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Only I need that damn pendant.
And the brambles are right there. I can see them, beyond the trunk where he’s seated. I’m pretty sure that’s the spot.
All I have to do is ignore the half-naked man on the log and creep quietly behind the trees to reach the brambles. Grab the pendant—if it’s really there—and run back home.
That simple.
So do it, Selina, I tell myself and take a deep breath, stepping toward the brambles, keeping an eye on the man, my bottines whispering over moss and mud. I’m quiet as a mouse, making no sound, so close now, so close…
“Going somewhere?” a deep voice says, startling me so badly I yelp, and when I look back at him, he’s grinning.
A few things strike me instantly.
He’s devastatingly handsome, eyes bright, jaw square, a light blue braid draped over one shoulder, hanging against a muscular chest.
But from the waist down, his body tapers into a long, powerful blue fishtail.
And from the fingers of one hand swings my pendant, glittering in the light.
2
SELINA
My pendant. He has my pendant.
And my Gods, he’s beautiful. I’ve never seen a man like him—the wild blue hair and that long braid, those bright blue eyes and wide smile, that chiseled jaw, the strength in his torso and his muscled arms.
But there is the fishtail—and when he tilts his head to the side, gazing at me, I see his pointed ears.
Fae.
Of course he’s Fae. Greater Fae.
My feet step back of their own volition, my body shaking, a little voice in my head screaming for me to leave, to run. All Fae are dangerous, but the Greater Fae even more so. We rarely see them in the human world and I’m unused to thinking of a creature that looks so much like us—with our body and traits—as one of the Cunning Folk, but there he is, in all his naked glory.
At least the tail seems to be hiding whatever is going on down there… though there is a kind of… rod there? At his crotch?
His gaze moves from my face down to where I’m staring, and his smile shifts, turning into a grin. Dimples appear in his cheeks. His eyes darken, and he lowers my pendant, shifting on the log. His tail splashes in the water.
The sound breaks the spell and I gasp. I have to go, yeah, and I take a few more steps back, but…my pendant.
“Human,” he says, and his deep voice seems to echo in my bones, sending shivers all over my skin. “Haven’t seen one from up close in a while.”
“Well, I haven’t seen a Fae in a while, either,” I say, swallowing down my fear and planting my feet in the soil.
“Or never,” he muses, tilting his head to the other side. “Maybe you’ve never seen aman, either, from the way you’re staring.”
“I’ve seen men,” I mutter stubbornly, and it’s true. I’ve seen men.
Only none like him.
He’s so handsome it hurts my eyes, hurts my mind.
Though it’s hard to focus on that when his great blue tail splashes in the water again, jolting me.
“Hm.” He regards me from under dark lashes, clenching the chain of my pendant in his big fist. Patches of blue gleam on the back of his arms and hands—scales. He has scales on his arms. “Are you sure about that? You look shocked.”
“You have a tail!” I stammer, annoyed and scared.
