Claiming the Prince: Book One (3 page)

“Hey, hey!” he called in his phlegmy bellow.

She sighed and slowed. She hoped he wasn’t going to ask about the lot rent. It was only a week—or two—late. Pay day was still three days away, and Riker had been too busy working on his nonexistent tan—their skin simply wouldn’t—to bother returning any of his agent’s calls.

While Frank passed himself off as a little person of the human ilk, he looked much more like a full-grown barrel-chested man who had been hit with a shrink ray. The top of his head barely came to her mid-thigh, but his hands, his head, his legs, all remained proportionate. He was often mistaken for a husky child, especially from behind. This wasn’t helped by the fact that he found it more practical to buy his clothes in the kids’ department. But anyone who saw his deeply-lined mug quickly realized their error.

Once he got up and moving, he was exceptionally sprightly. In a blink, he had clambered down from the large deck built off of his double-wide and onto the palm-shaded blacktop. His sneakers, also intended for children, lit up as he hurried towards her, flashing red and white with every step, his mop of dusty brown curls flopping around his head. He stuck out his chest and gave her a look that would’ve wilted a flower nymph.

Jabbing the brown-stained stem of his pipe up at her, his silvery eyes flashed over the top of his reflective aviators. “You can’t have new tenants in your place.”

Damion and Riker weren’t far behind, hiking up the slope through the gates that cordoned off their tiny beachside enclave.

“Tenants? I own that box, Frank. You’re not my landlord.”

“I sure am.” Frank tapped his pipe against his thick palm with each syllable. “I own the land that box sits on. My land. Land-lord.”

“He’s not a tenant,” she said as Damion came up beside her. “He’s just visiting.”

Frank harrumphed and took to stabbing his pipe in Damion’s direction. Damion glowered down at him.

“I know his type,” Frank said. “You’re bringing trouble.”

“He’s an exile,” she said. “Like us.”

Frank crossed his arms over his Magic Kingdom T-shirt. “First, the pretty Prince boy and now a warrior? You know what that looks like—”

Damion took the slightest step forward. “What does it look like, pit-dweller?”

Frank’s mouth dropped open. “I am no pit-dweller! I am descended from Laurin, the son of—”

She placed a hand before Damion. “He apologizes, Frank. He just got here today. His Radiant was defeated, his sister.”

Riker strolled up, still in his swim trunks, sunglasses pushed back into his hair, a blue beach towel tossed over his shoulder, bringing out the blue of his eyes—not that it was difficult. Blue toothpaste brought out the color of his eyes.

“Heya, Frank,” he said, forever unperturbed. “Like the new one.” He notched his thumb towards the newest gnome to have found its home among the palms and flowers that grew in a jungle-like abundance around Frank’s deck. Garden gnomes had always struck her as a strange thing to collect, considering, and she didn’t know how Riker could tell one from the other. Frank had an entire gnome army.

“Oh, thanks,” Frank said, his anger fizzling. “Arrived yesterday.”

“The Griebel?” Riker asked as if fine gnome collectibles were also his passion.

Frank smiled a bit, and all the lines of his face smiled too. “Well, yes. The bidding was quite intense. And doing it over the phone was nerve-wracking. Not being able to read the room and depending on someone else to place my bids—”

“He’s a knockout,” Riker said. “All the lady gnomes better watch out—”

“This is ludicrous,” Damion growled to Magda.

Frank’s good humor vanished. “You are ludicrous. Look at him, Magda. He will never fit in here. You will have mercenaries upon us all. He cannot stay here.”

“I have pledged myself to Magdalena,” Damion stated.

Magda winced.

Frank whipped off his aviators. “What? You’re accepting fealty now?”

“What’s that mean?” Riker asked, frowning slightly. “Are you sleeping with this guy?”

“He’s my cousin,” she said to Riker. Then to Frank, she said, “I did not accept it. He merely offered it.”

