Carson's Crossing
an excerpt

"You want to kill him? Go ahead. But if you want me to play the game, you're going to have to give a little." I flashed them a cold smile. Let them think I was sure of myself. That I wasn't bluffing. "I am, after all, only human."

Falkeana’s unearthly, inhuman eyes glittered. “Do not expect me to underestimate you, human. Your kind is notorious in our world.” She smiled, though it was colder than my own facade and there was nothing remotely Tinkerbell-ish about it. Behind her, Evelith stared back at me from amidst the crowd of Unseelie faeries, her fierce hawk eyes melting holes in my skin. “I will bring you to your knees, little human,” Falkeanna promised.

I didn’t doubt it. An involuntary shudder rippled through me, making my shoulders twitch and Falkeanna’s Unseelie entourage to snicker. Evelith, smiled, looking overly pleased with herself. “Perhaps a quest for the Ironblood, my queen,” she suggested. Her voice slipped through me like melted snow in spring. I shivered, though I tried to conceal it. I did not want them to know how much they terrified me. It would give them the upper hand by far more than I could afford to give.

“Perhaps,” Falkeanna agreed with a slight incline of her graceful head. “What is it that you had in mind?”