Faery Tail

by Deborah McNemar

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  Mystic Moon Press

  www.mysticmoonpress.com

  Copyright ©

  First published in 2008, 2008

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  ~DEDICATION~

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  About the Author

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  Faery Tail

  By: Deborah McNemar

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © Sept. 2008, Deborah McNemar

  Cover Art copyright © Sept. 2008, Dawné Dominique

  ISBN—978-0-9821431-3-1

  Mystic Moon Press, LLC

  Santa Fe, NM 87507

  www.mysticmoonpress.com

  No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Mystic Moon Press, LLC

  ~DEDICATION~

  To my husband, William, I couldn't have done it without you. To Jane Skretvedt, this is what you get for asking “what happens next?” To all the writers in the Romance House, your encouragement and support are priceless.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter One

  Star dodged the ancient blue pinto hatchback that straddled the crosswalk, ignoring the blast of the horn and the thick, acrid smoke that issued from the rusted tailpipe. Her latte sloshed warningly against the white plastic lid as her ballet-like maneuver threatened the delicate balance between her book-laden arms and her need for her morning jolt of caffeine. I really need to get a bike, she thought yet again. Even an old granny bike with flowers on a white wicker basket and those enormous wheels would be nice. The image made her smile. And a coffee cup holder. That was an absolute necessity.

  She wore slim fitting jeans this morning that flared fashionably over her heavy black boots. Her gauzy silver shirt barely brushed the waistband allowing glimpses of the Celtic star around her belly button. Her platinum hair swung in a heavy braid, the tie bobbing against her hips.

  A white sports car, doors throbbing with subwoofer overkill, ran the red light and screeched to a halt, waiting with impatience for her to get out of the way. With a squeal of rubber, it shot past her, missing her by inches as she took the last steps toward the curb and relative safety. Jerk, she thought as she watched the car whip into the right lane, cutting off a minivan full of kids and their frazzled mother.

  Star paused to jostle her books back into manageable order before risking the chaos of the sidewalk. The section of concrete between the light pole and the curb offered a sort of oasis from the traffic, both mechanical and pedestrian. At her back, the river of steel and rubber rushed past in a mindless stream. Before her, people wove in and out of an equally mindless river of humanity. At least the cars had rules, she mused, taking a much-needed sip of latte. The sweet heat hit her stomach and spread a welcome wave of energy through her. God bless the saint of all things coffee, Java be his name.

  Star eyed the sidewalk before her the way a knight of old had eyed a thrown gauntlet—as a challenge. She took another sip of coffee. With enough sugar and caffeine, she could move mountains. This particular mountain was made up of business suits and denim jeans, woolen overcoats and leather biker jackets, tennis shoes and stiletto heels. One misstep would see her overwhelmed and trampled. Or at least it always felt that way. It was worse on rainy days when people had an excuse to refuse to look where they were going.

  The brick walls and glass storefronts formed a jagged barrier on her left. The endless stream of people hurrying toward the end of their lives as fast as humanly possible moved against her and would try with the blanket unconcern of a mob, to force her into the street. Star took one last fortifying sip of coffee and stepped into to the rabid flow of life.

  An old woman, her shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders and her purse held in a vise grip, barreled past on her left and Star dodged her easily. Two teenaged boys in jeans two sizes too large and attitudes the size of Mount Rushmore challenged her right to the sidewalk. Star looked away, not meeting their eyes as she slipped between them. There was a moment of uncertainty, where she thought they might turn back, but the tide of humanity swept them onward and the danger passed. The man with the cell phone pressed tightly to his head gave her no chance to congratulate herself. He rushed past her, his briefcase banging into her hip. He spared her a sharp, irritated look for the inconvenience of her existence.

  Star dodged and feinted her way through the massive press of people. At one point she thought she had it made when she managed to make it a hundred feet in the relative security of a group of about six people who were going the same direction as she. It was a short lived victory that left her stranded beside a brick column two doors down from where she wanted to be. A minute and a half, she muttered. There was no help for it.

  Closing her eyes, Star blanked out the sounds of the street, the smells of exhaust and frustration. Taking a deep breath, she concentrated. When she opened her eyes again, the scene had changed. People still walked past her on their way through their lives. Horns honked and drivers waved one-finger greetings at one another, mouthing invective. But she was no longer where she had been. With a smug smile, Star turned and opened the door of the bookstore.

  The bell jangled as she closed the door behind her. The silence enfolded her and she found she was able to breathe again. She plunked the books on the counter with a sigh and took a deep drink of her latte. It was getting cold but she needed the caffeine. Books lined the wall floor to ceiling and the heavy oaken counter provided a veritable haven from the masses outside. To Star, it was her little piece of heaven.

  "Mr. Connors?” she called. “Are you here?"

