Changeling: An Appalachian Magic Novel Book 2 (Appalachian Magic Series) Read online

  He lifted his head and his eyes were dark with passion, gleaming with intensity. “You’re beautiful, Skye. Incredible.”

  This man, this completely sexy man, thought she was incredible.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, suddenly shy.

  He gave a lopsided grin. “You’re welcome,” he said formally, teasingly.

  “You, um, look really good, too.” Sweet goddesses, she sounded like an idiot. An inexperienced, bumbling idiot. Heat blossomed on her cheeks and neck.

  He arched a brow as he took in her discomfort.

  “I . . . I’m not sure about this Kheelan. It’s happening so fast.” She blushed under his look of desire. “I mean, I want to but I’ve never, well, you know.”

  He sighed and briefly touched his forehead to hers. “I get it.

  It’s okay.”

  “Don’t be mad.” Skye hated the quiver in her voice.

  He ran a hand down her long hair. “Stop talking in apologies,” he said, his voice still husky with need. “I didn’t plan on making love to you anyway. It’s too soon.”

  Skye brightened. “Then don’t stop kissing me.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to his cheek.

  With both hands, he firmly grabbed her arms and set her away. “Not a good idea.” His grin was rueful. “I seem to lose control around you.”

  She couldn’t help grinning. It wasn’t every day an awesome hunk said that, at least not in her world. “If you’re sure—” She got off his lap.

  “Very.” Kheelan ran a hand through his hair and paced, putting some distance between them.

  Losing control, that was the last thing he needed right now. Only a week until Samhain and the pressure was on to find out what was happening with the pixies and bargain with the Fae for his freedom. Annwynn had warned him the situation was dire. Every day that passed meant the Unseelie were probably gathering more information from the pixie spies about battle plans and strategies.

  Somehow, the pixies were being lured and trapped. It was no secret in the Fae kingdom that the small pixies were used as messengers and spies for the Seelie. They were quick and extremely physically appealing to the occasional humans able to lift the veil between their worlds. And that veil was now at its thinnest. The entire spirit world gained energy and power around Samhain. Energy the Unseelie fed on, making them extremely dangerous to humans as well as the Seelie fae.

  None of that was as important at this moment as his alarming attraction to Skye. No doubt she saw him as more experienced. But that experience was limited to the occasional fairy lovers whose teasing caresses were as cold as the Pacific Ocean in winter. None had her warmth, her innocence. Everything about Skye steamed with soft intensity.

  He was actually inside her apartment. Kheelan placed his hand over the tangerine glow of her lamp, watched his skin appear red, and remembered the first night he stood outside her building, drawn to this lighted warmth. To Skye. He’d hoped to establish a connection and obtain her help.

  The reality was more than he bargained for. Kissing Skye was no longer merely a way to gain information; this was an unfamiliar descent into a mind-blowing, splintering delight. It was dangerous. If he wasn’t cautious, he could lose himself in her easy sympathy and human pleasures. He took a deep, bracing breath. No big deal. You temporarily lost your head because she’s human and you’ve never been intimate with your own kind.

  A golden glint from a stone on the coffee table caught his attention. Curious, Kheelan picked it up.

  “That’s goldstone.” Skye walked up behind him. “First invented by alchemists trying to make gold.”

  Kheelan held it up to a lamp and its sparkle grew. “What exactly is it?”

  “Copper specks suspended inside silica glass. Isn’t it awesome?”

  Her face was animated. The girl really dug her crystals. Kheelan lifted the stone and held it against her orange hair. “Almost a perfect match for your hair color.” He moved to return the goldstone to the table.

  Skye’s warm hands touched his own as she curved his fingers around the stone’s glittering surface. “You keep it. If someone is attracted to a crystal, it means they need the stone’s energy.”

  An unexpected, unfamiliar pang of warmth shot through his chest. No one had ever given him a gift. Sure, it was only a rock, but still . . . “What energy does the stone carry?”

  “It’s said to remind you of your life’s dreams and gives you determination to reach your goals.”

