Page 11 of Fake Dating a Human 101

Lily stopped walking again. “What do you mean I won’t be going in?” A nearby fairy took her hesitation as an opportunity to show her a dazzling velvet gown that somehow looked to be exactly her size.

“I made this gown for you, can’t you tell?” the fairy asked.

Lily glanced over at the dress, but only until Dranian swept back, grabbed her shoulder, turned her toward the road ahead, and continued walking.

“If you go into the House, you’ll never come out. I’ll go in. I know this family. I can withstand their torture.” Dranian’s voice wavered—a clear tell that he was lying. Lily looked over in time to see him bite his tongue.

It was strange to be the least educated person on an assignment. Connor always let Lily do the research ahead of their tasks, making her the natural leader. She didn’t know whether to try and convince Dranian to let her help, or if she should heed his advice since he understood this magic stuff. It was difficult to tell if he was being reasonable or overly cautious.

She decided to change the subject. “I’m starving.”

“Swallow some air then, Human, because that’s all we have to eat,” Dranian grumbled.

Lily grunted and stuck her tongue out at him. She did it half to lighten the mood, and half from legitimate dissatisfaction of the growling hole in her belly. What she didn’t do it for though, was for someone to place something on it.

She wasn’t prepared to come face-to-face with a black-haired fairy, or to have him drop a coin on her tongue at lightning speed. Or for the vicious smile that followed.

She was too shocked to move for a split second as it settled in.

Lily tried to spit it back out. Her spitty sounds filled the street, turning heads. But the coin stuck to her tongue like glue, weighing it down so she couldn’t even speak.

“Now you won’t be hungry forever,” the fairy said like he’d heard her comment and was kindly solving her problem.

Dranian punched him.

Lily shrieked, trying to pull the metal out of her mouth as the black-haired fairy fell into the dirt. The fairy howled a laugh, then he pointed at Lily.

“Is that female what I think she is?” he asked Dranian.

Dranian’s eyes widened. He brushed a hand over his injured arm.

Lily had never felt more out of her element as her legs turned numb and began wobbling. Heat soared through her body as if a paralytic drug was leaking from the coin. She reached for the gun tucked into the back of her belt, but found she couldn’t move her fingers to grab it.

“I’m from the Brotherhood of Assassins!” Dranian barked over the street. “The death-bringers of Queene Levress herself! Cross me at great cost!” Before he’d even finished his announcement, he lifted Lily, his face contorting as he tossed her over his shoulder and hauled her through the village.

His sprint into the woods was filled with grunting and quiet, anguished sounds. Lily’s mouth had no feeling as he laid her flat on her back behind the cover of the trees. “Don’t touch anything!” he growled. “Don’t eat anything! Why is that so difficult?!” He jammed his fingers into the dirt and rummaged around until he found a stone. Then he squeezed Lily’s jaw to open her mouth, and he dropped it inside.

The second the stone touched the coin, it loosened from her tongue and the feeling came back into her body. She flung herself up and coughed, spitting out the coin and the dirty rock at once.

“That was totally not my fault!” she said in a shriek. She coughed again. “Ugh, that rock tasted like mud.” She put a hand on her stomach as a terrible, overwhelming wave of starvation rushed in, so much greater than the hunger she’d felt before the whole coin thing. Thoughts of food screamed through her mind; pizza, pasta, Thai food, cake— “How much further is it to the House of Lyro?” she asked.“And is there going to be food there?”was what she wanted to ask.

“House of…” Dranian looked like he might explode behind his dull mask of expression. “Forget the House of Lyro! Now I’m going to be fighting off a whole village! They all saw you!” Then, “Do you know how valuable you are? Hunters will fill these woods within the hour!”

Lily nodded. She closed her eyes and shook the manic thoughts of pizza away. “Did that coin trick make me crave food like a crazy person?”

“It might have,” Dranian snapped.

She thought of that fairy’s vicious smile, how fast he’d put her in a state of paralysis, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to get far away from this village. In fact… it was the first moment she wondered if maybe Dranian had been right in his warnings of this place, and that she was crazy for wanting to come here. The first moment she realized she had no idea what she was doing against fairies.

“Let’s go,” she said. Everything in the trees was darker, the air thicker, her knees weaker. “Dranian, I want to go,” she said again, pulling her legs beneath her.

“Your body isn’t used to fairy meddling. Are you sure you can walk?” Dranian asked. He stole a look into the woods. Glanced over his shoulder.

“I’m fine!” Lily promised. She stood and inhaled deeply.

She passed out.

Her limbs crumpled, she hit the dirt, she was gone.

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