Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

CHAPTER 1

Trusting Keenan had been the mistake that informed Rika’s entire life, a mistake that had cost her both her humanity and her happiness. She’d given everything—her mortality, her family, her health—but it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough.

So when she’d escaped to the desert and hidden herself away from both humanity and faeries, she’d kept to herself. It was a quiet life, but she was happy—until she met Jayce. Admittedly, met might not be the right way to describe her encounters with the mortal boy, but it was as close of a word as she knew, and as close as she’d come to a relationship in a very long time. She spent countless hours at his side talking to him or simply enjoying their shared silence. Jayce, of course, hadn’t known how much time they’d spent together because Rika remained invisible during all of it. She might not have been born a faery, but she followed the rules: faeries weren’t to carelessly reveal themselves to mortals.

Today, as she had so many other times since she’d first discovered Jayce staring into the sky with a bemused smile on his face, Rika was enjoying one of their art dates. She cherished her days with Jayce. Unlike the faery king she’d thought lovely when she was a mortal, the human boy she’d fallen for was the kind of beautiful that faeries couldn’t be. Jayce had thick dreadlocks that were such a dark brown that they were only a shade shy of black—except for the few that were dyed purple. Today, the dreads were pulled back in a ponytail, but a few had escaped and fallen over his shoulder as he sketched.

Oblivious to her as always, he perched on a rock, sketchbook on his knee, bottle of water at his feet. Pencils, charcoal, and other art paraphernalia jutted out of his satchel and spilled onto the ground next to him, but he was lost in the moment. His attention drifted between the desert and his paper.

Rika shaded her portrait of him while he captured the desert landscape with his colored pencils. “Another perfect date,” she said.

Jayce looked up, but not at her words. Like most mortals, he couldn’t see or hear the fey. Fortunately, her invisibility also meant that he’d never reject her, never tell her that she wasn’t the girl for him. Unfortunately, it also meant that he would never reach out and draw her closer. Still, she’d decided almost a year ago that their relationship was better if he didn’t know she existed.

She followed his gaze to where a desert tortoise plodded across the ground. When Jayce saw it at the edge of the road, he dropped his sketch pad on top of his satchel and picked up the tortoise.

He carefully lowered the tortoise onto the sand on the other side of the road. “Too many dangers for you out here.” Jayce watched the tortoise continue its journey into the desert. Then he glanced at the darkening sky. “Looks like it’s time for me to go too.”

As he packed up his art supplies, Rika packed hers as well, but when she looked in the same direction Jayce had, her happiness fled. What appeared to be an ordinary storm to Jayce was something Rika saw as far worse: a faery raced toward her in the heart of a swirling dust devil. Surrounded by twisting sand was the source of all of her greatest sorrows, Keenan, the Summer King himself.

Embarrassingly, even in the midst of the waves of ugly emotion his presence elicited, Rika couldn’t stop the sigh that escaped her at the sight of Keenan. When she’d fallen for him, Keenan had still been a bound king, the strength of summer hidden from him inside a mortal girl. Even then, he was captivating. Now that his curse was broken, he was devastating to see.

He’d spent nine centuries seeking his Summer Queen, romancing innocent after innocent. At one point, he’d convinced Rika that she was the one he needed. Worse still, he’d convinced Rika that she loved him enough to risk finding out if she was the one he needed. She hadn’t been the missing queen, and as a result of the curse, she’d been transformed into a faery, filled with ice and cold as punishment for failing the test. Such was the horrible cost of trying to break the curse that bound summer.

Many years and many foolish girls later, the Summer King had found his mortal—a girl named Aislinn—and taken her humanity as he had all of the others. This time, the newly fey girl was filled with sunlight, and Keenan was finally radiant with the summer strength he’d been seeking for so long. To herself, Rika could admit that she was happy that the curse was un-made. A world slowly freezing would have eventually killed every living creature except for those faeries who were a part of the Winter Court. It had been a horrible curse, a horrible fate for the world.

But I still can’t forgive him. Not for the loss of my mortality. Not for the trickery. Not for the years of carrying ice in my skin.

Spirals of wind and sand whipped out around Keenan as he stopped in front of her.

“Why?” Rika asked.

“Why what?” Keenan had stilled, but the air around him hadn’t. The sand was uplifted, held aloft by his magic.

It wasn’t really a question she could explain—or one he could ever answer to her satisfaction. Rika’s words were careful, whether out of sorrow or anger she couldn’t say. “Why do you still bother me?”

