“Shouldn’t she be awake by now?” an effervescent female voice asked above me.
A stuffy male voice said haughtily, “Your highness, she’s lost seventy percent of the blood in her body. It will be a miracle if she wakes up in the next few days. She has been in a coma for three days and is disturbingly small, weak, and scrawny. Frankly, I don’t understand how she has survived as lon—”
“Boo,” I said as I opened my eyes and shot up out of bed.
The fae doctor screamed like a ninny and threw his clipboard against the wall. It rattled with a loud crack.
“Not dead yet, bitch.” I made a duck face and held up two peace signs.
There was a long moment as the doctor and gorgeous girl sitting beside my bed gaped at me.
Then I ruined the moment by suffering an aggressive coughing attack. I wheezed and hacked as my lungs struggled to inflate.
The numb no longer coursed through my body, and I desperately wanted it back.
Every bone in my body ached, which made sense because the last thing I remembered was going splat against the ground.
Frankly, I was shocked to still be alive.
Also, a tiny part of me was annoyed that I was still among the living. At this point, I was looking forward to the sun god’s afterworld.
Something told me it was going to be more relaxing than my current reality.
At least I hadn’t suffered from nightmares about blood while I was passed out after falling hundreds of feet. A minor consolation.
The doctor gave me an unimpressed look, then stomped out of the shiny white room in a huff. He mumbled something about “a psychotic alpha” under his breath.
I finger-waved as he left.
One thing was consistent in both realms—men were so dramatic. It was exhausting.
The steel door rattled closed behind the doctor, and I admired its shininess.
Everything inside the room was fancy steel, glass, and sleek lines. It was shiny and new, nothing like the gothic architecture of the shifter realm.
Before I could call after the doctor and ask for a gallon of pain medication, and maybe heckle him a little, long limbs slammed against me.
With an “oomph,” I struggled against my attacker.
The scent of frosty death overwhelmed me, and it took my brain a second to process that I wasn’t being attacked.
I recognized the scent. It wasn’t a cool frost like Cobra’s scent. It was so icy and dark it made my eyes water.
I was surprised my tears didn’t freeze on my face.
“Oh my sun god, are you okay?” a feminine voice asked in a rush.
“Are you by chance my lying BFF?” I slapped my hands along the fae’s lithe body.
“Duh, it’s me!” Arabella, the fae princess—also known as my best friend, Aran—raised her head back and speared me with a familiar arched eyebrow.
Her brilliant turquoise eyes sparkled with familiar mischief.
“You smell weird,” I blurted out.
The scent of icy death was seriously throwing me off. It was so overpowering it made the hairs on my arms stand up and goose bumps break out all over my body.
“And you’re a whore who just took a century off my life.” Aran hugged me tighter, like she was afraid I was going to disappear into thin air.
“So want to explain your breasts?” I gently patted her hair.
The longer she held me, the more her scent grew on me. I no longer wanted to push her away and run for my life.
Still, my head was spinning from the aftermath of the numb, and every cell in my body hurt from going splat.
The room was a hazy daze.
A random thought trickled through my brain as I inhaled her scent. Aran is extremely powerful.
My alpha instincts, the saber-toothed tiger in my soul, recognized that I was in the presence of a predator.
My best friend grinned at me and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Yes, I am extremely voluptuous. Next question.”
I grinned back and chuckled.
It didn’t matter how powerful she was or who her mother was; this was my best friend. Her energy matched mine, and I relaxed for the first time since the kidnapping.
“I wouldn’t exactly say that.” I gestured to her lithe body and smaller proportions. “Hate to break it to you: we’re in the same itty-bitty titty committee.”
Aran threw her head back and laughed.
Her long, bright-aqua hair fell in a silky waterfall down to her waist. Up close, her features were stunning.
I groaned and threw my hand over my forehead dramatically. “Dude, you’re so pretty. This is going to kill my self-esteem. We can’t be friends.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Aran went to slap me but stopped at the last minute when she remembered I was covered in bruises.
“Obviously I’m joking,” I chuckled weakly and scooted over so she could lie beside me on the bed. “It’s actually way cool that you’re also a girl. Now we can have sleepovers or whatever, and it won’t be weird.”
“Thank the sun god,” she said sarcastically as she rested her head on my shoulder and snuggled closer.
For a long moment, we lay in silence.
“So a lot has happened,” I said sarcastically. “Want to explain the whole princess thing?”
She turned and stared at me.
Her turquoise eyes were heavy with sadness.
Her mouth opened and closed, like she wanted to speak but didn’t know where to start.
I asked the important question: “So when you were masquerading as a boy, did you have a dick?”
She nodded. “Massive cock. Literally the biggest.”
“Wow, really?” I was impressed.
