Faeted: A Dark Prince New Adult Bully Romance Read online

  They were looking for the egg.

  That had to be it.

  She set her backpack and books down and went to work, putting her space back together.

  Why hadn't they searched her room earlier?

  Where else could they think it would be? Chase wasn't an idiot. He would have figured out that she had the opportunity to steal it. Well, her and Gin, the shape-shifter who guarded her after Vladmir lost faith in Chase.

  Across her room, a pile of clothing shifted.

  "Come out," She dropped a pair of underpants and waited. "Come on."

  A black muzzle, nostrils just slits in hairless skin, burnished leather in black, slid out from under a green t-shirt.

  It twitched, sniffing the air.

  The creature shot out from the pile of clothes, sending them flying as it scrambled towards her, a black blur the size of a whippet.

  Mari took a step back.

  It darted around her, pinions sprouting from its back, stinging as they clacked against her leg.

  It stopped, muzzle pressed against her backpack, sniffing. It cooed. Then it hooked one slender claw into the side of her backpack and ripped it wide open.

  The shell of the egg peeked through.

  The little creature cawed.

  Then it twisted, a blur of movement as it flung itself past her and out her open window, its cry echoing into the distance.

  A scout.

  It would come back, bringing whoever was looking for the egg with it.

  Mari didn't have any delusions about her fighting ability. If someone wanted to take that dragon egg away from her, all they would have to do is grab hold of it. Her only chance to keep possession – hide it.

  She grabbed the tattered remains of her backpack and ran. She pounded down the stairs, forgetting how tired she was, forgetting everything but the task at hand.

  Out the tiny townhouse's back door into the even smaller excuse for a yard – just a little ten by twelve patches of space open to the sky and enclosed by a fence.

  She darted around the two raised garden beds.

  Every inch of that backyard was taken up by the start of a garden.

  It wasn't a garden yet.

  Her father had created rows of hanging boxes on the walls and two raised beds that occupied almost all of the tiny space. He read an article that said the food crises could be solved if individuals simply took the time to cultivate and curate the earth rather than relying on genetically modified organisms to ravage the ground.

  So he started to build a garden in their back yard.

  Right now, it was all dirt.

  Dirt and bags of fertilizer.

  Mari shifted the bags of fertilizer, settling the egg in between them.

  She grabbed a shovel and headed back inside.

  "What's all the commotion?" Her step-mother yelled, never shifting from her seat in front of the television.

  "Rat," Mari yelled back. "Don't get up. I'll care of it."

  She scrambled back up the stairs, heart-pounding – how much time did she have? She snatched an empty pillowcase from the piles on the floor, flipped off her lights, and ran over to the window, pressing herself against the wall.

  She gripped the shovel, heart pounding.

  Now to wait.

  She didn't have to wait long.

  The creature slipped back into her room. She didn't move. That little thing was a seeker – it was too small to carry the egg, only locate it. She could make out its shape in the twilight, the hard to see haze of a mostly set sun.

  It slipped across her room, cooing.

  Mari held her breath.

  A hand gripped her windowsill.

  Mari lifted the shovel up above her head.

  The hand was followed by the arm.

  A man rolled through her open window, landing in a silent crouch in the soft carpet of her bedroom.

  She brought the shovel down on his head.

  Crack.

  He went down and didn't move.

  The blow reverberated through her arms.

  Mari grinned and poked him with the shovel.

  Next step.

  She dropped the shovel, grabbed a blanket, and zeroed in on the creature. It was over where the backpack had been, sniffing the carpet.

  She flipped on the lights.

  It blinked at her, jet black eyes adjusting to the sudden change in light.

  She threw the blanket on top of it.

  Within seconds she scooped it up and threw it into her closet, trapping it in a space which would take its claws a lot longer to free itself from.

  Mari smiled and took a deep breath.

  She grabbed a pair of knee-high socks off the ground and turned to deal with the man.

  He was dressed in all black, like a ninja.

  His black hair pooled around him as he lay face down on her carpet.

  A vicious relief settled down as she checked to find that he was breathing.

  Mari didn't waste any time.

  She took the tights. A few minutes later, she had him hog-tied – wrists bound to his ankles behind his back. She knew what she was doing. She'd spent some time using Internet videos to educate herself on how to do certain things.

  Like how to knock a man unconscious and tie him up.

  She didn't have to know how to swing a sword or pull a trigger to defend herself. She didn't need to be a fighter to understand how to take the knife tucked into his boot.

  She didn't have to be big and strong to be deadly.

  Once she was satisfied with the knots, she knelt down next to his head. She grabbed a fistful of hair. Elf ears peaked through. She lifted his head up by the hair to get a glimpse of his face.

  It was Chase.

  She felt something similar to joy but without the innocence of happiness, like a mouth-watering while waiting for a chicken to be slaughtered for the dinner table.

  She felt predatory.

  Mari let go and let his head smack back down into the floor.

  Then she settled down and waited for him to wake up.

