Page 63 of Faerie Marked

He ignored me for the rest of the day. Then the next. Eventually, a week later, I’d had enough. I definitely didn’t need him blowing hot and cold with me. We’d been through too much together for him to act in such a petty way.

And yet even with all the bitterness and jealousy smeared across his face, he was still handsome. He still stirred my heart.

Boys! What could you do about them? They were impossible to understand on a good day and even more impossible on a bad one. Mike must be having several bad ones in a row, deciding to take his stress out on me. On the one person who wanted nothing more than to stand beside him as a partner.

Yeah, wishful thinking there.

I stalked to the library after my last class of the day, still fuming a week later from what he’d said to me. Well, fine. If Mike wanted to act like a jerk and ignore me because I’d done better than he had on our tests, then he couldbea jerk. I was better off without him, especially if he continued to act like an envious asshole.

Studying alone didn’t make a difference to me and I definitely didn’t want to see Mike right now. Not after his behavior. I slammed my books down hard at my usual table, loud enough to earn a glare from the librarian. She raised a spindly green finger to her lips, wings fluttering behind her.

Sorry, I mouthed to the librarian before I turned my back on her.

Melia’s story about the royals had stuck in my head as well, playing on a looped repeat. I couldn’t stop thinking about the king’s odd behavior, the way no one had seen the queen in public, and Mike’s unexpected enrollment at the Halflings Academy despite his full Fae blood.

Did Mike’s reaction have something to do with how he’d been raised in the palace surrounded by servants ready to bow to his every whim and desire? Was he just a spoiled brat? He’d been given everything he wanted his entire life.

Jealous much?

I shook my head. It wasn’t my problem either way. His reaction belonged to him and deep down probably had nothing to do with me.

Try telling my subconscious.

None of it added up, because I’d seen how sweet Mike was with me and with others in our class. He was a good guy deep down no matter what happened with his father. Or with me in this current situation.

I’d grown up surrounded by wolves. I knew shifter culture inside and out because I’d been hiding among them since my father’s murder. Yet what did I really know about the Fae? Enough to fudge my way into this school and enough to pass my exams, apparently, but not enough to make a concise judgment call about one of their kind.

Enough to earn the top spot grade-wise, a snarky voice said inside my head,and slaughter the competition.

About the intricacies of Fae culture, I was ignorant. It was a huge piece of me left to shrivel and die and no amount of memorization for tests could take the place of cultural immersion. Uncle Will and I had needed me to tamp downeverythingabout my Fae nature in order to fit in with the pack. In order to survive, get them used to my unique scent so they wouldn’t ask questions. Weird enough I’d showed up at age six and no one mentioned my parents.

Now, it seemed, the tables had turned.

Instead of studying, as I knew I needed to do to keep my top spot, I grabbed as many books as I could carry about the royal family and the history of Faerie, those I hadn’t tapped during the first round of examinations. These books were older, heavier. Like the amount of knowledge inside added to their weight.

I blew the dust off of a few and wondered if I should be handling these without gloves.

After a few hours, my eyes blurred and burned to the point where it felt like I’d rubbed salt in them. I hadn’t been able to find much on the family beyond the perfunctory information I already knew. Names and some dates and awards the king had doled out to loyal subjects. I found nothing about the politics governing the court and nothing about the odd public disappearance of the queen at events she would be expected to attend.

When I asked the librarian about any updated texts, she sent me a withering glare before hissing out how we had one of the finest selections of books on the royals in the country.

Strike two for me today.

I sighed, stretching my arms out across the table, fingertips brushing against the last volume I’d grabbed.

Myths and Legends of Ancient Faerie.

It might be worth a try. Why not? One last book then I’d call it a day.

My fingers flipped through the leather-bound volume without really settling on a page. There were old drawings done in black-and-white ink, most of the pages faded around the edges. Monsters and creatures. What were the Fae afraid of…clearly some kind of demon, if the illustrations were any indication, demons with fangs and fur and death in their eyes?

I scooted closer and leaned until my nose nearly touched the page. The knowledge knocked around in my brain before settling with a clang. My stomach surged once before dropping hard.

Not demons, no.Wolves. Beasts walking on two legs and donning the skin of humans. Skinwalkers or shifters, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. These were the evils, the terrors stalking innocent Fae for no good reason.

I flipped to the next chapter and stopped at the scrawled script next to a woodcut of a wolf howling at the moon.

“The Faerie Prophecy.” Author unknown; first published by Oxana the Sightless during the Age of the Red Dawn.

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