The changes that were happening, the thing I was turning into, scared the absolute hell out of me. I didn’t even recognize my own face in the mirror anymore. All the wrinkles, the scars, the frown lines that I’d earned, they were all wiped away by ‘Princess Olwen’s’ magic, and I hated it. It was like the power was just trying to erase my entire life and turn me into this perfect little faerie royal, and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it.

  Not that I could let on to anyone else how freaked out I was by all of this. Everyone in town seemed to be perfectly nice, but I still wasn’t willing to let them within arm’s reach of me. My brother, Cain, had lived here for years, and he’d still ended up stabbed in the back.

  Literally.

  Haven Hollow wasn’t a safe place, and I wasn’t about to forget that. No matter how much I liked some of my new neighbors.

  But that also meant I couldn’t really talk to anyone about what was going on. I knew jack-all about magic of any variety, and the only people in town who knew anything about the Fae just seemed to expect me to roll over and accept everything. Like—hey, you’ve been dealt a bad hand but what can you make of it? How about walking away from the table?

  Yeah, that wasn’t an option.

  As far as everyone else was concerned, it seemed like I should just forget about anything I, Taliyah, wanted, or anything I’d accomplished in my life thus far, including my job, my family, my identity… and just flit off to the Fae realms and be princess and then queen. And, oh, get married of course. To a guy I didn’t even know. Because a prophecy said so.

  Ugh.

  I was feeling sorry for myself, true, but if anyone deserved a pity party, I was pretty sure it was me. Swirling around the dregs of my drink, I contemplated ordering another one, when a smooth male voice spoke up from behind me.

  “Stop that,” he said simply.

  I turned on my stool to find Maverick standing behind me.

  He was beginning to grow his hair out again; I noticed as I eyed him, but it was still drastically shorter than what I was used to. When we’d first met, his hair hung just below his shoulders, but it had apparently been a lot longer before he’d been ambushed by a homicidal vampire and tortured. She’d cut his hair off because she knew he liked it long. Then he’d cut it even shorter to infiltrate a group of vampires in order to rescue his daughter.

  I still wasn’t a hundred-percent clear on the whole Sybil situation. From what I’d witnessed, and what Maverick had told me, his powers had helped to ensoul a mannequin and bring her to life and now she looked at him as a father figure. As if that weren’t weird enough, Sybil was also her own form of magical—a shapeshifter. While she could imitate pretty much any woman, she’d settled onto a form that looked like a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl.

  Even though I had no idea how it was even possible to bring a mannequin to life, I let it go, just because thinking about it too hard made a headache start to bloom to life behind my right eye which then gave me this weird wink. And I had enough to worry about without looking like Igor. Besides, Sybil seemed like a good kid. A little bit naïve. Okay, a lot naïve. But she was sweet, polite, and enthralled by just about everything. At the very least, Maverick could commiserate with me when it came to complicated family stuff.

  He’d also been making himself scarce, lately. From what his cousin, Wanda, had told me, he’d run off to Seattle for a bit, which seemed to be his way. Appearing and then disappearing just as quickly. In fact, I hadn’t known Maverick had blown back into town again, but then, I’d also gotten caught up in my own upcoming nuptials (which were decidedly NOT going to happen, if I had any say in the matter and I was actually worried I didn’t) and coronation that everyone else seemed to think was a done deal.

  Maverick slid onto the bar stool next to me, folding his ridiculously long legs out of the way. I was tall at five-eight (actually, ever since my magic had been leaking through the breach, I’d actually gained a couple of inches). Even so, Maverick still towered over me. He had to be at least six-five, six-six. But he had nicely broad shoulders so he didn’t look like a stork or something.

  He caught Roy’s eye from down the bar. “Roy,” he said and nodded his greeting to which the sasquatch replied in kind. “Whiskey, neat.”

  I waited until Roy had slid Maverick’s drink in front of him before I asked, “What do you mean, stop it?”

