Page 80 of Fae Games

This was it. I was going to drown.

The soles of my feet hit something soft and silky, and I bounced up. Hope filled my chest, and I raised my arms, trying to make an upward crawl to the surface.

My head spun. My lungs screamed for air. My every instinct urged me to take a breath to stop the lightheadedness and to stay conscious. Instead, I opened my eyes and fought.

Something swam toward me in the dark. A figure with flowing hair that could easily have been one of the princes if that hair hadn’t been silver. I continued struggling toward the surface. It was probably a guard or someone who had noticed me fall.

Moments later, my head broke the surface of the water, and I gulped in a noisy breath of air. A manicured garden stretched out to a copse of trees, which looked like my best escape route. I swam to the water’s edge, each stroke feeling like pulling anchors in the sodden arms of my too-large guard’s shirt.

“Nay!” shouted a watery voice from behind.

Terror exploded across my heart, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the furious features of a male more beautiful than King Oberon and the princes. Long, silver hair flowed down pale, chiseled features like a mane, and his features twisted into a snarl that made my heart stop.

I spun around and flailed through the water toward the shore. This had to be a shape-shifter and not a very good one. There was something wrong with his mouth—oversized teeth set within inhumanly long gums.

“Nay!” he screamed.

A cold hand wrapped around my ankle and dragged me under the water. Holding my breath, I swung my arm out and whacked him across the face, which only lengthened into the muzzle of a horse.

“Fuck,” I screamed into the water. “Kelpie!”

The kelpie flung me out of the water as if I weighed nothing and then caught me on its horse-shaped back. I flung my bodyweight left to fall off the monster, but he rolled along with me and plunged deep into the water.

My pulse hammered on my eardrums with both fists, urging me to do something or face an even worse death. Kelpies were terrifying creatures that often took the shape of a handsome man to lure females to death. They ate anything—faerie, human, or beast—they weren’t fussy.

I scrambled through my hair for metal but found nothing. Regret slapped me across the face, chastising me for not taking back my cock ring. As I lowered my hand, my fingers brushed against something hard.

The guard’s keys.

Trying not to inhale the moat water, I unclipped the keys from my belt and pressed the iron into the kelpie’s neck. The creature surged up to the water’s surface and screamed.

A memory popped in from nowhere. Elijah said he blew in a kelpie’s ears to make it take him in and out of the United Nations stores.

By now, the kelpie had transformed into a white horse with a mane of silver. I clung to its neck as it tried to dip back into the water.

“No, you don’t,” I yelled, filling the kelpie’s ear with my breath.

“Nay!” he screamed.

I pressed the iron keys against its neck, not feeling a trace of guilt. It would have dragged me to the bottom of the moat and eaten all but my entrails.

“Take me to the Royal Fae Academy and make sure nobody sees us!”

With a speed that made my stomach lurch, the kelpie leaped through the air. Wings that at first appeared transparent sprouted from his shoulders, making me rear back with a scream.

I gripped the creature’s flanks with my thighs and wrapped my arms around its neck. The kelpie’s wings shimmered like water on a lake, and I turned and stared at Snaefell Palace.

Sunlight glittered off its white walls, adding to the majesty of its tall towers. I wondered how high up my dungeon had been located, turned back in the direction of the academy, and sighed.

“What a pity such ugly people occupy such a beautiful place.”

“Nay,” said the kelpie.

“Oh, shut up.”

Elijah was right about one thing. Riding on the back of a kelpie had several benefits as long as you knew the secret of controlling them. We overtook faeries flying solo, fast-moving flocks of birds, and flying carriages pulled by white horses. Not a single person noticed us.

The wind blew through my wet hair and soaked clothes, chilling the outer layer of my skin to freezing point, and my teeth chattered so hard, I struggled to blow in the kelpie’s ears. I couldn’t feel my fingers, couldn’t feel my toes, and hunger gnawed at my insides with sharp teeth, but none of that mattered.