Enchanted — Jessica N. Lane

Fantasy Romance

Claire Arden has a lot on her plate. In addition to surviving life as a high school sophomore, while avoiding the pitfalls that come with growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, she takes care of her aging grandmother, does her best to keep her flighty best friend out of trouble, and even holds down a part-time gig at The Burger Shack. Oh! And she recently discovered that she's a princess, but not just any princess. Claire is the half-blood princess of a race of creatures she'd always assumed didn't exist outside of the bedtime stories her gran used to tell her. Forced out of our world by humans of old, the fae, gifted with dominion over the four elements, created Faega, a world behind our own where they govern beings long believed to be mythic. Under the protection of her human mother's closest friend, Claire was spirited away from Faega as an infant because of an uprising of those who opposed her birth simply because she was only half fae. Sixteen years later, with members of the dark fae searching for her, she's reacquainted with the magical realm from her bedtime stories, and all the treachery, danger, and adventure that comes along with it.

-Excerpt-

“Where did you get those?” Dad's voice, sounding equal parts accusatory and apprehensive, drew my attention down the table to him. His eyes were on the crown of morning glories atop my head. His eyes then widened with remembrance. “The wolf?”
I nodded. “He brought them to me after dinner last night.”
“The wolf?” Dad asked again in disbelief.
I tilted my head to the side to look at him quizzically. “Silas, yes. Remember, I sent him to pick them for me, and that's why he wasn't at-”
“Out of the question,” Dad declared. “The boy is unsuitable.”
I rolled my eyes. Hadn't I just told him that Silas hadn't actually given me the flowers? That I'd asked for them? Damn Lennox and his little pranks!
“Arden, you know as well as I do that the boy is a prince among his people,” Sienna reasoned. “His father is one of your closest friends.”
I dared to glance over at where Silas was sitting with the other guards, and noticed his back had stiffened, and he'd stopped eating as well. It was obvious that he was listening. I groaned inwardly. Great.
“She's too young!” Dad protested.
“She is a mere two years younger than her mother was when she became your bride,” Edrea reminded him.
“She is sitting right here, and so is 'the wolf','” I grumbled, and was ignored. I noticed that several of the guards, servants, valets, and ladies in waiting were now surreptitiously listening in. Ugh! This conversation was beyond embarrassing, and completely unnecessary.
“That... we... that was different, and though Silas is a prince among his people, here, he is a palace guard; Claire's personal guard. Their differences in stations alone makes it impossible.”
“You could always make him a eunuch,” Coal suggested absently.
I rolled my eyes at his ridiculousness until I saw that Dad was actually considering what Coal had said. My fork clattered to the table. “Dad, there's no need for that. I requested that Silas bring me the flowers without either of us knowing what they represented. Here, I'll take them off.”
“Nonsense!” Edrea's indignant cry froze my hands in the middle of their ascent toward the flowery crown on my head. I looked at her in confusing, and she elaborated. “Wearing it will make the other young men of the court believe that they have competition for your hand.”
I snorted. “Grandma Edrea, I don't know if you've noticed, but the noblemen around this place aren't exactly falling all over themselves to propose to me. I'm a half-blood, remember? Besides, I'm not really ready to part with my hand, or any other part of me. I'm only sixteen.”
“See,” Dad eagerly piggybacked on my refusal to be a child bride. The relief in his face was almost comical. I might have laughed had I not been able to feel the weight of Silas's silver stare...

-End