  He lifted one dark, and more than a little sardonic, eyebrow at me. The man was very handsome, but the problem was, I was fairly sure he knew it. “Just what I said. You need to stop getting so lost in your thoughts.” He glanced down at my empty glass before looking back up at me with that smirk. “And didn’t anyone ever tell you that drinking to forget your problems is never a good idea? Let’s not even get into the subject known as ‘drinking alone’.”

  I snorted. “You’re one to talk.”

  The first time I met Maverick, he was three sheets to the wind, for actually pretty much the same reason I was drinking tonight. He’d just been turned into a Blood Warlock, which was a warlock who’d been partially turned by a vampire, which was apparently a really big deal in witch society. His power was changing, he was turning into something he couldn’t stop, so he knew exactly what it was like to have to question who and what you were. Frankly, it was enough to drive anyone to drink.

  Then, I’d had to drive Wanda to a Portland playground to find him, where he’d been brooding in the rain. And not a natural rain, oh no, he’d actually summoned a storm—talk about making everyone else aware of your problems. If anyone in the world had no leg to stand on to call me dramatic, it was Maverick Depraysie.

  Maverick pursed his lips, and swirled his glass, his gaze on the amber liquid as it moved. “I’ve tried to drink my pain away before, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do, nor would I recommend it. After all, I’m a broody, self-destructive bastard. You, on the other hand, are a faerie princess and an officer of the law.”

  “No,” I said on a swift inhale. “First and foremost, I’m an officer of the law. Second only to that am I a… ugh… princess.”

  “Point is: you should be better than I am.”

  I laughed, and even through the alcohol I could hear just how full of bitterness the sound was. “That’s just the problem, isn’t it? I’m a faerie princess, and come midnight tonight, on the freaking first of December, I’m supposed to marry a prince and become the Queen of Winter.”

  I’d actually been avoiding looking at my phone as much as possible for weeks now, because Fox Aspen had been texting me incessantly. Fox, or rather, Prince Reynard of the Autumn Court of the Fae as his subjects called him, wanted to know when and where we were going to get married. Apparently, we’d been betrothed for years because of some stupid prophecy, and I needed to hurry up and get over the whole ‘not knowing or particularly liking him’ part so we could get hitched. Getting hitched would not only cement the alliance between our two courts, but it was also supposed to allow me to come into my full power and become the queen I was born to be.

  Oh, and it would also uproot my entire life, and the lives of my two sons, because we’d have to move to the fricking Faerie Realms, because sure, why not? I’m sure my two, completely human children would love it there. I could only wonder what kind of school system they had in magic land? And I was sure that all my enemies who wanted me dead from the moment I was born, causing me to be hidden away with a human family for almost half a century… I was sure they’d definitely leave my kids alone. I mean, they’d already tried to assassinate a baby, but I guess everyone assumed Charlie and Sean would just be fine? Or worse, they didn’t care…

  I’d been ignoring Fox pretty successfully, but sooner or later I was pretty sure he was just going to show up to come and get me and carry me off, Roman style. Because why should anything like my wholehearted refusal matter when it came to Fae weddings?

  Maverick glowered at the wall of carefully arranged bottles like they’d insulted him personally, and blood red sparks of power leapt between his fingers. I couldn’t explain why, but for some weird reason, I found it sexy.

  “If you don’t want to get married and become the Queen of Winter, then don’t get married and become the Queen of Winter,” he said, his jaw so tight, I was impressed he could grit the words out between his clenched teeth.

  “Tell that to the Autumn and Winter courts.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “I will stand between you and any man who tries to make you do something you don’t want to do.”

  My chest felt tight at his declaration, so I tried to laugh it off. “Wow, you sound like a jealous boyfriend.”

  He turned to look at me then, his usually luminous gray eyes now dark and his face far too serious. “You are the only person outside of my coven who has ever bothered to be kind to me. And, as you might imagine, that means a lot to me, Taliyah.”