  Ah yes, his goals. Kheelan pocketed the goldstone. Time to get back to business. He opened the glass vial he kept on him at all times, put a drop on his index finger, then touched both eyes. After the initial tingle on his eyelids, Kheelan walked to the window and looked into the night. They were out there. Of course, they were. Once his sight adjusted to the darkness, Kheelan spotted a spriggan staring back at him.

  No, not one. Hundreds of spriggans glared toward the window, their pukey, yellow-green eyes glowing like pinpoints of toxic waste. Small, grotesque creatures, they usually traveled in bands, robbing and stealing . . . or worse. Their number, like the rest of the Unseelie creatures, increased near Samhain. But this year was different, more sinister. They were more aggressive, more vigilant, and he appeared to be their target. His breath caught, and he turned to Skye as she came toward him with her kind eyes and flaming red hair.

  That. Red. Hair. He almost slapped his forehead in disgust. Took him long enough to figure it out. The Unseelies weren’t interested in him, a mere changeling. Skye was their target.

  Dread consumed him. They can’t know she’s The One. If they thought she was, she’d already be dead.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Skye tilted her head to one side, a teasing upturn in her lips. She touched his arm.

  Kheelan scowled and turned away, jerking the curtain closed.

  “You need to keep these closed at all times.”

  “Don’t lecture me.” Her voice cut sharp as scissors. “I know to be careful living alone. I’m not stupid.”

  “They’re out there, Skye,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Who’s out there?” She reached past him to reopen the curtain and he grabbed her hand, but not before she’d taken a peek. “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  He sighed, knowing what he must do. So far, she’d only seen the cute pixies, the fairies of all the beloved children’s fairy tales. If she was going to help him, she needed to see the fae in all their myriad shapes and forms. It meant destroying her illusions.

  Kheelan held up the vial. “You’ll need a drop of this on your eyelids to see them. The effect lasts several hours.”

  Skye lifted her chin. “Let me see.”

  10

  Out Of The Shadows

  The warm ointment prickled the thin skin of her eyelids. She opened her eyes and met Kheelan’s. He looked the same as ever. She cast a quick gaze over the room. Everything appeared normal.

  Skye wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed. She always felt like such a failure in all things metaphysical. What came so easily to her family and best friend, Callie, eluded her.

  Kheelan flipped off the light then nodded toward the drapes.

  “Ready?”

  So she hadn’t failed . . . yet. She nodded. His hand slowly pulled back the veil to the night and she moved alongside him, face close enough to the window to feel the chill and form breath rings of fog on the panes.

  Hundreds of huge creatures crowded the poplar tree across the street. They were larger and uglier than buzzards with lime-green claws as large as a human arm. Their eyes were the same putrid color. But the scariest thing about them was the large beaks and tongues with distended fangs that glowed like fiery daggers.

  “What—?” She lifted a finger to the apparitions.

  “Sluaghs. They devour the spirits of dead humans and only travel at night in packs.”

  Skye hugged her arms and muttered. “I wish they could all be like the pixies.”

  “You wa
nted unicorns and rainbows.” Kheelan’s words were tart as cherries. “Instead, I’ve shown you goblins and shadows.”

  Skye studied his tight face, read the self-loathing in the drawn lips and hooded eyes. This is what he has dealt with all his life. And in spite of his smoldering resentment, he didn’t begrudge Skye her human innocence, didn’t enjoy shattering her safe world.

  Kheelan jerked the curtains shut. “A mere taste of what we’re up against.” The topaz gleam in his eyes sharpened and crystallized. “I won’t lie. I need you, more than I’ve ever needed anybody. But I won’t push it. You can back out now if you want.” He was an eddy of dark undercurrents.

  The concern touched Skye to the core. He wanted her, needed her, just as she was at this very moment. If Mom were here, she would order Skye to do the right thing. Dad would bail and run. Callie would proceed with confidence. Michael and Tanner, in their continued avoidance of their witchy ancestry, would pass on the challenge. It wasn’t in their college-loving, football-playing, magic-avoiding agenda.

  She must be crazy.

