Page 22 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
The faerie jerks the sharp peppermint stick out of the rat’s nose and whizzes past its snout, dodging a clumsy blow from a paw. He jams the striped dart into the beast’s other eye, does a somersault in midair, and flies down to me, while the rat-beast bellows and claws at its own face, trying to dislodge the darts.
The faerie hovers near me, the toes of his boots brushing the grass.
Eager eyes, black-lined and golden as the sun. A dazzling row of sharp white teeth. A cloud of pink hair.
That’s all I get to see before he bends down, picks me up, and flies off with me.
“What are you doing?” I gasp, pushing against his hard chest.
“Saving your life, sugar.” He flies higher, well out of range of the beast, and then he zooms between trees, carrying me frighteningly fast away from the hill where Louisa and the Nutcracker are.
“Stop!” I struggle in his arms. “Put me down this minute!”
Immediately he whirs into a clearing and drops me into a bed of soft, bluish grass that looks frosty, as if someone sprinkled it with sugar. He lands nearby.
I get to my feet, hot with anger and panic.
The faerie stands by, arms folded. His grin shows every one of his wicked triangular teeth.
The way he’s staring makes me suddenly conscious of how little clothing I’m wearing. Never before have I let a man see me in such an immodest state. My one tryst with a boy was in a dark garden shed, so I wouldn’t have to see anything and he couldn’t see me.
And now a faerie male is eyeing me with a telltale smirk and lustful heat in his golden eyes.
He’s much taller than I thought, flamboyantly dressed in short purple trousers and a matching vest with a blousy, gauzy iridescent shirt beneath. A snowflake hangs from the black choker around his neck. Tiny lollipops dangle from the lobes of his pointed ears. He’s wearing a gauzy sort of cape, too, pinned to his shoulders with pale-blue feathers. It’s such a perfect match for his wings I can barely tell where the wings end and the cape begins.
“You have to take me back,” I exclaim.
He taps his chin with long, pointy black nails. “Someone as delicious as you shouldn’t have a death wish.”
“Not back to themonster—back to my friends! They’ll be coming down that hill any moment, looking for me.”
“Of course you have friends. I didn’t think a tasty little mortal confection like yourself would be out here all alone.” He prowls nearer, stalking a circle around me and inhaling deeply through his nose. “I can see why the rat went after you. You smell absolutely scrumptious.”
A shudder runs through me, and my fingers travel to the belt at my waist. But I left my knives in the stomach of the rat-beast.
“Oh, you don’t need that anymore, sweet thing,” croons the faerie, leaning in from behind me. Deftly he unbuckles my belt, pulls it off, and flings it aside. His nails graze along my waist. “Who are these friends of yours, pray tell? Not that dreadful sorcerer Drosselmeyer, I hope, or I’m afraid I shall have to kill you. And don’t lie to me, darling. I have ways of discerning the truth.”
“Drosselmeyer is my godfather, but I’m no friend to him,” I say. “My sister and I are trying to assist one of the cursed Fae he captured—a prince of this realm. We made it through the portal, but we were attacked by rat soldiers, and now we’re trying to find the prince’s cousin. He lives somewhere nearby. He’s a great warrior who can help us.”
“A great warrior?” The faerie laughs and drags his claws through my hair, seemingly unbothered by the tangles he encounters. “I know of no great warriors living nearby. This prince, what is his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course not, because faeries only give their names to those they trust. You haven’t yet won that privilege from your Fae companion, which means I shouldn’t trust you either, should I?”
I pull away, despite the painful tug as my hair disengages from his claws. “Nor should I trust you.”
“Really?” His eyebrows rise. “But I’m so pretty. And I did save your life.”
I take in his lithe, long-legged form, his trim waist, the lean chest showing between the laces of his shirt. His wings are draped at his back like a cloak, and they flutter intermittently.
Heispretty. His face is boyish, sprinkled with freckles, sharp-jawed and wickedly charming. It’s the teeth that make him slightly terrifying—all pointed, not a smooth edge among them.
“Will you return me to my friends or not?” I ask, with a defiant tilt of my head.
His smile widens. “That depends. You owe me a life debt, and now you ask a favor as well? What will you give me in return?”
I look down at my bruised legs and arms, the scanty remnants of my green dress, the tangle of auburn waves over my shoulder. Then I lift my eyes to his. “I don’t have anything of value.”
