Bound by Faerie: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Stolen Magic Book 1) (13 page)

"I know that. You know how?" he asked, then continued before I could respond. "Because you're still alive, that's how."

"You don't have to be so dramatic," I groused. "I screwed up. If you tell me what I did, it won't happen again."

"Do you seriously not know what that was?" His anger waned. "No one ever taught you. Well, rule number one of Faerie: no touching unless absolutely necessary."

Slowly, so he saw it coming, I reached out and poked the tip of his nose.

"We are going to die, you understand that, right?"

I shrugged, and he muttered some stuff under his breath I pretended not to hear. The truth was, I did understand. Faerie was dangerous. I was in a new world. There was no telling what might happen. Any moment I expected to turn a corner and end up in the Fire Swamp from
The Princess Bride
. Owen would have made a decent Dread Pirate Roberts. I didn't dare tell him so because I wasn't about to be called Princess Buttercup.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The small trail reached a junction and widened into a major thoroughfare. From what I'd read, most of Faerie was undeveloped. Villages that gathered more than a few hundred residents were rare. Then again, my books had proven woefully inaccurate when it came to describing Faerie to someone who hadn't been there before. "Are we on the way to a village?" I asked Owen.

"Something like that," he said, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

He was being deliberately vague again. I wondered how much of that was his personality, and how much of it was necessity because of my condition. "Fine, don't tell me then," I said, more grit in my voice than I intended. "My gut is telling me we want to make a right at the next fork."

"Your gut is being influenced. We are going left at the next fork."

I growled. "You're just being contrary for laughs."

"Not at all," he said, unbothered by my temper. "We're almost to our destination."

"You said that two hours ago," I argued.

"And now we're even closer than that," he said, not even bothering to hide the mocking tone in his voice.

I was about to go on a tirade about keeping me better informed when we rounded a bend and came upon a large cart moving at a glacial pace down the path. It wasn't long before we were walking alongside it and gawking. Okay, I was gawking. The cart was loaded down with roughly hewn statues of bears, like the chainsaw carvings popular along rural roads in Humboldt county, except these were carved out of impossible materials. The one at the rear of the cart was made of molten lava. Magic kept it from burning right through the bottom of its cage. So many questions swarmed my mind. What kind of magic was this? How did someone go about carving molten lava? Why did he do it? My face was inches from the cage, inspecting the details as best I could, when a paw swiped at me through the bars. Its low yowl reminded me of a black bear. It lashed out again, almost getting me that time, and I finally jumped back. The cart was overloaded with cages, all of them housing a different bear. Two were formed of sloshing water, one a glowing blue light, and another of pale green mist. Carving marks from a rough blade marked their bodies, even though it was clearly impossible for a knife to have left permanent impressions in water or mist or light or lava... The effect was mesmerizing.

Owen swiftly outpaced the cart. It was pulled by a very old unicorn who
looked more like a donkey with a shining white horn attached to its head. At the unicorn's side was a companion, leaving a trail of slime behind them. They looked like a slug that had been enlarged to the size of a person, with arms and vaguely humanoid facial features. I slowed down and smiled in greeting at the donkeycorn. Unidonkey? Whatever.

"Those bears are amazing," I said, not bothering to keep the awe from my voice. I almost held out my hand to shake until I remembered the slime. "I'm Sophie." I settled for a small wave.

The slug-man's grin transformed his strange face. "Your compliments are very much appreciated. I'm Barnabas and this is my partner, Atticus," he said indicating the donkeycorn.

The donkeycorn spoke directly into my mind, his voice sweet and soothing. "It took us a long time and a lot of spells to figure out how to carve them. Nobody in Faerie wanted the ones we made of wood. They were good practice though, and we let them wander around the property. They keep out the pests. Those humans have good ideas every now and then."

"So they are based on the chainsaw carvings that people do on Earth."

"They are indeed," said Barnabas, scratching his chin. "Though I can't imagine what enjoyment they get out of them when they can't move."

"I think it's about admiring the craftsmanship that goes into them and the bear's beautiful form." Owen cleared his throat behind me, indicating it was time to get moving again. "I have to go now. It was nice meeting both of you." I waved and resumed our previous pace down the path.

"We'll never get anywhere if you stop every time you see something interesting," said Owen, though he sounded more amused than annoyed.

"Not much point in taking a trip if you can't enjoy the sights." I may or may not have stared too long at his chiseled jaw when I said it.

"True enough," he said, hitting me with his bright smile.

I turned my eyes carefully back to the road in front of us. I was not going to flirt with a dragon. Even a sexy one who was trying to help me save my life. "I think I see a little village way up ahead. Is that where we're going?"

"Yes?" said Owen, his eyes flicking down to my feet.

I rolled my eyes at him. "That's most of a day away. I'm fine. There will be plenty of opportunities between now and then for me to slip away." I grinned at him.

He shook his head and let out something between a chuckle and a sigh. "It's hard sometimes to tell whether you're messing with me, or whether it's the enchantment."

"It's always safe to assume I'm messing with you," I replied, my grin widening. "How about you give me more ammunition and tell me things about Faerie?"

"Are you serious?" he asked, obviously waiting for the punch line.

I carefully composed my face into a calm mask. "I'm always serious," I said in my best deadpan.