  “Are you in?” he asked, his body still and intense, a crouching panther.

  “All the way.”

  Kheelan’s muscles relaxed, the brow smoothed out. “I’m not sure the Seelie Court fairies deserve you. Actually, I’m sure they don’t.”

  “I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for you.”

  His eyes flashed astonishment, followed by a peculiar combination of relief, guilt, and gratitude.

  Skye closed her eyes and forced herself to think of the problem at hand. The buzzing noises in the shop’s basement crowded to the front of her mind. “I know where the fairies are trapped and killed. They’ve even flown around me, asking for help.” She put a hand to her mouth. “All those things on the floor, the dried-up insect-looking things with wings. They’re dead fairies, aren’t they?”

  His eyes darkened, the topaz flecks burning. “I’m sure of it.”

  Skye groaned in disgust. “I saw those beautiful creatures flying outside when you gave me the hagstone. I even think I saw them once when I was little, thinking they were fireflies. Of course, I’ll help them. But what can I do?”

  “I want to go down in the basement and have a look for myself. Could you arrange that? Sometime when Kyle’s not around. I don’t want to freak him out, and I don’t want anyone at the store to see us together and make connections or ask questions.”

  She gave him a reproachful look. “You think an employee at the store is doing this.”

  “Absolutely. Someone, or more likely, several people there, have figured out a way to lure pixies in.”

  Skye crossed her arms. “No one at the store would do that, except maybe Glenna.” She shook her head. “Scratch that. Glenna’s not smart enough to put together a trap.”

  “I know you don’t want to believe it. You imagine everyone is kind like you, but face facts, Skye. The world is a dangerous place, far more than you’ve ever realized.”

  She shivered at the ominous words. “There’s only one way to find out, and I say the sooner we know the truth the better.” She walked over to her purse and pulled out a set of keys. “Let’s go right now.”

  Kheelan checked his watch. “It’s 9:00. You think everyone’s gone for the night?”

  Skye grabbed a coat and hunted for a flashlight. “They should be by the time we get there.”

  The only light in The Green Fairy was in the crystal display shelves, the rocks burning liked multi-hued hot embers from alien planets. With a mixture of relief and guilt, Skye entered, using the keys Claribel had given her. Ditch the guilt. Her boss would do the same thing given a chance to save pixies. As soon as she locked the door behind Kheelan, she leaned against it with jellied knees.

  The trip to town had been horrendous. Once her eyes were opened from the ointment Skye saw creatures worse than any nightmare. Beasts with human torsos and snake tails; hobgoblins with malicious, red eyes and pointed ears; ugly hag women with jagged, bloodstained teeth; wailing banshees with faces etched in terror and elongated, skeleton hands that clawed through the winter wind. Kheelan said it was always worse as they approached Samhain, but that he’d never seen it so bad.

  She didn’t know how he stood it. From what he’d told her, he didn’t have much choice in the matter. Skye turned on her flashlight and kept the light pointed downwards. “This way,” she whispered, walking to the back of the store. As she went down the steep steps, she gripped the iron railing for support, thankful Kheelan was along. She would never come down here alone at night again.

  Skye directed the flashlight beam on the floor and saw it was completely covered again with the brown, dried-out carcasses of dead fairies. She gasped when the light appeared to skip and jump of its own accord, then realized it was only because she was shaking.

  Kheelan’s large hand covered her own. “I’ll take that.”

  The light steadied and she followed him farther back, wincing as their steps crunched the little skeletons.

  Kheelan bent to examine one. “They’re pixie bodies all right.” He straightened and they trudged forward into the dark recess.

  Skye waited, fearful yet hopeful, that the fairies would come to her again with their buzzing pleas for help.

  The silence was deep and unrelenting. She was sure they were the only mortals present.

  “What’s behind this door?”

  Skye jumped at his voice. “I didn’t know there was one down here.”

  Kheelan aimed the flashlight at the door handle and gave it a tug. “Locked.”

