Page 25 of Faking with the Fae King

“Queen?” The lead pixie’s expression goes cunning. “How can she be queen? All of the orc kings are wed.”

Such impudence! My tattoos flow across my skin, leaking shadows into the air as I growl, “She’ll bemyqueen.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal.” Hannah raises her hands and pats at the air, her tone conciliatory. “They didn’t hurt me or anything. It was just a few pranks. The worst thing that happened was I almost dropped some cookies.”

The fox dances at her feet, yipping up at her.

“No,” she tells the animal. “You couldn’t have had them even if I dropped them. They contained chocolate. I’ll getyou your own cookies.”

“You’ve bonded to the animal,” I say, recalling the old stories of witches. “He’s your familiar.”

The fox gives a little bark and growl and glares at me. It has a surprisingly effective glare, and I should know, since my warrior days have left me with a rather impressive array of glares and scowls.

Hannah laughs. “Finn says he’s not my familiar. I’mhiswitch.”

Whatever they choose to call it, it’s an excellent sign. Only strong witches have familiars. Hannah will have no problem winning one of the bride trials.

She turns back to the eatery. “Slice of Life. What a great name for a pizzeria! I love it.”

I have no idea why it’s such a good name but will never admit as much. That’s one of the first things you learn about being a king of Faerie—never show weakness.

“The human witches of Alarria helped us with the name,” the pixie leader says. “We consulted with the great Pizza herself.”

Hannah shoots me a puzzled glance, and I shrug, as clueless as she. It’s Shadow who says, “That’s the witch who can conjure food. The pixies named her Pizza as an honorary title.”

“This is amazing, and the town certainly needs a pizza place.” She waves toward the revitalized storefront.

Shadow smirks an I-told-you-so smirk, his grin widening to an impossible extent.

I ignore him.

“But we have to do paperwork,” she says. “The buildingneeds to be officially rented from the town.”

“You pay start-up costs! You promised.” The head pixie jabs a finger toward me. “We must go and hire the humans who will make pizza!” the leader pipes in her high voice, then lets out a long series of whistles. The flock splits in two, each streaking off in slightly different directions.

Finn races after the second group and leaps into the air, jaws snapping shut only an inch shy of a lagging pixie. The diminutive imp whistles like an angry tea kettle and dives for the fox, tugging on an ear. The others join in, making a game of it, the fox yipping happily. The mass of them moves across the town green, an orange streak of fur surrounded by a tiny tornado of glowing blue. The roving herd of tulips scampers over, adding to the chase.

Hannah’s eyes track them until they zip out of sight, a smile tugging at her lips.

I want her to look at me like that. Pulling out my coin purse, I pluck out several gold coins. “How much will rent be for these first two weeks?”

“Are those real?” Her eyes widen as she presses the tip of one finger to a coin, stroking over the likeness pressed into the metal,mylikeness.

“Very real and very pure.”

Hannah smiles at me like the rising sun cresting the horizon, lighting up the world with warmth.

Even though I just told her we need to pretend to a real affection, her reaction feels completely sincere.

Longing aches in my chest with a new feeling I can’t name but am already addicted to. Fuck me. Our arrangement is fake. She’s supposed to be the human I use formy own ends, nothing more.

Yet as I bask in her admiration, one thing becomes amazingly clear.

I’ll doanythingto have her look at me like this again.

CHAPTER TEN

Hannah

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