The Endless Series book 1: The Fairys Bargain

Chapter One: Emma Endless

One

“Are you sure this is what you want to do for your bachelorette party?” Iris Jenkins looked around the bar apprehensively. Tall, skinny, with light brown skin, full lips, and curly hair that went everywhere she looked like an sss Queen.

It wasn’t that The Shrieking Shack wasn’t the type of place that we would hang out in. The bar was in Brooklyn, in what had once been a meat factory. Since then, it had been converted into a Harry Potter themed bar. It was dimly lit, with fake candles lighting the room, and a ceiling painted inky blue that was made to look like the sky using tiny, led lights that blinked in and out like stars. Its walls were decorated with wands, posters from the movies, the walls were lined with quotes from the books.

The problem for Iris, Miss Adventure herself, was that it was the type of place we always hung out in. Next to her, my roommate Hazel, whose short, blond, pixie cut bob now had blue streaks in it, nodded in agreement. “You’re getting married, Emma. Don’t you want to do shots off some guys rock hard abs or something?”

I shook my head firmly. I couldn’t make any fuss about my wedding, any fuss about my engagement. I hadn’t even wanted Iris and Hazel to know, but Ben had spilled the beans the last time we had dinner together which was how the party had happened in the first place. It wasn’t that I was ashamed to be engaged, or that I didn’t love my fiancé and want to celebrate it.

Ben Taylor was a charming, young adult author with about a million fan girls online who had nicknamed Ben Daddy and called themselves Taylor Tots. They were all obsessed with his boyish charm, and the compelling books he wrote called The Dragon Queen. However strange it sounded, I certainly couldn’t be embarrassed by that.

I worked at a publishing company, which was the whole reason we had met in the first place. It was a fun, but demanding job, requiring my attention for a hundred different tasks at any point. Once, I had lugged a sword across Manhattan for a book cover photoshoot because the photographer thought the one we had looked flimsy.

I had no reason not to want to celebrate the fact that I was getting married. Well, any sane, rational, reason that is. Iris and Hazel already knew parts of my family history. They knew, for instance, that my grandfather was a semi-famous author, Edward Endless, who had written a book series called The Fairy King. They knew that I hated the series, because it meant that thousands of people looked up to them when they shouldn’t have. That I hated him enough to give up an entire trust fund to charity, to work for pennies at a publishing house when I could have been living in the lap of luxury like the rest of my siblings.

I couldn’t tell them the truth. That my grandfather had made his fortune stealing from faeries, that the only reason he hadn’t been murdered on the spot for it was because he’d agreed to be the gatekeeper between worlds. And that his children and grandchildren would serve for generations after him. Or the worst part of all, that my Mother had made a bargain with the faerie King, selling off one of her own daughters in exchange for what I didn’t even know. The reason I had been given was half-assed at best. Something about wanting a sibling for my sister, but I had brothers.

There was more to it than that, but Mother had been cursed by the faerie king before I even got the chance to probe her for answers about why. Although it had been five years since I’d been to England, ever since the engagement ring had gone on my finger, I’d been watching, waiting for something to go wrong.

If anything were to happen, it would be on the night of the bachelorette party. Ben was away for his book tour. He’d get back tomorrow, and we’d go to city hall. It would be small, quiet.

The fewer people knew, the better. The bachelorette party was the one, celebratory thing I’d allowed my friends to do and that was only because they wouldn’t stop harassing me about it. Even now, at the bar, I kept on waiting for him to appear.

The faerie king.

To watch as he ripped the ring from my finger, to toss it away like trash. There was a small-time frame where I could make this wedding happen. I didn’t need anyone to ruin it for me. Even my best friends, no matter how much they met well.

The first night I’d tried to have s*x with someone who wasn’t him, he had shown up in my room, right as my shirt was about to get ripped off. It had been too quiet, and I didn’t like it.

“Yeah,” said Hazel, “I mean, we always come here after work. This isn’t unusual. Or exciting. Or sexy. For Christ’s sake, there’s a guy wearing a Weasley sweater at the bar.” She slid down the glasses that she wore a little bit, peering over them.

