Excerpt from SURVIVAL OF THE FAIREST, July 2008, ISBN 1-60504-070-3, Samhain Publishing

Tali Sees the Vegas Strip

“The hotel with the red and blue spires.” Tali bounced in her seat, forgetting that she was belted to it, and the heavy strap bit into her shoulders. “Oof!”

“What?” Jake snapped his cellular teley-phone closed.

Tali had listened avidly as he’d called his sibling, that copper fellow, and cancelled their appointment for the evening. The cellular teley-phone seemed almost as efficient as communication spells. She squirmed until she was more comfortable in the restraints. “The hotel that looks like a palace. Take us there.”

“The Excalibur?” Jake deftly maneuvered his automobile into the stream of traffic on the main road. The black car had darkened windows and room for five people. The soft seats were upholstered in leather, a rare material in the Realm now that civilized fairies were vegetarian hippies. A pleasant herbal odor emanated from a gaudy cloth bag that hung around the mirror on the front window, and the motor purred like a giant cat. Vast buildings towered behind the flashing lights and signs, inns Jake said were often full to capacity. People in showy outfits thronged the sides of the street.

There was no sign of Elder Embor and his menacing team anywhere among them. How in the world had they found her? Probably her obnoxious survival teammates back in the Bitterroot, though that didn’t answer how the Elder had known to transport to Las Vegas. Maybe a tracer spell of some sort. She wouldn’t put it past the Court to have bugged her or something.

Dang. Well, they couldn’t track her now that she wasn’t using magic.

A flume of brilliantly lit water caught Tali’s eye. “Look!” She pointed at a lake in front of the huge beige hotel glowing with yellow lights. “Waterspouts!”

“That’s the Bellagio.” Jake made a decent guide, if she ignored the sidelong glances he kept shooting her. He’d better not be thinking of kissing her again. She was having enough trouble putting it out of her head. “It’s one of the most expensive hotels ever built. There are about twelve hundred fountains in the lake.”

His tight black shirt outlined a taut abdomen and broad shoulders. When he shifted the right way, she could even see his nipples. Maybe she should quit trying to forget their embrace. What was wrong with a little kiss, anyway? So he sort of convinced her she wanted it with that hypnosis business. She’d kissed men before, lots of them.

No harm done. The spectators hadn’t found it odd or suspicious, which meant it was a normal human activity. Pleased with her deduction, she settled back, ready to relax and enjoy the scenery.

Tali rapped on the thin glass window. “Do I hear music?”

Jake clicked a button on the shelf between the seats, and the window sank into the door with a whir. Strains of instrumental music accompanied by a man’s rich vibrato drifted through the opening. The fountains soared higher into the air, mirroring the music, and crested above the lake. The humans standing on the sidewalk applauded.

The air breezing in smelled of metal and smoke and grease. She inhaled, exhaled. The music sounded like the symphony at home, but larger. Not many fairies were musically talented, but the ones who were received much acclaim. “That’s a fine tune. I can see why they like it.”

She leaned her chin on her hands and stared at the water arcing over the heads of the crowd. Perfectly lovely! She wished she could admire it more closely, but dawdling wasn’t a good idea at the present time.

She knew her punishment would be intense, but she had no intention of returning until her time was up. Her jig was jagged, so she might as well enjoy it. This would be her only chance to explore humanspace and advance her knowledge of blending fun firsthand. The game of cat-and-mouse with the Elder might even make things more exciting.

Speaking of exciting, she peeked at Jake under her lashes and thought about the kiss. The electric exchange of tongues and heat. The silken feel of his hair under her fingers. She was here to learn new things, right? To blend? A conversation with her sister about the sexual prowess of human males echoed in her mind.

It wasn’t as if Tali never planned to have sex, but it was difficult to relax when one’s partners all had political ambitions. Wedding a twosie guaranteed a higher position in Realm society. Even wooing a twin could boost status. Desire for advancement drove her suitors, not desire for her. Ani enjoyed the attention, enjoyed working through The Thousand Kisses, a series of mating rituals designed to enhance one’s chances of bonding, but the posturing, and the lack of actual affection, bored Tali to tears.

Fairies never knew whom they’d bond with, or if they’d bond with anyone. It was so...arbitrary. What if she ended up with a fellow she didn’t even like? Casual sex that could result in permanent bonding wasn’t something Tali had been inclined to try.

Jake, on the other hand, didn’t care about the status involved in courting a twosie. Didn’t hope they’d join forever and ever. Had no idea she was anything besides a tourist and a woman.

She was fairly certain he was aware of her as a woman.

“How much further is it, Jake?” Maybe she’d ask him to stay in her hotel room tonight.

Jake glanced at her. His hair gleamed in the low lights of the car’s interior. Their car idled behind others in front of the waterworks. His dark clothes blended with the seat that cupped him, and the half-smile at the corner of his mouth fascinated her. No men she knew had that twinkle in their eyes or those perfect laugh lines. Drakhmore clan members were dark like him, a little scary, but Jake Story didn’t scare her. Exactly.

“A couple miles, but this traffic’s pretty bad. So what are your plans? What else do you want to do while you’re here?” he asked.

She hid a smirk and wriggled deeper into her cushioned seat. “I want to attend a water park, look through a humble teley-scope, surf on the Internet, visit the White House, shop at a supermall and see baseball.” She wanted to do the things normal humans were lucky enough to do every single day. She wanted to know how human technology had replaced magic and what it would be like to live here permanently. She wanted to know more about Jake Story and why he made her tingle.

“There’s a water park at the end of the strip called Wet ‘N Wild. I take my cousins’ kids when they visit. Malls are everywhere. The White House is across the country.”

“I was testing you.” Tali could never remember how far things were in humanspace. The land the fairies inhabited in the Realm didn’t correspond to the continent here. “What about a humble teley-scope to see the stars? I read about it in HumanWa…”—oops!—“a science magazine.” Tali waited to see if Jake would catch her slip.

He didn’t. “There’s a planetarium at a community college nearby. Their telescope is nice, though. I wouldn’t call it humble.”

“Baseball and surfing?”

“No baseball, but we have an arena football team called the Gladiators. As for the Internet, you can check it out with any computer. That’s not very exciting when you have a whole city to explore.”

What else did she want, besides to kiss Jake again and run her fingers through that silky hair? “Oh, I want to see Chip and Dale.”

“The cartoon?” The traffic around them moved. Jake edged the car forward, and the bag around the mirror swayed. The music from the dancing waters faded into a babble of pedestrians and car horns. Humans young and old milled on the sidewalks.

What was a cartoon? She’d overheard the ballet praised by two female researchers. “They’re dancers. The Chip and Dale ballet.”

© 2008 Jody Wallace