Page 15 of Kiss the Filthiest King

I didn't want to get arrested in San Francisco traffic and try to explain this guy's deal to the police. I had to click the belt into place; I undo it now.

"You're what?" I ask, freeing him from the belt, and then opening his door.

We both leave the car, and my god, the air smells so sweet, and fresh, and clear. My family's big on hiking, so we've been away from immediate signs of civilization on a regular basis, but this is different.

Pure.

"A prince. Though I'd gladly be an errand boy if the queen so wishes." He shrugs. "And you may call me Valdred."

Right; the fairy called him Dread, earlier. He said he didn't like it; and that must be true given the fact that he murdered her shortly thereafter.

"As for your sister, she came by it as most rulers do: by right of blood."

He sets off in the direction of the mountains rather than the plains, so he must know where he's going.

As we walk, me half running to catch up with his quick, long steps, he tells me…well, a fairy tale. There's a queen, and a war, and a sleeping princess frozen in a curse. Except that princess is my sister, and the humans who awoke her are my parents. It's our family history, mixed with his world's myth and legends. I don't want to believe a word of it. There's still a faint hope I'm imagining it all.

But I'm the boring Thorn. I don't have the creativity to imagine anything half so wild.

When he gets to the part where Darina stabbed her own heart for a stranger he calls her brother, her blood, my chest constricts in horror…and something else.

Something a little nastier, darker, meaner.

Because in truth? I don't think she'd do that for me. Me, who she's called family for twenty-four years.

The Darina I know may love me in her own way, but not like that. Never like that. Fiercely. More than herself.

"Is that all?"

Valdred sighs. "All? Do you need the entire history of every event which occurred in Ilvaris?" I suppose that wasn’t a good question to ask someone who can't lie.

"I meant, is that all about the stuff I should know about. My sister’s history."

His jaw tightens, and I know I have him. He's hiding something.

"It's all you should hear from me." Before I can push, he strides forward. "Come. I see a circle. It should transport us to the keep."

The circle, it turns out, is a trail of little mushrooms, white, except for dark blue pustules running along their heads and steams, arranged in a perfect circle in the patch of grass.

"Wait, so fairy circles are real?"

"Of course." He shrugs. "Why wouldn't they be?"

"Though I don't recommend you try one unaccompanied. They can be rather mischievous, unless you know their secrets."

The prince offers me his hand.

I already drove off a bridge with him. What's a little patch of mushrooms?

8

NOT QUITE DEAD AFTER ALL

Darina

There was nothing for a while, but now? Pain. So much pain.

My first breath comes labored, unnatural. Inside me, I feel a pulse, beating harder than ever, but it sounds wrong to my own ears. Unfamiliar. Cold and harsh and sharp.

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