  Skye raised her keys to the light and they tinkled like a faint echo of tiny bells. There were over a dozen keys, but on the fourth attempt, the door gave way with a long, drawn-out creak. A draft of dank, stale air assaulted her nose, and again she smelled that vaguely familiar scent of licorice and menthol.

  “Do you recognize that smell?” she asked.

  He sniffed, wrinkled his forehead in concentration, and then shook his head. “No. Could be some kind of herb.” He reached overhead and pulled a chain. A single bulb, suspended by wire from the low ceiling, thrust the room in sudden light.

  A rough-hewn wooden workbench ran along the wall to the back. In the middle was a clean, elaborate crystal decanter and fountain with a set of glasses set around it like diamonds on a chain.

  “It’s beautiful whatever it is.” She walked closer and touched the unusual fountain whose base had the figurine of a woman, sculpted in silver and holding up a large glass bubble. At the bottom of the bubble were spigots. There was also a crystal tray with tiny, wrapped packages of sugar cubes and two large flat-bottomed, slotted, silver spoons. Oh, she knew what this was about.

  Kheelan lifted a spoon as Skye rummaged through one of the wooden crates and pulled out a large bottle marked Absinthe,

  Esmeralda Distillery, 150 proof alcohol.

  “Swamp juice.” He nodded. “Absinthe. Also known as the green muse, nectar of the poets, the poor man’s cocaine, and most interesting of all, la Fee Verte, which is French for The Green Fairy.”

  “Just like the store,” Skye whispered. She examined the bottle of the luminous green liquid. “And now I know why it smells familiar.”

  “You mean you’ve actually drunk this stuff?” Kheelan lifted a brow in surprise. “I know it’s legal to sell in America now, but alcohol’s bad enough, let alone mixed with a hallucinogenic.” His tone was mildly reproving.

  “Artemisia absinthe.” Skye echoed the words she remembered from the scary Ouija board disaster when she and Callie were twelve. Their encounter with evil spirits was immediately followed by the licorice, menthol odor of absinthe, the drink favored by Callie’s warlock father. “I’ve seen what this drink can do to people, knew a man who drank it heavily. The wormwood in it is said to rot the brain.” She stared into the murky green liquid.

  She wanted it.

  Skye was overcome with the urge to taste it. Her mouth watered and she gripped the bottle tightly. �
��I say we give it a little taste,” she whispered.

  “It’s dangerous stuff.” Kheelan shook his head. “And besides, it’s not ours.” He reached for the bottle.

  She hugged it to her chest and scowled. “No one will ever miss it.” She nodded at the dozens of wooden crates strewn over the counter and on the floor underneath it. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, unrelenting.

  She tried a different approach. “C’mon Kheelan. Aren’t you curious? It won’t hurt to try it this once. After all, it was the drink of Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Picasso and Van Gogh. American writers used to drink it at the Algonquin Lounge.” Skye winced at her own voice. She sounded desperate, like a stupid addict. She cleared her throat. “I know wormwood’s supposed to be bitter, but we’ve even got sugar cubes and matches down here.”

  “I don’t follow you.” His face darkened with caution. “Besides, what are you, a . . . a . . . absinthe-ologist or something?

  “I’ve always been fascinated with it. There’s a whole ritual people follow in drinking absinthe. You pour the drink, then a bit of water. Take one of these silver spoons,” she lifted one off the counter, “and light a sugar cube on it. The heat caramelizes the sugar, which drips in the drink, turning it into a cloudy froth.”

  Kheelan didn’t move. “You sure seem to know a lot about it for someone who says she’s never tried it.”

  Skye flushed. Hey, he could think what he wanted. Skye swiftly opened the bottle in her arms and reached for a crystal glass. The licorice smell erupted, tart and bracing. Her body responded with a shaking desire to down The Green Fairy.

  Now.

  Just as suddenly, the bottle was snatched away.

  “Coming in here was a bad idea,” Kheelan muttered, screwing the lid back on the bottle and returning it to the crate. He took her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “But—” she sputtered, desperate to think of a reason to stay. “We haven’t looked at everything in here.” She swept a hand over the room. “There’s plants and bottles of herbs, and—”