Maythorn's Wish (The Fey Quartet Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

expressionless—but beneath the impassive stare was an odd sense of expectancy.
    Yes, she knows she owes me. But why?
    In a flash, the widow understood. “I have returned your daughter to you. Your only child. Your bloodline will continue. For that, you owe me.”
    The Faerie tilted her head in a regal nod. “Choose your wish.”
    Widow Miller’s mind went blank. Think! Quickly! But she had what she wanted, for herself and her daughters.
    “There’s a man you love.” For the first time, the Faerie smiled, a thin, disdainful, mocking smile. Her teeth were as sharp and white as a cat’s. “I can make him love you.”
    For an instant Widow Miller saw Ren Blacksmith in her mind’s eye—the flaxen hair, the strong, gentle hands, the smiling gray-green eyes—and her heart clenched painfully. Have Ren love me?
    “He will worship you until he dies.”
    Worship? The widow took a step backwards, shaking her head. “No.”
    “No? Are you certain?” The Faerie’s voice was sibilant and seductive. “It is easily done.”
    “I’m certain,” Widow Miller said firmly. “Love should be given freely, or not at all.”
    The Faerie shrugged. There was scorn in her black eyes and amusement on her face.
    Widow Miller looked away from that cold, cruel, inhuman face, and gazed at the baby.
    “Through your daughter, your bloodline lives,” she said slowly. “I gave you that.” She glanced up, suddenly knowing what to ask for. “ I gave you that. So what I ask for in return is this: as long as your daughter’s line survives, my daughters’ lines shall receive Faerie wishes.”
    The amusement vanished from the Faerie’s face. “You ask too much, human.”
    “No,” Widow Miller said. “I ask just enough. Fey have but one child. Your bloodline continues because of me.”
    The Faerie gazed at her for a long moment, her eyes dark and narrow, sucking up the light, reflecting nothing.
    Widow Miller met those black eyes and listened to the thump of her heart and the sigh of the breeze in the trees and the chirrup of birdsong.
    “Females only,” the Faerie said abruptly. “As long as my daughter’s female line survives, the females in your daughters’ lines shall each receive a wish. On their birthdays. At the same ages their mothers were when they received their wishes.”
    The widow considered this carefully. Larkspur’s offspring would be twenty-one when granted wishes, Hazel’s twenty-three, Ivy’s twenty-five. Women, not flighty young girls. Old enough to make sensible choices.
    “Agreed,” she said.
    The Faerie gave a dismissive nod and turned away.
    “Be careful.”
    The Faerie glanced over her shoulder, aloof and startled.
    “Someone tried to drown your daughter. Guard her carefully, lest they try to harm her again.”
    The Faerie turned to face her fully. Beneath the coldness, Widow Miller saw surprise. “You care about my daughter? You feel affection for her?”
    “Of course I do. She’s but a babe.”
    A contemptuous smile curled the Faerie’s lips. “Humans. So soft-hearted.” Her laugh rang beneath the trees, bell-like and mocking, and then, in a brief gust of wind, she was gone. The echo of Faerie laughter hung in the air, but other than that, the little glade was empty.
    Widow Miller touched her nose, her cheekbones, her jaw. “I’m whole again,” she whispered, and then, more loudly: “I’m whole again!” She spun around and started back the way she’d come, her steps coming faster and faster until she was running, as lightly and fleetly and joyfully as a young deer.
    The basket of wilting herbs was where she’d left it, beside the mossy log. The widow picked it up, breathless and laughing. “I’m no longer Widow Miller,” she told the basket. “Look at me! I’m Maythorn again!”

CHAPTER FIVE
    BESS AND BARTLEMAY set up a great barking when she reached the cottage. “It’s me, sillies,” Maythorn said, and to her daughters, wide-eyed and anxious, clustered in the doorway: