by Holley Trent
KNIGHT IN LEATHER
Dasha Maurice isn’t in the market for a serious relationship, much less one with one of the leather-wearing fairies residing at her best friend’s beach motel. Sure, Ethan Gotch is built like a linebacker and tongue-numbingly sexy, but he’s also a smidge intense and has a pesky ex who insists he’s her fated mate.
He’s not. He’s Dasha’s.
Being the only human in the fairy clique makes Dasha the perfect little soldier to play messenger in the fairy realm. She can’t be detected by raging Queen Rhiannon’s magic, and can help pull more oppressed Sídhe to freedom. The realm is collapsing and the people need a way out.
When Ethan’s ex pulls a stunt causing Dasha to get stuck in the realm, she starts to believe she was right keeping her distance from the fairy, but that’s the least of her concerns. If Dasha can’t accept what it means to be the mate of a shapeshifting fairy knight and work a little magic of her own, the two may never make it home alive.
CHAPTER ONE
In ten years of acquaintance, Dasha Maurice had seen her best friend Simone pull her face into some uniquely indescribable contortions. Not once in all that time, though, had Simone cringed upon seeing her.
“I flew all the way to North Carolina to surprise you with a visit and you’re gonna cringe at me?” Dasha scoffed.
Simone, seated behind the counter of her motel’s reception desk, blinked at her before working her lips into something that approximated a grin.
Perhaps Dasha’s appearance couldn’t have been qualified as a visit exactly—she was technically on a “working vacation of indefinite length”—but Simone hadn’t needed to know that. The fact of that matter was that Dasha was there, and her closest friend’s expression was full of stank.
“I see how it is.” Dasha propped her big leather tote atop the counter of the Hearth Motel’s front desk, flicked the trailing end of her Day-Glo headscarf over her shoulder, and then raised her chin indignantly at her bestie. “Happy to see you, too, trollop.”
Simone’s cheek twitched and throat convulsed with a swallow. “Um.” She pulled the office phone away from her ear and set the handset down on the cradle. Flitting her gaze nervously around the small room, she whispered, “Dash, what are you doing here?”
Dasha put her hands on her hips and laid her head to the side. “This isn’t the first time I’ve dropped in unannounced. You know, I would be a little more grateful if my best friend had hauled her ass all the way across the country from San Francisco for a visit.”
Simone cringed again.
The motel-owning fairy princess known as Simone Horan—née Bristol—let her breath out in a sputter and wound her frizzy, coily hair into a quick bun. “I don’t mean to seem like I don’t want to see you. I do. I missed you.” She pushed back from the desk and, sighing, walked around the counter.
Given the tight hug Simone pulled her into, Dasha could almost forgive her for the cool welcome, but Dasha still wanted to know why she’d gotten one in the first place.
Embracing each other, they rocked wordlessly for a few seconds, and then Simone held Dasha out at arm’s length, studying her.
She was the same Simone who Dasha had known for ten-plus years, and learning six months prior that the woman was a fairy hadn’t changed Dasha’s opinion of her. The fact Simone hadn’t known she was a fairy, either, had probably aided in Dasha’s quick acceptance. Dasha might have felt differently if Simone had been hiding her nature and hadn’t trusted Dasha enough to tell her.
Simone hadn’t changed since learning what she was—personality-wise, anyway—but she’d certainly acquired a whole new set of problems. Before Simone’s Great Fairy Awakening, her biggest frustration in life had been tending her fifty-year-old Outer Banks beach motel solo, and she had been stuck with the gig for about five years thanks to an inherited curse that bound her to the place. Simone had been distant in that time—trying to cool their friendship so Dasha wouldn’t visit. She’d been ashamed of the motel’s condition and wasn’t ready to explain why she couldn’t leave the place.
