Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

CHAPTER 13

Keenan stared at the faery he’d once hoped would be his queen. “You’re ashamed of loving me?”

Rika laughed. It was painfully different from the soft sound that he’d once found so enchanting. When she was a mortal, she was sweet. She’d trusted him, looked at him with such hope in her eyes, smiled at him with love. He still remembered her that way. He remembered all of the formerly mortal girls he’d wooed. Most of all, though, he remembered those rare girls who had been brave enough or in love enough to take the test to be his queen. Until this year, they’d all failed, but they were special. Rika was special.

“I’m not ashamed of it,” he said quietly. “You were br—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I don’t want to hear your flattery, Keenan.”

He stood silently beside her for a moment before muttering, “The fox doesn’t deserve you.”

“Sionnach knows me better than you ever did.” She shook her head. “All those years I was cursed to stand against you, I’m not sure you ever tried to know me.”

There were words he could say, wicked phrases and lovely reminders, but they would only hide the lie. He hadn’t known her. Sometimes, he thought that the only faeries he truly knew were the Winter Queens—the one he loved and the one he’d killed. For nine hundred years, he’d spent all of his time seeking his missing Summer Queen and trying to rule without his full power. He was realizing of late that he had made more than a few mistakes.

“Knowing you doesn’t mean deserving you” was all he said.

Rika stared at him for a moment, and foolishly, he felt a brush of hope that they could talk rationally. Unfortunately, that hope faded as she folded her arms over her chest and said, “Go away. Don’t come back here.”

He couldn’t truly blame her for thinking she could confront a regent so boldly. It had been her role from the time she became fey until Donia became the next Winter Girl. He lifted a hand to brush back her hair, but she moved out of his reach. “You can’t demand that, not of me,” he told her. “Not now.”

Instead of replying, she turned and returned to her cave. Later, he could try again, but for now, he let her go. Some battles were about steadily wearing away at the defenses, not winning in one glorious fight. He wasn’t done here.

Nonetheless, Keenan felt the weight of failure on his shoulders as he left Rika’s cave. The desert had always been one of his solaces; it was one of the rare places in the world where the last Winter Queen had been unable to extend her power. When Rika had first been freed from the then–Winter Queen’s curse and fled to the Mojave Desert, Keenan had believed that he’d have a future ally there. She’d been angry during her time as a Winter Girl, good at convincing girls not to trust him, but she’d loved him once. He’d believed that her anger would fade, that the core of her love was still there. Now, as he walked across the scorching ground, he realized he’d been tragically wrong. Like both his Summer Queen and the new Winter Queen, Rika simply didn’t trust him.

There were times when he wished that he could explain, could make them understand that he was as trapped by the curse as they had been. The problem, of course, was that they were trapped because of his choices, whereas he was trapped because of the choices of the last Winter Queen. She’d bound his powers, hidden them away inside a mortal girl so he couldn’t stand against Winter, and he was left seeking a single grain of sand in the expanse of a great desert. Literally, billions of girls could have been the one he needed. Each time he chose a girl, she was cursed; her humanity faded. She became either a Summer Girl, whose very life required contact with him, or the Winter Girl, who was filled with ice. He understood the anger some of them felt, probably deserved it, but if he hadn’t tried, the earth would freeze. Over time, every mortal and every faery not of the Winter Court would die.

He bowed his head as he walked. There hadn’t been a lot of choices left to him. He’d had to try to find his missing queen. He’d succeeded after nine hundred years, but somehow even success came with problems. His queen refused his affections; the faery he loved had become the new Winter Queen; and war seemed imminent. Even after completing a seemingly impossible challenge, he was still losing.

As Keenan reached a rocky outcropping, the faery he’d been contacted by stepped out.

“Your, ah, highness, or . . . what do you call a king?” Maili asked.

Her attitude irritated him, so he ignored the question. “What do you need?”

“You weren’t able to reason with Rika. I can do it. I’ll defeat her for you.”

Keenan looked at the faery. Her tone was far more impertinent than he was accustomed to these days, and her posture was anything but respectful. He didn’t expect meekness, but whether he was her king or not, he was a regent. He was the embodiment of summer itself, protector and leader of a court. That deserved a bit of respect.

Honestly, he simply didn’t understand the solitaries; something about their lack of court always unsettled him. Court, especially the Summer Court, wasn’t just about order. They reveled. They danced. They cared for the other members of their court. Sure, there were questions of obedience, but he didn’t ask his faeries to do anything that wasn’t for their own good or the good of the court. He had spent his entire life striving to make them safe, to protect them from the cold that had threatened, to lead them even though he’d been weakened by the curse. Choosing to be solitary wasn’t something he could fathom.

“No,” he said. “Talk to her first.”

Maili flinched as if he’d struck her. “Talk to her?”

For a moment Keenan thought about the angry way Rika and her fox had looked at him. They’d never believe he was trying to be fair, never believe he was trying to do the right thing. They saw only their own desire to keep the desert, not the fact that he could now protect them. The desert was a place of heat; it was only logical that it should become part of his territory. Admittedly, his interests weren’t totally selfless. He was a faery. Allies were increasingly necessary to his court right now. Skirmishes seemed imminent. The Dark King was angry, and the Winter Queen was upset about the time he’d been spending with his queen. Even his own court held the possibility of conflict as his Summer Queen discovered how much he’d misled her in his attempts to hide her mortal lover’s whereabouts. Trouble was definitely coming from at least one side.

When the Summer Queen’s mortal had returned from Faerie, changed into a faery for half the year, Keenan had realized he’d lost the battle for her affections. He could keep fighting, and maybe he would. Right now, he felt a bit like retreating and licking his wounds. He’d lost his advisor to the Dark Court, his beloved to the Winter Court, and his destined queen to a mortal boy. He wasn’t going to completely give up. He was the Summer King, but he had retreated to seek allies—not just to strengthen his court but also because it would feel good to have a victory.

But I failed at this too.

With an expression that wouldn’t reveal the morass of emotions inside him, he stared at Maili and repeated, “Talk to Rika.”

At that, Keenan walked past her. The desert wasn’t the only place where he could find allies. As he’d searched for his queen for centuries, he’d met a lot of solitaries, many of whom were organized into loose groups like those here in the desert. He’d done what he could here. Maili would talk to Rika, and then Keenan would follow up. With that in mind, he left the desert behind and headed toward the forests of California. Out there they had the tall redwoods and the wide sequoias. In the boughs of those trees and in the shadows of those forests, faeries made their homes. Perhaps some among them would be willing to join his court now that he was unbound.