MONSTERS MADE

1. THE HUMAN LANDS

Aurora blinked against the cold wind. The weather was harsh in the Human Lands, much different than her beloved Spring Court.

The strip of land between Prythian and the rest of the Human World was a barren place, having fallen into desperate hands over the years. Humans drenched in fear of the terrifying fae living to their closest borders, and wicked fae that saw humans as easy prey.

The Black Fortress was a layover point for travelers between the two worlds. Aurora and her company of sentries and closest ladies in waiting found themselves resting at the estate before making the trek back into Prythian.

Aurora shivered in the cold, yearning for the soothing weather of Spring. As the Court's only heir she thrived in the sunlight, her toes in the dirt.

She turned back towards the courtyard, her green eyes flashing over humans, dirty and begging and working, and then higher up on the balconies where she stood. The more fortunate humans, bundled in heavy cloaks, enjoying the clean earth up here.

It was not lost on her that she and her company were the only fae here. But she'd stay just a night, long enough for the horses to rest and then she'd be back on the road. Soon, they will be passing through the remnants of what used to be the Wall, soon she'd be home.

Aurora felt her guards tense behind her. She blinked at the noise in the courtyard, wagons and yelling.

"The entertainment has arrived." The young Lord Graysen II said. He stood next to her, his dark cloak fluttering in the harsh winter wind.

"Such an honor," Aurora said, "Musicians?"

Graysen's lips twitched, "Carnival band."

Aurora cocked her head at the humans that were to provide the entertainment. She blinked again and again at the spiked whips gripped in their hands. "What kind of entertainment is this, Graysen?"

He chuckled. "They've brought a demon."

Aurora raised an eyebrow. It was one thing to accept the Lord's meager hospitality. But quite another to be swept up in his conspiracy theories of alien beings.

"A demon?" If he heard the sarcasm in her voice, he did not let it spoil his fun. "Truly."

Graysen nodded at the courtyard, where the humans were pulling taught on shackles. A creature stumbled out of the wagon; wearing clothes that once might have been clothes, and skin that was smudged dark from filth, long black hair covered its eyes and a matching beard. But what made her eyes wide were the enormous black, membranous wings on its back.

"A demon," Graysen said, almost on a moan of pleasure, as if he could taste the despair and pain the creature suffered to gain those ugly scars on his skin and wings, "See how feral it is?"

Aurora sighed through her nose, her heart twisting tight in her chest.

She knew three things for certain. The first was that, as her father loved to remind her, trouble always found her. The second was that Grayson was a sodding idiot. And the third, she knew with absolute certainty...that was not a demon. It was an Illyrian Fae male.