Simone’s cold shoulder treatment hadn’t worked. Simone was the closest friend Dasha had ever had, and Dasha had been willing to put in the work to keep their relationship strong. And when she’d flown across the country at Thanksgiving to tell her that, she’d learned that her friend was not only stuck at the motel, but that the place had been invaded by a bunch of leather-wearing, motorcycle-owning giants…who turned out to be Sídhe—which was apparently Irish for “holy shit, that’s a fairy?”
Simone ground her teeth.
“Oh, hell.” Dasha slumped. “What now? Did your homicidal mother-in-law take another stab at you?”
“Oh, not this week.” Simone laughed drily.
The fairy queen, Rhiannon, was power mad and jealous as hell. She hated everyone who threatened her place on the throne, and even some folks she merely perceived to be threats…like her kids. They probably hadn’t been actual threats before, but that changed when Rhiannon decided she didn’t like Heath’s new wife—Simone. That hadn’t been a hard decision for the queen to make seeing as how Rhiannon didn’t like Simone’s mother, either. They’d been feuding for centuries.
Naturally, Heath really didn’t like the idea of people trying to harass, abduct, or murder his wife. Especially that last thing. Heath’s sister Siobhan wasn’t a big fan of her mommy, either, though for reasons Dasha wasn’t privy to.
“I think Rhiannon is a little busy cleaning up a mess Heath and the boys planted for her last week,” Simone said with a snicker. “He’s such a good son.”
“So, what’s wrong, then? I wanted to surprise you. I missed you, girlie. Being on the other coast while you’re over here kinda sucks. Ooh!” Remembering the other reason why she’d made the trip, Dasha practically thrummed with excited energy. “And I have ideas for your motel.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“Damn good ones. Duh. This place will be pulling in cash hand over fist. I mean, I know you don’t really need the money anymore, since Heath is probably richer than the combined wealth of every oil-producing country in the Middle East, but you could make this dump something you’re proud of. You know—thumb your nose at your step-family for getting you mixed up in the curse in the first place.” That, and Dasha kind of needed a job. She liked her job at the advertising agency she worked at well enough, but she desperately needed a change of scene. There were too many bad associations to that place given all the grief her ex had put her through.
Also, she just wanted to come home. She was an East Coast girl at heart. She’d grown up about an hour away.
“Okay.” Simone pulled back the wrapper of a Mounds packet and slid out a candy chunk. “I’m intrigued. Gotta tell you, though, if you’d called me, I would have told you not to come.”
“Why?”
The office door swung inward, and the young quarter-fairy called Matt—Heath’s cousin through some family tree meandering Dasha couldn’t quite grasp—stepped inside. His eyes went wide and round at the sight of her, and then he stepped back slowly.
“Nuh-uh.” Dasha grabbed his arm before he could make one of those quick fairy retreats. “Come back in here and tell me what that look was for.”
He dragged a hand through his short hair and cringed, much like Simone had.
“Spit it out, kid. Respect your elders.”
“You’re, like, nine years older than me,” he muttered and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Ten, I think. And with probably three times the maturity. That makes me an exalted elder as far as this place goes, so talk.”
Matt cut his gaze to Simone.
Dasha got between the two of them so he’d have no choice but to look at her.
He groaned. “Now’s…just not a good time.”
Simone cleared her throat behind Dasha, and before Dasha could turn around cut her friend the stink-eye, Matt took Dasha’s hand.
“Hey, have you had lunch? Are you just getting in? I could eat. Let’s go get some lunch. We’ll take my bike. Or we could walk. Walking’s good. Fresh air, sunshine…”
Dasha pulled her hand away, backed against the counter, and then crossed her arms over her chest again. “Nope. Somebody needs to talk. I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on.”
“Ugh.” Simone massaged her temples and glared at Dasha for a few beats. Then she straightened her spine, walked to the open door, and looked outside. “Where is he, Matt?”
“Heath was trying to herd him out, and I didn’t realize why until I saw her. Give him a couple of minutes, and they’ll be up the coast. Heath will probably make up some bogus mission to send him on.”
“Which him?” Dasha asked.
Simone massaged her temples some more.
