Page 11 of Light Fae's Love
Lucca is resplendent in the summer sun as diamond-light rainbows of his Royal Summer Fae magic whirl around him. He scrubs a hand through his short ash-blond hair as I watch, rucking it up into a glorious, sweaty mess.
With a drop-dead sexy smile, he vaults down off the wagon and trots to us, his long legs clad in ornately tooled russet riding boots over his grey breeches. Dressed in a men’s Fae-silk shirt and a dark grey embroidered waistcoat, a filigreed torque of platinum around his neck is his only significant adornment. His high cheekbones are glorious as his full lips smile.
His summer-blue eyes are the only adornment he needs as they twinkle mischievously in the hot day.
“Ariana! At last. Is there no punctuality in the Dark Haven of Florence?” Lucca is teasing as Alleno and I dismount.
“Har. Har. Alleno just fussed about the same thing. You two must be related.” Alleno is Lucca’s cousin on his mother’s side, and though Alleno is the darker and more brooding of the pair, they share certain features.
Like the stunning clarity of their bright, intense eyes.
“You look beautiful.” Lucca raises my hand to his lips as he pins me with his gaze, gone two shades darker as he simmers with a different heat in the high summer day. “You’ve arrived just in time; the aid wagons just got here. Help us unload?”
“Of course,” I say. I smile, loving how dedicated Lucca is to his people.
Over the next few hours, Lucca puts Alleno and me to work. We help him unload all the wagons, going back for load after load of foodstuffs and Fae medicine as the small town square becomes flooded with people. Apparently, word has gotten out about Lucca’s efforts to help his kin; I gossip with the populace as we help, and discover the King has turned a blind eye to the entire blight situation, and how it’s affected his people.
Lucca is acting on his own, and I hear how he’s arranged help from all over Italy to come in to these farmers and their families, until a magical cure for the blight can be found. Some of the Fae farmers think it’s a curse, levied at them to punish their King for his isolationist ways and heavy-handed approach to ruling.
Lucca doesn’t refute that rumor, but neither does he support it as he and I work together, doling out supplies, food, and listening to his people’s woes. All day, we help; and all day, Lucca listens with an attentive ear, sometimes making Alleno take down a few notes on a cell phone he actually does have.
Lucca listens with attentive patience to every farmer who speaks to him. As he grasps hands and kisses cheeks, he’s calm and wise as he urges them to have patience and give help to the scientists he’s arranged to come figure this out.
In the aid tents, I see towering Rock Giants moving about, carrying crates. One of the Forbidden Lineages to the Summer Fae, it’s clear nobody gives two shits about the King’s edict, but are only glad they came to help as Fae chitchat with them and share what they have.
As a team of scientists enter the tent, disrobing from their cleanroom suits, I see they’re Dark Elves with their long, jet-black hair and ornate Elvish tattooing over their cheekbones. Another of the Forbidden Lineages, similar to Fae in appearance but distinctly different in magic, Lucca steps over to have quiet words with them as they explain to him the blight’s prognosis.
Lucca nodding and having Alleno take copious notes.
At last, we conclude our part in the aid effort for the day. As the wagons are emptied and the lines dispersed with promises of more deliveries in a different hamlet tomorrow, the Fae and Elvish scientists packing up their gear, Lucca asks Alleno to finish supervising everything.
A pleased fatigue is in Lucca’s bright grace as he steps close, putting his arms around me. He’s familiar even though several Fae farmers, scientists, and aid workers are watching.
He lifts his lips and gives me a brief kiss, right there with everyone staring. My cheeks heat in a furious blush, unsure if he should do that out in public where any of it could get back to his father via the Fae rumor-mill.
But then I remember Lucca and I are supposed to be sham-courting to make his father believe we’re doing all this to support his reign, all while Lucca and I talk up his own agenda of modernization, equality, and progress in the Summer Fae world.
Something we did a lot today, as people spoke badly of their King and his edicts.
“Shall we get out of here? Get some time to ourselves now that our work is done?” Lucca asks as he nuzzles my nose, and I fall into him.
“Sounds nice,” I say, and smile as I risk winding my arms up around his shoulders. He doesn’t flinch, only smiles bigger like a cad as he pulls me to him now, pressing hips to hips.
“Good. Because I have a place in mind to take you.”
Lucca’s smile is mischievous as he nods to a Fae groom lingering nearby. The man nods back, and we follow him out of the aid tent to a paddock where my white antelope is, and Lucca’s big grey stag Soot. We mount up, and as the groom dissolves a magical boundary on the paddock, we take our leave.
We don’t ride back towards the town square, however, instead setting out over the blight-devoured fields into the forest nearby. As we ride, I notice we aren’t headed east back towards Florence, but north towards I don’t know what.
As we leave the blight area, the regular forest, orchards, and fields of Tuscany return. Fae are not possessive about land; there are no fences here, only the occasional cairn to mark a growing boundary or a transition to protected forest land.
Though the summer streams, fields, and forest are glorious, the August afternoon is sweltering as we ride through a glade now, surrounded by a horseshoe waterfall and cork oaks. I’m damp with sweat beneath my light silk clothing, despite copious swigs from my enchanted water bottle. As I fan out my long waves of wild red hair, I touch a gold torque at my neck, a gift from Lucca this past week.
He beams as he notes it, pleasure shining in his summer-blue eyes. As I ride my antelope over a carpet of silky yellow flowers, Lucca grins at me from his tall grey stag.
He reins in as a flash of his rainbow auric wings shimmer from his back like sunlight.
“We’re here.”