“Sadly, no.” Aran chuckled and showed off the silver ring on her finger. “If I twist it three times, it creates an enchantment that disguises me as a boy. It’s very powerful, but all enchantments have their limits. It mostly focused on disguising my hair, face, and chest. Mostly, everything else stayed the same.”
“Why not just cut your hair?” I asked as I stared at her gorgeous features. The enchantment had done an amazing job of disguising her beauty.
Aran shook her head. “My blue hair is weird. I literally can’t cut it. It won’t break. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
I ran my hand through the long tresses, and the strands fell through my fingers like spun silk. From what I’d experienced, the fae were gorgeous and deadly.
Aran fit the bill perfectly.
“I wanted to tell you soooo many times. I’m so sorry.” Her signature cocky smile fell, and she stared at me with a haunted expression.
I hugged her to let her know I didn’t care and asked in a mocking voice, “Well, what do I call you now? Aran or Arabella, the realm’s loveliest fae princess?”
Her face split with a toothy grin. “You can call me—the baddest bitch in the fae realm.”
I raised my eyebrow
She laughed. “I’m obviously joking.”
She wasn’t joking.
“Call me Ara. That’s what I’ve always gone by.”
“Really? You seem like more of an Arabella. All pink and princessy.”
“I’m going to kill you.” She hit me gently with her hand.
I winced as my arm smarted. It felt like someone had thrown me off a thousand-foot platform.
Oh, wait, they had.
Once again, my life was upsetting.
I rubbed at my arm. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Sorry, but you’re Aran to me. I can’t call you something else now.”
“Whatever,” she said, but couldn’t hold back her smile.
For a long moment, we just grinned at each other in comfortable silence.
Then I addressed the elephant in the room. “So how long have you been on the run from your genuinely awful, terrifying, horror-inducing mother? She seems like a super nice lady.”
For a second, Aran’s pale skin went white as a sheet and her eyes rounded, large and haunted.
When she spoke, her gaze was distant, like she was reliving some trauma. “Since I was a baby in the cradle and she lit me on fire every time I cried.”
I grimaced and hugged her gently.
Aran continued quietly, “I ran off to the shifter realm when I was fifteen years old. That’s when she wanted to enroll me in the realm’s elite breeding program.”
It looked like both of us needed extensive psychological help. “Breeding program?” My brain struggled to understand what that could even mean.
“Let’s just say the fae realm is very open about sex. There are clinics where anyone can just walk in and choose partners with similar desires as themselves, and they’re normal and unproblematic. But the elite society has their own special breeding programs that are way less consensual. Trust me, it’s creepy. You don’t want to know.”
I asked the important hard-hitting question: “As a person from another realm, hypothetically, what are the chances that I could participate in one of the unproblematic sex clinics?”
Aran rolled off the bed and glared down at me. “You are not wondering about a sex clinic after you almost died? Do you know how stressed I’ve been?”
With a serious expression, I said, “Yeah, but I saw the moon goddess after I went splat, and she told me I had to go to a clinic and lose my virginity in order to save the realm from the evil queen.”
There was a long pause.
“Really?” Aran squinted, like she couldn’t decide if I was joking or not.
“No, dumbass. I saw the dark abyss of death and then woke up to a fae doctor talking shit about me.” The girl was embarrassingly gullible.
Her blue eyes darkened, and the smile fell from her face at a reminder of how close I’d been to death. “My mother’s such a bitch. I ran through a random portal at fifteen to escape her, but I never imagined she would force a woman to compete in the Fae Games.”
I tried to smile, but it came out more of a grimace. “Yeah, she sucks.” Another question popped into my head. “Wait, how did you fool people into thinking you were a beta?”
Aran shook her head in confusion. “Dude, it’s so weird. I hid out in a small shifter town, working in the stables as a boy until I was eighteen. One day, a man in a cloak said I needed to go with him. He knocked me out before I could react, and I woke up at the fortress to everyone calling me a beta.”
My jaw dropped. “Wait, a dude in a black cloak who kept himself completely hidden? He was super tall?”
Aran squinted at me. “Yeah, but all I saw of his face was electric-blue eyes. Why?”
Holy sun god’s tits.
I remembered blue eyes glowing at me as he’d flung me over his shoulder and run from the sacred lake.
I was going to be sick.
A horrible thought struck me—what if all the servants in the shifter realm weren’t really getting tested?
“A cloaked guy randomly came for me too,” I whispered.
A long moment passed as we stared at each other in silence.
Aran asked, “Why does creepy shit keep happening to us?”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked her.
“That we’re cursed and totally in some deep shit that is way over our heads and we don’t even realize it?”
I pursed my lips. “I was actually going to say that it’s super weird that Demetre has beef with me. Like he was my childhood crush, and then he just turned on me like that? So rude!”