He paused, and in a moment, Keenan had willed the sand into two chairs. Rika wouldn’t admit it aloud, but the chairs were beautiful: they appeared as solid as sandstone cliffs, like rocks with striations. The sand-formed chairs were positioned at slight angles to each other, as if they were at a small two-person table in a bistro, not in the vast expanse of desert. The Summer King wasn’t quite posturing, but like every court faery he was clearly aware of his appearance. He always had been, even when half of his power was hidden away from him. Now that he was freed, he was positively preening. He sat upon a chair that hadn’t existed until he willed it and waited, looking like the king he was, expecting her to be flattered by his attention and awed by his skills.

She wasn’t flattered. His attention never boded well. So Rika didn’t sit. Instead, she folded her arms over her chest and glared at him.

He frowned. “Is it truly such a chore to talk to me?”

“I think it is,” she said. Fairies couldn’t lie—that rule was as old as the cliffs that stretched out in the distance of the desert—but they could prevaricate or temper their words. Rika stepped farther away from him.

“Even now?” Keenan asked. Heat radiated from him, to him, as if his skin was breathing the extreme temperature in and out. He was the Summer King as he had only ever been in the moments when mortal girl after mortal girl risked everything for him. Now that he was unbound, he would be fully himself all the time, but the memories of seeing him like this pushed against her as fiercely as the heat.

When Rika didn’t answer, he added, “You’re free of the ice.”

“I still dream of it.” Rika turned to face him even though she knew she still looked vulnerable. “I wake up convinced that winter is still inside my veins. What you did—”

“I didn’t do that to you.” Keenan’s voice filled with frustration and the heat around them flared momentarily stronger. “I didn’t want you to suffer. I never wanted any of you to suffer.”

“Did you choose me?” Rika asked softly, tilting her head so that her short hair, cut in a modern way she knew he hated, brushed her shoulder. She moved so he could see the silver jewelry piercing her ear. She was not going to live in the past, not going to look like the girl who was foolish enough to trust him. When he didn’t reply, she added, “Did you convince me that you loved me?”

“I did, but—”

“Did I carry ice in my body for years because of that mistake?” She stepped closer. “Because I believed you loved me?”

“Yes, but—”

“So why wouldn’t it bother me to see you?” She moved so close that she was in his space. He could crush her without any effort, incinerate her with the sunlight he carried inside of him, but she didn’t care. She’d decided many years ago that she would never bow before him. All she had left was her pride. He’d taken everything else, and when she hadn’t been the girl with sunlight inside of her, he’d rejected her.

Keenan ran his hand through his hair in a familiar gesture of frustration. The strands shimmered like glistening copper, like solidified sunlight, captivating even now. He couldn’t argue without lying, but he wanted her to bend.

Rika couldn’t. In the desert, the passive were less free. Maybe it had been the same in the faery courts and in the human world. Back then, however, she didn’t know how important it was to speak for what she believed. She’d learned though. “Look at where we are. Cities are poisonous to me, Keenan. Iron, steel, they leave me sick now. . . .”

Despite her still-raw anger, the Summer King didn’t flinch. “That’s part of being faery. Almost all faeries have that limitation. It’s not—”

“—fair, Keenan,” she finished. “It’s not fair.”

She turned her back to him and sat in one of the sand chairs.

“It’s not unusual,” he corrected. “I was going to say it’s not unusual. Faeries are weakened by steel and iron. It’s just the way we always have been.”

“But I wasn’t always like this. I was human before you.”

“A long time ago.” He reached out as if he’d touch her. He didn’t, but a sand-filled breeze that looked ever-so-slightly like fingertips brushed her cheek. “I can’t take it back, but I’m sorry you’re sad. I did love you.”

“That was a long time ago too. And look where it left me. . . .”

Keenan’s eyes flashed in anger. He waved his hand, and myriad paths—like unpaved roads—formed like patterns stretching across the desert. “So go. You’re far stronger than you admit. You might not be able to live in a city, but you can leave here.”

“There’s nowhere else I want to be. After the years of ice, I like the warmth, and”—she glanced at the distant cliff again—“what I’ve found here.”

Keenan made a noise of irritation, but he kept his silence, and she felt no need to explain herself further, not to him. She could leave if she thought there was somewhere she’d be freer, happier, but it had only been here in the desert where she’d come close to happiness. When she’d first been freed from the cold, she’d wandered, but there was no peace in it. Since she’d made that ill-fated choice to attempt to be the queen Keenan sought, she’d been unhappy. It was only recently that she’d come near to the sort of happiness she’d always wanted.

Because of Jayce.