I laughed. “Reconsidering?”

“Possibly,” said Hazel, “I’m going to get us drinks. Lumos shots for everyone?”

Iris and I nodded. We watched as Hazel made her way through the crowd, and we went to slide into a booth.

From her seat, Iris stared suspiciously at me. “What are you doing?”

I hugged my arms around myself. “What do you mean, what am I doing?”

“For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never rushed into things. It took you three months to decide on getting a purse. When you did finally, you had to special order it. Why are you rushing into this with Ben?” Iris asked. “It’s kind of like…. like you’re running from something.”

I sighed. “It’s my family.”

Iris fiddled with a nearby napkin. “What about them?”

“Because of our legacy, they’ve got certain rules, certain expectations. Marrying an American author, who writes fiction for teenage girls isn’t exactly what they wanted for me.”

She frowned. “Tell me you aren’t secretly like, a duchess or something.”

I snorted. “Trust me, I’m not a Duchess. Not even close. My family’s just…. different. That’s why Ben and I are rushing into this, because I have to do it before they find out about it. I know it seems crazy, most people wait, but I don’t have the luxury of waiting.”

Iris’s hard gaze softened. “Okay. Okay. I get it. We’ll celebrate the way you want to celebrate.”

“Thank you, Iris.”

She glanced around, looking for Hazel. “Where is she with our drinks?”

I pointed over at the bar, where Hazel was busy flirting with the bartender who was wearing the Weasley sweater. We both laughed.

“I’ll be back,” said Iris, “don’t do anything too crazy when I’m gone.”

“Okay.”

She went to go pull Hazel back. I was left alone. For one second, I could have sworn I heard someone whisper, “Emma.”

I looked around, but there was no one there. The girls and I spent the night tossing back shots with names like Lumos and Patronus. We told old stories, and stumbled home drunk or tried to before finally calling an Uber.

When I reached my apartment, there was someone there, waiting for me. Not just anyone. A tall, blond, muscled man wearing a form fitting suit. He wasn’t a regular man either. His face was all angles, his ears were pointed, and his eyes changed color as they looked at me. Smoldered from red, to yellow, to orange, back to yellow.

“s**t!” I hissed.

“Well, that’s a very fine greeting,” drawled Oberon, “very uncouth, for a future Queen of faerie. I suggest that you learn not to curse. Start now. That behavior won’t be welcomed at court once we’re married.”

I shook my head, ignoring the pounding from the drinking I had done earlier. “You can’t possibly be here.”

“But I am here. You know why too. It’s time for the bargain to be complete.” He strode towards me, slowly, purposefully, like a predator waiting to pounce.

“Your family made a bargain with me,” he said, “I expect that bargain to be honored. One way, or another.”

“I’m engaged,” I said, showing him the ring, “to a nice fiancé. Why do I have to pay for my family’s mistakes?”

“Because your family was foolish enough to deal with me,” he said in a cold voice, “remember, if you don’t come, I’ll turn your siblings into stone. Take away that precious estate of yours. I turned your father to stone once, and your mother, I can do it with them too!”

“Don’t threaten them! Can’t I….”I sighed. “Nothing I say will matter, will it?”

He reached out to stroke my cheek with one of his long, delicate, fingers. “No. No, my sweet. When the faerie king makes a bargain, he keeps it, and intends all who go into one to do the same. Besides my dear…. you know you want this. That you yearn for me, that you have, ever since the moment you felt me on you.”

“Don’t bring that up,” I hissed, “you tricked me. You used your wine, and your illusions to coerce me into sleeping with you. I still have until Harvest. The Harvest of my twenty-first year, those were the rules.”

“Alright my sweet,” he said, “consider this a reminder to pack.”

I sighed. “Anything else?”

“Come find me in The Grove when you arrive, I’m certain you remember it…sleep well, my sweet.” He kissed me on the forehead, sending a shiver down my spine. I hated that he made me feel anything at all.