  [ 3 ]

  The rhythm of Chase's breathing changed.

  Mariposa clutched her knees. She could see the tensing of his arms as he tested his bonds with the absolute minimum of movements.

  He was trying to not let on that he was conscious.

  "I know you're awake," Mari said.

  Chase rolled over onto his side so he could see her. In one swift motion, he worked himself up onto his knees, his chest opening to her as the nylons kept his wrists bound back to his ankles.

  "Mari!" The creature trapped in the closet chirped at the sound of Chase's voice. "Quick – untie me!"

  "I told you I never wanted to see you again." She pressed her knees tight against her chest as she tried to hold in feelings she didn't even know how to process. "Why are you at my school? Why are you in my room? Did Vladmir send you?"

  "We don't have time for that! They could be back at any-" Chase's focused on the shovel lying on the floor next to her. "Wait..." He glanced from the shovel to Mari and back again. There it was. He understood. "Mari... did you hit me?"

  It was all she could do to just sit there, clenching her fists.

  Every inch of her wanted to untie him. All she had to do was step forward, and she could run her fingers along his arms and free him like she did so long ago in the dungeons of the Elven Palace.

  He had been so alone.

  He had been so lost, bound and hung by his family, tortured by his own flesh and blood, and she had saved him. She had been the only one who would let him go.

  She had been the only one who cared.

  How could she do this to him?

  He helped drug her.

  How could he do that to her?

  How could she ever trust him?

  The desire to untie him balanced with the desire to hit him.

  "Answer my questions," Mari demanded.

  Chase sighed.

  There was a tingle along her spine.
It was the subtle sensation of magic being performed near her, not on her.

  Mari was resistant to magic. If she didn't accept it, spells couldn't affect her. They couldn't touch her. She could see through illusions, destroy constructs, and sense them when they were cast near her.

  It was why she could see fairies, elf ears, and all the dark shadows and monsters that came along with them.

  Mari was special.

  To the Fae, she stuck out from the rest.

  Like a bulls-eye on a target.

  Chase pulled his arms free, unwrapping severed strands of severed nylons.

  He'd used magic to break the rope.

  He wasn't going to answer her questions.

  Why should she be honest with him if he wouldn't do her the same courtesy?

  Time to change the rules of this game.

  "First Gin, and now you – this is getting ridiculous. You can't just waltz into my home when you feel like it!" It was a lie—a subtle one.

  She hadn't seen Gin anywhere, let alone in her home.

  "Gin? Gin was here?!?" Chase grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Did she have the egg? Where did she go?"

  There we go. He didn't know she still had it.

  His fingers gripped her, pressing through the thin material of her t-shirt.

  His heat bore down into her core.

  His face was so close to hers.

  She remembered the heat of his lips on hers. In the darkness of that dungeon, he had held her close. He had let go of race and upbringing differences. He had abandoned his duty towards his family and his brother's machinations.

  There was nothing false in that moment.

  But that moment was so long ago.

  Brown eyes flecked with gold searched her eyes for an answer, looking for something she wouldn't give him.

  She couldn't give him any more of herself.

  Mari brought her hands up inside his arms, perpendicular. She struck outwards, knocking his hands off her shoulder in one smooth motion.

  "Don't touch me." Those words were daggers she pulled from her own heart, ripping free the scabbed over wounds of what could have been if things had not been the things that they were.

  The expression of sorrow on Chase's face was the grip that ripped those daggers free, leaving only the open wounds of sadness behind in their place.

  He looked at her like a beaten puppy.

  She just needed to get away from him.

  She couldn't stay here, so close to him.

  She couldn't bear it.

  "Just tell me where Gin went." His voice was roughed, horse. "If I get back what she stole from me, you'll never see me again. I promise."

  At that moment, she didn't want to lie to him.

  But she couldn't give him back the egg.

  She couldn't give him anything more.

  She looked at him and saw the truth inside.

  He had never promised her anything.

  He didn't ask for the trust she gave him. He didn't solicit her love.

  He never told her that he was her friend.

  He told her not to trust him.

  Yet he was something to cling to when her mind was taken from her.

  He was someone to cling to.

  "I don't want anything to do with any of you," Mari whispered. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

  "I can't go back until I catch Gin." He reached out towards her, inches from touching her. His fingers hung in that empty space. "You don't know what you've done, what happened because of you."

  She didn't know what she'd done?

  What she'd done?

  Mari couldn't think beyond her blame.

  She slapped him.

  Chase's face rocked to the side with the blow.

  He just stared at the carpet as his cheek slowly reddened.

  "You helped him." The lump in her chest broke free and dissolved in a rush of relief. "Then you just left me. You just left me bleeding outside of a hospital." To look at him and say that, to have that moment where the words could slip-free, and her heart could let it go – it hurt like scrubbing clean a dirty wound.

  This was her place.

  She wasn't the one who would leave.

  She pointed at the window. "Leave me alone."

  He collected his creature from the closet and slipped out.