Yes, I knew that the cloaked man was freaky.
I also knew that I was five seconds away from a mental breakdown and needed to focus on something less terrifying.
Aran choked. “You had a childhood crush on Demetre? Are you unwell? That man is the rudest, most pigheaded, misogynistic asshole to ever walk the fae realm.”
I pursed my lips and thought about it. “Well, in stories, he seemed cool. He’s a half warrior, and his alpha form is a dragon. You can’t tell me you never had the tiniest crush on him.”
Objectively, the man was sexy as hell.
Subjectively, after the events in the Fae Games, he had the personality of a schizophrenic rock.
But you couldn’t argue—the man had a presence.
“No, an ass is an ass. The man choked you out and dropped you to your potential death. I can’t believe you’re defending him!” Aran punched the air aggressively like she always did when she was angry.
Except now she was so gorgeous, that sparkles and glitter practically filled the surrounding air. She was not intimidating.
I shook my head. “I’m not! I literally want him to die painfully and as soon as possible. I’m just pointing out that he is totally crushable before you get to know him.”
Aran mimed vomiting.
“Speaking of celebrities, any perks of being a princess? Want to get me out of these Fae Games so I can keep living?” I gave her a big smile and a thumbs-up.
Aran tugged at the diamond collar around her neck. It was the same one that Cobra wore. “I wish, but Mommy dearest has me under lock and key.”
She started pulling at it so aggressively that I worried she would choke herself out.
Clearly, mental health was neither of our strengths.
Aran groaned as she wrenched at her neck. “Not that it really matters. I’ve never shown any sign of elemental ability, so I don’t know why she bothers with the enchanted collar. I’m worse than useless against her.”
“You don’t smell powerless. You smell like frosty death.”
Aran kept tugging at the collar like a maniac. “Elite fae always show signs of their power at a young age. I never have. Even if I show abilities, I’ll be weak.”
My scratchy voice was rough with emotion. “I know what it’s like to feel powerless.” Dick whipping me flashed through my mind.
For the longest time, my soul had been crushed by the chains of an awful existence. When you woke up and went to sleep every night knowing you were powerless, it changed you.
It hardened you. Not in a good way.
“But I still think you’re powerful,” I said as I inhaled her scent. I’d bet all my money on it.
“Nope.” Aran threw her head back and sighed with the heaviness of a much older person as she tugged at the crystals around her neck.
“Well, at least we’re both screwed together.” I tugged her into a bear hug to stop her from pulling frantically at the collar.
Aran melted against me, and my heart sparked with satisfaction. I was getting good at hugging.
Suddenly, she pulled back. Her face was set in her signature stubborn expression. “No, I’m still a fucking princess, and you’re an alpha that shifts into a saber-toothed tiger. We aren’t screwed. I have palace resources. I can’t directly oppose my mother, but I can take little steps to help you.”
I blurted out, “Could you somehow find a man in the shifter realm for me?”
“Done. I have a couple of guards under my thumb. Who is the man?”
“Dick. He’s a century-old beta who lives and works in a tavern named after him in a small town up north.”
“What do you want me to do with him?” Aran asked as she looked at me curiously. I had never told her about him.
Never told anyone until recently.
“Preferably, kill him. At least capture him and maybe even bring him here so I could question him.”
Aran didn’t ask a single question; that was why she was my best friend. Instead, she smiled, and it wasn’t a friendly expression. Her gorgeous features were hard as ice, her aqua eyes blizzards of rage.
For a second, she reminded me of her mother.
But instead of fear, I just felt pride that she was my friend.
She’d grown up under the queen’s thumb and was still a badass.
“As an apology for deceiving you, and my mother kidnapping you to make you fight in the Fae Games, I will bring you Dick’s liver. Warm.” She licked her lips like a maniac.
I felt less pride. “All right, let’s try to rein in our crazy. But seriously, if you kill or bring me Dick, I’ll forgive you for all your lies,” I said dramatically.
Aran nodded, spit into her hand, and held it out for me to shake.
I grimaced at her spit. It was probably a weird fae custom, an enchantment to bind our promise.
I spit into my hand and held it out.
She shook my hand aggressively.
“So, are we now bound to our promise forever or something?” I asked.
Aran grinned. “Nah, I saw it in a bootleg human movie about a camp during the summer months. Apparently, it makes a promise extra solid.”
I regretted touching her hand.
“We’re gonna survive,” I said with conviction to reassure myself as I wiped her gross spit off my hand.
“Oh, I definitely will. The stake master is still out on whether you live through the games.”
I narrowed my eyes at her but didn’t ask who the stake master was. Something told me I didn’t want to know.
The fae realm was all sorts of messed up.
