Page 6 of How To Tame A Trickster Fae

“We don’t even know what kind of currency these mortals use.”

I strain my eyes with the force it takes to keep from rolling my eyes at him.

Ga’Rek’s tusks flash in the sunlight as his smile widens and he tosses me an amused look.

“That’s not a problem.”

Kieran mutters something not worth hearing under his breath, and I shove my hands into the pockets of the leather vest and saunter down the street.

Firefly Lane, a signpost reads.

“How positively quaint,” I say with admiration. I barely recollect this place. Then again, I’ve hardly ever been topside since snagging Ga’Rek as a strapping lad all those years ago.

Things have changed in a few hundred years, it seems.

Imagine that. The magic, for one, usually muted in this mortal place, is vibrant. Charged.

Wild. I fucking love it.

“It feels strange,” Kieran, as always, is a thundercloud in a bright spot.

“Well, this is where we are making our home. For the time being, at least,” I tell him with a hint of snarl. “So stop grousing and get that scowl off your face. You’ll scare away all the good prey—mortals,” I correct.

Not prey. No, no, that wouldn’t do at all.

I whistle as we stroll, and then we’re outside it: the source of the delicious scent of baked goods, of sugar and butter and all manner of sweet things.

“The Pixie’s Perch,” Ga’Rek intones, one dark, pierced eyebrow quirked at the sign overhead.

“I didn’t know you could read,” I announce, feigning shock.

His grin deepens. “That’s because you’re a rat bastard of the worst sort, who doesn’t even care about his closest friend enough to know about his reading habits.”

A pink and white striped awning blocks the afternoon sun, and we step closer to the small shop. Pastries line the window, arranged prettily with flowers to create some sort of wild-looking diorama. There’s even a statue of a deer.

I bend closer. The thing is strangely lifelike, so real I could almost imagine its little white tail flicking this way and that.

Then it blinks, and I know I wasn’t imagining it.

“A familiar,” I breathe, slightly stunned. The deer disappears into the shop, and I follow it, entranced.

“A what?” Kieran asks Ga’Rek behind me.

A bell tinkles overhead, and sure enough, I scent it through the chocolate glazed eclairs and cinnamon shortbread and lavender-lemon scones.

Magic.

A witch’s magic.

“Welcome to The Pixie’s Perch,” a lilting female voice sings out from the back room, and I smile. “Be right with you.”

“This is it, lads.” I turn to my companions, spreading my hands wide. “This is our new place. Among the witches of Wild Oak Woods.”

Kieran pinches the top of his nose, his beetle wings buzzing in irritation.

As for Ga’Rek, he’s staring, open-mouthed, into the small arched opening that must lead to the shop’s kitchen.

And when the petite, pink-cheeked brunette human witch steps out, dusting her hands on her apron, I see the exact moment his life changes.

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