I had intended for him to laugh, but he launched into stories of his time as a kid in Faerie. He liked to talk. All the reading he did seemed to have turned him into a natural storyteller. He had a great voice for it. I relaxed for the first time in the last couple of days. The sun sunk lower in the sky, turning it a beautiful orange. The overload of my senses had become bearable, and with Owen's repeated endorsements of Faerie's better qualities, I found myself growing fond of the place. When he'd been going on for almost an hour about the adventures he'd had in the woods around us, I noticed a pattern. He told stories about the world and its fae, not his family. When he slipped and mentioned his mother or father, less frequently a sister, his story took an abrupt turn, speeding away from his family until they were so small in his rearview they might as well have not been there at all. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't done so much skirting around topics of parentage myself. Everyone knew The Morrigan was my mother, and everyone wanted to ask about it. I never let them.

Owen, and all the little things I continued to learn about him, were getting into my head. I was forgetting he was a dragon I should hate on principle. I jabbed him in the rib with an elbow. "Well, aren't you a regular Tour Guide Barbie."

"And you enjoyed it," he said, certain of himself.

And that was the problem. Time to steer this conversation into safer, more familiar territory. "So, how old were you when you stopped having these adventures in favor of opening a club and turning it into your own personal brothel?"

His jaw clenched, and he took a moment to himself before he answered, sounding surprisingly vulnerable. "I don't sleep with
that
many women."

Argh. More feelings. Must avoid at all costs.
"That's not what my friend Ava said." I hoped my voice was light and teasing. I wasn't sure I owned such a tone, but I tried.

"Ava? Ava Kinney?"

Oh, crap.
I didn't want to drag Ava into my book-thiev
ing mess just because I was uncomfortable talking to Owen. "I mentioned your place to another friend, and Ava said she knew you." There, that sounded innocent enough. Like a normal conversation among girlfriends. And it was the truth, even if those things didn't happen at the same time. I'd mentioned Smoke and Mirrors to Phoebe, who I apparently considered a friend since I'd been able to say it. And Ava had talked about knowing Owen.

"How do you know Ava?" he asked, giving nothing away with his facial expression.

I shrugged, and unable to see a trap in the question, I answered directly. "She's a work contact."

"Work? Your work or hers?"

"Both," I said, deciding brevity was the safest way to proceed.

"What does she do now?" he asked.

"She owns a business," I replied. "What's with all the questions?" I didn't want to tell her ex everything she was up to. I didn't know what I was stepping in, but there were all kinds of reasons that could be seen as a betrayal.

"Why are you being so evasive?" he asked, brow quirked.

So he'd noticed that. "I didn't mean to wander into this awkward territory. I'm not very good at conversation. I don't want to play the go-between with you and your ex, okay? You should forget everything I said and leave Ava alone."

"My ex? Is that what she told you?" he asked, a strange look on his face.

"Well—I mean—no."

"Good, because that would be creepy." He smiled fondly. "Even for Ava."

"Huh?" I was totally lost.

"Ava is my sister," he supplied, his words colored with a laugh.

"Oh." I thought about all the implications of that for a minute. Ava had a dragon for a brother, and she'd sent me to rob him. Well, that was some strange sibling rivalry. "You guys don't talk much?"

"No," he said, and scrubbed his short hair with a fist. "We haven't really talked in over a decade."

"Oh." That was probably the best thing I would come up with to say about that. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well," he said. "She's doing okay?"

"I think so," I said.

"Good," he said. He swallowed hard. "What'd she say about me?"

I smiled. "Well, she has some opinions about how many girls you take home."

He laughed. "How does she even know about that? Did you tell her?"

"No," I told him. "I got the impression she keeps an eye on you, in the way she does."

"She checks up on me with ghosts?" He sounded surprised. "Why doesn't she just—never mind."

"No, what?"

If he attempted to answer, his words were lost beneath the yowling of the cat that launched out of the underbrush and wrapped itself around his head and shoulders. At least it sounded like a cat. It didn't have fur and its skin was tinged dark purple. It had to weigh at least sixty pounds. Owen gripped it with both hands and flung it back the direction it came from. I was a ton of help, totally successful at fulfilling my job of standing there gawking.

He turned to me, eyes wide, hands patting his head. "Is my hair okay? I felt some of it pull out. I just fixed the mess you made of it." He growled. It did
not
sound human. "If I need another haircut, I'm going to be bald."

Bald, huh? He could probably pull that look off, too. It'd draw even more attention to his eyes. I shook off the little fantasy.
Ugh, what's wrong with me?
Owen looked at me expectantly. "Oh, yeah, your hair is fine." No need to mention the blood dripping down his temples; he'd figure it out soon enough. I peered into the darkening forest. "What the hell was that thing?"

"Shadowcat," he said, still checking his skull. "They're mean bastards. Drink blood." He wiped a hand across his forehead, smearing the blood that trailed from his hairline. He gave me a pointed look while he continued to wipe his face clean. "They're not too large, but they're fierce. They usually hunt in packs."

As if on cue, three of the ugly, purple beasts prowled onto the road, low growls rumbling in their chests. Their yellow eyes flicked over to me and then back to Owen, focusing on what they considered the biggest threat. That was fine with me; I worked better while being underestimated. A thump sounded behind us. I spun and found a naked, roughly humanoid, female standing on the road a dozen paces behind u
s.

Or
, maybe the shadowcats were dividing and conquering.

"You take the kitties. I've got their momma." I pulled Epic and Haiku from their sheaths.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"That's not their mother," said Owen, unnecessarily. Before I could say something snarky, he continued, "That's the decay spirit you disturbed when you walked up to that rotting tree."

Pink flowers hung in front of her neck, the same type I'd seen growing around the fallen tree
. They writhed and undulated like snakes. While I took her in, she studied me in return. Once her luminous yellow-green eyes had enough, she opened her mouth and let out a hiss, exposing pointed teeth.