Desert Tales by Melissa Marr Page A

her nor denying her claim. He picked up a rock and tossed it into the distance. They both watched it hit the ground before he stood and brushed the sand from his legs. He glanced down at her. “You should tell him what you are. I’ll do the same.” He touched his misshapen ears. “I suspect the look of me without a glamour will convince him faster than anything you say.”
    Rika came to her feet and impulsively hugged Sionnach. “You’re a good friend.”
    â€œNot always,” he murmured.
    She laughed. “For a faery, you’re amazing.”
    He said nothing as he walked toward the gap in the rocks that would lead to the more open desert. He stayed silent as they walked toward Silver Ridge. It was only when they were almost at the town that he stopped her with a hand on her arm and said, “Don’t forget that you are fey too.”
    At that, Rika stared at him, mouth open but no words coming to her lips. She knew what she was: she’d been mortal for less than two decades and faery for much longer. She wanted to argue with him, but all of her words were close enough to lies that they dried up before she could utter them.
    â€œYou have held yourself apart from us for years, Rika. Tell your mortal what you are, but stop hiding yourself away from the fey who live here.” Then Sionnach gestured back at the land they’d just crossed. “Bring him to your den, princess. I’ll be there to help him believe you.”
    Rika was silent as he turned and fled. She knew that her insistence on seclusion frustrated him, but she hadn’t realized just how much until that moment. She’d been separate from the faeries in both the Winter Court and Summer Court, and they’d seemed to prefer it. Since she’d been in the desert, she’d assumed that the faeries here wanted the same thing, that her origin as something else bothered them. Faeries had a long history of treating mortals like playthings, sometimes like beloved toys but more often like things that could be discarded or broken. She’d watched them knock Jayce to what could have been serious injury only yesterday. She wasn’t like that—or okay with it.
    Still pondering the things Sionnach had said, and trying not to think about things he had left unsaid, she walked through town until she found Jayce. He was sitting with Del and Kayley, and they all seemed to be having a loud discussion about the best way to reach a petroglyph site. When Jayce saw her, he smiled.
    When she was near enough that only he would hear, she leaned in and whispered, “I can answer those questions if you want.”
    He leaned back to look into her eyes. “When?”
    â€œNow.”
    At that, he stood and told his friends, “I’m out.”
    Del’s expression wasn’t friendly. “Too good to be around—”
    â€œStop,” Kayley hissed at him. She flashed a smile at Rika and said, “Sorry.”
    â€œWe’ll be back,” Jayce offered. “We just need to talk.”
    Kayley nodded, and Del made a shooing motion with his hand. “Go.”
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    When they reached the open desert, Rika took his hand in hers and reminded him, “Remember to run.”
    Then they raced across the desert as they had when she’d taken him to her home the first time. It was an unsettling feeling, as if the ground didn’t quite exist but was instead almost like water. He felt his feet touch and slide, but it wasn’t the same as stepping on solid surface. He couldn’t decide if he liked it or found it frightening. What he did know was that it was different. She was different, and out here where the world was a vast expanse of the same thing, different was extra exciting. He loved the desert, the way the sky seemed to stretch out endlessly and the air sometimes seemed to leave a trace of a taste on his lips. He loved the fierce and sometimes odd creatures that thrived in