  He looked back down at his drink, and I stared at his profile for a long moment, my throat feeling a little too tight. Everyone just assumed I’d go along with all this faerie crap, for the good of everyone, or something.

  But suddenly feeling like there was someone on my side? It meant a lot.

  It meant more than Maverick would ever know, actually, because I wasn’t good with wearing my emotions. I never had been.

  But that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate him.

  Actually, the truth of the matter was that Maverick was the closest thing to a friend I had in Haven Hollow.

  Chapter Two

  I knew there was something between Maverick and me—there had been ever since he’d started working for me.

  Maverick was a part-time bounty hunter, and he’d helped me track down supernatural creatures that were too big, or too numerous for me to capture on my own. I couldn’t really take my human deputies along for those kinds of jobs. They’d get eaten, or worse. Not to mention, I’d have a lot of explaining to do when asking a human to try to chase down a Satyr for drunk and disorderly conduct.

  But Maverick was always willing to help, and he was quick on the draw with a spell or a hex when the chips were down. He’d even made a handful of magically warded cells in the precinct that could keep the spookier prisoners in, without them being noticed by the other officers. All in all, he’d been a huge help in trying to keep Haven Hollow in line.

  He also tended to be flirty whenever we talked, but I honestly couldn’t tell if it was because he actually meant it, or because he was a player and it was just habit. I knew he was older than I was, hard as it was to believe with his coal black hair and mostly unlined face, and he’d had a lot more intimate partners than I had. Witch and warlock societies didn’t get hung up or shame people for liking or having lots of sex, after all. It was a different way of seeing things and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I tended to be a bit more traditional where those sorts of things were concerned.

  And as to my own sexual escapades? Ha, let’s just say my libido had jumped ship ever since the divorce and now it was floating somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, being picked at by the seagulls and fish.

  All in all, I was reluctant to even think of starting something with Maverick, because I’d been spectacularly burned in the past and I wasn’t exactly eager for round two. Jonathon had been a player and then some. And no matter how good things had been in the bedroom, great sex couldn’t save our marriage from every twenty-something barista, waitress, dancer, legal assistant… the list went on.

  Never again, thanks. I’d join a convent, first.

  In spite of that, though, I did find Maverick attractive. I always had—but, it was hard not to with that chiseled face, those expressive steely gray eyes and his overall strong features. Maverick was tall, and lean, but there was an unexpected strength in his hands. But more than his looks, he’d become my friend, and I didn’t have a lot of those. Certainly not enough to risk losing one.

  “We’re in the same boat, really,” I told the side of his face, my gaze tracing the proud blade of his nose, down to his surprisingly full lips. “There’s just not a whole lot of people we can trust.”

  He glanced at me and caught me staring. The corner of the lips I’d been admiring curled up into a little smirk. “If you want a picture, I charge a dollar for five-by-seven photos and five dollars for eight-by-tens.”

  I snorted. “You’re right—you are a cocky bastard.” But I couldn’t help but smile into my glass, that Roy had somehow refilled without my noticing. It was weird that such a big guy could move so quietly or maybe I was just that out of it.

  The smile pulled on muscles that felt stiff from disuse. How long had it been since I’d smiled? Since I’d laughed? Too long. This town was really taking a toll on me.

  I shook my head. “Well, I appreciate your willingness to have my back, but I really don’t think I can get out of this that easily.”

  “Out of what?”

  “Marriage.”

  “Right. Marriage.” He picked up his glass and swallowed the entire contents in one gulp. Then he motioned to Roy for another. “I don’t like that word coming from your mouth.”

  “Well, however much you dislike it, I can promise you I dislike it even more.”

  “Then don’t do it.”

  I shook my head and laughed but the sound was icy and devoid of mirth. “From what everyone’s been telling me, the prophecy is pretty much set in stone.”

  “And that means what?”

  I shrugged. “That I’m going to get married tonight, and once I do, I’ll come into my full power as the Winter Princess. And then, once I’m married, I’ll be able to take the throne and the Autumn and Winter courts will be forever united so all the fairies and the squirrels and the bunny rabbits can dance around the maypole.”

