Warrior Fae Princess

by Breene, K. F.

  “I need my sword,” she yelled.

  “You need to conserve your energy or you’ll kill the alpha of this pack,” Penny shouted, her hands dancing through the air.

  The end of her words were drowned out by Cole’s roar. He lumbered in front of Charity, swinging his big arms at the growling and spitting little creatures. He was too slow, though. They dodged his claws and raced between his legs, chittering laughter all the time.

  Charity kicked another, barely stopping herself from using her magic. It wasn’t her only defense. She’d taken martial arts lessons since she was twelve. She moved through her fighting styles, punching and kicking the small creatures with ease. They were fast, but she was faster, fueled by adrenaline and nearly a lifetime of practice.

  One launched into Steve’s mane. He roared and shook his great head, flinging it off, but another dropped onto his back from God knew where. Andy lunged forward and punched it off before stomping on its head.

  Another violet explosion lit up the wood to Charity’s right. A second, larger explosion flared to her left before zinging out in all directions, sending sparks directly at a handful of creatures. Those sparks detonated as they hit their targets.

  “Your magic is insanely good for attacking,” Penny murmured, at Charity’s side. A strange thing for her to say, given that she was the one who’d created the second, more impressive spell.

  The area to the right of them lit up with an even brighter spell. It almost seemed like they were one-upping each other. Their blasts of electrified light zapped ten or more creatures on each round.

  A wolf snarled, followed by a creature howling. Steve caught one of the things between his teeth. Blood squirted in all directions.

  Another explosion went off. Squeals crowded the air. That did it. The creatures took off, scattering back into the wood, beaten.

  Like a bubble popping, suddenly the full spectrum of sound rushed back. Leaves rustled and feet crunched the dirt.

  “First ambush down, who knows how many to go,” Emery said into the following hush.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By the time the murky orange glow filtering through trees lightened, reminding Charity that they’d technically been traveling at night even though the entire time her eyes and brain had said it was day (common in the Realm, she remembered), the edge of the wood loomed within sight.

  Their party had been deathly quiet the last couple of hours, traversing the danger with keen eyes and exhausted bodies. Strangely, though, they’d only encountered one other group of hostile creatures— a group of exiled gnomes who clearly didn’t give a fuck, and were intent on fighting regardless of the odds.

  They were now deceased exiled gnomes.

  “I thought you said this wood was the most dangerous you’d come across,” Penny said, her voice soft to match the false tranquility of the wood. Her eyes continually scanned their surroundings and her hands stayed near her chest, ready to work magic.

  “It is,” answered Emery, who’d drifted closer to her and stayed there. “This trip has been unnaturally quiet.”

  “Is it because we have a larger crew?” Penny startled and her hands jerked. A strange sheen spread through the trees before winking out. “Oops. I thought I saw something.”

  “I saw it too. And maybe the size of our party has scared some attackers away, though from the stories I’ve heard, a large party is usually an invitation for the wood’s more cunning inhabitants. They take it as a challenge.”

  Penny looked back through the line. “Everyone is still here, right?”

  “Still here. No one has eaten anyone else,” Andy replied.

  Emery leaned around Charity to see her side of the wood. “It doesn’t make sense.” His brow furrowed before he scanned his side again.

  “The elves?” Charity guessed. “It seems everyone in this place is terrified of them.”

  “For good reason.” Emery scratched his face. “But if they’d taken over the wood, someone would have stopped us by now.”

  Penny tensed as they crossed the tree line, the path opening up as it led up a gradual incline toward a small mountain. Trees and brush still dotted the way, but the early morning glow bathed them in soft light, chasing away any dark shadows or easy hiding places for predators.

  Charity sighed softly, giving in a little to the tremors racking her body and the fatigue that made each stop arduous.

  “We’re almost to a secluded resting spot,” Emery said, and if it wasn’t for the comforting smile Penny gave her, Charity wouldn’t have known he was talking to her.

  “I’ll be okay,” she assured them, wondering how Devon was faring. He probably wasn’t showing his fatigue, trudging on with the confidence that befitted an alpha, but he was just as tired; she could feel it.

  Emery was true to his word. Not even an hour’s trudge later, he held up a fist and slowed. Everyone slowed with him. Well, almost everyone. Charity, having shut off her brain to try to ignore the throbbing in her shaking legs, bumped into the back of a yeti built of what felt like bricks.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, backing up.

  A small outcropping flanked by brambles ended in a bench broken down the middle, each end sticking into the air. Scraggly bushes and spindly flowers—or weeds?—pushed in around it, the least inviting resting spot Charity had ever seen, and that was saying something, given where she’d grown up.

  “This isn’t going to fit all of us,” Penny whispered.

  Emery walked into the gardener’s nightmare anyway, looking deeper into the brambles and kicking at the skeleton flora around the bench. Apparently satisfied, he went right—and disappeared.

  “But…I don’t sense magic.” Penny rushed forward. Charity moved to follow, but Cole lumbered into her way and Steve pushed in behind, blocking her.

  She gritted her teeth. What she wouldn’t give for full health.

  Penny got to the bench and turned, looking the way Emery went. A big smile lit up her face. “It’s an illusion.”

