Alpha Ember (ALPHA KANE BOOK 2)

3. Hello Anxiety

Tyra

Poverty has been my unwanted companion for as long as I could remember, starting off as a pushy acquaintance when my addict mother died from an overdose and left me in an orphanage. I ran away from the place after one too many foster parents kept returning me back, claiming I was too troubled for them to handle. I was eleven when I ditched the orphanage and started living in an abandoned factory, something Poverty delighted in, quickly promoting itself from acquaintance to best friend. I only stayed in the factory for a week before I met a couple of lower fae (lower meant they were classified as weaklings) who kidnapped me and took me to Faerie, just like in a fairytale book. Except the cute fairies in this one wanted to turn me into their little Halfling slave, the flowers and birds weren't looking to befriend me- they weren't as desperate as Poverty mind you- and the Princes weren't looking for sweet lost girls to break evil curses from either. (They were more likely to put the curse on you in the first place.) It looked like I was in for a happily never after with Poverty- even after my current adoptive parents saved me from my kidnappers and took me in as their own. They were working as servants for a faerie nobleman at the time but effectively lost their jobs and home when I got into a fight with the nobleman's bratty daughter.

We were kicked out and I thought my new parents would kick me out of their lives right then.

They didn't.

They let me stay. Unfortunately Poverty stayed as well.

Until now.

I stared at the dress Elzeria had created especially for me, at the thousands of poppies it was made up of, a glittering little diamond at the center of each little flower. That, along with the diamond choker around my neck and the crown of diamonds seated on my bouncy curls were the equivalent of a huge middle finger to my new ex best friend.

Goodbye Poverty.

Wolf. Soul mates. Self-destruction.

Hello Anxiety.

Fae can't lie so whatever the crone had said was the...truth. The fact that she refused to give me a name and went cackling off into the night instead also explained the reason why she hadn't demanded a price for her fortune telling. Some fae fed on negative feelings like despair, fear and anxiety. All three emotions that have surrounded me in a black cloud of misery on the one day I should've been the happiest.

Tonight's party would be the final seal in our family's security, the performances I've done over the months were enough to get us a beautiful house (better than the nobleman's who had kicked us out) and servants of our own, but if the whispers were true and the Autumn Court's prince wanted to marry me then we'd never have to worry about an empty stomach again.

Except there was the fruit to worry about, what if this supposed enamored prince forbids you from-

"Ugh!" I shouted, drowning out the intrusive thoughts. "Wrong, wrong, wrong-"

A hand smacked me over the back of my head. "I'm aware you Halflings can tell untruths without a care but I will not stand by while you lie about my dress," Elzeria huffed. "What an ungrateful little human-thing you are."

I rubbed at the spot she'd hit, frowning. "Chill, Elz. I wasn't talking about your dress."

She nodded. "You'd be very much lacking in intelligence if that was what you were talking about, but you've just confirmed what I'd already assumed: you're a smart one."

I rolled my eyes. 'Thank you' was a saying generally avoided among Elzeria's kind because of the potentially horrid repercussions it brought, but sometimes it felt like they avoided 'sorry' with even greater urgency. I've learned the hard way not to expect either of those things from any of them.