Bound by Faerie: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Stolen Magic Book 1) (12 page)

I heard Owen grumble something, but I didn't care enough to make out the words. Then he started his bike, making any nuanced conversation impossible. The double roar of the engines tickled something deep inside. I needed to
go.
He slapped on his own black helmet, which had a curious light blue lining, and tucked away the pink one. He peeled out of the parking lot at high speed and I kept pace, delighting in the feel of wind in my face. Riding a motorcycle was the next best thing to flying. In fact, some days, I preferred it.

We weaved through the countryside. A lot of driving a motorcycle in northern California, especially Humboldt County, was watching out for potholes. A little bump here or there was one thing, but a crater at high speeds was something else. The loose gravel didn't help any. It made it adventurous though. Who wanted an easy drive? Where was the fun in that?

It was another misty day. Most days were. It wasn't ideal for motorcycle riding by most standards, but I thought it was all right. A good trade off for the green scenery. Of course, I hadn't been anywhere else, so what did I know? I guess I was going somewhere now.
Holy crap
. I was
leaving
. And not just to Volarus, where I was here and there and many places at once. I was truly, officially, leaving
Earth
. I didn't even tell Belinda I was going first, let alone Hammond.
Would he fire me? Probably. Maybe I could sell Phoebe's brownies. Go door to door. Yeah, my future sounded bright. The bleaker my thoughts became, the less my hand wanted to turn the throttle. Seriously, what was I going to do without my job? Eventually, Owen pulled over and killed his engine. I followed, but it bristled.

"Are you too scared to go any faster?" he asked, his tone lightly mocking.

I clutched my chest and took short, rapid breaths. "I think I'm having a heart attack," I said, too scared of the tight feeling in my chest to come up with a snappy reply.

His brows lowered into a look I would have labeled concern on someone who wasn't so self-centered. "It's probably the necklace again. What were you thinking about?"

"We're heading into the city. That's where my office is. This mess is going to cost me my job." The pain in my chest grew too tight to say more.

"Where do you work?" he asked.

"The Magical Objects Division of the FAB," I wheezed.

Recognition washed over his features. "So this was a job gone wrong. You were supposed to be retrieving this necklace and turning it in."

All I could manage was a nod.

"Well stop thinking about that! I'm sure once this whole mess is over, you can explain it to your boss and they'll understand. This kind of thing must happen all the time in your line of work."

The pain in my chest eased. Not because I believed Owen was right, but because he was so unbelievably wrong that my thoughts shifted from work to throttling him. "You are an idiot who obviously hasn't worked an honest day in your life. Let's get our asses back on the road to Faerie so I can be done with you."

Owen sat there, mouth agape while I started my engine and spun off, throwing gravel. I hoped one of those chunks of stone scratched his paint. He'd probably just pay a body shop a fortune to fix it, but at least it would be an inconvenience.

His bike roared past me, reminding me that I was supposed to follow him, not the other way around. There was no way this rich asshole of a dragon was taking us anywhere near the MOD offices. It wasn't today's problem, so I stopped thinking about it and focused on getting into Faerie. Everything would be better when we got there.

We didn't take the abandoned house portal into Volarus like I was used to. Instead, we wound our way to the top of a hill. The view was fantastic, looking onto the lush forest below. When Owen drove straight into a tree at the end of the road, I actually gasped aloud before I realized it was glamour. I wanted to drive right in, but I had to slow down and pull up my second sight. It was just my kind of luck that I'd miss the portal and smash into a real tree if I didn't.

The glamour tree disappeared, but I was still driving on a narrow road. Instead of winding through redwoods, we cut through a neighborhood. We were on the outskirts of Volarus, the affluent outskirts. I'd never been there before. The same could be said for most of the city, but this was definitely a rich neighborhood and somewhere I would have avoided on my own. I was uncomfortable with all the magic on display. It reeked of power and privilege. All magic came at a price and the people living here used it for fountains that looked like living swans spouting water from their mouths.

The next house we passed resembled a medieval castle that had been pulled out of Europe and plopped down in Volarus, com
plete with moat and drawbridge. The shrubs on the front lawn were shaped like knights in the middle of a battle. While it was ostentatious, it was something that could have been done by mundane means, so I respected them more for it. Then, as I drew closer, I realized the shrubs were moving. I watched one hedge knight lob off another's arm.

Part of me judged them, the other part wanted to know how it worked.

We wound away from the residential area and into an upscale commercial district. Owen pulled into a convenience store with a curiously large parking lot and a sign that said, "Long Term". He parked his bike under one of the covered spaces. I pulled in next to him and grinned when he rubbed at a scratch on his front fender.

I wanted to ask him what we were doing there, but I doubted he would answer me while he was in such a snit, so I waited patiently for him to get over it. Figured that my move to inconve
nience him wound up costing me time.

After several minutes of grumbling, he stood straight and walked into Last Stop. That was a curious name for a store located in the heart of an affluent shopping district. Last stop before what? Piling into your Mercedes and heading to your mansion? Inside was the usual assortment of sugary and salty snacks and a dizzying array of beverages. My stomach grumbled at the sight and I wondered what they ate in Faerie.

Owen waved to the ogre behind the counter and exchanged pleasantries about his children as if they were old friends. Was the shop close to his home? Because I'd used the portal in Smoke and Mirrors, I still didn't know the location of Owen's place; a fact I'm sure he was happy about.

Owen continued to the back of the store and opened the door to a cooler stocked with oversized bottles of malt liquor.
Of course
the nightclub owner had us making a pit stop so he could get his drink on. Didn't he have enough booze in his life already?

"I don't think it's a good idea to get tanked right now."

Owen acted like he hadn't heard me and walked into the drinks. He disappeared through the shelves. A portal. Why the hell was there a portal in the middle of a convenience store?

