Faerykin

FAERYKIN

Lizzie
Lynn Lee

November
2011

Published
by i heart Smut. Copyright, Lizzie Lynn Lee. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Lizzie
Lynn Lee

http://ilizzie.com

Email

[email protected]

Editor

Marisa
Chenery

Cover
Artist

Lizzie
Lynn Lee

This is a
work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this
book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as
real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead,
is completely coincidental.

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FAERYKIN

Chapter
One

How do
you tell the man you’re dating you’re a faery?

You
don’t.

And I
didn’t. One sound reason: he might freak out. Secondly, he might
think I’m a Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl. I’d worked so hard to
convince him I’m not a run-of-the-mill nutcase, but sooner or
later, he needed to know the truth. Especially with Prince
Valerian’s hunters tracking my trail.

My name
is Aine Ravenbane. By my noble birthright, I am the destined queen
of the Court of Midnight. And the man who sat across the dinner
table is Jaime Walker. A human. Mortal. Also a homicide detective
for Hammond PD.

“
I made five-cheese lasagna tonight.” I took the pan from the
oven to let it cool for a couple of minutes before cutting
it.

Jaime was
frisky. He was terminally cute when he looked like that, but he was
quite a looker all around. Six-foot-one with a fit physique,
naturally sun-kissed skin, brown hair and brown eyes. A
good-natured smile perpetually etched on his lips. He loved my home
cooked meals, since his diet mainly consisted of ramen and packaged
macaroni and cheese before he met me. I don’t know how he kept his
athletic figure eating junk food all the time. Human metabolism
isn’t like faeries.

“
You made it from scratch?” he asked.

“
From scratch,” I echoed proudly. “Semolina flour noodle. Real
Romano cheese and San Marzano tomatoes for the sauce. I got the
recipe from Mrs. Ricci next door.” I drizzled the homemade
vinaigrette on the bed of lettuce and plated them. He was ready
with his fork and knife when I served him the salad. I poured him
some water, then cut the lasagna from the pan. He regarded me with
an appreciative look when I put the lasagna plate in front of
him.

He
abandoned the salad. It seemed he was never a big fan of rabbit
food. “Looks delicious. Thank you.”

I
preened. I wished I could make Jaime more excited about me than
some fattening Italian grease.

He took a
bite and closed his eyes.

Okay, the
man really loved my cooking.

When he
opened them, those big gorgeous eyes of his gazed at me with
adoration. “You don’t have to do this every night. I’m perfectly
happy with a grilled cheese sandwich or to order out.”

“
I wanted to. Plus it gives me something to do during the day.”
I settled next to him and dug in to my plate, watching him
eat.

Actually,
Jaime wasn’t really my lover. Yet. I was working on it. I had been
living in his white picket fence house in the heart of Hammond, a
small town in Indiana, for the past two months. I did his laundry,
cooked him dinner, took care of the yard and planted some pansies
in the flowerbed. I was pretty much doing a wife’s duty, except the
bed part. Even though he was only twenty-nine years old, Jaime was
an old-fashioned kind of guy. I didn’t know much about the story of
his life before, but it seemed Jaime preferred sex after both
parties had put a ring on each other’s finger. We faerykin
preferred sex after a nice hearty meal. To us, sex is a necessity.
Like breathing or eating. Humans had different rules apparently.
And in my case, I was a pent-up, ticking sex bomb ready to
explode.

You see,
I’m a virgin.

I’m only
twenty-three years old, still considered a youngling to my people.
When our kin reach their coming of age we go to a mating festival
in Faeryville, find a bedmate or two and fuck each other’s brains
out until morning. I couldn’t do that on account I was the heir of
the Court of Midnight’s throne and had been betrothed to Valerian
de Airemm since I was five. Valerian is my first cousin. He has
more than two hundred consorts in his harem, and he’s as mean as
hell. He’s also very beautiful with a tall, toned, imposing
stature. But since he was a dick that just made him a bigger dick.
Valerian was everything you’d expect from a fae lord. Arrogant.
Cold. Ambitious.

My king
father, Lugh Ravenbane, was murdered by an assassin when I was in
my mother’s womb. Rumor had it the killer was sent by Valerian
himself in order to take over the Court of Midnight. Valerian ruled
the Court of Light with an iron fist. He usurped the throne with a
knife he buried in his own father’s back. His ambition was to unite
both courts and reign over the faery realm unchallenged. He was
like Hitler, only much prettier.

