Desert Tales by Melissa Marr Page B

what some would call an unfriendly land. None of that changed the fact that he’d lived here his whole life and was excited by the prospect of someone unusual.
    They reached the cave where she lived, and he stiffened at the sight of her friend Sionnach, who sat on a small ledge, kicking his feet like a child and watching them with an unreadable expression. He’d obviously seen their approach, but he made no move to greet them.
    â€œShy,” Rika said, her tone holding something of both a greeting and a warning.
    He flashed teeth at them in a smile that didn’t look very friendly, and Jayce tensed. He’d thought that the two were friends, but right now, he wondered if they’d argued or he’d misunderstood their friendship. He stepped closer to Rika. Sure, she’d more than held her own in the fight at Dead Ends, but for some reason, Sionnach seemed more menacing than that group.
    For a fraction of a moment, Jayce could have sworn that Sionnach’s ears were pointed and—disturbingly—that he had a fluffy fox tail that flicked to the side. He blinked to try to clear his eyes, thinking maybe he had sand in them and it was messing with his vision.
    â€œSomething wrong?” Sionnach said in a teasing voice.
    â€œShy!” This time Rika definitely sounded like she was warning him.
    â€œSeeing things maybe?”
    Jayce looked at Rika and then down at his ankles. “Maybe I was bitten.” He lifted one foot and looked at his hiking boots. There were no holes where something could have gotten to his skin. He didn’t feel like he had heat stroke, so he suspected he wasn’t hallucinating. He looked back at Sionnach, who was now standing at the mouth of the cave.
    Rika sighed while staring at Sionnach, and then she looked at Jayce. “You’re not seeing things.” She motioned toward the rocks. “Climb up. We can talk inside.”
    Mutely Jayce did as she asked. Sionnach was standing inside the cave, his back against the wall and body angled to the side. It was dim enough that Jayce couldn’t look at his ears without going over close to him. He didn’t need to do that though because in the next moment, Sionnach said, “I’m not human.”
    He pushed his hair away from his ears, revealing pointed tips. He flashed his teeth at Jayce again, showing sharper-than-normal incisors. Finally, he stared at Jayce as he flicked his tail forward.
    Jayce didn’t fall to the ground in shock, but he did lower himself to the cave floor. “Huh.”
    â€œI’m not either.” Rika’s voice was soft, but it still felt loud in the silence that followed Sionnach’s little show. “I used to be. I told you that.”
    â€œI thought it was, I don’t know, a metaphor or something.” Jayce looked from her to the guy with the fox tail and back. “Do you have a tail too?”
    â€œNo.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I was human, like you.”
    â€œAnd now you’re . . . what?”
    â€œFaeries,” Sionnach answered. “We live for pretty much ever, and we have some traits that are different.”
    â€œI thought faeries were little winged—”
    â€œNo,” Sionnach all but snarled. “We’re not the things of children’s stories. I don’t know when that rumor started, but we’re not going to throw glitter at you and simper. We’re the things that nightmares—”
    â€œShy,” Rika cut him off. She sighed and walked closer to Jayce. Cautiously, like she expected him to flee, she sat down beside him. “There are faeries who are frightening, but not all of us. I don’t mean you any harm. I like you, and I hope you still want to . . . be around me now that you know.”
    Jayce looked at her and then at Sionnach. Some part of his mind wanted to explain this away, to have an answer that proved that they were messing with him. The