Melissa Marr: Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

Once the cart was almost in their midst, Rika raised her voice and told the crowd, “I’ve sworn myself to the Winter Queen in order to keep the Summer King from meddling in our desert. Winter will keep him in check, so Sionnach and I can keep our home safe. I surrendered part of my own freedom for you.”

Sionnach dumped Maili onto the dusty ground in the middle of the street. He untied her, but she still looked rather bruised and dirty.

“This doesn’t mean we will be gentle,” Sionnach said. “Rika is every bit as cruel as I am when our home is threatened.”

“Or more,” Rika added quietly.

“Perhaps.” Sionnach shrugged.

“For betraying your Alphas, Maili, we banish you from our desert until such time as you are judged worthy to return.” Rika lowered herself to the edge of the roof, sitting so that her feet were dangling, and then placed her hands on either side of her legs. Pushing off while simultaneously spinning around so as not to injure herself, she came to the ground. It was a bit showy, very gymnastic in the fluidity of it, far more so than Sionnach’s graceful dismount, but she figured that if she was going to co-rule the desert, she’d best start acting like it. With that in mind she crouched down and jerked Maili to her feet. “If I thought you could remain here—”

“As your dog?” Maili spat the words, her expression haughty. “No. There are other deserts and—”

“You’ll be going somewhere else.” Sionnach stepped closer to Rika. “You stabbed me. You brought the Summer King to our desert. You conspired to injure all of us.”

“I tried to take power from the weaker faeries, those not fit to hold dominion here.” Maili’s gaze darted to the faces of the faeries around them, seeking support.

The faeries weren’t responding. Some glared at her; some looked sorry for her. A few seemed gleeful.

“There is a correct way to take power: you challenge the Alpha. You do not conspire and endanger those the Alpha protects,” Sionnach reminded her and all there. “Challenges are fine; treachery is not.”

“You’ll be going to the court of the Winter Queen to serve your sentence.” Rika shuddered. “You’ll be surrounded by the cold. . . .”

Maili looked horrified for a split second, and then she launched herself at Rika.

Sionnach caught her before she could move very far, effectively stopping her forward momentum. It was an awful thing, the cold that she’d be facing, but she’d plotted to take away freedom from solitaries and had struck her Alpha. Her punishment had to be harsh.

Rika moved close enough that Maili could reach her.

Predictably, Maili swung; Rika blocked her punch.

“It’ll ache every day,” Rika whispered. “You’ll beg for it to stop.”

“You can’t . . .” Maili looked stricken, increasingly panicked.

“You broke mortals for sport after Sionnach told you to stop; you stabbed him; you offered me to Keenan . . . you offered them”—Rika gestured at the faeries in the street—“as pawns to him.”

Sionnach tightened his grip on Maili’s topknot. “Do any of you want to speak for her? Ask mercy? Offer yourself in her stead? Challenge us?”

The faeries shook their heads, and some said “no.”

One of the faeries who was Maili’s cohort previously asked, “What terms mercy?”

Rika gave Maili a pleading look, hoping to convey what she couldn’t in words without undercutting her own authority and Sionnach’s too. If Maili tried to adhere to the terms before her, she could end her punishment sooner; doing so only required humility and admission of wrongdoing. “Listen well to the Winter Queen,” Rika urged. “She has the power to set you free. Since she is my regent, I must listen to her decisions. If she decides you are suitably punished, you can come h—”

Maili’s snarl cut off Rika’s words.

At Sionnach’s gesture, several faeries stepped forward and took Maili.

“Take her to the edge of the desert,” he said. “Rika’s queen will have an escort waiting for her.”

And at that, Maili was led away.

Afterward, the faeries slowly broke off into small groups. Some talked; others simply left in silence. They’d seen the punishment that their Alphas would mete out to those who didn’t follow the rules, and it was enough incentive for them to fall into order as they’d never before done. No one who was a solitary wanted to be given to a court, and no one who chose a life in the desert wanted to be sent to the Winter Court’s abode.

After they had all left, Rika and Sionnach sat on a porch, backs to the battered building, silent and watching the crowd as the sky darkened. A coyote crept across the desert in shadow, and stars blinked to life. There were dozens of things that Rika considered saying, chastisements and compliments, but this wasn’t the time. He was her partner, and they’d found ways to set things to rights in their home. She wasn’t about to forget that he’d manipulated her, and he wasn’t liable to ignore the fact that his co-Alpha was also subject to a queen.

“Are we all right?” he asked softly.

“We will be.”

They exchanged a smile and looked out together over their kingdom.

Not long afterward, Rika walked through town alone, letting the faeries see her, making eye contact with them. She smiled; she nodded. She didn’t stop to chitchat; instead, she walked with an authority that they recognized—the sort of authority she once wore as the Winter Girl, the sort Sionnach had been asking her to exert here for years. She passed the skate park and the club. By then, faeries had gathered and begun to follow her.

Finally, she turned and walked into the open desert. Here were the even less-human-looking faeries; they, too, were watching her. Rika moved purposefully, knowing that by now scores of faeries were trailing her at a distance. They walked, crept, and strolled across the expanse of desert like a mismatched platoon of troops marching to battle.

And I will lead and protect them.

TWO YEARS LATER

Rika watched Jayce talk to other students after his class. He didn’t know she was visiting; she’d wanted to surprise him. It was a strange feeling, looking at him this way. He seemed to laugh more freely when he was at his university campus, and as she watched him, she wondered if this was where they’d been meant to be all along: him living his normal life, the sort of life she never had, and her learning to let him go.

“He still loves you,” a voice said.

She turned to see the faery she’d been friends with longer than Jayce had lived. Sionnach’s smile was sad, but he didn’t have pity in his eyes.

“I know he does.” Rika glanced back at Jayce. “He’s not going to be content to stay in a cave in the desert though. He hasn’t left me yet, but he doesn’t visit much any more. He wants his own family, to travel, more and more things I can’t give him. We talked about it last week again. That’s why I came to see him.”

“Mortals,” Sionnach murmured. “Such confusing creatures.”

“Says the faery who can’t seem to stop dating them,” Rika teased. “What’s the latest one’s name?”

“I’ll let you know after the next party.” Sionnach draped his arm over her shoulders.

Together they watched Jayce. He looked older after only two years, and his interests were changing so quickly. He’d been her first relationship in decades; truth be told, he was her first healthy relationship despite her having lived for well over a century. What she’d had with Keenan was a cruel game: he’d merely played a role so he could steal her mortality, and she’d spent years convincing other girls not to love him. Admittedly, the whole thing was because of a curse , but that didn’t change reality. Jayce, however, had loved her for who she was. Theirs was that innocent first love she’d wanted forever ago. It just took a while to find it.