Neela

Neela

Sound bubbled up from within Ronan and erupted like a volcano, his stunned emotion spilling all over. “One of us is about to be fucking surprised.”

“What?” I expected anger, not whatever this was. He’d stepped back and looked at me with an intense, unreadable expression.

“You’re the Floran heir, Neela. Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself.” Ahh, there was the anger I anticipated, lacing his words in steel.

“You don’t understand.” I twisted my hands together and then started walking down the hill toward the human village, away from the massive house under construction that nobody wanted. Away from Ronan.

I don’t know why I just fucking told him the truth. My only protection from him and his evil friends was my deception, and I’d blown the whole thing. I was a damn fool, after all. One day of kindness from the dark prince, and I blubbered everything.

I had to get away. And disappear even further this time. I couldn’t go back to the Rose Palace, not ever. But first, I had to escape the powerful fae prince I’d just admitted to deceiving.

Sure, he’d promised not to hurt me when he thought I was a Floran princess. But now he knew I wasn’t even fae, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. I had to get away before he thought that through.

He came after me, laughing like he’d lost his mind. “I understand perfectly. The Floran Bracelet only melds with its true owner, the Floran heir.”

I whirled around to face him. Uphill of me, he was even taller, and I had to crane my neck so I wasn’t speaking into his black-clad belly button. “That’s exactly it. I’m not its true owner, I’m a thief. I stole the damn thing.”

I should shut the fuck up, but not being believed was even worse than being a bloody idiot who spilled truth beans like lousy coffee.

His black eyes danced with merriment. “I can’t believe you thought you were human this whole time.”

His bubbling good humor was contagious, and my spirits lifted slightly just by looking at his happy face. I bit my cheek to keep my growing happiness in check.

“Don’t be dense,” I snapped. “The bracelet belongs to its true owner, right?”

“Yep.”

“And I’m not the true owner. I stole it. Therefore it doesn’t belong to me, Captain Thicko.”

He grinned. “That’s Prince Thicko to you.”

I couldn’t understand why he was taking this so lightly. I just confessed I’d been fooling him all this time, and he gave zero fucks. I nicked a priceless artifact from his best friend’s family, and he was chuckling.

Maybe he wouldn’t kill me after all. “So…you’ll let me live in this house and not harass me? Let me lead a normal life here, out of the way?”

He grinned. “Not a chance, princess.”

I grizzled and opened my mouth to object, but he cut me off.

“Tell me exactly what happened the day you took the bracelet.”

I thought back to that day. “I was in the Docklands when a couple of the Bull’s guys spotted me, so I scarpered up to the rich part of town. Cased out a few joints while I was there.”

“I literally understood about half of those words.”

I looked at him like he was an idiot. Which he was. “The Docklands is the shittiest part of town, the Bull is a dangerous guy I owe money to, a lot of money, and—”

“The Bull?” he asked threateningly.

I waved it away. “It doesn’t matter. So, I walked around for a bit, looking for something to eat. Or steal. Then I wandered into a house.”

“Why that place?” he interrupted. “Why that particular house? Had you seen it before?”

I tilted my head. “I don’t know. Something about it drew me in. It was weird, I just went straight in through the front door. I didn’t even check the windows first. Still freaking out about being chased, I guess.”

“No,” he corrected. “You were being drawn to the bracelet. Go on. How did you find it?”

I sighed. Everything I said he took as evidence to support his wild theory instead of what it was—plain dumb luck. “I just walked up to it. It was in a jewelry box on top of the mantelpiece, and I went over to check out the goods, then I put it on, and it attached itself to my wrist.”

Ronan swept up my hands in his. “Don’t you see? It was calling to you. It was Luring you because you were its true owner.”

Golden happiness pulsed through his hands into mine, and I couldn’t help the spark of excitement that lit inside me. Could it be true? Could the bracelet have called to me, the true heir of House Flora? Could I be a true fae?

I dropped his hands. “Do you really think so?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Of course.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You’re a fae.” Realization dawned on his face. “You wench,” he accused, but his tone stayed light. “You’ve been toying with us this whole time? I thought I was the one toying with you.”