And
through his amazing web of dickery, he used the regent’s influence
to force my mother to agree to the dreaded betrothal. When I was
little, I used to think I was the luckiest girl in the realm. What
girl didn’t swoon over Valerian, the Prince of Light, with his
angelic face and long, platinum blond hair? But I got over it when
I learned the true him. He’d planned to wed me on my sixteenth
birthday, the day I came of age. But a week before the ceremony my
guardian, Graeme MacCuill, spirited me into the human realm. We
lived from town to town, keeping a low profile, hiding from
Valerian’s hunters.

Alas,
Graeme died from alcohol poisoning last year, stranding me alone in
this world. Being on the run for years had taken its toll on my
guardian. Booze was Graeme’s salvation. Even though he was a
full-blooded fae with all the perks and magic, apparently, if you
drown your body with that much alcohol, you’d still be
dead.

I tried
to fend for myself as best as I could. I wasn’t accustomed to hard
labor, but I did what I had to. I worked a bunch of dead-end jobs
and never stayed more than a few months in one place. On a couple
of desperate occasions I resorted to stealing to buy food and room
for the night. That was when I met Jaime. Well, it wasn’t exactly
“met” on good terms. He arrested me when I drove a stolen vehicle.
It was his car. That day I was more moronic than usual and swiped
an unlocked red sedan from a 7-Eleven parking lot. I didn’t mean to
sell it or anything. Not that I knew some skeevy guys who fenced
stolen stuff. I just wanted to drive it somewhere and have a nice,
warm place to sleep. I was broke, hungry and utterly
tired.

I told
Jaime I’d suffered amnesia and didn’t remember anything but my own
name.

Aine.

I didn’t
give him my family name. Not that he was going to believe me,
anyway. The name Ravenbane was uncommon to humans and mostly
existed in the geek forums on the internet. I spent two nights in
Hammond PD’s jail before Jaime took pity on me. Nobody was going to
bail me out. Plus, I didn’t exist in any system. Jaime gave me a
room in his house and told me I could stay until he could look
further into my amnesia case. My stealing attempt was
forgiven.

I should
have left Hammond a few days after that. I didn’t. For once, I
liked it there. I was tired of being constantly on the run. And I
liked Jaime a lot. Okay, I might be in love with him. He was kind,
funny and always treated me with respect. He did all those nice
things, because he wanted to help me out of the goodness of his
heart, not because he wanted to get into my panties. Unlike other
men I’d met so far.

As a fae
princess, my beauty enchants everybody who sets eyes on me. My
white-blonde hair shines like moonlight. My eyes are the color of
precious sapphires. And my pale, alabaster skin is flawless and
glows subtly. Some people often wondered if I were really human or
a breathing, walking porcelain doll. When I was in jail, Jaime had
to put me in a separate cell, because I stirred a riot from all the
other inmates. The other cops always found excuses to linger near
my cell, just to get a glimpse of me. I knew Jaime was scorned by
his coworkers when he dropped the charges and offered me a place to
stay. They thought it was his way of scheming into my
pants.

They were
mistaken.

Besides,
I didn’t mind if he did. Because now I had to scheme my way into
his pants.

I really,
really wanted to bed this man. Fuck his brains out, as the locals
would say.

Jaime
demolished his food in less than ten minutes. “Dinner is excellent,
Aine. You’re so good at cooking. Dad would love you if he were
still around.”

Jaime’s
dad had been the Hammond PD chief of police. He had died last year
in the line of duty, caught in the middle of a gang shootout.
Jaime’s mother passed away from a rare illness when he was in
kindergarten. Now it was only Jaime living in this big family house
that desperately needed a woman’s touch. Until I came
along.

“
I’d have loved to meet your dad,” I said sincerely.

From the
stories Jaime had told me, his dad sounded like a nice, jolly guy
to be around. Humans forged a closer bond with their children than
faerykin. I called my mother “my lady” and we never exchanged more
than ten words each time she summoned me to her palace. My father
had never made my mother his queen, only a consort. Since I was his
only heir, I got to live in the Midnight Palace right after I was
born. As a consort, my mother wasn’t allowed to nurse or raise a
royal heir. The regent of Five, a pantheon of dukes and duchesses,
was appointed to rule on my behalf until I came of age and could be
crowned as the Queen of the Court of Midnight. I hated it there.
Everyone I met was either stiff-assed or a brown-noser. I liked
humans and the human world better. Sure, there were some jerks and
assholes, but most I’ve met were good, decent people. Especially
Jaime.

“
He would have adored you.” Jaime wiped his mouth with a
napkin. “Dad always wanted a daughter. He bought a pink teddy bear
when Mom was in the hospital, thinking she was having a baby
girl.”

I leaned
closer. “Do you adore me?”

His lush
brows arched. “You know I do.”