Radiant Desire by Inara Scott

Author:Inara Scott
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Radiant Desire by Inara Scott
Published: 2011-10-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

“Can we go find the faerie ring now, Kaia?” Lexi bounced up and down on a chaise longue beside the pool. The hot blue skies of morning had been covered by the usual afternoon storm clouds, providing some respite from the driving heat. A striped towel, wrapped around Lexi’s body sarong-style, covered her swimsuit. “Linda said if you go during the full moon, you can see the faeries dance. My dad won’t let me go at night so we should go now, don’t you think?”

Kaia looked around to ensure they were alone. Lexi had been talking all day about a little ring of mushrooms on the south side of the pond. She said Portia kept trying to destroy it, but the mushrooms kept growing back, sometimes by the very next day. Lexi had overheard a couple of the maids talking about it. They called it a faerie ring.

Kaia had been trying to distract Lexi, but the girl was relentless. Meanwhile, Kaia hadn’t seen Garrett all day. Though it was Saturday, Portia had loftily informed her at breakfast that Garrett was a busy man and had to work over the weekend. It was uncanny—at Good Sam, Kaia had been in a tiny room, but surrounded by masses of humanity. Here at the Manor she was in the midst of endless green, open spaces, but they were empty. Other than Lexi and the occasional maid, the Manor was frighteningly devoid of life.

“Faerie rings aren’t something to play with,” she said, her voice serious. “They’re real things—dangerous things.” Lexi’s eyes got big as Kaia continued, “A real faerie ring can take you to the land of the Fey, Lexi, and to Faeria.”

Lexi clapped her hands and squealed. “What’s that? What’s the Fey? What’s Faeria?”

“Faeries are a kind of Fey creature. There are lots of other Fey creatures, too—sprites, imps, pixies—but faeries are the most important. Faeria is like their castle, where their queen, Zafira, lives.”

“I want to see the faeries, Kaia. Can’t I go to Faeria?”

“No, honey,” Kaia said seriously. She didn’t know if a real faerie ring existed somewhere at the Manor—they were extremely rare, after all, and even the Fey didn’t know where they were all located—but if it did, she could not bear to think of little Lexi getting trapped in it.

Ordinarily, Kaia wouldn’t worry about whether a human child would wander into a faerie ring. But Kaia had never had an opportunity to get to know a human child before. Surprisingly, the creatures she thought were just smaller adults seemed more like an endearing species of their own. Lexi had an innocence Kaia had never seen before in a human—or in a faerie, for that matter. Even in the face of Portia’s disapproval, she was open and loving. She lived in a state of constantly changing emotions, her smile dropping like a rock when Garrett failed to appear at breakfast, and lighting up like a happy imp when Kaia offered her hand and walked with her to the stable to visit her pony, Sugar.

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