He sounded so happy that I didn’t know how to respond. Yes, I’d been fooling him…or so I thought. Maybe I’d been fooling myself.

I caught sight of his pointed ears and felt my own round ones. I still looked and felt entirely human, and I’d been away from the mortal realm for over a week. It didn’t add up. I would know if I was fae. Deep down in my bones somewhere, I would know.

Exhaustion wound through me, sudden and dragging. Enough of this bullshit. I started walking away again, heading back toward the moonway. No point dragging out this conversation any longer. I’d just wait a week or two, and when my fae powers never turned up, Ronan would have to accept I was human.

Although I’d be gone long before then. Not back to Hebes, but to some part of Arathay where I could hide. Probably best to leave the Realm of Verda entirely and find some other land to live out my days.

He snatched up a leaf from the ground and called to me. “Do you see this?”

I put my hands on my hips and glowered. “Humans can see leaves. Even from twenty feet away.”

The leaf was yellow and looked tiny in his outstretched hand. “Can you smell it?”

I sniffed and picked up an earthy scent. “Yes,” I said slowly. It didn’t seem right that I could smell a single leaf from so far away, but maybe all humans could. This was like one of those meditation drills where focus made you detect more details.

The mischief died from Ronan’s eyes. He was taking this seriously. “Can you smell how long ago it fell from its tree?”

“Of course not.” I turned to leave.

“Just try. Humor me on this one thing.”

I scoffed dramatically to show him how annoyed I was but sniffed anyway. Just a leaf. An earthy smell like a handful of dirt threaded through with week-old compost. I sniffed again. A faint odor of decay sweetened the underlying muddy scent.

That leaf had been on the ground for a week. Looking up at him, I saw the wonder I felt reflected in his gorgeous face. “Holy crap.” I looked up at the heavens where God would be, then down into the earth where I imagined Gaia lived, then back at Ronan. “Am I fae?”

His face turned full smug, and I immediately wanted to slap it, but his joy was so infectious that I laughed instead.

We began testing my abilities. I picked up a fallen log that looked way too heavy for me and found I could hoist it over my head. I sprinted around the construction site of my new house—never thought I’d say those words—and felt like I was flying. And Ronan assured me I would get even faster. Much faster.

I attuned my hearing to the sounds around me and picked up the scuttling of tiny insects in the undergrowth at my feet. This changed everything. I wasn’t a trashbag orphan from the Docklands, I was a fucking fae princess.

I dashed over to where Ronan sat on the grass watching me with a pleased smile. “You may call me milady,” I said grandly. “Or Your Royal Highness. Or Your Awesomeness. You’d better practice bowing.”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me onto his lap. “I bow for no one,” he snarled. I kicked to get free, but he held me firmly in place. “No one.”

I stopped struggling and slung an arm around his neck. His chest was warm, his black T-shirt soft, and he smelled of grass and strawberries. It felt like a nice place to spend a few minutes. When had I stopped hating him? Some time between when he tore me down and when he built me up, I supposed.

But he was wrong if he thought he’d never bow to me. I thinned my lips. “Oh, you will. You just don’t know it yet. When I reach my full powers, I’ll be unstoppable. You said so yourself.”

He glowered again, but I could tell he wasn’t really pissed because I felt him harden beneath my leg, thickening and growing, fast. Fae denim was sturdy but soft, and it did nothing to hold him down.

It was my turn to grin smugly. “Oh, you like it when I dominate you, do you?” He growled. “Good. Because I’m going to dominate you for the rest of your life.”

Whoa, that sounded a lot sexier than I’d intended. I’d meant it as a jab at me outranking him as a queen, but as soon as I said it, his cock jumped, and wetness pulsed between my legs. I could smell my own musk pooling between my thighs. Stupid, traitorous body.

This was getting way too complicated, way too fast.

I pushed off his broad chest and skipped away from him. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, princeling. You’re still the asshole who broke my ankle. And you always will be.”

In fact, when I thought about it like that, it wasn’t complicated at all. I was a princess with kick-ass fae skills, and I would be a damn queen. I didn’t need anything to do with him.

He sat for a few more minutes, and we both knew he was waiting for his erection to soften, but I was gracious enough not to mention it.

