Page 9 of Royally Hacked Belle & Flame
ALIX
My head bursts through the surface of the lake, and I gasp for air.
Before I’ve even blinked the pond scum from my eyes, a car horn honks twice and I look up, spotting a familiar red sports car.
“Ali!” Nana shouts through her open window. “There are towels and fresh clothes in the back seat. Change fast so I can hug you.”
Nana is the only one who has ever called me Ali, and hearing it is nostalgic. I grin and wade through the water toward her.
Portals between Ellender and the human world aren’t always in water, but the most convenient portal for me happens to be in the pond in our backyard. It comes out in a small lake off the side of a highway in upstate New York, and unfortunately that means I’m always soaking wet when I pass between worlds.
At least the pond isn’t frozen, I’d been slightly worried about that. The portal behind our house in Vernallis never freezes no matter how cold the ground is around it, but I wasn’t sure that would be true in the human realm. Evidently it is, but even though there’s no ice, it’s still December in New York and the air is cold as fuck.
I reach Nana’s car and open the rear passenger door. My cheeks ache from smiling and from the cold as I fumble with the buttons of my soaked shirt, peeling it off and reaching for the dry cotton T-shirt Nana packed for me. The fabric catches on my damp skin.
“I should see if I can buy the land this pond is on,” I mutter as I twist awkwardly in the cramped backseat, banging my elbow against the window with a dull thud. “I’d put a house here, so I’d have somewhere better to change.”
“That’s a good point,” Nana says thoughtfully. “Let me see what I can do about that.”
I grin because I know she’s serious. Nana is one of the most famous authors alive today, but it’s only in the last few years that she’s lived like it. For decades she was stuck emotionally in her past and never spent a cent of her enormous fortune.
Now, since I discovered Ellender and Nana was able to talk about her experiences with someone who knew she wasn’t crazy, she’s finally started living again. She’s been traveling a lot—mostly in the human realm, but occasionally back and forth to Ellender. She finally sold her dangerous old house in Ironhill back to the government and bought a beautiful Victorian mansion in upstate New York. She claims that she likes theprivacy of living in the middle of nowhere, but I know that the proximity to the portal is most of the draw of this area.
Once dressed, I climb out of the backseat and walk around the car to the driver’s side. Nana opens her door and gets out to hug me. “I’ve missed you, Ali-girl.”
“Me too,” I say thickly. After a long second I pull away. “Did you bring my phone?”
“It’s in the glove compartment.”
“Thank god, I’m going through withdrawal.”
She laughs as we both get back in the car. “You would think real magic would be a substitute for your iPhone.”
“You would think,” I agree, “But no, I miss it. I need my dopamine fix.”
Nana chuckles lightly and turns on the radio before backing her car away from the lake and turning toward the little dirt road that leads to the busy highway.
I reach into the glove compartment and fish out my phone and press the power button. The screen flickers to life with a soft blue glow. For a second, I’m excited, but immediately a dozen texts start to come in one after another. Every single one of them is from my mom. I sigh. “And it’s ruined.”
I’ve been living in a literal other world for two years now, and my mother still has no clue. Nana and I agreed that telling her wouldn’t be a good idea. She would never wait long enough for us to prove it before she tried to have us committed to padded cells…all in the name of our own well-being, of course.
Now, I have to travel back and forth through the portal every week or so because my mother believes that I’m living in Ireland with bad cell service and can only talk when I leave my house to go grocery shopping. She knows Daemon exists, but she thinks he’s a reclusive billionaire who hates technology and lives in an old Irish castle. I might have stolen the idea straight out of oneof my favorite romance novels…and really, it’s not that far from the truth.
At least I was able to make a relatively clean break from the human world, and my mother is my only real loose end. When Daemon first found me, my marriage was ending, I had no friends and no job. There was no one except my mom and Nana to notice or care when I disappeared. Therefore my transition from broke musician to Fae queen was actually much more seamless than it would have been for most people.
I guess it could be worse.
“So,” I sigh, settling back into my seat as we drive down the highway. “What have I missed?”
“Nothing interesting,” Nana says dismissively. “The world is on fire as usual.”
“Mom seems chatty,” I comment, holding up my phone for Nana to see the many texts. “Did something happen?”
“Your mother is in a bad mood.”
“What else is new?”
She smiles. “More so than usual, I mean. Kevin’s daughter from his first marriage is staying with them for Christmas and she’s driving your mother crazy. The only thing she’s been happy about was you and Daemon visiting…speaking of which, where is he?”
