Page 6 of Faerie Marked

I slowed my steps to a methodical march, the black iron fence around the park positioned like silent sentinels.

“Elfwaite?” I called out.

My voice echoed back to me without an answer.

Despite the hush of night, I finally relaxed. The tension in my shoulders eased the farther I walked into the park. Large oak trees shaded the paths during the day, but tonight, with the moon high and casting shadows, I stepped through random pools of buttery light.

Here, I didn’t have to pretend anymore. I didn’t have to protect myself against judgment. Elfwaite was the only person in the world I truly trusted with my truth. She didn’t care about my blood. She only cared about me.

A flutter of wings caught my attention and instead of preparing to run, I smiled. This time, I meant it.

The pixie’s nostrils flared delicately as she crept between the leaves of a bay laurel bush. All four inches of her tiny, purple-skinned supernatural self. “You’re supposed to be enjoying your birthday party, young lady,” Elfwaite gently scolded, her voice a mere whisper of sound. “You told me you were going to have fun.”

“And it was fun, for the first five minutes.”

“Somehow I doubt things went downhill fast without a good reason. It wasn’t an unruly guest throwing food around, was it?”

I shook my head. “No, definitely not.”

Elfwaite’s family had left Faerie a hundred years ago, during the great Pixie War. She was born and raised in the human lands and knew no other life. Yet she had been my best source of information on Faerie so far, the only connection I had to my mother’s people, of her life before coming here.

My pixie friend had returned to her homeland multiple times once the war ended to visit family. She’d simply never wanted to stay.

We met by chance when I was jogging one day, a passerby knocking into me and sending me flying into the laurel bush where Elfwaite happened to be napping. Her kind didn’t normally associate with wolves, even half-wolves. But she’d been kind. So had I. It made an impression.

I knelt down on the soft grass, uncaring of what happened to my dress.

“I…I need to talk to you,” I began haltingly, holding out my palm for her to rest on. This was followed by an embarrassed cough, glancing back along the empty path. I knew I could say whatever I wanted to Elfwaite without fear but it took me precious moments to let my guard down. “I need to talk to someone who won’t judge me. Or, heaven forbid, be happy for me.”

“What’s wrong?” Elfwaite pressed her palm to mine and magic sizzled between us.

Laying my free hand flat on the grass and resting upon it, I raised my gaze to meet her slanted pupils. Why did this seem so difficult? “My uncle found my…my fated mate.”

Her wings fluttered. “This is not good news for you.”

Not a question. A true statement. She understood better than most. “No, it’s not. Uncle Will announced it at my party.” The rest of the story spilled out of me faster than I’d anticipated and I ended up telling Elfwaite everything.

I told her about the first time I’d seen Kendrick at a rather explosive pack meeting at my uncle’s estate. I’d seen the gleam of desperate violence in his eyes when he spotted me. Like a starving hunter spying a rabbit warren. Like I’d be easy pickings because I was pretty and weak.

I’d never killed anything outside a few deer, let alone another wolf shifter. Seeing Kendrick all those months ago, I’d wished for something to defend myself against him, and I would have used a weapon if necessary. Now I wanted nothing more than to bury the memory and never think about it again.

I stared at my friend. “I don’t understand what’s happening. I really don’t,” I continued, swallowing hard. “Worse, I don’t know what to do to get out of it. I’m not strong enough to fight the will of two packs by myself. No one will listen to me.”

“Oh, Tavi.” Elfwaite kept her tone comforting and quiet, fluttering forward to hug me. She was only a little bigger than my nose, and she moved there to soothe me.

“There’s no way I can let my uncle marry me off. I would rather die than spend the rest of my life chained to someone like Kendrick, someone people say revels in the misery of others. How can he be my fated mate? He’s not a good man.”

“I would rather younotdie. There is always another option, though…you can run away to somewhere you would be safe from your uncle’s reach.”

I was desperate for a solution when it seemed there was none, and clung to her words. “Where?”

“To Faerie, of course.”

Unable to help myself, I laughed. “Elfwaite, I would never be allowed in. I’m half werewolf. The gatekeepers would throw me back into human lands on my ass.”

The pixie moved back to stare at me, frowning. “There is another way,” she insisted.

My laugh turned into a snort. “It sounds almost as ridiculous as Kendrick Grimaldi being my fated mate.”

---