Page 1 of Lust & Lollipops

one

MOLLY

I collapsed on the couch and stared up at the ceiling for a good long minute. Everything was packed, and there was no longer any reason to delay the inevitable. I’d said goodbye to everyone at work the day before, and hugged my grandma tightly after she fed me dinner that night.

It was barely six in the morning, but in a few minutes, I’d be in an armored vehicle.

And on my way to the Fae Bachelorette mansion.

Fae, as in magical beings. Some of them could change into animals, while others had dangerous mental magic.

They had come out of hiding and saved the day when us humans nearly ended the world with nuclear warfare a few years earlier. Afterward, they offered their price for letting us return to normal life:

Mates.

As in, wives.

And husbands.

But mostly wives.

Most fae were men, thanks to their screwy genetics.

Said screwy genetics required them to take mates in order to become immortal, so all of them wanted someone to hook up with.

After the war ended, every human under twenty-five had their blood tested. Most people received a clean bill of health, saying that the fae required nothing from them.

But some of us didn’t.

And I was one of those.

Their ridiculous Fae Bachelorette TV show had begun airing immediately. They gave the compatible human women a month to choose between a dozen fae guys. Most humans had become obsessed with watching it ever since.

Myself not included.

Knowing I was going to be forced to participate in the show at some point put a real damper on the drama’s excitement for me.

Bachelorette had been running constantly in the four years since, with just a few days between each new season that started.

Considering I’d turned twenty-four a few months earlier, and was on the oldest end of the compatibility spectrum, I’d known my days of freedom were numbered. For whatever reason, compatibility faded around a person’s twenty-fifth birthday.

That didn’t make it any easier to say goodbye to my human life, though.

“Ready, Lolli?” my personal fae guard asked from the kitchen. He was tall, tan, and gorgeous, with dark, wavy hair that was long on the top and short on the sides. Despite his job, he pretty much always wore jogger-style sweatpants and a graphic tee.

He was making eggs and bacon for both of us, even though he’d had to literally pull a pan out of one of my packed boxes to do so.

Cameron Cassette was a pain in my ass. He’d accompanied the bloodwork results that had declared me compatible with fae, and no amount of convincing had gotten him to leave my side. Considering that the Society was paying him to stay, I was stuck with him.

He called me Lolli, as in Lollipop, because I’d had one in my mouth the first time we met. And it rhymed with my actual name, Molly.

The bastard had invaded my life for four years. He even had his own room in my apartment, which was paid for by the fae Society. I’d tried to argue against that, but they required more security than I could afford.

And no one came out on top in an argument with fae. Some of them had mind magic. The ones who didn’t had elemental magic of some kind. Some of them could even shift into dragons and other mystical animals.

“Ready to get away from you,” I drawled, adjusting the hem of my oversized sweater. It was the middle of winter and I lived in the mountains, so it was cold and snowy. But honestly, I lived in sweaters even when it was hot, just cranking the AC up during the summer since the bill was on the Society’s dime.

My four-sizes-too-big sweater was bright yellow. It had a sarcastic “good morning, sunshine” written in scripted letters across the front, with a sun that resembled a skull beneath it. The color wasn’t great with my natural blonde hair, but the sweater was my favorite, so I didn’t give a damn.

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