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If exiled Fae princess Reine can unearth who leaked top-secret research to the pharmaceutical industry, she’ll be allowed into Faerie. As she investigates, she finds that the mystery is intertwined with a deadly conspiracy that reaches into the Fae realm. Can Reine unmask a sinister cabal before she loses her ticket home...or her life?
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The lights of the Institute faded behind me. Once I was enveloped in the canopy of the trees with nothing but stars twinkling overhead, I could breathe deeply again. Sir Raleigh had fallen asleep, and his heartbeat beat double-time to mine. I would have to figure out what to do with him while abroad. Hopefully Veronica would keep him for me. He hadn't pulled his disappearing trick on me again. No, he had teleported, but only to find me.
"What am I going to do with you, Little Lad?" I asked him. The thought of leaving him, even though I hadn't even had his company for a full day, tugged at my heart. The heart I didn't want to admit to having. Yeah, the kitten needed to go back.
I rounded a bend. The sensation of a dark gaze brushing over me made me slow the bike rather than accelerate and hug into the curves as I typically did. The air smelled wrong, and with a chill, I recognized it as the same odd scent that had been in my house earlier. Rather than the cool green and sharp brown scents of foliage and mulch, the one that came to my nose was more of the electric static that comes with thunderstorms. Not necessarily of electricity, but instability. What could it mean?
Sir Raleigh had quieted, but he dug his little claws into my shirt just before I rounded a curve and bright lights blinded me. I swerved and heard the trees crying in their silent voices for me not to hit them. Even Fae could be gravely injured. A thick branch reached down for me, and in a flash, I leaped off the bike and into its embrace. Heather smashed into the trunk below as the tree pulled me out of danger.
I sat there, clutching Sir Raleigh to my chest and murmuring to him that he was such a clever kitty to hold on when he did. How had he known? The car raced below me, much too fast for the winding woodland road. They didn't even stop to make sure I was all right. Surely they must have seen me.
Or perhaps that had been the point—to ensure I wouldn't be all right. Selene had warned me, and now the danger felt real.
But for now I had a new problem. I had used up a good portion of the energy that I had left from this trying and exhausting day, and as I sat in the tree and trembled, I knew I didn't have it in me to teleport to the ground. The ground lay a good thirty feet below me, and I didn't see any branches I could use to climb down.
"Well, Hades," I said aloud. "Brother Tree, can you help me again?"
With a rustling, the tree tipped the branch downward. It was a long limb, and I managed to scoot along it until I couldn't balance on it anymore. Then I gripped it and lowered myself so I held on with my hands and my feet dangled above the ground. I moved sideways hand-by-hand like a child on a jungle gym. I could feel the tree trembling to hold me, so I dropped the last ten feet, creating a cushion of air thick enough to soften my fall. The tree raised the limb, and I bowed to it.
"Thank you, Brother Tree. I am in your debt."
“'Twas my pleasure, Princess Reine. It has been a long time since I have had the opportunity to serve your kind.”
Then I saw the gash on his trunk and the twisted remains of Heather.
"Please allow me to heal you as a gesture of thanks."
“I would be honored.”
I held my hand against the trunk and pulled from the energy of the earth and the surrounding forest. His brothers and sisters lent me strength as I knitted the wood and then the bark back together. By the end of it, he was healed, and I lay panting on the ground. Sir Raleigh emerged from my jacket and licked my face, then batted at me with a paw. I suspected the hunger pangs in my belly belonged more to him than to me, although I would need to eat after all the energy I'd expended. I was out of shape, as the humans liked to say. It had been a long time since I'd done more than healing spells.
"Now how to get home?" It was a good five miles, still.
A neigh, then snuffle made me jump. I turned to see—how fairytale can you get?—a wild white horse standing behind me. For a second, the image of a horn flashed on its forehead, then disappeared.