a way back to hers.
Griff shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just be careful of the wolves.” He turned and started walking away.
“Wolves?” She scrambled after him.
“These woods are dangerous at night. I wouldn’t want to be caught in them after dark.”
“At least tell me where we are?” she pleaded.
He didn’t stop walking. “The world of the fae welcomes you, Brea Robinson.”
Fae? She truly had lost it.
Chapter Four
“Why am I doing this?” Brea mumbled as she followed Griff. He even had a name that sounded like one of those characters Myles used to pretend to be when they were kids.
Why hadn’t she read more fantasy books? Or paid attention to her best friend’s every word about the worlds he disappeared into every night? No, instead, she nagged him about all the reading he did and waited for the movies and TV shows to come out.
During the summer, they’d hang out in one of the fields with Captain America, alternating between riding the horse and sitting against the base of a giant oak tree at the edge of the property. Myles always had a book propped up in his lap while Brea busied herself picking at the blades of grass and imagining shapes in the clouds overhead.
But that was before.
Before some kind of power she couldn’t explain lived inside her.
Before she told anyone about the pointed ears and flashing eyes she saw amid crowds of people.
Before she killed Myles.
“You’re going too fast.” She struggled to keep up with Griff. They’d been walking for way too long, and her feet ached. “How much longer?”
“Oh, so you’re talking to me now?” Griff flashed her a grin. “Your protest didn’t last long.”
“I just want to know how far we have to go.” She tried to see the house in the distance, but as they’d descended into a valley, it disappeared from view.
“We’ve only been walking for half an hour.”
“No way, it’s been longer than that.” Her foot hit a small hole in the ground, and she pitched forward.
Griff caught her before she fell. “Graceful.” He laughed. “Just what I’d expect from someone raised in the human world.”
Brea righted herself and pushed away from him. “What does that even mean? There’s only one world.”
Griff shrugged. “Maybe for those with small minds. Do you have a small mind?”
“No.” She clenched her jaw. She may not have excelled at school or basically anything else, but she wasn’t an idiot.
“All right, Brea Robinson, let’s clear something up.” His eyes locked with hers. “I will not lie to you. That is my promise. So, when I tell you something, I need you to believe it.”
His voice held such sincerity she wanted to trust him, but she’d only trusted one person in her life, and he was dead.
She shifted her eyes to her ripped jeans, focusing on the patch her mom had sewn in the knee instead of buying her a new pair. Things like that reminded her who she was--a farm girl from Ohio with a history of mental instability.
Also, a girl with nothing to go back to.
“I want to believe you,” she whispered. She wanted to believe there was more out there than the life she’d been living. “I just…”
His fingertips brushed her chin and tilted her face up. “Look at me, Brea Robinson. You have questions, and I will answer them in time. For now, I need you to know you’re not imagining this.” His touch flittered along her cheek, and she swallowed, mesmerized by his swirling eyes.
“This is real.” The words released on a breath, as if breaking free of some deeper part of her.
She lived her life in lies, but as she breathed in the fresh air of a new life, a new… world?… she hoped this was anything but.
A smile tilted his lips, different from the wide grin before when he’d laughed at her. This time, there was kindness in his expression, an openness she couldn’t help but be drawn to.
He reminded her so much of Myles.
“So,” she swallowed as she tested the next words in her mind. “Two… worlds?”
He withdrew his hand and nodded. “You’re now in the fae world. It parallels the human world you knew.”
“But… how did we get here?”
“A portal.” He winked. “Magic.”
Her mind stuttered on that word, and Griff turned to keep walking.
She ran after him. “Magic?”
Glee shone on his face. “You have no idea.”
“What is magic?”
“Why does this place look like a freaking fairytale?”
“Why is it warm here when it was so cold at home?”
“And why would you bother bringing me