King of the Unsightly (Tempting Trickery #1)

Otherworldly

T he ground rumbled beneath me as the barrier dissipated.

Gren’s vociferous voice thundered through the pine trees like a vengeful apparition wreaking havoc. “You need to listen!” He flapped his wings and glided to my side. “You can’t trust her!”

I stared at the dirt soiling my hands and knees. “It’s not like I had a choice,” I mumbled, lifting my gaze to Gren. “I needed the pain to stop.”

My words had caught him off guard, and he stood still for a moment.

Then he patted my back with his wing at an awkward angle.

If I had told myself a month ago a bird would be consoling me, I would have laughed my ass off at the sheer absurdity. Yet, he perched there, comforting me.

“Thank you, Gren, but you can stop now.” I forced a smile, stood up, and dusted off my hands and knees, but the dirt still clung to my clothes.

So Lucien and I were both played for fools. He had no idea the woman he adored was toying with him.

My heart clenched and I tried like hell to stabilize myself as I clutched my hand to my chest.

Gren spoke, cutting me off before I spiraled further. “You need to learn magic. It’s the only way to deal with them. And I’m sorry. I should have known sooner. She was a part of your mom’s coven, and she did everything in her—” A violet light shot down from the sky and struck Gren’s chest like a lightning bolt.

Gren whimpered as the magical current pulsated in waves until it evaporated.

“GREN.” I scrambled to pick him up. “Are you okay?” I smoothed his feathers out, and a couple fell from where the bolt struck him.

“Yes,” Gren croaked. He shook his wings as they expanded to a couple of feet. “The oath is more potent than I anticipated.”

“I’m starting to see that nothing comes without a price.”

Gren didn’t respond, but he knew what I meant.

My options kept getting more limited, but it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t let anyone harm Lucien. There were some lines I would never cross, and letting a friend die in my place was one of them.

I would figure out the rest of the details later. Right now, my focus stayed on retrieving the other key.

“The fae is coming. Don’t speak a word of it. No one can be trusted until we know our plan of action. I know you won’t leave your boyfriend to rot,” Gren whispered.

I almost corrected him, but it held no importance if he thought Lucien was my boyfriend, so I nodded my head.

In a millisecond, Kaschel towered above me and scanned the area. His lips pressed in a fine line, his hair now loose and tousled. He looked chaotically untamed.

Gren stuck his beak out and glared at Kaschel, oddly cute for a crow.

“Your presence disappeared and now the air is thick with magic. What happened ?” Kaschel growled, scrunching his face in aversion.

I wondered, if he thought I might betray him, would he cut me down where I stood?

I raised my chin and crossed my arms. “Can a girl not sit in the forest and be one with nature? It’s called meditating, you should try it sometime. It might fix your egotistical personality.” I pointed at him and headed back to the cabin.

Kaschel appeared stunned and he fell short of words—for once—or he didn’t want to indulge in my craziness. Well then, the feeling was mutual.

I trusted him as far as I could throw him. So telling him about his ex-lackey coming to visit and threaten me? Didn’t seem like the best idea until I understood the whole picture, which got more skewed by the second.

Gren and I wandered more than ten meters before the sinister cabin came into view.

“You’re going the wrong way.”

I shuddered from his voice—a delicate whisper in my ear. He hadn’t budged a muscle and stayed in the exact spot I left him.

Was he using magic? Uncalled for.

I took a deep breath and turned around. He definitely planned that. What a petty man.

With my head held high, I trudged to Kaschel’s side. “Then where to?” I asked and let all the annoyance roll off my tongue.

The side of Kaschel’s mouth curved into a smirk, and I yearned to wipe the conceited look right off his face.

God, he irked me in more ways than one.

Kaschel bent down, his face inches from my ear. I could snatch his ponytail if I wanted. And fuck, did I want to. My hands had an itch, and I longed to scratch it. What was the worst that could happen?

The beckoning impulse was an intense temptation, but I didn’t need to test the theory out.

I’ve been in more life-threatening situations than I could count and adding another to the list didn’t seem like my brightest idea to date. So physically antagonizing a fae? Nah, I was good. I wanted to live.

“Blàth isn’t far from here, so we’ll walk,” Kaschel said, but that meant absolutely nothing to me.

“And once we get to Blàth?” I probed, but Kaschel grunted in response like all my questions annoyed him. But if he answered them instead of acting like an enigmatic asshole, then, maybe, I would give him some grace and shut up. “Great. Really straightforward.”

I stole a quick peek in his direction, but he proceeded to ignore me.

My legs grew weaker by the second. I had no idea how long we walked. Maybe two or three hours? His idea of close was incredibly off.

My stomach growled in protest, and my cheeks reddened as it cut through the silence of the forest.

My insides rumbled again, about to cave in and gnaw away at themselves. But no way would I ask Kaschel for food. We would stop eventually. He needed sustenance too ... right?

My body screamed at me, trembling and on the verge of exhaustion, dehydration, and probably starvation when Kaschel stopped, and I crashed into his backside.

The sun descended as the sky illuminated in red and purple hues, highlighting the blue undertones in my skin. The crescent moon glowered down on us, and a chill edged down my spine.

The wind came alive, swirling around us and the soft hums of the water pillowing over faded in the background.

The beauty of the falls was unmistakable.

A low ticking resounded off the water like an imaginary grandfather clock counting down the seconds.

Kaschel’s purple eyes reflected brilliant specks of light, and I wondered if he heard the ticking as well.

The world slowed down except for Kaschel and me as the sky exhibited otherworldly signs and ripped in half. I stood there speechless, disorientated, and most of all, captivated.

Kaschel snatched my hand, and it expelled me out of whatever force attempting to pull me in.

“You’re not accustomed to the magic in my world. So don’t touch, eat, or talk to anything. Got it?” Kaschel’s eyebrows bunched together, and he pursed his lips.

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” I mumbled, not even sounding convincing to myself, but he didn’t seem to care.

Kaschel nodded his head, and we walked through the rift cutting through the soil to the sky as it swallowed us whole.