“Talk!”
“Fine.” Simone dropped her hands and glided around the counter. She retook her seat behind the desk and shuffled some papers atop her giant calendar. “Ethan.”
“Ethan?” Dasha scrunched her nose and tried to come up with any explanation for why the inhabitants of the motel would have been in such a tizzy about him. As far as Dasha knew, he was no more deranged than rest of them—Simone included. Simone seemed perfectly reasonable, and was most of the time, but when she felt threatened, she went into scary fairy rages and had a habit of dragging bad guys through magical portals of her own making.
“Why would my presence be a problem for him?” Dasha asked.
Simone laid her head to one side, then the other. The cartilages in her neck popped and her teeth ground.
Oh, hell. “That bad?”
“Okay. I’ll just spit it out, since that’s what you want. You can do with this information as you see fit, though in the end I don’t know what difference having the knowledge will make for you. You’re Ethan’s mate.”
Dasha tugged her earlobe several times and turned the side of her face more toward Simone. She thought that perhaps her ears hadn’t popped during her flight’s descent and she’d misheard. “Repeat that?”
“His mate. You’re Ethan’s mate.”
“Is that what you think?” Dasha gave her head a hard shake. She wasn’t cut out to be anyone’s mate in so much as a three-legged race. She wasn’t ready to share herself with anyone again—not after having given so much to the wrong man and not having yet regenerated what she’d lost. Her mother had been gently urging her to get out more—to have a go at having a social life again, but Dasha didn’t have the fortitude. Failure was too likely.
Simone twined her fingers over her belly and glided her tongue over her chocolate-stained teeth. “Well, no. I don’t think anything. Ethan thinks you’re his mate, and fairies aren’t generally wrong about who their partners are.”
Dasha sucked her teeth.
Ethan.
The broody blond one who was always staring at her.
They all stared. Fairy manners weren’t the same as human manners, and fairies didn’t think staring was impolite. But Ethan was the one who always looked away when she caught his gaze.
Simone let out a ragged breath and put up her hands in a placating gesture. “Heath and I are a fated pair, right? Our connection was obvious to Heath even when I was oblivious to who he was. My magic was turned off, and things didn’t seem as plain before Granddad rejiggered some stuff inside me. But now, my connection to Heath is unmistakable to me. I know instinctively that he’s mine. He feels the same way about me. Probably didn’t hurt to have had a goddess confirm the match.”
Dasha closed her eyes in a long blink, much like Simone had.
In all those words Simone had said, Dasha couldn’t find a point relevant to the situation at hand anywhere in them.
“Ethan knows you’re his mate,” Matt said.
Dasha turned to him.
“He’s known since the moment he saw you.”
“Once a fairy—especially one with any magic at all—identifies his or her mate, they’re compelled to have them,” Simone said. “The only reason he hasn’t successfully approached you in all these months is because we haven’t let him.”
“What do you mean successfully approached me?”
Simone cringed again.
Dasha was starting to hate that cringe. Back in college, she’d thought the tugs on Simone’s refined facial features were cute. Not so much anymore.
Motorcycle engines roared to life outside and Matt, after glancing at the parking lot, closed the storm door.
“Talk!” Dasha said.
“Okay! Shit. Look, he managed to fly out to California a couple of times. I guess he was just keeping an eye on you, but we managed to drag him back before he could say anything to you.”
Dasha let out a reflexive laugh. “I’ve got a fairy stalker?” She sank into the seat near the door and put her hand to her chest. “No. Nuh-uh. Not going through that again. Not after…” Dasha swallowed hard and cut her gaze to Matt, then back to Simone. “After…”
Not after Ben.
Simone’s gaze softened and shoulders fell. “I know,” she said quietly. “And I’ve known. About Ethan, I mean. He can be aggressive sometimes, and I knew there were going to be some issues. Heath and I agreed that we needed to give the pairing some time to mature—for you to get used to being on the periphery of this fairy mess. The separation has been hard for Ethan because we’re wired to be near our mates once we’ve identified them, but I imagine this mess is going to be harder for you…all things considered.”
