Page 16 of Wicked Things

“I know you’re just teasing me.”

“Maybe a little. But not much. Go ahead. I give you permission to say whatever you need to say to me. I’ll hum quietly to myself until you’re finished.”

I glared at him then, and he threw back his head and laughed, very amused at his own little joke. I tried again to pull away, but he tucked my hand in the crook of his arm and drew me even closer to him.

“Settle down now and wipe that scowl from your ridiculously pretty face. Marriage would be good for you. Your new husband can discipline you and calm you down. And people are most anxious to see you.”

“Why would people be interested in me?”

“They’ve heard about you, of course. The news of who you are, and your exquisite beauty has spread quickly. And now they are anxious to see you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Who else? They’ve seen me before.”

“No. This has to be a joke. Please don’t make me do this! Don’t make me marry some man I’ve never met before. Is that what this is? Are you taking me to get married?”

He smiled at that, so I stopped walking. Other than dragging me down the hall by my arm, he had to stop too. I thought he looked like he was considering it as an option, however. I had a feeling that if I balked much longer, he would have cheerfully hauled me down the corridor by the hair of my head.

He sighed deeply. “What is it now? All right, yes. You’re going to be married. It’s all arranged.”

“No. You have to stop this. Please, Lord King.”

“Oh, so it’s ‘please, Lord King,’ now, is it? Like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. No, I don’t have to stop it and I won’t. Behave yourself and don’t make a scene. Your father has given you to me to deal with, and that’s an end to it. I’ve decided that you’re to be married. It’s the best thing for you and will settle you down.”

“No, it isn’t and it won’t!” I shouted and stopped walking to stamp my foot at him. He took my arm again, looking angry, so I took one more deep breath and tried one last time to appeal to him. “Look, I know I don’t have any rights here, but I’m begging you. Please don’t do this. I-I can’t be married to some strange man. Mortals like me don’t marry other men! Especially Faery men! I can’t have a husband. What if he doesn’t like me? What if he’s mean and hateful to me? Or puts a spell on me and changes me into a-a frog or something?”

His lips twitched. “Then you can hop to me and I’ll change you back. Eventually.”

“Don’t make jokes! Please, sire. I’m a halfling as you’ve called me, and a nobody, but I still have feelings. I ask you to please reconsider and take me back to the mortal realm.”

“You’re the son of a king, Braden, and the only remaining heir to your bloodline. As for marrying another man, we don’t have the same foolish prejudices that mortals do. You can marry whomever I want you to. And you’re not all mortal, as I keep telling you. Along with your Faery blood, I suspect you have something else going on inside there too. Something mysterious and potentially powerful. Possibly hard to tame.

“Even for one of us, you’re stunningly beautiful, and you haven’t even begun to explore what any of that means yet. Even if I were to agree to take you back to the mortal world, you couldn’t stay there. You don’t look even remotely human anymore. You’d endanger all those around you. You’ve already told me someone there has been following you, and I can assure you it wasn’t me. Those people, whoever they are, may not be as willing as I am to let you keep on breathing.”

I admit he’d shocked me, and I was absolutely speechless.

“I see you have nothing to say. I’m going to take advantage of this extremely rare occasion to take you to the main hall. Forget about the wedding for now. Take my arm and stop all this. I realize how young you are, but…”

“I’m a man fully grown. I’m almost twenty-two.”

“Almost twenty-two is the equivalent of a child in Faery years. You need discipline and guidance, but I’ll be the only one to give it to you, so settle down. Let’s go meet the two queens of Murias. The Queen and the Shadow Queen.”

****

Fionn

Perhaps I should have felt bad about teasing him, but I didn’t. How could he be so foolish as to think I’d let someone else take over the throne of Gorias by marrying him? Even more amazing, how could he think I’d be so stupid as to let someone else have him? He was mine and there was no way I’d even consider allowing that beautiful face and body to belong to someone else. But in the meantime, it didn’t hurt to parade him around and let the others see what they’d missed out on.

I took him first to meet Queen Sheilagh—it would irritate my mother, who needed to learn her place in my life. I loved her after a fashion, but she’d never been a kind or doting parent to me. Rarely had she taken my side against my father or stood up for me during one of his all too frequent beatings. He was a hard man, and I’d learned the things he had to teach me, but I didn’t grieve for him, or for his death overly much.

I leaned in close to Braden’s ear and whispered to him. “The woman ahead on your right is my stepmother, Queen Sheilagh, and the two boys beside her are her sons, Rian and Connor, my younger half-brothers.”

“Oh, I see. Both of them are handsome.” He gave me a look. “But far too young for me.”

I smiled at him and lifted one shoulder. He was so easy to tease. “We’ll go see her first and then my mother Queen Orlaith. That’s my sister Bridget beside my mother. They live in our wing of the castle, so you’ll probably see them occasionally in the halls. Queen Sheilagh and her sons are housed in the west wing, so try not to stray into it. After all, the boys could lure you into an empty room and compromise you in some way. They’re a little young for that yet, but in truth, you’re not much older. They take after our father.”

“What? Would they try to do such a thing?”