Tabitha - Royal Rebel, Kiana Dreamfairy [best adventure books to read .TXT] 📗

“She’s three hundred and thirty-seven years old. That’s a bit late to be running away from home.” “She aren’t running away from home. She just taking a vacation.”
“It looks a lot like running.”
“And how does you know what running look like, you big pansy? You is too old to get faster than a hobbles!”

“Shush!” The hiss is Tabitha’s voice got her companions’ attention, and they fell into a tense, bristling silence. “Silent” or “sniping” described how Squit and Binkie spent nearly all their time together, but at the moment, Tabitha had other things to worry about.

She couldn’t afford a distraction. “I told the both of you that if you wanted to come see me off, you were going to have to be quiet. If you can’t manage that, I can always send you back to the palace.”

The pixie and the imp exchanged fulminating glares, one from the spot where he fluttered beside Tabitha’s head, the other from his perch on her shoulder. She ignored them both, concentrating on making sure they weren’t being followed as she picked a path through the dense, cool forest north of the Palace. Normally, no one would have cared that she’d gone and certainly no one would of stopped her, but as she had recently realized, very few things these days were “normal” at Court.

“Your Highness,” the pixie broke in again, his tone clearly disapproving, “I really think it would be better –“
She fixed him with a sweetly dangerous smile. “Binkie, my dear friend, if you don’t shut up in the next five seconds, I might just change my mind and take you with me.”

The resulting silence lent a genuine curve to her smile. She could hear Squit chortling beside her ear, but she ignored him. She’d learned long ago not to encourage the imp. Or any imp. It only gave them ideas.

The pixie continued to flutter beside her head and cast disapproving glares in her direction, but disapproval didn’t bother Tabitha. She’d grown far too used to it over the years. Binkie, on the other hand, lived in mortal fear of Queen Trinity’s disapproval, which was why the threat of bringing him along to the human world had shut him up in such a hurry. Tabitha’s mom had decreed this particular vacation destination off-limits to her people ages ago, and Binkie had never been one to disobey a direct order. Unlike Tabitha.

Turning away from examining the trail behind her for followers, Tabitha started forward again, her violet eyes scanning the forest on either side of the trail for any sign of pursuit. All remained eerily quiet. For about fifteen seconds.

“Personally, I think a little vacation are a fine idea, Princess,” Squit piped up, and Tabitha didn’t have to glance over at his perch on her shoulder to know he’d be grinning tauntingly at Binkie as he spoke. “Things has been getting real...complicated at court. A nice refreshing tour of boring human land are just whats we needs for lifting our spirits.”

Tabitha shot him a sideways glance. “Who said anything about we?”

The imp looked shocked. “But Missy Tabitha! You has to take us with you! Who will protects you if I’s not there? The human land cans be a hideous, dangerous places.”
“I think I can handle it, Squit. It cant be any more dangerous than court is becoming.”

She grimaced at the truth of her own words. For someone who had grown up at court, as she had, a certain amount of danger was to be expected. There were always intrigues and deceptions to deal with, enemies to avoid and loyalties to question, but these days, the perils of politics had grown unexpected teeth. Ones that had just yesterday attempted to clamp down on Tabitha’s unwitting head.

Her mouth firmed into a line of displeasure as she recalled the experience of being cornered in a remote alcove by a particularly ambitious courtier. The entire population of Faerie knew the queen was planning on naming her heir from among one of her two dozen or so sister’s and brother’s before the next Passing Moon, and apparently the odds on Tabitha were high enough to make her an attractive target of would-be-consorts. No one seemed to believe her protestations that she had no interest in ascending to the throne. It had taken a snapped temper and a knee to the groin to get the message across well enough to make her escape, but it had taken significantly less to convince Tabitha it was time to take a nice, long, remote vacation.

Too bad her chosen spot was on the banned-travel list.

Ever since an incident a few years ago when the queen’s nephew had been spotted by several humans as he gallivanted around New York, Her Majesty had gotten a lot tougher about enforcing the ban on travel between Faerie and the human world. Most people tried to stay away from upsetting Queen Trinity.

There hadn’t been much chance that anything would come of the sightings, considering most humans had stopped believing in the existence of the Fae—Faeries, as they called them—many humans centuries ago, but Queen Trinity did not like to be thwarted.

Tabitha didn’t see how anyone could consider a quick little vacation to the human world as “thwarting,” though. After all, it wasn’t like your average human would be expecting to see a Fae walking among them, and with a little glamour—the smallest form of Fae magic—she could make sure all they did see when they looked at her would be a perfectly normal human woman.

Even without magic, her basic appearance didn’t give her away. She was human shaped, with one head, two arms, two legs, and the requisite number of eyes and noses and such, and at five feet, four inches, tall she fell easily in the acceptable height range for a human female. Her black hair might be a bit long, since she wore it to her hips as most Fae did, but it’s not like it hissed or anything. And if her skin was paler than the average human, well, she could always say she was afraid of skin cancer. The Fae were immune to it, but she’d read that it was a big concern for mortals. The real need for the glamour came from the subtle, luminous bits of magic that nature had woven into her being. The glow that made her skin look more like moonlight than peaches and cream. The bright glitter of starshine in her pure violet eyes. Those were the things that might give her away, but humans, in her experience, were not that tough to fool. And while the world full of mortals went about its business in blissful ignorance, she’d be able to do some shopping and take in a few concerts. She’d done it before with no problems. She didn’t forsee any this time, either.

“I’m telling you, I have a bad feeling about this,” Binkie grumbled, apparently unable to bear the living silence of the forest clearing a moment longer. He’d lasted longer than Tabitha had expected. Pixies were not well-known for their taciturn natures. “If you step through that gate, you’ll be sorry.”

“You is always feeling bad,” Squit grumbled. “That ain’t nothing new.”

“The only reason why I would be sorry would be if the queen found out,” Tabitha said. “And the only way my mom could possibly find out something like that would be if you told her. Which you’re not going to do. Are you, Binkie?”

The pixie remained stubbornly silent. For once in his life.

Tabitha’s hand darted out, pinching his gossamer tunic between her thumb and forefinger and hauling him right up to her face. “Are you, Binkie?”

He glanced from her to the gate on the other side of the clearing and back again. His wings drooped at the edges. “No, Princess Tabitha. I will not tell the queen of your rash and ill-advised excursion into forbidden territory.”
“I’ve asked you not to call me ‘Princess,’” she said, and released him with a flick of her fingers.
From her shoulder, Squit stuck his tongue out at the pixie.
Binkie flew back a couple of feet and gave a wounded sniff. “You are a princess.”
“Sure, along with ten of my female cousins, and that’s not counting the others who happen to be princes.”

She peered around the trunk of an old oak tree and scanned the break in the thick vegetation for any signs of movement. Just because she wouldn’t let the fear of getting caught stop her from going through the gate didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try to avoid it.

“None of them had parents who died and left their care directly in the hands of the queen.”

“Binkie, do you want me to take you with me?”

“You can takes me!” Squit shouted, jumping up and down excitedly.

The renewed threat shut the pixie up, but the damage had already been done. He’d reminded her of something she spend a great deal of her time trying to forget, and now she’d spend at least the rest of the day with it hanging over her head. Pesky pixie pest.

Tabitha knew that ignoring the truth wasn’t going to make it go away, but that didn’t keep her from trying. On a daily basis. She despised court life, whether it was at her aunt’s Court or at the other Court that was ruled by Trinity’s former husband and Tabitha’s still officially uncle, Adonis. The idea of taking the throne when the peace between the two courts had been uneasy at best for most of her lifetime made her break out in hives. And that was exactly the reason that she needed to take