Day of Wishes and Wonder (Starlight Fae Book 1) by Anne Stryker

Author:Anne Stryker [Stryker, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gossamer Wings & Ink Press
Published: 2020-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Secrets in the Painted Ridge

Crawling across the ground, oblivious to where Flint had managed to pull us from the torrential stream, I coughed, pressing my necklace tight against my chest. It was still with me, and I was in one piece too. I took deep breaths to calm my pounding heart. The forest was thicker here than it had been, but the terrain remained just the same. Sheer stone. Floating lights. Trunks stretching from floor to ceiling, bursting with branches and leaves.

The river lay behind us, continuing on, but Flint had clearly decided we wouldn’t be getting off at the same exit as the club staff. It was probably better that way for him. Tipsy knew things. The things I wanted to know and the things he refused to share.

“How are you doing, solstice?” he asked, falling against the stone beside me with a wet smack and staring up at the cavern ceiling.

“Still alive.”

He snickered. “Good. That’s what I was aiming for.”

I waited a moment. “Guess you aren’t going to explain what you said to Tipsy before you dove into the water with me in tow?”

He pushed off his hood, revealing his delicately pointed ears, and grinned. “What? Are you not my lady?”

“I’m a sopping wet anything-but.” I sighed and lay beside him. The hard ground made my already aching limbs cry. “Why did she say what she did about elves? And why did you cover your ears to hide the fact you are an elf?”

“Because.” His eyes closed, and his smile never moved. “For generations, we’ve been slaves to our benevolent overlords, the sidhe. Every civilization has those people, the ones they oppress. We’re too close to them. Beautiful, capable of strong magic. Slap some wings on us, and you’d hardly know the difference aside from the style of our ears.”

“You’ve been what?” I stared at him, mouth agape. Slaves. He’d said slaves. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did tell you that I liked pretending not to be an abomination.”

“So you think that just being an elf makes you an abomination or something?” Anger burned in my chest, hurt festering. How could I not have known? How could he have kept something so huge a secret?

“Now, I didn’t quite say that.” He cracked an eye at me, and I was about to hit him, until I had a better idea.

Prying myself up, I grabbed the hem of his hoodie and thrust it upwards, displaying his stomach and chest. He scrambled away, eyes huge, but I had already seen what I wanted to. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I never took you as quite that forward, solstice.” He held a hand against the spot on his side where I had seen a spiraling scar. Like a rune, its design held a trembling magic that—like a scar—didn’t go away.

“What is that?” I asked, my voice a low growl.

He pouted. “You don’t just molest someone and demand things of them.”

“Flint.”

He stared at me for a long moment, closed his eyes, then turned away. “My banishment scar.

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