Page 7 of The Pixies' Chosen

She is not the least bit fooled by the obvious diversion, but her expression brightens at my attempt to lighten the mood, and she allows me to draw her over the table where I set her gift.

“You did not need to get me anything, Ammayi,” she protests half-heartedly. “My children are my greatest gifts.”

“Yes, but a present doesn’t hurt every now and then,” I reply. “And I promise that it is far better than the macaroni necklace I made you when I was eight years old.”

“Okay, okay,” she says and laughs. “But maybe in a year you can gift me with a son-in-law, and a fat baby in the year after. That would make the birthdays complete.”

“Okay, Mummi, I will do my best,” I assure her as I step over to the small collection of gifts on the table, but when I glance over at Inika, my sister is frowning.

“Ammayi, don’t make promises you cannot keep,” she comes to my side to whisper. “You can’t keep toeing the line between doing what you want and what our parents want instead of fully committing to one or the other. Mummi and Papa love you and will do their best to support you, but this is just making it difficult for everyone to know what to expect.”

“Welcome to my life,” I sigh. “I don’t really know what they expect from me other than marriage and babies, and a career that they think is suitably stable.”

“They just want you to be happy and enjoy a good life,” my sister replies. “So you need to decide on what that looks like so that they know how to support you.”

I frown thoughtfully as Inika drifts over to join our mother. She is probably right. I’ve only done enough to keep Mummi and Papa off my back so that I can do what I want but only so much as to not make waves. I am just… drifting and I have no idea what sort of future I want.

Is it sad to say that I want a fairytale straight out of one of my books? But who gets to realistically choose that?

CHAPTER 6

HAVOC

Idart from plant to plant, ignoring the heavy dusting of pollen falling on me from the last flowers of the season in their vain attempts to reproduce. Given my purpose, there is something poetic about being dusted in the love essence of the flowers as I weave a path through the air toward my intended mate.

My belly churns with a dark excitement that is growing more powerful by the minute. What I am about to do would be reviled among my entire colony and among all pixies, but I have long since ceased caring about such niceties. After so many decades of being an exile among my own kind, my sight is unwaveringly set on nothing less than the human female who will eventually come to accept my protection and adoration. And I will guard her well. There are countless threats to female pixies within the Dark Forest since they lack the natural chiton of a male. A small, wingless female is a terrifying concept, but it just makesthat dark protectiveness churning with me deepen to a more aggressive note.

Once I have her, nothing will be able to steal her from my nest.

A heavy pleasure caresses me as I dance upon their air currents, drawing closer and closer to her. I feel it strike through my belly like a fiery hammer, and as a result, my shimmer—my pixie light—grows brighter with the heat of my mounting passions. Should I do as I planned and sweep her off immediately between worlds to find seclusion with her inside the nest I laboriously built over many years? Or should I allow her at least some familiarity while she adjusts to our mating? As the distance between us rapidly decreases, I am increasingly aware of the close relationship she has with her colony here and it is giving me second thoughts as to my original intention.

My jaw tightens with frustration at my momentary hesitation. It is not above fae to use their tricks and wiles on other species, so why am I suffering from this? She is not a pixie female. That is the entire point of the bone fairy gifting me this magical powder. Stolen human brides among the fae are nearly as timeless as the many races themselves. There is nothing technically reviled within the act itself, and their every comfort is seen to in exchange. For such a weak and vulgar species, most consider it a blessing to humans for them to be kidnapped by the fae.

What I am doing is simply what has long been set forth in nature.

Still, I cannot entirely ignore the prickle of unease as some unknown shadow sinks within my core. It brings to mind Tryst’s concerns, but I ruthlessly push those thoughts back even if I cannot shake the disquiet of not having my nest brother at my side in this mating chase as he rightfully ought to be. Suffering the strongest compulsion I have ever felt, I failed to wait forhim, but even knowing this I cannot bring myself to stop and wait for my nest brother. The need to claim my mate claws at me, relentlessly, restlessly, with a ruthlessness that makes something within me feel weaker and weaker inside even as my body primes itself, strength flooding into the muscles beneath my chitin.

“Havoc!”

I hear Tryst shout to me in warning, and I swerve at the last moment, barely avoiding being clipped by the shoulder of a male striding purposefully across the grass with a female hurrying at his side who is no more than an uninspiring, shapeless figure to me as I fight to control my spin. I hiss between my teeth as my wings shift rapidly in the air, making tiny adjustments to stabilize my flight pattern as I careen toward my mate.

My jaw hardens with determination, and with a rapid hum of my wings, the world ceases to spin as my intended mate once again becomes the center of everything. The male and female have joined her at her side, but they are not worth my attention. They ultimately have no meaning or purpose in my design. My hand goes to the pouch at my hip, my clawed fingers slipping eagerly along its ties. I can hear Tryst’s shouts following me, but they feel as distant as the memory of a dream—nonsensical and unimportant.

I can feel my lips stretching into a wild grin and, in some corner of my mind, I inwardly marvel at it. There is an aggressiveness and rawness to it that puts even me on edge as an observer within my own mind. The excitement and lust that are such innate parts of a Dark Forest pixie in small degrees are growing wildly out of control, spreading deeper through me like an invasive root system plundering everything that it attaches to. My breath comes out in short, eager pants and my cocks are already leaking their golden essence. It has not yet begun to flowfreely to mark my path unmistakably to the currently unaware humans, but I will not be able to hold out much longer.

Untying the pouch from my belt at last, I lift it in one hand as I come to a stop just above her. Her dark hair looks like the inky, silken heart of a wildflower surrounded by its vivid petals. This is my last glimpse of my mate in her human size, and I capture the image in my mind as I lift the pouch and begin to tip it.

“Havoc!” Tryst’s shout pierces the air with a shrill whistle that, as usual, goes unheard by the humans.

Even so, I turn to glower at my nest brother, impatient with the delay only to see a crow baring down on me with its beak open wide. I rapidly flutter my wings, darting out of the path of the clever edge that snaps in the air for me. I am unable to avoid the impact of its wing as it sails past me, however, and a shout goes up among the humans. There is a frenzy of movement below as I am sent toppling in the air, the pouch slipping free from my fingertips. I claw at the air in a vain attempt to retrieve it, but it tips and spills in a golden shower on an unfamiliar dark head below as I howl out my rage and disbelief.

The flash of magic is unmistakable and instantaneous, sending another cry up among the humans as they instinctively move away from it. My upper lip immediately curls at their fear, but I cannot summon enough interest in their distress to give it much of my attention. Everything within me feels frozen as my dream of a mate of my choice disappears like mist beneath the sun as the golden cloud slowly winks out, leaving nothing but a tiny form collapsed on the ground below.

Another angry howl tears from me as I spin away, enraged with this terrible trick of fate. A blur of an indigo shimmer cuts the air in front of me, however, and I am forced to cease my headlong flight as his wings spread wide in a subtle threat while they precariously catch the air, allowing him to hover.

“Tryst,” I growl in warning, but the male shakes his head, his dark hair spilling free from the cord that had bound it to flow in a wild tangle around his face and over his shoulders.

“No,” he snarled in turn. “Your recklessness caused this. You will not just abandon a helpless female who could be everything that we have wanted just because of your error.”

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