Chapter 2

Later, as Eli drifted toward sleep, he gave me a drowsy smile before his eyes closed. "Good night."

I brushed one last kiss across his lips before I slid out of bed. My nocturnal schedule wasn't ideal for him, as his daylight one had been a struggle for me. Now that we were bonded, I was equally alert at sunlight and sunset, noon and midnight, and everywhere in between.

It had been three days since I last slept.

For most of my life, I'd barely slept at the best of times, but I somehow slept even less since my magic had returned. I felt like I was washing down Ritalin with coffee chasers every hour. I could either try to be quiet while Eli slept or I could go find something to do.

Eli was good for my stress. He understood me fundamentally, but since he required sleep and I didn't these days, I had to find things to keep me occupied at night. Patrolling for draugr or training were my default options, but maybe I could see if Allie, my assistant, was awake and work on wedding plans.

Patrol my way to her house. Plan. Patrol more. Wake Eli for mid-morning sex. Train. I needed to find a hobby or something if there were no new jobs coming in. I'd accumulated more enemies than I needed of late. The peril of power is that having it meant that there were always people trying to kill me for one reason or another, and it had put a dent in my jobs.

Maybe that could be my cookie for getting the weddings planned—start a new hobby or side job. I had too much downtime.

I grabbed a jacket and pulled the bedroom door shut.

As I walked into the main open space of the apartment, I looked for the jeans and boots I'd left in the training area earlier. My apartment didn't scream fae royalty. When I bought it, I had no dream of becoming royal. Hell, I hadn't even known Eli was royalty when I bought this place.

The listing had been a bad area, filled with draugr, so I got the first apartment—the one Eli slept in currently—for a steal. Over time, I bought the rest of the apartments on this floor.

I looked around at the mess. Definitely far from royal fae living, but it was still mine. I shimmied into jeans, shoved my feet in a pair of combat boots, and put on holsters. There were things worse than the monsters I had been beheading my teen and adult life, and I didn't leave the house unarmed.

"Ready . . ." I held my hand out, bracing myself before touching the forearm-long dagger on the settee. It was half of the pair of magic imbued daggers the draugr queen had given me.

I concentrated on grounding myself.

The sizzle of magic in the dagger had me gasping as if I'd jumped naked into a snowbank. I wasn't sure I could carry both blades, so the other was on the nightstand beside my sleeping husband.

With the dagger, a sword on the other hip, and a pistol in my underarm holster, I slipped out the heavy door into the building's lobby and then stepped onto the sidewalk.

I paced the perimeter of the well-lit lot. My neighbors were tolerant now that I was a princess, and agreed to extra lights, but that didn't mean I wanted to be illuminated like a target.

An engine turned on as I walked toward the sidewalk. Someone had been waiting inside the car because I sure as sugar hadn't seen anyone walk toward it.

I drew my pistol. Not nearly as comforting as a sword, but I wasn't going to get close enough to stab a tire. I stood at the edge of the parking lot outside my building, eyeing the dark-blue SUV.

Engine running.

Lights bright.

Between the glare of the lights and the tint of the windows, I couldn't identify anything about the driver. I tried to think of non-threatening options. Was this a ride for one of the residents on the top floors of the building? Were they simply pulled over to check maps? There were plenty of logical answers, but I still had a welcome flicker of fear.

I stalked toward the SUV, hoping that whoever was inside was not packing venom-filled rounds or something else inconvenient and painful. My bouts of insomnia and extra energy meant that a fight sounded lovely, just a little sparring with a new partner.

But the driver shifted the car out of park and drove toward the exit of the parking lot.

"Weirdo," I grumbled, hoping it wasn't another camera-mad "influencer" determined to catalogue my life for clicks. Honestly, I'd rather have a fight than be in anyone's lens.

I looked away—just as the SUV sped up and swerved toward me.

The grind of tires on pavement was low enough that without my enhanced hearing, I'd be roadkill right about now, but I heard the tires crackling and crunching, and I'd turned at the revving of the engine with a slice of a second to spare.

The mass of blue metal was trying to hit me.

Fortunately, SUVs aren't exactly bullet-speed. I launched myself into the grassy strip alongside the parking lot and landed with a thunk as my feet tangled in the tree roots that didn't have the good sense to stay under the sod.

"You badger-bonking jerk!"

The driver backed up and paused. Not departing. Not charging. I was cornered.

The urge to flow warred with the logic that my ability to move as fast as the dead was still a secret to most everyone. If the driver had a camera, I'd be exposed if I did that. The mere thought of such hate terrified me.

Being a witch meant I had the occasional death threat or murder attempt. Being a Jewish witch meant that some of those attempts were fueled by the hostility every Jew encountered in their lives. But being a half-living half-draugr? That was the sort of thing that landed a person in laboratories. Nightmares of vivisection had plagued me for years.

No flowing.

So I stood there, playing chicken with an SUV and debating the options. If I did decide to flow, I could go over, jerk the door open and ask Mr. Badger Bonker what his issue was.

And he'd report me . . . unless I kill him.

His word against mine.

Unless he has one of those dashboard cameras…

More and more I had to remind myself that a viral video of a living draugar, especially one who was also the future queen of Elphame, would be deadly.

So my choices were to try walk away or wait him out. On the upside, unless he planned to ram the oak tree beside me, he wasn't likely to smoosh me even with however-many-pounds of steel.

My phone chimed.

A text from Allie popped up: "Tourists. Gate. Help?"

Decision made, I turned toward the oak and asked permission, "Aid?"

The lowest branches quivered, and a thicker branch slightly above them crackled and stretched toward me. When it was in reach, I wrapped my arms around it, hugging the tree, and held tight as it returned to its position in the leafy boughs.

I looked toward the SUV and gave them a jaunty one-fingered salute.

Then I dropped a big smacking kiss on the oak branch, not feeling the least bit silly despite hugging and kissing a tree.

I hopped over the fence beside the tree. I might still be new to this faery princess gig, but I was a born witch. I already knew nature was the sort of magic that mere mortals—or near-immortals like the fae and draugr—couldn't match.