  He turned to look at me and frowned. “What?”

  “Nevermind,” I answered as I shook my head and took a deep breath. “Point is—I’m not excited about it, I don’t want to do it, but I see no way around it.”

  We drank in silence for a little while. It was nice, actually. Not the oppressive silence that can hang over things when you’re all alone. It felt companionable. Comfortable but also respectful.

  Regardless, I shouldn’t have even stopped at the Half-Moon at all, much less stayed for as long as I had. I needed to get home to my boys and relieve Marty, who no doubt wanted to go see Poppy, his soon-to-be wife. And that thought was almost as weird as the idea of me being a soon-to-be-wife. I couldn’t explain why but my cousin and Poppy… they just didn’t seem to fit. But that was definitely not my problem.

  Just as I was reaching for my wallet to settle up my tab, Maverick downed the remnants of his newest drink in another single swallow and spoke up.

  “Does it have to be him?”

  It might have been the drinks I’d put away, but I had no idea what he was asking. “Who? What are you talking about?”

  He still wasn’t looking at me. His hands were resting on the oak of the bar, clenched so tightly into fists that I could see the shadow of tendons through his skin. “You said you had to be married.” Then he looked up at me. “So… I’m asking: does it have to be to the prince?”

  I frowned, because I honestly wasn’t sure. I hadn’t thought about it. “The prophecy didn’t really specify that part, I don’t think. But it kind of seems like a given, right? I mean, the whole point of the marriage is to unite the houses of Winter and Autumn.”

  “Hmm.”

  I took a deep breath and felt sorry for myself all over again. “But even if I could marry someone else, who in the world would possibly want to marry me?” I laughed, shaking my head. “And before midnight, for that matter?”

  Maverick was quiet for a moment, and then said, “I would.”

  “Um, what?”

  He twisted around on his stool, his knees bumping my hip, and when he looked at me, he seemed to look right through me. I swallowed hard and couldn’t deny the surprise that ricocheted through me as he took my hand in his. As soon as we touched, magic sparked between us, little shivers of light flicking along our skin like we’d completed a circuit, and I shivered.

  Maverick’s expression was as somber as his voice when he spoke. “Marry me instead, Taliyah.”

  I stared.

  Once, in a bust, I’d taken a good solid hit to the head, and it had left me reeling. I’d finally understood what the term ‘poleaxed’ meant. I was feeling the same way right then, in a bar with Maverick holding my hand and asking, or rather telling, me to marry him.

  I didn’t know how to react. My whole brain was blue-screening. I just sat there, my mouth hanging open, while I tried to reboot. Part of me wondered if I’d even heard him correctly, but there weren’t a whole lot of other sentences that sounded like ‘marry me, Taliyah’, at least not ones that made any more sense.

  My thoughts finally came back online, and I shook my head. “Is this your idea of some kind of bad and really poorly timed joke?”

  I wasn’t angry, not yet anyway, but if Maverick was using this as an opportunity to mock me, we were going to have a problem. I just wasn’t in the mood to be mocked—not when I was going through so much.

  He scowled, his face turning thunderous, and weirdly, that was a bit reassuring. Maverick wasn’t exactly a happy, smiling person, at least not most of the time. He struck me as being most comfortable somewhere between flippant and brooding. Honestly, it was one of the things I liked best about him.

  Don’t get me wrong, I loved my adopted cousin, Marty. He was family. Cain, Marty, and I had all grown up together. But Marty was just so upbeat, so aggressively cheerful, and people like that seemed to rub me the wrong way. They set off every instinct I had that they were hiding something.

  It was possible that all my years as a cop and dealing with some of the worst kinds of people, had made me a touch cynical. Or more than a touch.

  Maverick’s scowl inched another degree darker. “Well?”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, what?”

  If he frowned any harder, I was pretty sure a little thundercloud would actually brew to life over his head. Which, actually now that I was thinking about it, was technically possible.