  There was no answer. Star sighed. The old man was probably in the back cataloging the new books. He insisted on personally welcoming every title that came through his store. It was a bit odd but Star thought it was sweet. It was rare in this day and age to find a person who actually enjoyed their occupation.

  She felt the tingle before she smelled the heavy floral musk and her day abruptly went from bad to worse. Star turned slowly toward the back office and bit back a groan.

  "Hello, Astrid,” her mother purred from the doorway.

  Where Star was slight and fair, her mother was a lioness, tall and vibrantly gold from head to toe. Today she was dressed in a designer suit of vivid blue. Matching shoes with four-inch heels lifted her from statuesque to diva. Star downed the rest of her latte in one gulp.

  "Luna,” she returned as politely as she could.

  Since that was more conversation than she actually wanted with her mother, Star dropped the now empty foam cup in the trash
can and began to open the store. She retrieved the cash from the safe and put it in the register. The books she had brought back with her were shelved and she set out the chairs in the book nook. She even ran the vacuum over the already immaculate rug. The only thing left to do was to raise the shades and flip the sign to open. She was reluctant, however, to inflict her mother on the unsuspecting public.

  "You should get a car,” Luna suggested. She hadn't moved from the office doorway and watched Star with the intensity of a hunting cat.

  "I could,” Star admitted, trying to ignore the way her heart dipped toward her stomach. “But getting a license to drive it would be difficult.” It required a birth certificate, something she didn't have and her mother knew it. Rather than wait and have the unpleasantness sprung on her, Star crossed her arms and fixed her mother with a glare. “Who is it this time?"

  "Who is who, dear?” Luna raised a faultless brow, her amusement polish on her already glowing beauty. She knew perfectly well what Star was talking about. Her smug patience only fueled Star's growing frustration.

  "That's what I'd like to know.” Star ticked them off on her fingers. “When I was twelve, you bartered me off to the Unseelie court. I refused to go. You waited one year and tried again. At least it was the Seelie court that time. It took me fifty years to get away from that endless party and another eighty before they realized I was gone. After that it was the gnomes. Who is it this time?"

  "You forgot the imps,” Luna added.

  Star shuddered. She tried desperately to forget the imps. They were the reason she had left Europe altogether. “Who is it?” she demanded.

  "As a Princess of the Sidhe, you have a duty to fulfill,” Luna pointed out calmly as if the endless parade of suitors was commonplace. Actually, to her they probably were, come to think of it. “Astrid, it is time that you do your duty and produce an heir so our magic doesn't die out of the world."

  "Look outside, Luna,” Star argued. “Cell phones and gasoline run this world now. The Internet is the only magic most humans know. And anime movies,” she added as an afterthought.

  Luna shifted away from the doorframe and Star was instantly struck by the difference. Gone was the languid beauty lounging in indolence. Before her was a Queen who ruled the Sidhe with an iron fist.

  "We have retreated and adapted.” Luna let the words fall like ice chips in the dusty silence. “I will not allow our world to vanish because one stupid girl refuses to do her duty."

  "I left that life and that responsibility behind me a long time ago,” Star argued. “I ask nothing of the Sidhe and you have no right to ask anything of me in return."

  "That is where you are wrong."

  Star dug under the counter and found the wood polish and a soft rag. She had to stay busy or she was going to do something she was going to regret for a very long time. She sprayed a heavy coat of wax on the countertop and began to rub at it with a vengeance. By the time she had finished with the first section, she had her temper under control again.

  "My defection is hardly going to end the world,” she resumed calmly. “Ask Stella or Aster or Starla to do this. I'm sure one of my sisters would be more than proud to do their duty for their Queen. I, however, am not."

  "I am your Queen and your mother.” Luna drew herself up to glare down at her youngest child. “You will submit."

  Star slowed in her polishing, staring down at her reflection in the silken surface. “Yes, you could force me to submit,” she admitted in a low voice. “But submission won't gain you what you want. You have to have my permission."

  Luna looked ready to explode. Her golden eyes shot sparks that danced and glowed about her. Her fingers curled into claws. “Unnatural child,” she hissed. “You will obey."

  Star knelt and began to polish the front of the counter. The top was polished daily but so often these lovely carved panels on the front were forgotten and collected dust badly.

  "Go home and find someone else, Luna. I'm not going. If you wanted an obedient child you shouldn't have bred with a sprite."

  Luna didn't respond.

  Star looked up and found herself eye level with a pair of knee-high boots. Those boots were very interesting she thought. Black and shiny and they hadn't even had the dragon scales removed from them. Her eyes drifted up past the boots and over powerful, leather-clad thighs. He hadn't bothered with a shirt and muscles rippled under golden skin. Star swallowed heavily as she slowly rose, the rag falling from her hand. His hair was black, falling to his shoulders but it was his eyes that made her want to disappear; black as night, dark as desire and as potent as Irish whiskey.

  "Tuatha de',” she murmured. “Why would the one of the Tuatha de’ want a child with me?"

  The Tuatha de’ were warriors. This man, whoever he was, had likely killed that dragon he was wearing. It wouldn't be like sneaking away from the endless party of the Seelie court or tricking the gnomes into thinking she was addled. He would be neither negligent nor foolish.

  He frowned slightly. “I do not wish a child. I have come for a bride."

  Star gaped at him. The urge was strong to tell him to kiss her ass but one did not issue a challenge to one of the Tuatha de'. He would take her up on it in an instant and she wasn't sure she wanted his lips near any part of her anatomy. She closed her mouth with a snap.

  "There is nothing you could do that could make me want to marry you."

  Star fled, darting out the door into the endless streams of traffic before she could say or do anything that would trap her further into this nightmare.

  The Tuatha de’ warrior stared after her, a faint smile curving the corners of his mouth. The Sidhe Queen moved to stand beside him, her fury still sparking around her.

  "I will have her brought to you, Centauri,” she hissed. “In chains if need be."

  "No. You will stand as my witness."

  Luna blinked at him, baffled by his calm. “Witness? What can you mean?"

  "A bride has the right to name three challenges that her suitor must overcome before he is proven worthy. Yes?” She nodded and his smile deepened. “The little bride has issued the first challenge. I must make her want to marry."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Two

  Star headed for the refuge of Central Park. Like all Fae, she felt the most at peace with grass under her feet and the open sky over her head. The traffic was a gray barrier at the edge of her awareness, hardly impinging on her. She ran until the sounds of the city faded behind her and the scents of human kind were but a memory. The trees closed about her, dappling her in airy summer shadows. She dropped to her knees, fisting her hands in the thick grass as she fought the sobs that threatened to tear her apart.

  She had tried. For one hundred and twenty years, she had done everything in her power to remain apart from the Fae and all that they represented. She had tried to fit in here, to make herself as human as possible. Beyond the occasional little blip like this morning, she hadn't even used magic—much.

  And now this.

  The gnomes had been easy enough to get away from. It had taken time and patience. For all that they had the collective brainpower of a pea, they were depressingly stubborn. It had taken her almost twenty years to succeed. She had finally managed to convince them that any child she bore would be more pathetically brainless than they were. It had taken patience and learning how to drool for long periods of time.

  The Seelie court had been an endless sparkling party with a dash of orgy thrown in for spice. She had managed to keep her clothes on and her wits about her. They had kept a close eye on her at first but the lure of the festivities had eventually drawn them away.

  The imps ... She closed her eyes, slamming the door shut on memories best left forgotten.

  But the Tuatha de’ would be another matter entirely. She would never survive. A warrior, dedicated to discipline and control, would smother her until there was nothing left at all. Luna was bad enough without having to contend with a Fae like him. T
here would be no compromises, no half measures.

  But what was she to do? Running wouldn't stop Luna from finding her and dragging her back to face him. Luna would force her to submit, never understanding the difference between obedience and acquiescence. Without her willing compliance, she couldn't get pregnant. It was one of the traits she had inherited from her sprite father that annoyed Luna to no end—free will.

  The wind rushed through the grass, whispering around her. Star forced herself past the panic. She had to think. Flight would only be seen as a challenge and the Tuatha de’ would hunt her down. Facing him down was out of the question. She sat with a thump and pressed her face to her knees, trying to think of a way out of this mess. She couldn't pretend he wasn't there. He simply wasn't an ignorable person. A zephyr playfully teased her hair, trying to work it free from the braid. She hissed a warning and the breeze idled away to harry a few more leaves from the overhead branches.

  She needed time to think this through, but if there were one thing she knew about her mother, Luna wouldn't be sitting around waiting for her to make up her mind. She had probably already dispatched a troop to bring her back.

  A flurry of leaves fluttered down on her head. Star muttered an imprecation and glared up at the offending tree. Her glare faded as she realized that the zephyr had already moved on. Nothing moved in the naked branches. No bird sang paeans to the summer. No squirrels played tag among the maze of twigs and leaves. The world around her was hushed—waiting. Star climbed slowly to her feet, stretching her limited senses out into the world around her.

  They came out of the brush in a rolling black wave. They had wiry bodies and pointed ears, lightly furred at the tips. Talons as sharp as razors curved from bony fingers and sharp teeth grinned at her as they turned in her direction. Star could only stare at them. The sun was still high in the sky. They shouldn't have been able to come into the light. But there they were. Imps.

  Panic swelled again and Star found she was already in motion, pelting her way down the slope before her brain had fully processed the danger. The imps had found her and there was no way short of death or dismemberment that she was going to let them actually catch her.