Finding Faerie (Pixie Dust Chronicles 3)

“I saw you coming out of Naela’s this morning.”

“Yeah? I saw you too. Up on the hill with your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” I bit my lip. “I don’t know what he is.”

“No?” he challenged. “Could’ve fooled me. You two looked pretty cozy up there.”

“Did you have sex with her?”

“Who? Naela?”

“Who the fuck else would I be talking about?”

His jaw ticked. “Yeah, I did. Why do you care?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“Don’t be a bitch,” he retorted.

The ground started to rumble again. “Excuse me?”

He widened his stance to steady himself. He said something in Latin and the ground stopped moving entirely.

“How—how did you do that?”

“Parlor trick,” he replied smugly. “I’ve been nullifying since before you were born.”

“Oh, don’t start throwing our age difference into this. That doesn’t matter and you know it!” Vance had been alive significantly longer than I had, but it wasn’t an issue. When you stopped aging in your twenties, everyone looked and acted relatively the same. Immortals didn’t have traditional generational gaps.

“I’m not so sure, anymore. When I think about it, you really are just a baby. I think it’s time I sought out a real woman.”

“Like Naela?” The ground was shaking again but he stopped it just as easily as the first time. It was really bugging me that I’d had no idea he could do that before now.

“Why not Naela? She’s smart and kind and let’s not forget, hot as fuck. She’s gotten better with age.”

“How nice for her,” I deadpanned.

He shrugged. “I’m certainly not complaining.”

I clenched my fists. “Oh, screw you, Vance!”

“You have no right to be angry!”

“I know I don’t!” I beat on his chest. “But I can’t help it!”

He trapped my hands against his body. “Dammit, Karli! Stop it! You made your choice. And it wasn’t me!”

I pushed away from him. “That’s not true! I chose you first! But then Maria fucked it all up!” The wind picked up drastically and started blowing leaves all around.

He laughed without humor. “So, Leo is just a consolation prize, huh?”

The air stopped blowing. “What? No!”

He threw his hands up in exasperation. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking confused. You can’t have it both ways!”

“I know I can’t!”

Dark clouds rolled in at a frightening pace and started pelting us with rain.