Frank shook his head. “Oh, Magda. Don’t do this. You are a good girl. You do not want to become embroiled in all of those old world troubles again, do you?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

Mr. Fuller, a big brown cat with black stripes, meandered towards them, dancing around Magda’s legs, rubbing up against her shins and purring loudly.

“You see,” Frank said. “Even Mr. Fuller is worried for you.”

“Damion is my family,” she said, reaching down and scooping up Mr. Fuller. He nuzzled under her chin, tickling her mouth and nose with his fur. “He’s new to this world. He has no one else.”

Frank sniffed. “You want him to stay? Then you’ll have to take him to Python.”

“Oh, please no, Frank. It’s a long way, and I have to work tomorrow—”

“If Python doesn’t give him the okay, then he’s out of here.”

“You can’t do that, Frank.”

“Oh, no? Where’s my lot rent?”

“I told you—”

“You’re chronically late with it. You think I don’t have recourse? I have recourse. It’s called a lawyer.”

“Come on, Frank—” Riker started.

“Don’t try any of your Pixie Prince charm on me,” Frank said, thrusting his pipe under Riker’s nose. “You don’t know anything about the kind of danger that”—he waved his sunglasses at Damion and one of the lenses flew out—“
this
type can bring down on us.”

Riker scooped up the lens and handed it back to Frank. “If Magda trusts him, then so do I.”

“You’re a child, no offense,” Frank said, holding up the lens to the light. “Damn. Scratched.” He cocked an eye at Damion. “Might be a portent.”

“Oh geez, Frank, really?” Magda said, spitting cat fur from her mouth. She set Mr. Fuller down, though he remained glued to her legs. “Portents? In this world?”

“Portents follow the person. They don’t care about the world.” Frank jammed his glasses back onto his lumpy face, one silver eye bulging behind the empty rim. “Take him to Python, or I call my lawyers.”

He turned, stomping back to his house, light-up shoes flashing.

When his screen door had slammed shut behind him, Magda ran her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes roughly.

“So . . . what is this all about? Is he really your cousin?” Riker asked.

“I can leave, Mistress—”

“Please don’t start calling me that,” she said, hands dropping. “You’ll only make it worse. And you’re not leaving. Where would you go?”

“The gravel-eater was right,” Damion said, surveying the road and the mostly tidy rows of manufactured homes. “I don’t belong in this world. And neither do you.”

“Damion, I told you. I’m not going back.”

Riker shuffled closer, speaking to Damion. “She can’t go back. She’s been exiled. She’ll be killed, won’t she?”

Damion gazed at Riker in a way that surely would have made most others quiver, but Riker only stood there, staring back. Magda could’ve attributed it to some inner courage or even foolish bravado, but the truth was he simply didn’t know any better.

Finally, Damion turned back to Magda as if Riker hadn’t spoken at all, which wasn’t unusual. Princes were, in some ways, the weakest of the noble Pixie blood. Or at least, they were treated that way. Pawns, in other words. Many were so pampered, coddled, and heavily guarded that they knew little of the truth outside their provinces and rarely needed to fight. Riker would have been bested by the weakest of the Princes back in the Lands. He didn’t have even the most basic understanding of how to fight or how to use his magic. It had been allowed to lay fallow. His parents had insisted that she not attempt to teach him anything. A wish she had respected because she knew how difficult it was not to use magic, especially in this world where every task seemed laborious to the extreme.

“Who is Python?” Damion asked.

“An oracle,” she said, nudging Mr. Fuller gently with her foot, though he wasn’t put off.

“An oracle, here?” he said. “I thought the Throne had them all assassinated.”

“Why do you think Python came here?”

Damion seemed to turn inward, but his silence was almost as unsettling as when he spoke. Already, she was starting to think like she had in the old world, strategizing, stretching out of herself to pick up the moods around her. But it was harder here. Too much metal everywhere. A throbbing ache bloomed behind her eyes.