  Once he left, she locked the window, wedging the shovel so that anyone trying to get in would have to break more than just the latch.

  That night she wrapped herself around the egg like it was a stuffed animal, and for the first time in a long time, didn't cry herself to sleep.

  #

  Mari was getting used to eating lunch alone.

  She missed Stephanie's hyperactive chatter, but there was something to be said about spending a period of her day in mindful silence. Her oak tree was across campus from the constant noise and bustle of thousands of high school students confined to the cafeteria and outskirts of it.

  The chatter was still there, a drone in the distance.

  But there was also the rustle of the wind through the dry leaves of the oak tree. There was the skitter of squirrel claws on the thick bark, occasionally chitters as they worked out the details of their interpersonal relationships.

  There was the sound of her own breath.

  The simple rhythm of her body gave her thoughts a moment to rest in the silence. It gave her a break from fixating on past pain or future difficulties. In those brief lunch breaks, she focused on the simple task of enjoying the sensation of existing.

  "Why don'tcha sit with the other kids?" Bob, the school's custodian, lit up a cigarette a couple of yards away from her. He was an old fellow, his face sandpaper scarred by the rough treatment of the world. Most of the kids were scared of him. Bob liked it that way. Mari knew better. Just because someone looks frightening and acts gruff doesn't mean that they're a terrible person. Some horrible people were beautiful.

  Just because someone is beautiful doesn't mean they're kind.

  "You're supposed to eat in the cafeteria."

  "I don't want to spend all my life crammed inside boxes filled with other people," Mari pulled half of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of its reusable wrap. She held out half of it to Bob. "Half?"

  "Nah, thanks, kid." He took a long drag off the little stick. "So why are you out here alone isolating yourself? Where's your friend?"

  "She doesn't like me right now," Mari sighed.

  "Is it a boy?"

  "Yeah. Sort of." Mari shrugged. "He and I aren't on good terms, and he's been telling her stuff, so now she doesn't like me anymore."

  "What's he told her?"

  Mari shrugged. "She didn't say."

  "Then ask her. She's your friend. Talk to her."

  "She should talk to me," Mari whined. Stephanie was the one who’d ditched her. Mari shouldn't have to go out of her way to resolve the problem.

  "Why?" Bob took out a cloth handkerchief, spit in it, then plopped his cigarette butt into it. He wrapped it up and stuck it in his pocket. "Why should she talk to you? Why shouldn't you go talk to her?"

  "I.. uh.." Mari wanted to argue. She wanted to have a reason, but everything she could think of fell flat. "She's the one who ditched me!"

  "So what?" Bob coughed, clearing phlegm from his lungs. "Your words have power. Every word you speak, every action you take, has a direct effect on your environment. By choosing not to speak, by choosing not to take action, you are letting this other guy direct what happens in your world. Do you really want to just sit there and let someone else narrate your story?"

  There was only one answer to that question.

  #

  Mari sat next to Stephanie in statistics class. She originally was going to take Calculus, but her college adviser told her she didn't need it for college and suggested she take something easier. Mari thought that sounded funny, but she didn't argue.

  Now she wished she had done what she wanted rather than listen to the advice of someone who though
t they were doing her a service by telling her she wasn't smart enough.

  The teacher droned on at the front of the classroom, flipping through slides on his presentation, reading the words off of them instead of engaging the class in a dynamic discussion.

  Easier was really dull.

  What did Chase tell you?

  Mari slid the note onto Stephanie's desk.

  Her friend scribbled a response.

  He said you ran away from home last summer, and his family took you in. He said if it wasn't for you, his brother would still be alive. He won't talk about it more than that. What happened? What did you do? Was it your fault? Just tell me. I'm you're friend...

  Vladmir was dead?

  Her mind drifted back to that moment, that moment of rage when Chase's life, when her life hung in the balance, at the moment. When she brought that rock down on his head, over and over and over...

  No.

  No, no, no.

  Mari winced those thoughts away.

  She couldn't think like that. She wouldn't think like that.

  That didn't happen.

  It had to have been the Queen. She must have killed her own son for failing at the competition – that had to be it. Or maybe she had him killed to try to kill Chase. It had to be something like that.

  It was the only explanation.

  I don't want to talk about it yet.

  It had to be the explanation.

  She had to talk to Chase again. She needed him to tell her how the Queen had his brother killed. She needed him to tell her that after she left, his brother finally saw justice for his crimes, his cruelty. His brother finally paid the price for the pain he poured out onto Chase.

  Ok. I'm here for you when you want to talk about it. I'm Chase's friend, but I'm still your friend too. We talk about you all the time.

  It wasn't her.

  No, it wasn't her.

  Chase would tell her.

  He'd tell her that Vladmir got back up again.

  He got back up after she knocked him down.

  [ 4 ]

  "I need to talk to you," Mariposa said.

  Chase put his chopsticks down on the edge of his bento box. She recognized the box – it was one of Stephanie's. Her friend made him lunch.

  "If you have something to say, say it," Stephanie said.

  The table was silent.