“You still have to Ascend first.”

The smirk on my face froze. Damn. Being fae didn’t assure me of becoming queen. First, I had to Ascend to my full power, which had to happen at the first Ascension Rite after my twenty-fifth birthday, or it would never happen. If I missed that date, I forfeited my powers for good.

I was twenty-five the next week, and the ceremony was ten days later.

The bubbles of joy in my chest grew brittle and shattered, forming a panicky sludge in the pit of my belly. “What do I do? I don’t know how to Ascend. I don’t even know what my inner power is. I don’t have an inner power.”

He climbed to his feet. “Calm down, we’ll figure it out.”

I clutched his T-shirt, fisting it tight, shouting into his chest. “What’s my inner power?”

He put his hands on my hips. “That’s between you and Gaia.”

“Gaia ain’t talking. You tell me.”

He chuckled. “We’ll figure it out.”

His hands on my hips were somehow comforting, and my grip on his T-shirt loosened while I took some deep breaths. I’d survived the streets since I was a kid, I could damn well survive being a fae princess.

He took me by the hand and led me along a path. “Descendents of House Flora usually Ascend into Growers. Your mom was a Grower, Seb was a Grower, so you probably will be too.”

“What was my dad?”

Ronan was in the lead, walking along a path between loosely grouped trees. He turned his head to profile, and his chiseled jaw ground slightly. “Your father wielded War.”

Despite the warm sun on my face, a cold shiver ran down my spine. My dad was a warmonger. An expert at strategy, a God of death. I didn’t want his heritage. I liked the flowers, trees, and plants, but I detested violence and loathed that his blood ran through my veins.

“Don’t hate him,” Ronan murmured. “He’s why you survived in the streets. The instincts that make someone wield War are the same instincts that kept you alive. So don’t hate him, just try to…understand him.”

That made a lot of sense. That was a thought I could take home and examine in solitude while I tried to come to terms with who I was. Words of thanks gathered on my tongue, but I didn’t say them. I couldn’t.

My thoughts raced as I followed Ronan’s tight butt along the wooded path. This was all too much to take in. I wasn’t scum, I was a princess. I wasn’t an orphan, I’d had parents and could find out as much as I wanted to about them when the time came. My head was swimming with information, so I clung to the one thing that mattered right now.

I had less than three weeks to figure out how to Ascend.

I blinked back to reality. We stood in a sea of color, a field of wildflowers. The nearest blooms craned in toward us like cats seeking pats. “It’s pretty, but…why are we here?”

Ronan stepped back a few paces, leaving me space among flowers. “If you’re a Grower, you might feel an affinity with these little guys. Just relax, open your perception, and see if you can sense their life force.”

I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Standing in a magical field, trying to connect with my inner power. But Ronan had been right about everything so far, so I gave it a shot. I shut my eyes, and the sunlight turned the world deep red through my eyelids, the sun warmed my face. I thought about the flowers at my feet, then the ones further away, and then even further, trying to sense them within myself, putting every ounce of my concentration into finding a spark of life out there.

“It’s no good. I can’t do it.”

Ronan sensed my impatience and went all soothing on me, which actually worked. “It’s fine. We’ll try another day.”

I whirled on him again, frustration making me mad at him all over again. “Why are you helping me?”

He looked at me, bright sunlight setting golden sparkles in his raven hair. “Because I have to, tomcat. My soul won’t let me make any other choice. It chooses you.”

Zero words. I had nothing to say in reply, especially because I sensed how genuine he was. I respected his honesty, I really did, but what the hell was I supposed to say to that? A smartass comment like Thanks for not trying to kill me anymore hovered on my tongue, but it didn’t feel appropriate, so I swallowed it.

I glanced around, getting my bearings, making sure I knew the quickest route to the moonway home—down the valley, around the copse of purple trees, and behind that massive orange rock.

“Race you home?”

He stood still, his feet planted, his expression still solemn, but it softened at my words. “How about just a leisurely stroll h—”

“Last one home is the Bull’s bitch,” I roared, then I dashed down the hill, pumping my legs, feeling my new muscles bunch and release, thrilling at my speed.

I might not be faster than him, but I soon would be.