Excerpt: Untitled

Rule number one: Don’t let the humans know we’re here.
Rule number two: If they find out, somehow, make sure they won’t tell anybody and pray that the High King and Queen don’t find out about it.
Personally, Caoimhe thought that the rules were a load of shite. We were here first, as far as I’m concerned, and they stomped all over our land as soon as they were abele. We used to get along, she grumped, staring up at the sky and counting the stars amidst brief flashes of pain. Sure, we played a few tricks and more than one human died because they were too stupid or foolish and didn’t know how to handle us…but we’re mostly harmless. Hell, they used to call us The Good Folk.
Apparently, the humans hadn’t wanted to piss them off by calling them anything else.
“Are you ok? God, how are you still alive?”
Caoimhe groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. My name is Caoimhe, she thought, and I am royally screwed. “M’fine,” she mumbled. “Back off.”
The mortal squinted at her through the rain, hovering, shielding her from the downpour. Not that it mattered. Everything was sore, and she was already soaked through and through. She knew she should’ve stuck to the abandoned roads to goof off on, but there was something about a Ducati superbike that just insisted on being driven on a paved road, and she had never been one to obey al the rules al the time.
She’d taken the 60 km per hour road at 140, for example. A few good bikes had been lost that way, but hey – what was the point of immortality if you didn’t push it once in a while? Might as well have fun with it. Otherwise, it’s not even living…it’s just existence.
Unfortunately, if somebody happened to witness her hydroplaning, flying off the bike, skidding a few feet on the road like a stone over water and barely missing getting hit by said bike….well, it was embarrassing and tended to raise a few questions.
The mortal had pulled his car over and made record time getting to her, skidding and slipping on the wet pavement. “Don’t move, you could make any injuries you have even worse.”
“I’m fine, you idiot. Lucky fall.”
“Nothing hurt but your pride, huh?”
She scowled at him. He was cute, she’d give him that. Not quite her type, but….well, an Irish heritage never hurt anybody as far as she was concerned, and he certainly fit the bill. Too bad he doesn’t look convinced by my “lie through my teeth and hope for the best” excuse.
“You didn’t see yourself wipe out. You must have broken something. Just stay still, ok? Please? This is my first time witnessing a car accident. Hell, I’m amazed you’re still alive.”
“Bike,” she hissed through her teeth. “Bike, not car. And it wasn’t an accident. I…meant to--”
“Nearly kill yourself and wreck a beauty of a bike?”
She glared at him. He shrugged.
“If it’s true that you wrecked a Ducati on purpose, I’d say you were drunk.”
Baring her teeth in a poor imitation of a smile, she started to push to her feet. He looked her over, frowned, and offered his hand. “Here.”
“Decided I was fit to stand, did you?” She ignored his offered help, stood and tried not to wince. Her clothes were a total loss…they’d hold up, but she definitely wouldn’t be able to wear them again. “Look, thanks for getting out of your car and getting soaked and all, but I’m fine.”
“My name’s Galvin.”
She stared at him. “Uhm…”
He grinned. “Well, we’re out in the rain and we’re both soaked. I might as well introduce myself. Besides, it looks like I’ll be driving you to the nearest phone anyway. Your bike’s totaled.”
Caoimhe considered trying to argue, and gave in with a sigh when she saw what was left of her bike. If I were smart, she thought, I’d walk away. Should. She considered again. Screw it. I’m soaked and sore and in no mood to trudge through the rain along the side of the road.
“Fine.”
By the time the mortal had parked the car at the nearest motel, she was flinging the door to the death trap open and emptying her guts out onto the pavement. I hate cars. Hate them almost as much as they damage me.
Galvin hovering over her wasn’t helping much either, and it certainly didn’t make things easier. “Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?”
“I’m fine,” she said for the billionth time.
“It looks like you should be—holy shit, what the hell are those?”
Caoimhe froze. Shit. Her glamour had dropped. Even the weakest faeries had the ability to use a glamour to make them appear to be human. To blend in. Not all of the fae stuck around mortals, but….a Ducati! What choice had she had? However, while it was hard to kill a fae – supernatural beings, and all – anybody would have been dazed by the crash she’d taken. Unfortunately, Caoimhe knew the idiot was seeing the result of that mistake.