I didn't take the time to pull up my second sight this time. I didn't want Owen getting too far ahead. Still, I put a hand in front of me to make sure I wasn't about to bash my face in the most embarrassing way possible. Knowing a concept worked and trusting it were two entirely different things. I had a feeling I was about to experience a lot of that trusting thing.
Motherland, here I come...

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I thought I knew what to expect when entering Faerie, but I was very, very wrong. The books I read came from a fae perspective. They led me to believe Faerie was like scenes from
Lord of the Rings
; I expected New Zealand with a few special effects thrown in. Faerie was like the weirdest anime you'd ever seen... on acid.

There was no going anywhere until I collected myself. The smell alone locked up my brain. It was like walking into a perfume store after a hyper
eight-year-old sprayed every bottle dry. Every breath made it worse. I sneezed at least a dozen times in a row. When my eyes cleared, I was staring down at a rock that was staring back at me. I thought someone had painted a face on it—until it winked.

That was about all my overburdened brain could handle, and I'm not too ashamed to admit that I screamed like a small child.

Owen did not know what to do with me. He settled for being pissed. "What the hell is wrong with you? You should know better than that!" He jerked me away from the smiling rock and put his face three inches from mine. "Damn it. You haven't been to Faerie before, have you?"

"No," I choked out between gasps.

He stared at me like I was stranger than the smiling rock at my feet. "Why not?"

I took a moment to collect myself. Yeah, okay, "collecting myself" wasn't happening. I watched the rock slowly wander away. It didn't have feet that I could see. It glided. At least, it did, until a larger rock ate it. The sound tore at my ears. My mind must have been adapting, because a rock eating another rock made a strange kind of sense. "Why would I? Banshees don't have any use for Faerie. After the first few died trying to find our mother, they gave up."

He shrugged. "It's always been a part of my life. We'd come here on vacations. It was a place I could fly without having to worry about glamour and humans. Not to mention getting a better understanding of magic. And my heritage."

"Well, none of those reasons apply to me. I can fly wherever I want and not have a single human bat an eye."

"Wait, you can shift?" he asked. His genuine interest wiped away the last of his anger about the scratch on his motorcycle. And my crying. And... well, okay, he was probably still mad about his hair, but he wasn't thinking about it right then. I tried not to look at it. "Into what?"

I finally stood up straight. Sophie Morrigan wasn't going to be taken down by smelly magic. Breathing was still all kinds of uncomfortable, but at least I wasn't dizzy or sneezing. I raised a brow at him. "You really have to ask?"

"Oooh," he said, drawing the sound out. "The Morrigan's daughter. Not a banshee. So, you're a crow then?"

"Caw," I said, giving him a wry grin. "We could probably get wherever it is we're going a lot faster if we flew."

Owen shook his head. "No. Flying in Faerie brings its own set of dangers, and I'm not about to go nonverbal when you're under the influence of that necklace."

"So you're saying that you
don't
want to see me naked," I said, deadpan.

Even over the smells of Faerie I caught a whiff of hot metal and cinnamon, a dead giveaway to how flustered he was, even if he hadn't stammered his reply. "Um, er, yes?"

"Calm down, I was just screwing with you. Between the two of us, you're the Faerie expert." I sketched a quick bow. "I bow to your wisdom."

His cheeks reddened behind the scruff. It was a good look on him. I'd have to embarrass him more often. He turned on a heel and continued through the underbrush. My eyes drifted down to the tight jeans covering his rear. With a view like that, I'd probably follow him even if it wasn't wise.
No. No coveting the dragon. Dragons are bad.

We walked quietly through the woods while I ogled all the Faerie weirdness. I called it a forest, but it didn't conform to any Earth standard. Trees rooted in rock as often as they did in dirt, paying no heed to the lack of nourishment available in a stone. An army of plants crossed our path, marching on legs made of roots. They settled in around a small pond and a rotting tree covered in pink flowers. As I watched, a frog jumped out of the pond and took flight on gossamer wings.

I wandered a few steps away from Owen. He didn't seem to notice I'd fallen behind, and I took the opportunity to get a better look at the trees. They were all still now. The only thing moving were the pink flowers around the rotted tree. They danced on a breeze I didn't feel. I saw this a lot at home in the redwoods—new growth sprouting around something dead. Still, the flowers were like nothing I'd seen. They were too high up to get a good look at, and I reached out a hand to grab a branch and hoist myself up the dead tree for a better look.

A gasp came from behind me. "Stop! Oh my fae. No, no, no. Sophie, back away slowly." He took a tentative step toward me, his eyes locked on the dead tree while he gestured frantically for me to come toward him. "So sorry, ma'am! So sorry! She's new, she didn't know." Eyes wide, he turned back to me. "Back away,
now
."

I had no idea if he was serious or if he was messing with me for embarrassing him earlier.

"So sorry, ma'am," he said, still apparently addressing the rotted tree. Now that I looked closer, one part of it did resemble a face. "I can't stress enough how sorry we are to have invaded your space."

I backed away, and Owen exhaled loudly. He grabbed my arm as soon as I was within reach.

"Have a good day, ma'am." He pulled me along with him as he started back down what I could now see was a trail. I turned my head back to take another look—what was so special about that decaying tree? Was I missing the joke?

Owen grabbed my chin, facing me forward. He gave a slight shake of his head. "No."

"Are you serious?" He looked serious, but maybe he was fully committed to the joke

"Shhh. Not now. Keep walking."

We were several minutes down the trail before Owen let go of me, promptly shaking out his arms and rolling his neck. "No wonder you wound up with that necklace around your neck. What are you thinking? Just wandering around and touching things in Faerie."

"I didn't actually touch anything," I argued. The words felt childish as soon as I said them, but he was berating me like a child, so it was fitting.