Waking the Fae [BOOK ONE]

Chapter 28

Unedited. 

The prologue would be worth remembering before reading this. 

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When Rebecca opened her eyes, she was afraid of what she'd see. A jail cell? A wall of fire? Mikael? The king?

The first thing she noticed—when she finally able to open her eyes — was that she felt dizzy, like she'd started to spin in a never ending circle.

There were trees around her and they started to spin, leaves melting into one warped green. She blinked rapidly, trying to dislodge the fantasy. She wasn't in a forest. Before she'd passed out she'd been in a hallway, wall of fire at one end, murderous security guard at the other. No forest in sight.

"Did you hear that?" The whispered voice was frantic and distinctly male. "Something rustled in the bushes."

"You're hearing things." This voice was feminine, unusually deep. "It's nothing. Come on, we have more important things to patrol than searching the woods for a noise you think you heard."

Rebecca felt a foreboding sense of déjà vu. Once again, they were talking about her. She was sick of faeries trying to hunt her down like an animal. The whispers. The hiding. She wanted to be free of it, away from all the faeries out of get her.

It sounded so ludicrous, she wanted to deny. But she'd passed the point of denial long ago. Now she just had to face it. They were after her, because she was the princess of the Light Fae. She had parents she'd never met, and now she'd never get the chance. Mikael wasn't a seventeen-year-old — he'd fought through a war (and she'd laughed it off when he'd said it in an offhand comment).

Now, Rebecca just wanted to know why. Regardless of the fact that she knew she had parents, they'd still abandoned her. They weren't around anymore to give an excuse, which Rebecca was undecided whether it was good or not.

"I'm not hearing this. I heard it."

"Geraldo, shut up. Do you want to be the one telling the king we couldn't finish patrol because of a disturbance in a bush?"

"What if—"

"I don't have time for this. We have to report to the General in twenty minutes."

"Surely someone's found her. If she's anything like their queen was, I don't even want to meet her. The faster they take her out, the better. Then the king can take over."

If Rebecca had her way, no one would be taking her out.

As vertigo returned, she glanced around. The voices still filtered in but she barely heard them. Underneath her was deep red dirt, riddled with sticks and stones. She was surrounded by large trees, currently lying over one of the trunks. It dug into her back painfully.

Clearly, she was in a forest. If she was lucky — which was highly doubtful, but she was remaining optimistic — it was the same forest she'd come in. That meant the portal was close by. She had no idea how it worked, but she wasn't going to let it get to her.

How she'd gotten here, she had no idea. But, if her suspicions right — and as crazy as the idea was — that meant she'd teleported. She'd been in a hallway and now she was in a forest. It was the only possible explanation.

She'd teleported.

Rebecca had no idea if that was even the name, but she wanted it to be true. Because, if it was, then it was amazing . . . out of this world.