With a wave of his hand, he transformed into a barn owl, and flew out the window, which I hadn’t even noticed had been opened before. A chill crept over me. I glanced around, looking for him around every corner. What few there were.

There was no sign of him, only a single, white feather left from when he’d taken leave of me. I bent down to pick it up, then crossed my apartment to slam the window shut. Once it was gone, I stared down at the engagement ring on my finger.

Ben Taylor was a fantasy writer whose book I had found at a conference. It had been a long one, somewhere in Kalispell, Montana at a community college. I’d spent hours answering questions for budding writers, sent to do my bosses job because she’d decided the event was beneath her somehow. She didn’t want to teach a bunch of “rubes”.

Ben was quiet, soft spoken, and country. He held open doors for people. He always made sure that I was warm. He remembered how I took my coffee. He knew not to talk about my famous grandfather, and even though it killed him, he respected my privacy. He wrote a book series called The Dragon Queen, about a young girl who is kidnapped by a dragon who turns out to be a Prince in disguise. Together, they team up to stop a group of invaders from trying to take over her land.

Ben and I had spent so much time talking about his book, that eventually we found ourselves talking about each other. On the night of his book launch five months ago, he kissed me, and we slept in the room the publishing company had rented for him. Since then, it had been nothing but bliss.

But that was how faerie worked. For every wish they granted, they always took something in return. It was why they were dangerous, unless worded exactly right. Words made the world run.

I hadn’t known that as a child. I’d been frivolous, and stupid with them.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, and Ben’s name flashed across the screen. I pressed the talk button. “Hey,” I said softly, feeling as though I had to whisper, uncertain who or what could be listening.

“Hey,” he said, “you make it home safe?”

“Yeah,” I said, “how about you? How’d the meeting go?”

The Dragon Queen had gotten optioned by Netflix as a potential series, and Ben was down in LA meeting with producers to discuss the shows creation. “Long,” said Ben, “but it was great. They’re thinking of getting Ian Somerholder for The Dragon.”

I laughed. “Of course, they are. Like the millions of fan edits didn’t help make that suggestion.”

Ben chuckled. “Well, dudes hot.”

Before me, Ben had been with a few men. He was from rural Montana. It was hard to find someone willing to be open, and honest with him. His longest relationships had been with girls though, notably one of his best friends from back home. They had split amicably when she’d gone to college, so she could enjoy her freedom.

When he’d met me though, the connection had been instant. He had been starting a new phase in his life, trying to navigate the world of publishing. I was starting my first, real job in publishing after years of struggling as a front desk receptionist during and after college. We had so much to talk about, and now, I worried that maybe that wasn’t enough.

That I wasn’t enough.

“Agreed,” I said, not wanting to have a serious conversation after the day that I’d had. Or to rain on his parade. He was having one of those moments in your career that few people rarely got, where everything went right.

I wanted to be supportive, not scare him off.

“You’ll be home tomorrow?”

“Unless I’ve died on the beach. I’ll tell you what, California beaches are nothing like New York beaches. Maybe we should move here, you know. That way I can be closer to the show. If you wanted,” he added, almost as an after-thought, “there’s plenty of news organizations down here that you could work for. Even some publishers. Or, my agents got an in at William-Morris.”

My stomach clenched. He’d planned things for us. Thought of future possibilities. I fiddled with the engagement ring he’d gotten me months ago. It had seemed like such a good thing, so full of promise, and now it felt like an anchor dragging me down to the bottom of the ocean to drown.

Tell him, my inner voice urged, rip the band-aid off, Emma. He’s a fantasy author, for f***s sake. He’ll understand.

“Anything could happen,” I told him, trying to keep the smile in my voice, even as my words faltered, “we’ll talk it over tomorrow when you get back, okay? After we get married. Sleep well. Love you.”

“Tomorrow’s our wedding…”

“Tomorrows our wedding,” I said again with a smile.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The call beeped as it ended. Words had a lot of power. To make and break people. Love was the most powerful of all, and I was going to ruin Ben Taylor for it for all eternity all because of a stupid, foolish, greedy, grandfather…