home.
Running a hand down Maisie’s neck, she spoke to the horse. “You’re lucky this is your home, girl.”
She hadn’t meant for Griff to hear her. “It can be yours too.”
Her head snapped up, but she didn’t respond.
Griff went on. “You’re the queen’s niece. Gelsi is just as much your home as it is mine. You’ve already accepted this is real.”
“How do you know that?”
“When I look into your eyes, the doubt that used to cloud your every thought is gone. If you let yourself admit it, everything I’ve told you makes sense. Queen Regan is going to welcome you into her court, and if you choose, we can be your people.”
Her people? Other than Myles, she’d never had people before. Unless you included the countless psychiatrists and institute employees.
Griff’s gaze held so much hope. Why did he want her there? The question never passed her lips because as she lifted her eyes to the most beautiful landscape she’d ever seen, she realized she didn’t want there to be any ulterior motives.
So, she decided to trust. In Griff. In this unknown queen. In life’s karma, because she’d been through so much crap, she’d earned a little good—even if that came in the form of elves taking her away from her home. If karma did truly exist, Legolas was here somewhere ready to confess his undying love. She just hoped he truly did look like Orlando Bloom.
She laughed to herself.
“What’s so funny?” Griff asked.
“You wouldn’t happen to be spiriting me away to Mordor, would you?”
His brow scrunched in confusion. “No. We’re just riding horses.”
She swallowed another laugh. “Okay, good.”
Brea didn’t know when Griff packed food into his saddlebags or how she didn’t see him do it, but he kept producing wrapped parcels like the bags were one of those clown cars where the creepy clowns just kept appearing.
“You spell those saddlebags or something?” She sat underneath the single tree atop the hill where Griff had brought her. Flowers spread across the valley on the other side, an explosion of yellows and reds.
Griff gave her a what-are-you-talking-about look. “We don’t do spells. That’s not how our magic works.”
“Calm down. It was a joke.”
He set a blanket down and placed a loaf of bread at the center, along with several hunks of cheese and dried meat, and a wrapped bunch of figs before plunking himself down. Brea reached forward for some cheese but jerked her hand back when grasses grew up over her lap.
Jumping to her feet, she backed away. “What the heck?”
Griff shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips.
Flowers popped up from where there had been none before, and the faint breeze turned into a wind tunnel aimed directly at Brea. She started running, but it followed her, blowing her hair across her face.
Only moments ago, she’d marveled at how amazing this place was. Now, she didn’t like it one bit.
“Griff!” she yelled. “I know you’re doing this. Stop!”
“Stop it yourself!” he called back.
How dare he? Dark anger fizzled down her arms, pooling in her hands. This wasn’t funny. Power seeped out of her fingertips.
“Release it, Brea.”
“I don’t know how!”
Light shone underneath her fingernails as she flicked them toward the wind tunnel, wanting, needing it to work.
Nothing did.
So, she did the only thing she could think of, the one thing she was good at.
She ran.
Mack stood closest, and she launched herself into his saddle the way Myles taught her to without any help. Digging her heels into his sides, she urged Mack into a run and took off down into the flowering valley, thundering across the beautiful landscape, leaving trampled flowers in her wake.
Story of her life.
It took her a moment to realize the wind tunnel hadn’t followed her. She pulled back on the reins, and Mack reared up as he neighed. She squeezed her thighs to keep her seat as he thudded back down and turned back to the hill where Griff stood watching her.
As she neared him, the shock on his face sent a wave of satisfaction through her. He deserved it after trying to force some kind of magic out of her, a magic she hadn’t known about until a few days ago.
That was the one part of all this that still didn’t feel real.
“You lied to me.” His jaw clenched.
She shrugged and jumped down from Mack, landing gracefully. “It’s called hustling.” She bumped his shoulder as she walked past him to get to the food. “Maybe if you weren’t so bent on helping the poor weak human girl