Page 23 of How To Tame A Trickster Fae

“All the animals in the Underhill are her spies.”

The way he emphasizes the word makes it clear he means the fae Queen, and the pronoun drips with acid.

So, he didn’t leave happily then.

I don’t know why that makes me feel better. Shouldn’t I feel empathy for him?

“I am an outcast too, you know.”

“To outcasts.” He raises his last half-eaten skewer of meat, and I laugh as we bounce the ends off each other in solidarity. “And to new beginnings.”

I nod slowly, the gnawing anxiousness caused by the fact I forgot to eat most of the day slowly melting away. The night air is cool, the promise of autumn on the breeze, and the music winds through the town square along with the hum of conversation and laughter.

“Is it always like this?” he asks, raising a hand and gesturing vaguely.

“Like what?” I ask needlessly. I’m pretty sure I know what he means.

“Are they always so happy? So at peace?”

“No, of course not.” I shake my head, giving the rest of the meat to Fenn, who’s only too thrilled to eat the scraps. “I think everyone’s just doing their best to play at it, sometimes. Happiness, I mean.”

He gives me a look that makes me feel like I’m at the end of one of the sharp meat-sticks abandoned on the bench between us.

“You’re unhappy,” he says.

A gust of breath whooshes out from me, and I lean my hands back on the bench, tilting my chin up and inspecting the purpling sky overhead. The stone’s rough against my palms.

“I shouldn’t be.” That’s the truth of it. “I have everything I need to be happy. A beautiful home, a shop I was lucky enough to inherit with a full inventory, wonderful new friends, and then of course, there is Fenn,” I say, and my sweet familiar bounds into my lap, whuffling at my chin before circling and settling in.

I curl over him, running my hands over his soft fur, loving the musky scent of him and the adorable way his white whiskers twitch.

“But something is missing,” Caelan urges.

A hint of smoke spills into the air, the crackling of magic. I go still, turning my attention slowly to him.

He’s watching me carefully, those ice-blue eyes taking my measure.

“I’m not interested in a bargain,” I tell him, making myself laugh.

“I wasn’t offering one,” he says, frowning. “That’s your magic, not mine.”

“It wasn’t mine,” I insist, pushing at his shoulder in annoyance.

He lets out a laugh. Without warning, he seizes my wrist and brushes the barest of kisses on top of my hand.

My heart stutters. I stare up at him, wide-eyed and suddenly, too late, terrified.

Terrified, and alive.

“It was yours, little gold witch, and you should be smarter than to walk around offering up pieces of yourself with ears like mine listening.” There’s a bite to his words, a cruelty that makes me sit up straighter.

“I don’t see anything wrong with your ears.” I return my attention to Fenn, annoyed at both myself and the way my cheeks heat, and at the fae for making me feel heard.

For making me want to tell him my problems, consequences be damned.

“I think your ears are beautiful, just like the rest of you,” I finish, feeling bold and ridiculous all at once.

A rough laugh skates from his lips, and I stand up abruptly, pulling Fenn to my chest before depositing him back on the white-washed bricks.

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