Riker, always aware of her, moved to her side, rubbing the back of her neck. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“We’ll go to the oracle,” she said to Damion.

Riker leaned in. “Can’t we go to bed first?”

She shrugged him off. “No. We leave now. It will take us a while to walk there.”

“Why don’t we ride our bikes?” Riker asked.

“Damion has never ridden a bike,” she pointed out.

Riker sagged. “Do I have to go?”

“No,” Damion said. “You’d just slow us down.”

A defiant glare rose up on Riker’s face. “I’m going. Just let me put on some clothes first.”

“Please,” Damion muttered.

“Don’t leave without me,” Riker said as he started towards their house.

Compared to the others it was shabby. A pang of shame struck her. She was the daughter of Vivanna, who had been Radiant of the Eastern Cliffs.Magda had been born in the fortress of Stonehigh at Crystal Falls. This was not the life she’d been raised for, not the life she had imagined for herself. What would her mother have said, if she saw the way Magda lived now? Exiled, living in a tiny squalid house overseen by a knocker, suppressing her magic . . . But then, her mother had fought and killed two of her own sisters and a cousin to assume rights over the family. What kind of life was that?

Once, not so long ago, Magda had been proud of her mother, but in the years that she’d lived in the human world, she’d begun to question and then to hate what the families did to themselves. When she had entered into combat with Alanna, her older cousin, all those years ago, she had done so because she was arrogant and entitled. She had no thoughts of her people or justice or even the riches and power. She had fought to become the head of the family because she’d felt it belonged to her—that it was her right to rule.

She didn’t want to be that person again. So maybe Frank had been right. Maybe taking Damion in was a mistake. If his presence only served to bring back those cast-off vestiges of her old self, then maybe it would be better if he left. There were other safe havens in this world, numerous, in fact. Though she didn’t know how welcoming they would be to a Pixie warrior.

He had taken a silent position behind her shoulder, just as a warrior of a Rae should, stoic and alert.

“I want to make something clear to you, Damion,” she said.

His gaze slid over to her, but he kept his face neutral.

“Nothing will compel me to return to Alfheim. I am not going back. Ever. If you’re going to stay, then I need you to accept that now. And don’t ask me to change my mind.”

“I thought you wanted me to be forthright,” he said.

“Can you be forthright without pestering?”

“You should not be wasting your life in this . . . iron prison of a world. You were too young when you fought Alanna, a child. That is why you lost. But look at yourself now. How can you not see it? You are a Rae. Even if the troll had not brought me to you, I would have found you. And if that furry little knocker is frightened, it’s because of you, Magdalena, not me.”

A
TREK INTO THE
canyon from down by the highway was no small feat. But fortunately, a Pixie had stamina and strength far surpassing a human’s.

They ran most of the way, keeping their pace steady so as not to draw too much attention. Though they received a few passing glances as they moved away from the city proper and up into the hills, where the high fences of the gated communities began to hem them in when the steep hillside didn’t.

Finally, late into the afternoon, they rounded a private drive. Before them, a massive iron gate stood. They came to a halt in the shadow of the metal menace.

Swells of nausea rolled through her as the force of the bars, spiked black cast iron, hit her. Her head swam.

This was why she lived and worked where she did. So much of this world was made of some iron alloy: the buildings, the cars, the pipes, the wires . . . everything. Frank had lived here a long time and had made certain that as little iron as possible was used in the homes on his land. Some of it couldn’t be avoided, but one could build up a tolerance, as she had for the washer and dryer and the appliances.

Damion stepped back, swaying. Riker caught his arm. Damion tore away and then vomited, crashing to his knees at the side of the drive.

“Names,” a voice said through the speaker attached to the gate.

“It’s Magda, Kirk,” she shouted from where she stood, some eight feet away. “Tell Python I have someone who needs to see him.”

“Who?” Kirk sighed in his ever put-upon voice.

“A warrior of my kin,” she said.

A long silence followed, punctuated only by Damion retching again.