Page 2 of Crown of the Fae King

Wickham was on his own again. Would it attack him? Possess him? Turn him into someone else completely? It was impossible to prepare when literally anything could happen. After what occurred at his niece’s wedding, he’d learned the supernatural world was not what he thought it was. A weighty realization for a powerful witch like himself.

The White One’s head…bowed.

Wickham’s body turned to stone and helplessly, he watched the cloud enter at his feet. He felt it move in and through his veins, spreading, saturating his cells with a kind of oxygen not of this world. He wanted to move, shake his leg, discern what was different, but mobility was impossible.

It entered his groin, his buttocks, and before he could contemplate its affect there, it rose into his guts, his stomach. It churned like a writhing snake, getting to know its environs. He was going to boke!

Next, it sought his heart, filled it, encompassed it—soothedit. The frantic pounding settled to a steady slow rhythm, back and forth, back and forth, like a rocking chair finding its tempo.

It expanded across his chest, into his oxters, down his arms. The sensation of cool mist spread out to his fingers, built in the knuckles, then punched through to the fingertips. Wickham held his breath as it rose in his throat, choking him. Over and over, he swallowed, trying to force it back down. He clutched at his neck, decided to dig it out, clawed at the tendons and broke the skin only once…before the lack of air took its toll and darkness swallowed him.

He never heard the hiss of mist as it made its triumphant entrance into his mind.

“We are Seanathair!”

2

Winter’s Bones

Hazelton, Idaho was a back-in-the-day town; back in the day, it used to be a town.

Halfway through our big move from Wyoming to the Oregon Coast, my car had broken down there nearly a year ago. My boyfriend and I had decided to stay, to see if Fate had dropped us there for a reason.

It hadn’t.

Three short months later, he hadn’t needed much of a reason to move on and leave me and the bills behind.

March decided to be mean this year. After a little bit of green peeked out of the snow, the temperature plummeted again and barreled through the valley like a winter witch on steroids and a turbo-charged broom. It turned everything to ice and promised nothing could recover when it thawed. Magic Valley was being punished for something. I just didn’t know what.

On the way from my car to the back entrance of Twila’s Cafe, I ignored the cold biting at my bare legs because I’d rather freeze than make my boss happy by wearing nylons. I hurried, but carefully, over deep tire treads frozen in the mud, and I wished for the thousandth time I didn’t work for a man too cheap to gravel his parking lot.

I used my sleeve to grab the doorknob, knowing it would burn bare fingers like dry ice. Then I shouldered the old wood door open, sending a new shower of paint chips to the ground. Once upon a time, there had been a screen door too, but when it became more trouble than it was worth, it was gone. I’d volunteered to refinish the old wood once, if the owner, Pete, would spring for a mere quart of stain, but he didn’t see the need.

“No one cares,” he said, and that was that.

No one caresshould be painted on the city sign.

As for Twila’s, the fate of the screen door was pretty much Standard Operating Procedure. If it caused trouble, it was outta there. And everyone who worked for Pete knew they were just as expendable. Ambition wasn’t rewarded, and squeaky wheels didnotget greased. They got thrown on the fire and burned.

Unlike the rest of the country, Hazelton didn’t have a labor shortage. If Pete canned someone during the breakfast shift, there’d be half a dozen women racing through the door before lunch, eager to please until their self-esteem couldn’t take any more.

I guess my stunted self-esteem had more stamina than most since I’d been on the payroll nearly a year, second-in-seniority ever.

The smell of warm syrup and coffee hit me in the face and reminded me why I kept coming back—the slim chance of free food. Jericho, our breakfast cook, made living in Magic Valley almost worth the torment. He could make all the trouble he wanted, and Pete wouldn’t so much as sneer. Jericho was his bread and butter.

The heavy taste of bacon grease hung in the air and woke my stomach. It rolled over and stretched like some silly, hopeful dog that thought this morning might be different from every other morning. This morning might mean food.

I swallowed my spit and told it to shut up.

I hung up my coat, crammed my bag into my locker, and spun the lock. It wasn’t that the employees didn’t trust each other—it’s that we didn’t trust Pete. And we kidded ourselves, pretending a man like that wouldn’t have a master key, that he wasn’t an arbitrary principal who would go through our things without asking permission.

Another nine months, and I could fight back. Another eight, if I walked to work more often…

Rena stood in the kitchen doorway wearing an ugly ‘50’s orange dress and white apron that matched my own. She was chewing gum—which was forbidden. And grinning—which was even more rare. She held something behind her back and leaned in the doorway like she didn’t care if she lost her job for it.

I was both excited and terrified. I didn’t want to lose her. Sometimes her sarcasm was the only thing that got me through my shift.

“Good news and…good news,” she said, then popped her gum.

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