She knew what he was seeing. Four wings, tattered and bleeding, lay crunched in various positions against her back, throbbing in pain. I was far too pale even for human standards, and in the right light, every vein in her body was visible, and she was currently oozing green blood from the multiple scrapes covering her. She would heal, she reasoned, but she was sure it wasn’t a pretty sight at the moment. She’d been counting on the fact that it was dark and raining to try and cover up as much of her true nature as she could, but there was only so much Mother Nature could do for her, and the ride had made her so ill….
Oh, Goddess, help one of your children and strike her down where she stands.
Grunting, Caoimhe forced herself out of the car and to her feet, shaking her head. “Look, this’ll be easier for the both of us if you just…stepped in front of a car and got hit and died or something.”
He stared at her as if she had gone crazy. After all, it wasn’t every day a mortal got to meet a faerie – their rules, and all – and they rarely remembered. Hell, depending on which species they ran into, they probably didn’t survive four breaths past the encounter.
“Are….are you….”
She growled. “Call me Tinkerbell and it will take you years to die. This I promise you.”
To her surprise, he grinned. Granted, she’d hoped he wouldn’t run screaming from the parking lot – in her current condition, chasing him down would have been a bitch – but for him to be so calm…
“I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Gal—the mortal boy offered his hand. Ignoring him again, she managed to take a few steps on her own, though her knees felt like they were made out of jelly.
“I don’t trust the word of a human.”
Galvin frowned. “Why not?”
She stared at him, debating. She was going to have to do something drastic to make sure he wouldn’t remember what happened – telling him anything else would make it that much harder. “None of your business.” Galvin caught her arm.
“Don’t be stubborn.” He grinned. “I’ve never met a pixie before.”
She cringed. “First of all, I’m not a pixie. Four wings, not two, you jerk. Secondly, if I was a pixie, I’d have bitten you by now. I’m considering the option as we speak. Thirdly….I don’t need your help. I’m fine.”
He looked me over and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. You’ve said that.”
Her mood quickly soured. Ok, so I’m not looking my best right now. Does he have to rub it in? Sighing, she circled around him once before coming to a stop and jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “Who are you? You’re not reacting…like you should be.”
“I could scream like a little girl if you wanted,” he offered, steering her towards the shelter of the motel. She hesitated, hanging back. Galvin made a noise and nudged her under the awning and shook his head. “Relax. I think this is kind of cool. You don’t have to worry about me.”
It wasn’t him she was worried about. It was what was going to happen if someone found out I wasn’t finishing him off, like she should have been. The place wasn’t helping her focus either. The smell of iron burned her nose and throat, and she could feel it caging her, pressing close and cutting her air supply short. Every breath felt like I was sucking air in through a straw, and nausea started to churn in my gut.
“ Just drive off and forget about this,” she panted, clenching her teeth together. I am not going to be sick again. That would be far too embarrassing.
He ignored her. “Tell me about yourself. I’ll get us some rooms and you can tell me anything you want about who you are.”
Was he serious? She snarled half-heartedly at him, too tired to put actual bite into the sound. “What do you want?”
“Y’know, there was a time when women wanted to be rescued. I’m just trying to be the good guy here.”
“I’m not a human female,” I said, “and kidnapping is rarely considered to be a good thing.”
“Not kidnapping,” he replied, a patient look on his face. “Helping. Tell me something, please? Besides, you owe me for the ride.”
“The one I didn’t want in the first place!” My voice rose, and my temper spiked when he laughed, clearly enjoying the fact that I was getting ready to kill him. No wonder humans have such short lives, I thought. They’re idiots. He had a point, though – like it or not, he’d done her a favor, and now honor dictated that she owed him. Even if she brushed it off and killed him now, the debt would hang over her for the rest of her life.
And that was a very, very long time.
It was going to be a long night. “Look, Galvin, you’re decent for a human male and I appreciate you trying to come to my rescue and all, but if you haven’t noticed, I really don’t need this. I went for a drive to get some air, and--”
“And flew pretty far. I was kind of impressed after I realized you weren’t dead,” he cut in, teasing. She almost smiled before she caught herself.
“ That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Anyway, we have rules about ourselves and unfortunately, you don’t get to enjoy your, “I do believe in faeries!” moment for much longer.”
Galvin just smiled again. “Ok, so you have rules. What, I’m not allowed to know about you or something? You faeries are, what? Anti-human?”
“You could say that,” she muttered. What am I going to do with him? I owe him a favor and if I drug him or kill him, it would be poor repayment of what he’s done. “Look, just…go get the rooms.”
