She laughed to herself.
“What’s so funny?” Griff asked.
“You wouldn’t happen to be spiriting me away to Mordor, would you?”
His brow scrunched in confusion. “No. We’re just riding horses.”
She swallowed another laugh. “Okay, good.”
Brea didn’t know when Griff packed food into his saddlebags or how she didn’t see him do it, but he kept producing wrapped parcels like the bags were one of those clown cars where the creepy clowns just kept appearing.
“You spell those saddlebags or something?” She sat underneath the single tree atop the hill where Griff had brought her. Flowers spread across the valley on the other side, an explosion of yellows and reds.
Griff gave her a what-are-you-talking-about look. “We don’t do spells. That’s not how our magic works.”
“Calm down. It was a joke.”
He set a blanket down and placed a loaf of bread at the center, along with several hunks of cheese and dried meat, and a wrapped bunch of figs before plunking himself down. Brea reached forward for some cheese but jerked her hand back when grasses grew up over her lap.
Jumping to her feet, she backed away. “What the heck?”
Griff shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips.
Flowers popped up from where there had been none before, and the faint breeze turned into a wind tunnel aimed directly at Brea. She started running, but it followed her, blowing her hair across her face.
Only moments ago, she’d marveled at how amazing this place was. Now, she didn’t like it one bit.
“Griff!” she yelled. “I know you’re doing this. Stop!”
“Stop it yourself!” he called back.
How dare he? Dark anger fizzled down her arms, pooling in her hands. This wasn’t funny. Power seeped out of her fingertips.
“Release it, Brea.”
“I don’t know how!”
Light shone underneath her fingernails as she flicked them toward the wind tunnel, wanting, needing it to work.
Nothing did.
So, she did the only thing she could think of, the one thing she was good at.
She ran.
Mack stood closest, and she launched herself into his saddle the way Myles taught her to without any help. Digging her heels into his sides, she urged Mack into a run and took off down into the flowering valley, thundering across the beautiful landscape, leaving trampled flowers in her wake.
Story of her life.
It took her a moment to realize the wind tunnel hadn’t followed her. She pulled back on the reins, and Mack reared up as he neighed. She squeezed her thighs to keep her seat as he thudded back down and turned back to the hill where Griff stood watching her.
As she neared him, the shock on his face sent a wave of satisfaction through her. He deserved it after trying to force some kind of magic out of her, a magic she hadn’t known about until a few days ago.
That was the one part of all this that still didn’t feel real.
“You lied to me.” His jaw clenched.
She shrugged and jumped down from Mack, landing gracefully. “It’s called hustling.” She bumped his shoulder as she walked past him to get to the food. “Maybe if you weren’t so bent on helping the poor weak human girl learn basic things, you’d realize I’m more than you think.” She sat down and ripped a hunk of bread off the loaf.
He kneeled across from her. “But… that… I don’t even ride that well.”
“That sounds like a you problem.” She laughed at his stunned expression. “I grew up on a farm, Griff, of course I know how to ride horses.”
He still hadn’t taken his eyes from her. “What more don’t I know about you, Brea Robinson?”
She met his gaze. “This magic—or whatever cheesy way you weirdoes describe it—I can’t do it. I can’t control it. The next time you try to make me, I’ll throw you in that deceptively beautiful lake. And I won’t cry when the mermaids eat you.”
“What’s a mermaid?”
“Seriously? Don’t all you fairytale people know each other?” She wasn’t sure what existed or didn’t exist anymore, but this fae world made her realize anything was possible.
Griff smiled. “I think I like you.”
She grunted. “Well, everyone has their flaws.”
Waiting sucked. Brea started losing track of the days since Griff pulled her through that portal. Not much changed in the cottage she’d considered idyllic at first. Now, it was mostly boring.
She spent most of her time with Mack and Maisie, enjoying their stoic silence. Leith was like a ghost. Tasks got done, but they rarely saw him. Each evening, Brea sat at the table across from Griff to eat dinner. It was becoming her favorite time of day, the only time he wasn’t busy and would sit there for hours talking to her about anything and everything.
She’d never been much of a talker with anyone other than Myles, but something about this man brought it out of her. She told him stories of the human world, though he knew the basics since he’d traveled there a few times on missions for his queen.
Even the topic of Myles came up. He assured her what happened wasn’t her fault, but if she couldn’t blame herself, then who? It was easier not to think about it, and Griff made that easy. His charming smiles and gregarious stories filled her with a kind of laughter she’d rarely experienced in her life.
One night, he leaned across the table, meeting her eyes. “Let’s go outside.”
“Why?”
One corner of his mouth curved up. “Do you have to question everything?”
“Yes.” Despite her protests, she stood and gestured for him to follow her out into the warm night air. A full moon shone brightly overhead, surrounded by a scattering of stars.
“I used to watch the stars a lot at home.” She sat on the ground and leaned back against the side of the cottage. “We had a barn behind the house. I’d climb into the loft and out the window to pull myself onto the roof.”
She hadn’t even brought Myles there. It was a place that belonged to her alone. And now Griff.
“Sounds dangerous.” There was no chastisement in his tone, only curiosity.
“I know you think humans are so… breakable, but trust me, it was better than being inside my house.”
“Why?”
She didn’t want to explain the sordid details of her family or her parents’ constant berating to a man she barely knew, no matter how much she’d started to trust him. “That’s a story for a different time.” She leaned forward against her knees and drew in the dirt near her feet. “So… elves… do you all like live forever and stuff?”
His lips quirked at the term elves, but he didn’t correct her for once. “Not forever, but we do live longer than humans.”
“Let me guess… you’re over a hundred years old.”
He laughed. “Thanks for that. I didn’t think I looked a day over sixty. No, I’m nineteen.”
She looked up. “Only two years older than me. I… didn’t expect that. How come you live out here all alone then?”
“I’m not alone. I have Leith, Mack, and Maisie.”