Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely 1)

Only a few minutes had passed when she announced, “I can’t stay here.”

“Still feeling weird about the attack?”

Donia felt pretty unsettled about it too, but for quite different reasons. If Beira knew Donia suspected her of violating the rules, if Keenan knew that Donia suspected that this mortal was the missing Summer Queen…caught between them yet again. Nothing was simple anymore. It hadn’t been in so very long.

Beside her, Aislinn shuddered. She stared at the fountain, or perhaps past it where her mortal stood. “I guess it freaked me out a little. Seems unreal, you know? And the sort of things that come out at night…”

Donia sat up. “Things?”

It was an odd word to chose, an odd tone in her voice as Aislinn stared toward the kelpies.

Can she see them? How very unexpected that would be. There were stories of sighted mortals, but Donia’d never met one.

With a strange half-mocking tone, Aislinn said, “It’s not just guys like those today. Even the pretty ones can be awful. Don’t trust them just because they’re pretty.”

Donia laughed, coldly, sounding every bit Beira’s creature in that moment. “Where were you when I needed that advice? I’ve already gone out with the biggest mistake a girl can make.”

“Be sure to point him out if you see him around.” Aislinn stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder.

And with that, Seth was already returning, attentive to Aislinn’s every move.

Donia smiled at them, wishing someone waited for her like that—the way Keenan once had.

“Thanks again for the save.” Aislinn nodded then and walked off, headed straight toward the cadaverous Scrimshaw Sisters, who were gliding over the ground with their usual macabre beauty.

She’ll swerve if she can see them.

She didn’t. She kept walking forward until one of the Scrimshaw Sisters drifted out of her path at the last possible second.

Mortals don’t see the fey. Donia smiled wryly: if they did, Keenan would never have convinced any of them to trust him.

CHAPTER 10

Sometimes they contrived to induce, by their fair and winning ways, unwary men and women to go with them.

—Notes on the Folk-Lore of the

North-East of Scotland by Walter Gregor (1881)

By the time she was far enough away from the fountain to feel comfortable stopping, Aislinn thought she was going to be sick. She leaned into Seth, knowing he’d wrap his arms around her again.

His lips were against her ear when he asked, “More than meets the eye?”

“Yeah.”

Seth held on to her, but he didn’t say anything else.

“What would I do without you?” She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the vine-girls—or any of the other faeries—who stood watching them.

“You’ll never need to find that out.” He kept an arm around her shoulders as they started walking, past the place where the guys had grabbed her, past the omnipresent faeries with their crackled skin.

Being more assertive sounded good in theory, but she’d need to learn to relax a lot more if she was going to be able to talk to faeries. Donia might have rescued her once, but that didn’t change what she was.

When they got to her building, Seth slipped money into her hand. “Take a taxi tomorrow.”

She didn’t like accepting money from him, but she couldn’t ask Grams for it without making her suspicious. She tucked it into her pocket. “You want to come up?”

He lifted both eyebrows. “Pass.”