Page 1 of The Jester

Chapter One

ALANA

Islide the gilded mask onto my face and fasten it behind my ears. Tonight, I will go unnoticed. I won’t be the girl who did the unspeakable thing. I won’t be stared at. Men will not shy away from my touch.

I will dance, and flirt, and laugh, and no one will be afraid of me because they will not know who I am. My costume – and its magic – will make sure of that.

There is a tap on the door, prompting me to quickly pull the mask off and slip it back into the trunk at the foot of my bed.

“Please enter,” I reply, picking up a book and positioning myself by the window as though this is where I intend to stay for the remainder of the evening.

Rawk enters with a stride that sharply slaps the wooden boards. “Alana.” He folds his arms. His wings are out, deep purple, still as the ocean before a storm.

Mine twitch with unease; they have a habit of betraying my emotions and, unlike the rest of my body, I have still not learned to tame them.

I put down the book and close the gap between us.

Rawk is older than me by one hundred years. He is one of the older fae in the village, and is anticipating being named an elder when he reaches his next half-century. He is not old enough to carry the amount of ego that swells in his overly large biceps. But he is old enough to be trusted to contain me this evening.

He quirks an eyebrow, clearly expecting me to speak. When I don’t, he clicks his fingers and I hold out my forearms.

“Where are your gloves?” he asks, his jaw ticking with irritation.

I motion to the dresser where my purple elbow-length gloves are draped neatly over the mirror. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

With a hesitant but swift movement, Rawk swipes the gloves from the mirror and holds them in front of me. “Put them on,” he says roughly.

I do as he asks, slipping into their familiar embrace with a sigh.

Rawk nods, then takes a set of silver cuffs from his waistband and secures them on my wrists. On top of the gloves.

“The cuffs are just for tonight, Alana. You understand why,” he says, his gaze catching on mine. He smiles. But it was not sympathy that prompted his remark. It was the hope that I would read it as sympathy and finally agree to fuck him.

And that is the great irony of my situation; although they are scared of me, every male in my village wants to be the one to tame me. The one to control my magic. The one who fucks Alana the Untouchable and escapes unharmed. With his mind intact.

I would not allow Rawk between my legs if he was the last fae in the kingdom. And if I did, I would certainly not leave him intact.

“Just for tonight,” I reply sweetly.

He stands for a moment, his wings still unnervingly still. Then he looks me up and down, makes a tutting sound in the back of his throat, and pulls the door roughly shut on his way out.

“May the moon be in your favour,” I call after him – as is custom on the night of the Forest Moon centennial.

Clearly, Rawk does not see me as worthy of receiving custom.

I move to the window then, tilting my head from side to side, I let down the gates that keep my mind from feeling those around me. It took me too long to master this skill. Far too long. Other empaths can do it from the day they are born, but not me.

My mother used to say I struggled because I was so much stronger than those who’d come before me. My father believed the opposite.

My kin – the other Leafborne fae of the forest – sided with my father. They hated me long before I gave them reason to.

Allowing the sounds, and movements, and emotions of the forest to swell inside my skull, I press my forehead to the glass and search for Rawk. He is no longer close by. My cabin, on the outskirts of the village, is surrounded by silence.

I can feel the others in the distance – their excitement, the hedonistic murmur of their hearts as they put on their costumes and drink their wine. But they are muted. Far enough away that I am confident I am alone.

I look down at my wrists. The cuffs are designed to prevent me from changing as the others will. For tonight, the night of the Forest Moon, is the night my people become one with the world around them.

On this one night – just one – every century, the Leafborne fae of the outermost forests are able to change form and be true kin with the creatures of the land.

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