  Emery reappeared. “No, it’s just a little path you can’t see from the main road.”

  “This is a road?” Rod looked ahead before glancing behind.

  “Thieves’ highway, road, whatever.” Emery gestured them closer.

  “How many people know about this little outcropping?” Devon asked. As Charity expected, he didn’t look tired at all. In fact, to the undiscerning eye, he might be gearing up for a marathon. What a faker.

  “Enough to ensure I put up a good ward.” Emery motioned everyone in again. “It’s safe enough for us to rest. We need it.”

  Devon scanned his people. “Choose whatever form you want. Let’s get settled and get some shut-eye.”

  When Charity neared him, he took her hand and peered into her eyes.

  “How are you?” she asked to get the jump on the conversation.

  A grin ghosted his lips. “Right as rain. Ready to do acrobatics. You?”

  “Wondering how fast I can get to sleep.”

  He nodded and stood by as his people followed Emery and Penny beyond the bench, disappearing one by one. “I caught a whiff of vampire in that wood,” he said quietly. As soon as he and Charity were alone together, he turned away from the bench, peering through the trees to the wild land beyond. “Yasmine didn’t smell it, though. Neither did Rod. But since Penny…” He slid his hand across the top of her butt and hooked it low on her hip. “My senses are boosted, somehow. The scent was faint—I couldn’t tell the level—but I’d swear it was vampire.”

  “Is that unusual?” She leaned against his solid chest.

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Emery about it. It could be nothing. Vampires haunt the dark places like any other creature in the Realm. But here, within the elves’ jurisdiction, they usually mind their manners.”

  “So it seems, because it—or they—didn’t attack.”

  “So it seems,” he repeated, that grin ghosting his lips again. “I am so fucking tired, I can barely think straight.”


  She burst out laughing, not expecting that admission, and especially not with the grin making his eyes twinkle.

  “Me too,” she said, turning into him and trailing her fingers down his sides, flitting across his skin. “At one point, I had to stop myself from asking Steve if I could get a lift.”

  He cupped her butt and pulled her closer. “I’d be good with finding a secluded corner, lying on my back, and letting you go to town.”

  She closed her eyes as his lips trailed down her neck. “I’d be good with finding a secluded corner, lying on my back, spreading my legs, and letting you go to town.”

  He growled against her neck, sucking on her skin. “I think I have just enough left in the tank to make that happen.”

  “No big deal, boss, but I don’t think it’s the best place for that,” Steve said, just out of sight.

  Charity felt Devon’s release of breath. “We can’t get to the Flush fast enough,” he murmured.

  “Is this the part where you’re thinking about yourself and not me?” She pushed away from him with a smile, taking his hand.

  His eyes were on fire as he stared at her, refusing to budge and head to the campsite. “Yes. I need to pound my love into you.”

  “Pound it in? And here I didn’t think you were a hopeless romantic.”

  “Pound it, bang it, fuck it—whatever you want to call it, it’s going to be hard and fast, and you will love every minute of it.”

  Charity laughed delightedly, and thankfully, she was too low on energy for her magic to surge and ruin the moment. Small miracles.

  The area Emery had led them to wasn’t large, but it was big enough to fit everyone comfortably. Devon found a patch of green weeds, laid down, and waited just long enough for Charity to push up beside him before he fell asleep. Charity followed soon after.

  * * *

  “Devon, wake up!”

  Charity startled at the urgent whisper. Devon stirred beside her.

  Penny leaned over him, her brown hair falling around her anxious face.

  “Wake up,” she said again, shoving him.

  His eyes snapped open and he sat up so fast that Charity rolled away.

  “Nice,” she said.

  “We’ve got company.” Penny motioned Devon to stand.

  Charity was up a moment after him, noticing the tightness in his eyes, his shoulders bowed and his muscles tight before he could school his face into that mask of alpha confidence. Charity wondered if Roger always did the same thing.

  Steve and Cole were waiting to the sides, and the rest of the shifters were rousing, most still in animal form. The big yeti tried to step in Charity’s way.

  She slapped her palm to his chest and let loose a small surge of magic. No way was she letting him stop her. Cole staggered backward as though shoved by a four-hundred-pound man. Magic leaked out of Charity’s well, but Devon’s magic rushed in, light and clean and comforting, to smooth things out.

  The dual-mages were geniuses, that was the bottom line. Charity only wished they’d done their trick sooner.

  As Charity rounded the brambles near the broken bench, she heard, “I merely wish to speak with her. She’ll come to no harm, I can assure you.”

  Fireworks went off in Charity’s middle. Hope flooded her.

  Vlad had come, and he better have answers.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Second, we have news.”

  Romulus hesitated in glancing up from the architectural plans spread across his workstation. Soft light from the morning sun splashed onto his design. Spun-glass ornaments threw colored splotches around his desk, lending beauty to the chaos.

  He breathed in fresh air from the many open windows before lifting his gaze. There was never a reason to rush when nature was offering up such a bounty.