There was no way she’d tell Keenan about him; faeries had a long-standing tradition of cruelty to humans, and now that Keenan had no need to seek among them for his missing queen, she wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do. There were whispers of rumors, murmurs that he was even fonder of mortals lately, but he also had a peculiar possessiveness toward all of the faeries who he’d chosen in hopes that they would be his queen. He might have rejected her, but that didn’t stop him from acting like she would always belong to him.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I wanted to tell you that I’m unbound and that Donia’s . . . the new Winter Queen.” Keenan’s eyes clouded at the mention of the Winter Girl who’d replaced Rika, the one who’d become Winter Queen when he’d found his Summer Queen. Overhead, clouds formed, their darkness matching his expression as a summer storm rumbled over the desert. In mere moments, the shadows of the clouds on the ground stretched and darkened. He was still tempestuous, perhaps more so than when she’d first met him, only now he had the strength to go with his moods.

“I know. All the desert fey heard. Donia will be a good queen.” Rika smiled at the thought of Donia’s ascendency. She, too, was originally mortal, and she’d made the same foolish mistake that so many girls had—to love Keenan and risk everything. Rika grinned before adding, “She’ll be good at standing against you too, especially since she hasn’t forgiven you.”

Lightning hit the ground behind her, and Rika laughed at him. Like so many of those born faery, he was a petulant child sometimes. When she’d first become fey, such outbursts frightened her. Now, she knew that he was merely stomping his foot in a way that only he could.

“And you have?” He stood, and both of the chairs crumbled.

Rika didn’t bother moving, letting herself lean into the collapsing chair, watching the streams of sand flow over her leg into the rips in her jeans. She grinned up at him from the desert floor. “No, but my forgiveness doesn’t matter as much, does it?”

Keenan’s face was emotionless, but lightning jags around them revealed the emotion that his face didn’t. Despite the bright display of his volatile temper, he still spoke as if he were calm: “If you need anything, I am there to call upon.”

“Actually Sionnach is here if I need anything.” She held Keenan’s gaze. “I’m solitary. Those of us in the desert . . . we don’t belong to you even now that you’re stronger. That won’t change.”

“If you need me—”

“There would be a price, and I’ve more than paid my dues for your ‘help.’ I learn from my mistakes.”

The rain hit, soaking her, but sizzling to steam before it touched him. “The Summer Court is stronger,” he said. “But because of the changes, things will be unstable for now . . . even out here. Not everyone’s happy with the power shift.”

Although Rika was wet and sand-covered, she felt victorious as she sat on the desert floor and mocked the Summer King’s understatement. “You think? We already know that.”

She looked up at him, wishing he was most anywhere but here, wishing he wasn’t still so beautiful, wishing she didn’t understand how the curse had hurt him too. She didn’t truly hate him, but she didn’t want to feel sorry for him. Softening toward him was dangerous. That truth was unchanging. “What do you really want, Keenan?”

“I want to protect you, to take you under my court’s protection.”

She shook her head. “I don’t need you.”

“I—”

“I don’t,” she repeated. “I can’t lie because of what you made me. So let me say it again: I don’t need you, and I don’t want you in my life in any way.”

The Summer King was nothing if not persistent though. He’d fought for nine centuries to reach the strength he had only just found. His sunlit skin glowed as he told her, “I can’t lie either, Rika: I do want to protect you. Make a vow of fealty to me, and I will keep you safe if the coming troubles reach the desert.”

“A vow? To you? No.” She stood and brushed the sand from her jeans. “Are we done here?”

“Other solitaries have joined my court. . . . It’s not so odd.” In that instant, Keenan looked so earnest—genuine and eager, so like the boy she’d loved. It hurt more seeing him looking at her so familiarly, but then she reminded herself that he had always sounded exactly like that when he’d successfully manipulated her. This time, he wouldn’t succeed.

“You could talk to the others out here,” he added. “The solitary fey will listen to you, and—”

“No,” she interrupted, foolishly hurt that he still saw her as a means to an end, a piece in a puzzle to be moved at his will. “I won’t ask them to join the Summer Court.”

As Keenan stepped closer to her, Rika had to grit her teeth to keep from backing away. Winds spun around them, as if it were just the two of them together, apart from the world, as she’d once believed it would be. He didn’t reach out to touch her as he would’ve when she was human, but in the same tone that had haunted far too many of her dreams over the years, he whispered, “I never meant to hurt you. You know me, Rika. It’s a simple vow. Then my court can step in if anyone needs—”

“Your court isn’t needed in my desert, Keenan. We handle things differently out here, and we have no business in court matters. The courts are a world away.”

“You’re being foolish, Rika. Letting grudges get in the way of what makes sense. Just talk to them.”

He obviously wanted a way in to the loyalty of the desert fey, and so he was here now whispering regrets and tender words, but she wasn’t a naïve girl, not now, not for decades. She turned and walked away from him, and she didn’t look back even though she could feel the swirls of sand stirring as he resisted his anger.

After a moment, a gust of wind lashed against her back, and she knew he’d left.

Melodramatic as always.