“Do you have money on you? I wasn’t planning on stopping tonight.”
“Relax. The owner will get his payment, one way or another.”
He was out of reach when he smirked. “Going to give him some shoes or something?”
It was too bad there wasn’t anything to throw at him. “Get the rooms before I change my mind.”
Laughing, he disappeared inside the office of the building. Leaning against the wall, she rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. Crap, crap, crap. This was not how I planned to spend my evening.
“My, my, my, aren’t you in trouble tonight, Caoimhe.”
“Hello, Maude.” I groaned, turning to face the sprite that was suddenly fluttering around my head. Should’ve known she’d show up. I swear, any time something goes wrong, she knows. “Go away. I have this under control.”
“Mmm, yes,” she said. “Waltzing around with a human after dropping your glamour, and not doing a thing about it. The Queen--”
“Does not have to know about any of this, Maude. Relax. I got this.”
Maude turned jet-black eyes on me, her entire body gleaming in the rain. “You’re pushing your luck with me, Caoimhe. You’ll have to watch him, and make sure he doesn’t tell.”
“I know, I know…relax. Besides, in this age of mortals, who would believe him if he told them?”
“You’d be surprised.”
She vanished just as Galvin returned.
“Here’s your key. Uh…do you want me to open the door for you or anything? I heard that faeries don’t like iron, and who knows what’s in the metal of the handle to the door…”
Caoimhe watched him, studying and assessing. He didn’t seem like the type to go back on his word, but she’d known him for all of two hours. “I’ll be fine.”
To try and convince him that all of this was a dream would be difficult, even with the strongest drugs and herbs she could find. Killing him at the moment was out of the question for the time being, due to what I owed him.
How the hell was she supposed to get out of this one?
“Hello?” He snapped his fingers in front of her, and she yelped. Galvin just pushed the door to the motel room open. “That’s probably as much as I can do for you. Are you sure you don’t want to talk?”
She frowned. “By all rights, I should kill you.”
“Uh…”
“I’m a faerie, Galvin. We stay hidden for a reason, and we do what we need to in order to stay that way.” I frowned. “Most of the time, anyway.”
“So why haven’t you killed me yet, then?”
“That’s the problem. You gave me a ride. Helped me out. I owe you, and the room’s not going to cover it.” I grumbled. “Alone in the rain, and injured, it would have taken me a while to find some kind of cover. Who knows what would’ve happened? Technically, I can’t kill you or do anything else to harm you without repaying you first. In the oldest sense of the word, you saved my life – in an extreme situation, if I’d been left there on the side of the road, I could’ve been killed by another vehicle or had something…unsavory done, depending on who I ran into.”
He frowned. “So what happens now, then? You let me live?”
“That’s the gist of it, yeah.”
Galvin smiled. “Well, that sounds much better than the alternative. So, about you telling me your story…”
This was a losing battle. He was already starting to figure out what she didn’t want to say. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned. “The stories you’ll hear tonight won’t be about puppies and sunshine and rainbows.”
“I know, I know, you’re not Tinkerbell. I’m just happy I get to keep my memory, that’s all. And, you know, live past tonight.”
She pushed past him. “Don’t be so sure about that. I could change my mind. Order pizza, I’m hungry.”
“Alright.”
“I won’t be here in the morning. Letting you keep your memory…my debt will be repaid more than twice over.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed. He walked over to the phone in the room and grabbed the phonebook. “Ham and cheese?”
“Vegetarian,” she grumped. “There’s a huge chance, and I mean huge, that if anybody realizes you know about me, you’re going to wind up as Kelpie chow and I’m going to get my rings ripped off, right? And that’s if they’re feeling generous.”
Galvin shrugged. “I said I won’t tell, so I won’t. And you’re not as big and mysterious as you’re trying to pretend to be.”
She looked at him and scowled.
He offered a half-smile, shrugging. “You’re not the first faerie I’ve met, you know.”
“What?”
Galvin smirked. “Hey, tonight’s your turn to tell stories. If I feel like it, maybe I’ll tell you mine tomorrow….if you’re still around, of course.”
She started to laugh. He knew he had her. Maybe hanging around this guy won’t be so bad.
After all, she was never one for sticking to the rules. And now, he had her curious. If he’d met a Fae before and he was still alive and kicking, plus obviously still remembering the entire encounter….who else had lapsed in their duties? It was definitely worth sticking around for a bit to find out.