Page 506 of Flirting with Darkness

The creature parted the bushes and rose; she only came to my waist. Her skin was as gray and rough as tree bark, and her mossy hair spilled down her shoulders.

The woods around me moved, and I realized I wasn’t alone. A half-dozen other Fae moved around me.

A curious girl wearing a red mushroom cap—or perhaps the mushroom cap was a part of her, because her face was as red as the cap—came toward me. She reached to touch my sleeve.

I forced myself to hold still, despite the wild hammering of my heart. Her fingers traced over my clothes, then ran down my exposed skin at the back of my hand. I tried to smile at her.

She suddenly seized my wrist, her fingernails sinking deep into my skin, and lunged toward me, opening her mouth. She exposed dozens of needle-sharp teeth as her mouth opened impossibly wide.

“Get away from her.” It was Tor’s voice.

Suddenly, the mushroom girl was flying halfway across the clearing. Tor had just punted her and he turned, casting a ferocious glance around at the others. They all fled into the clearing.

He was growling and terrifying and I was no less frightened by him than I had been a moment before.

He turned to look at me skeptically. “So you’ve decided to explore the kingdom on your own and to meet the low Fae. Including the poisonous ones.”

“She was a poisonous mushroom?” I felt a laugh rising in the back of my throat that was too shaky. “Those are more passive in my world. They wait for you to eat them, they don’t try to eat you.”

“Are you all right?”

“Not at all, Tor.”

He took a step toward me, and I raised my hands. “A nap won’t help.”

“It will make me feel better, since you won’t run away from me and straight into danger,” he said.

I tried to run, but Tor caught me without much effort and threw me over his shoulder.

“Don’t put me to sleep!” I shouted, but he was already grumbling, “Sleep.”

And I fell asleep to the sound of the rain trickling through the branches and of his feet moving through that storm of leaves.

6

Iwoke up slowly, in a room bathed in light. Gauzy curtains hung around me, and I jolted up, convinced for a second that I was back in my childhood bedroom.

But quickly, it resolved into less terrifying surroundings. I was in a large room, the walls and floor all the same cream and pink marble, struck through with wild swirls of gold. There was very little furniture, but small trees grew up along one wall, their limbs bowed with fruit. Another wall was all windows, wide open and facing toward the windswept forest.

And at the foot of my bed, there was a monster.

Tor.

“Where am I?” I demanded.

“My home.”

“And where is that, Tor?” A childish peevishness came through my voice. I would’ve felt totally lost and confused and furious if not for the fact he was there, though.

I had to remind myself he wasn’t as familiar as he felt. I’d been dreaming about him, but none of that was real. Before he could answer, I added, “And what were you saying about the Fae king? Why does he need me?”

His lips tilted in a smile. “You are taking this remarkably well. I was worried you wouldn’t remember me.”

“It’s probably all another dream,” I said, and then the past rushed back to me, and I added, “I’m probably in a coma, because that mandidmanage to follow me into my apartment, and now I’m clinging to life in the ICU, or like, buried alive in a well or something—”

“He did not follow you.” Tor rose abruptly, reminding me that he stood two heads taller than I was, and his voice was a furious low rumble. “You called me, and I came.”

“I didn’t call you! I don’t have any way of getting in touch with you.”

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