  Halvor, his assistant, stood in the doorway, his head tilted to the side, awaiting acknowledgement from a superior. His regal bearing displayed his excellent lineage and advanced training. Unlike normal, however, his right shoulder was raised ever so slightly, a tell that he was hard-pressed to disguise whenever troubling news conflicted his duties.

  “What is it, Halvor? Is the First not pleased with her garden?”

  “Not at all, Second. She expressed her immense pleasure.”

  Romulus couldn’t help a smile. He sat back into his raised seat. Other than the High Elves, his mother was quite possibly the hardest to please in the entire Realm.

  “Then what is this news that has you so out of sorts? Or did you have another fight with Jauni?”

  Halvor’s head drooped slightly with embarrassment. The week before, he and his mate had had a truly exhilarating domestic squabble in the public park. Most of the community had enjoyed watching them, wondering who would force the other to submit, never a sure bet with two such masters. But they’d let the fight get out of control, destroying the tables for the communal cook-off. They’d had to reschedule the whole affair! Romulus had been forced to order Halvor to a week’s worth of plowing, a pastime his assistant detested.

  “No, Second. Jauni and I have resolved our differences. We’ve had word from the office of the Red Prophet. Her latest prediction involves most of the Realm. The elves, mages, vampires, demons…and fae.” Halvor waited for a nod to continue. “It seems a half-human, half-guardian will be integral in deciding the victor of a power struggle between the elves and vampires. Representatives from the underworld were also mentioned in the reading, though the nature of their involvement was not clear.”

  As if one drop of acid had plopped onto the top of his head and started burning its way down, Romulus felt his muscles tensing one by one.

  “A half-human, half-guardian, you said? Half custodes?”

  “Yes, Second. The outcome of this battle will decide who rules the Realm.”

  “I see. And this halvsie creature is integral to the outcome?”

  “Yes, Second, though the winner remains unclear. This is largely because of the role the underworld plays, a component that is too blurred for the Red Prophet to interpret. It is clear, however, that both sides of this battle will seek to enlist the aid of the half-human, half-guardian.”

  “Of course they would. That is common sense.”

  Romulus’s brow crumpled in contemplation of this news. He brought his elbows up to the armrests of his chair and clasped his fingers in front of his face, rolling through the short list of half-human, half-guardians in his acquaintance. A few had trickled in from the human lands over time. Halvsies were simple, in his experience. Easily pleased. Many of them had inherited the fae’s long life span, but the ones he’d met were all incompetent fighters. Battle one of them, and all your focus went to not killing them. It was no sport at all.

  Given that they also lacked skills that would improve the Flush in any real way, they weren’t regarded or esteemed favorably. Their status was low, and their options limited. They had all, so far, found their way to the outskirts of the Realm, living their lives with the lesser fae and probably getting along swimmingly.

  How any of them could hope to lead the guardian into battle, Romulus could not imagine.

  “Can this prophecy be believed?” he asked. “Is the Red Prophet dabbing in the hallucinogens again?”

  “She was sober when she relayed her discovery. I believe it came to her yesterday evening. She spent last night meditating with her people about it, then she hastened to her rendering machine. The scroll was shown to me. The seal was intact.”

  Romulus’s eyes widened. “Well, that is news. And were we given a means with which to narrow down the candidate? Leading a battle of this magnitude will be a great honor! I almost wish I had been named. This will elevate the family of the guardian greatly.”

  Three fingers on Halvor’s sword hand twitched. Based on all the highly unusual fidgeting, he was clearly flustered. Or possibly excited. He was practically dancing in his skin!

  “Speak plainly, Halvor. Out with it.”

  “The Red Prophet saw a young woman.�
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  Romulus stared dumbly for a moment. “A young woman?” He thought back to all the female halvsies he had met over the years. Only a very few had possessed any sort of fighting experience. Most were shocked it was considered normal for males and females to fight each other. “Has someone left our lands that I was not aware of, Halvor?”

  “You were the last, Second.”

  Acid leached into his blood. “The Red Prophet is sure it was a woman?”

  “Yes, Second.”

  “I’ve often wondered if she has some way to cheat. And are you absolutely positive she was of clear mind? Sometimes she drops mind relaxants in her morning tea. Remember when she lit the tree on fire and claimed it was possessed?”

  “I was thorough, Second. This battle is coming—she gets the feeling it has been building for decades. Now the key players are being named. This young woman is one of them, and the Red Prophet is nearly sure her quest has already manifested. She believes what she saw was an echo.”

  A quest was a magical coming of age for a guardian, manifesting when the time was right. The quest holder was to stop at nothing to fulfill the obligation to the best of their ability. A great range of quests was possible, but the more complex ones tended to garner the fae higher status within the community.

  If the halvsie woman was fated to lead a battle of this magnitude, she would earn a place among the elite. She was a woman to know, and to watch, which was troubling, since they didn’t know who she was.

  A little surge of adrenaline fueled Romulus’s bloodstream as he thought of a battle to come. It had been a while since he’d torn himself away from his gardens and visited the battlegrounds, where they practiced sword work and hand-to-hand combat. He should see to it soon. Focusing solely on one form of his magic—the natural—would leave him out of balance. Fighting was every bit as important as the gardens in this community, especially if there was one on the horizon.