No shit. Dasha didn’t even know the guy, and couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact she was supposed to belong to him. She didn’t like the sound of that.
“He’s going to have to take no for an answer,” she said.
“You can tell him no,” Matt said, “but you’re still going to be his mate. That link doesn’t go away.”
Dasha opened her mouth to rebut, but before she could get the words out, Simone interjected with, “You could tell him no, and he’d stop trying to pursue you, but you’re going to break him, Dasha.”
Dasha gave her head another hard shake. “So, what the hell am I supposed to do? Say nothing? Keep him on the ledge indefinitely, is that what you’re telling me?”
“I’m not telling you what to do. If the decision were up to me, you’d be with Ethan. Most people aren’t lucky enough to get a match, and, apparently, the Fates believe you two have something to share with each other. You could have a solid, fulfilling relationship, but after what you went through with Ben, I understand why you’d be hesitant. Having a fairy shadow probably doesn’t land high on your list of must-haves.”
“You’re damn right about that.” Or any kind of male shadow, really, fairy or otherwise. At twenty-nine, Dasha was at the age in which she knew the time had come for her to find someone to commit to. Everyone knew what had happened, but her family thought she should have been over the trauma already. She’d been able to make excuses at family holiday dinners that she was just too busy to get involved with anyone else, and that she wasn’t really sure if she wanted kids, anyway.
The truth that she was terrified she’d end up in the same demoralizing predicament she’d been in right after college.
Her relationship with Ben had started off as a dream, but as Ben got more comfortable, Dasha lost more and more of her freedom. He’d stifled her—hadn’t wanted her light to shine, professionally or socially—and Dasha hadn’t even realized what was happening until Simone had left a message on phone one day. “Where are you, lady? I miss you. Did I upset you somehow? Why don’t you return my emails?”
Dasha hadn’t gotten any emails because Ben had screened and deleted them. He’d purged everything that might have introduced competition for him.
The breakup had been ugly. She’d l
ost all their mutual friends, and the dustup had put her budding career in advertising on shaky ground. He’d tried to get her fired—he’d told her bosses all of her business, and many of his tales hadn’t been true. Her bosses believed some of the worst ones. She’d had to win them back over—an months-long ordeal.
Dasha wasn’t willing to pick wrong again, no matter how pretty the temptation. She was taking too long to recover from her last mistake.
She forced down a swallow and fidgeted the ends of her scarf. “Maybe…this was a bad time to visit. Maybe I should fly home.”
“No. Stay. You’re here, and I’d love for you to stick around for a while. I really did miss you.” Simone’s smile was soft. “Hey, Matt had a good idea. Let’s go have some lunch. You can prove to Zenia at The Shell Shack that you’re still alive and kicking, and maybe she’ll give us the friends and family discount on the midday seafood buffet.”
Dasha stuffed her hands into the pockets of her palazzo pants and shifted her weight. “Are you trying to distract me with deep-fried yummies?”
“Yes. And also, I’m just hungry. I’ve been so busy today, and all I’ve eaten beside that little piece of chocolate were the few coffee grounds that managed to float into the four cups of java I’ve had.” Simone grabbed her wallet and nodded toward Matt. “Hang out here for a while?”
Matt shrugged, then grabbed the remote control from the counter and turned on the set mounted high in the corner. “I don’t have anything time-sensitive to do until tomorrow. I can hang out for the rest of the day. That’s better than helping Sully and Gareth lay bathroom tiles back in the new units. They’re so growly about those grout lines. Are you sure you don’t want to outsource that flooring?”
“I tried to. They insisted they could do the job better. Whatever that means.” Simone rolled her eyes. “I haven’t even looked at their work. I’m afraid to. Listen, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She ruffled the young man’s hair and hooked Dasha’s arm on the way out the door.
Dasha scrambled to grab her tote bag.
