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red power she’d gleaned from the fae Protector before her.
If only she could share the truth with Malik, she could end this absurd chase through the forest with him. Yet, even as this thought ran through her head, she knew she didn’t want Malik to ever stop giving chase. She’d lived such a solitary life for decades that just having him near had added a layer of joy to her existence she never wanted to give up.
Almost two years ago now, she’d seen him on market day in Cherry Hollow, one of Ashleaf’s largest towns. She’d gone there cloaked with a fae charm so that anyone who saw her wouldn’t pay her the smallest attention. She went often to various towns and villages throughout Ashleaf to buy her food and other supplies, though hidden behind her spells.
But on this night, she’d seen Malik outside a tavern, standing with several of his Guardsmen across from a pen of goats for sale. They were each having a pint, relaxing. Confident that neither he nor his Guardsmen would be able to see through her charm, she allowed herself to watch Malik and his men. She’d enjoyed just listening to the occasional burst of male laughter.
Then Malik had laughed at something one of his lieutenants had said, and something inside Willow’s chest had started to ache. That smile had sent hooks deep into her heart, especially since she knew for a certainty that Malik rarely smiled, that a great sadness ruled his life. He was a thoroughly responsible ruler who took his job as seriously as she took her own. And he faced challenges within his realm that she honestly didn’t know how he bore as well as he did.
How long she’d stood like that just staring at him she didn’t know. But she took the time to memorize his strong cheekbones and thickly arched brows, his large, brown eyes. He looked like a man who could have starred in some of the Hollywood movies she liked to watch. He was that attractive.
She knew a lot about him as well, and about his constant effort to bring The Society under control.
When Malik had taken over as Mastyr of Ashleaf over two hundred years ago, he’d instituted a great number of laws meant to protect the half-breed population of the realm. But Mastyr Axton, who Malik had supplanted, was believed to have created The Society that same year. Despite the laws making it illegal to vilify, maim, or murder wraiths or half-breeds, The Society had set about the genocidal task in secret, year after year, working through the horribly effective method of small cells to kill the innocent.
Mastyr Axton was a nightmare no one had been able to get rid of legally. In public, he denounced The Society, but had a huge following because he wanted to restore the old ways. In other words, he wanted all wraiths and half-breeds dead without ever using those particular words.
Axton was the consummate hypocrite and liar.
Malik, on the other hand, had won her full support from the moment she learned that he’d been the one to make it a crime to hurt wraiths or their relatives.
But as she stood at the edge of the town of Cherry Hollow that night, longing for the man, Malik had suddenly shifted in her direction and met her gaze.
He’d seen through her charm!
No other mastyr in Ashleaf had ever been able to penetrate one of her spells, not even Axton, the second most powerful vampire in the realm.
She’d almost smiled and waved, until she recalled that she wasn’t a normal fae living a normal life in Ashleaf. She was the sole Protector of twenty-thousand souls, who lived in the center of the realm and depended on her for survival.
She’d turned away shortly after and drifted into the forest, her heart downcast, unaware that he’d followed her until he’d called out her name. “Willow. Is that you? Where have you been all these years?”
She’d glanced at him over her shoulder, her heart in her throat. But she couldn’t talk to him because the temptation to want more from him than she could possibly give in return would be too great. So she fled, using the power she’d gained over the years, to half-run, half-fly through the forest at a speed not even Malik could quite equal.
She just hadn’t expected him to give chase.
He’d almost caught her three times before she reached the safety of the vines at the entrance to her land.
Fortunately, his power had limits and he wasn’t able to penetrate the shield the vines created for her.
That night, two years ago, she’d cried herself to sleep, knowing what she was missing and unable to act on her simple desire to talk with him or even to wave at him.
Maybe it was the nature of the chase that had worked each of them up so thoroughly, but if so many people hadn’t depended on her for their sheer existence, she would have long since given herself, body and soul, to the Mastyr of Ashleaf Realm.
Now, as she held the vines and watched him leave, her heart ached all over again. She became aware of a heaviness in her chest that she seemed to carry with her all the time now, yet another indication just how much she desired him.
As he finally disappeared, taking off in flight in order to get home before dawn, Willow came back to herself. She needed to get it together and not let her protection of the wraith colony flag.
But at exactly that moment, she felt one of the most powerful wraiths within the colony calling to her telepathically. A sense of fear came through in a way that left Willow panicky.
Illiandra, what’s wrong?
A near-breach! Willow, have you not been attending? Your protective shield is under attack.
Now frightened that she might have imperiled so many lives, she released the vines and turned all her energy on the shield that protected the colony. That’s when she felt a very specific fae charm burning through the colony’s secret entrance.
She had to get over there right away.
Illiandra, apologies. I’m on it.
