his hands and left him on the ground. The faerie hung in his head in defeat, but she tried not to let it bother her too much. The faeries had their own problems. They weren’t hers just because she shared blood with two people who hadn’t wanted her.
Still, her stomach rolled with guilt. Her breakfast of syrupy pancakes pressed against the back of her throat, but she refused to vomit in the trashcan. She had a family to protect. Two nephews who loved her. A brother and a sister-in-law who were kind enough to pay her and let her live in the little cottage behind their house. Ayla was blessed with so much, she didn’t need to worry about faeries.
“Come on, boys!” she shouted. “We’re going home!”
Though the twins complained, they hopped off the swing set and raced toward her bag. Ian grabbed her purse and held it open for Ivan to rummage through, looking for her car keys.
They held up the keys with two sticky grins long before she reached their side. Kneeling, Ayla gathered them close to her chest and squeezed them tight.
“I love you two,” she whispered. “You know that, right?”
They wiggled and in unison replied, “We know Auntie Ayla! Let go!”
It was always the same with the two of them. They hated getting snuggled or loved now that they were older.
She plucked the keys from Ivan’s hands and pointed to the car. “Car boys. Let’s go home.”
About the Author
Elizabeth Frost is the penance of USAToday Bestselling author Emma Hamm. You’ll find these stories to be steamy paranormal/urban fantasy, whereas the ones under Emma Hamm will be less steamy and more traditional fantasy worlds.
So if you want spice, you want Frost ;)
King of the Mountains Page 21