Chapter 1
Sneak Peak
A Changeling's Guide to Love & Prophecy
Some days, Matheu had to remind himself that he loved his job. Repeatedly.
Finding soulbonds for people could be delicate work sometimes. That was all.
“It’s not as if most seelie attempt to make themselves appealing to us,” Dwyst, Matheu’s very own unseelie bond, said with a shrug. “We’re the ones who are supposed to make all the changes.”
“I know.” And he did. Now. But when he and Dwyst first bonded, he’d had a lot to learn about what it was like for Faerie’s unseelie.
Like, for example, that some of them found the politer term of ‘death aligned’ to be condescending bullshit.
“I just wish there was a single decent bond in all of Faerie. It’d save us all this. ”
This, being sitting in a crowded meeting hall on some of Faerie’s rare unclaimed land, waiting to meet with the only contact who could possibly help them with this particularly tricky bond search.
They needed it to go well. Their client, Metara, was one of the most powerful unseelie in all of Faerie.
And just now, their reputation with the seelie fae wasn’t great.
Matheu’s fault, at least in part. He was the professional people person, not Dwyst. He connected the dots and figured out what their clients really needed.
And he should have realized their last client was an absolute snake.
One who’d turn and bite them as soon as he got the chance.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t hard to shift opinion against them.
Their reputation was good, or at least it had been.
They were known for discretion and for being straightforward without crossing the line into ill manners.
But Dwyst was still a lampad, death aligned, with little filter.
And Matheu? Like any jotunn, he couldn’t help being intimidating.
Unlike most, he didn’t hesitate to use that strength when someone spoke ill of Dwyst or other unseelie.
“Metara’s looked, Matheu. She’s met three possible bonds–”
“I’m still glad none of them were our finds.”
“–all seelie who act the way you would expect a properly raised ‘life aligned’ to when faced with a possible bond like her.”
“Arrogant condescension with a ridiculous list of demands is not how I would expect them to react when faced with Metara.”
“She is impressive, isn’t she?” Dwyst’s cheeks bloomed with poppies, with more threading through her hair and down her neck. “The rudeness she talked about was unexpected, I’ll admit. Hopefully, the changeling I sensed will have better manners.”
“Humans aren’t known for being polite,” Matheu pointed out. “And what if the changeling is seelie? Most are.”
“They’ll still be a changeling. More human than anything. And she likes humans.”
“And lampads. She does like lampads.”
A crown of poppies. A wealth of them all down the lampad's hair and arms, across her shoulders. Dwyst with a crush was novel and very, very decorative.
“I–”
“You talk too loud.” Metal rang through the new speaker’s words, a cu-sith’s calling card.
Matheu turned toward the voice, finding the pair they’d been waiting for looming only a few feet away.
Winter’s scorched tits, fae with aspects of death and tracking were silent.
And large, even by a jotunn’s standards.
Harke, all sharp lines and lean features, existed as a knife on the offensive, keenly edged.
Aultyr, broad strokes and still so human seeming, the watchful one with an eye for weaknesses.
“The curse of a cu-sith’s hearing,” Dwyst agreed, smiling as if she hadn’t almost jumped out of her skin. And maybe she hadn’t. Maybe only Matheu hadn’t heard them walk up. “You get to be privy to everyone’s little secrets.”
“Lucky me,” Harke said flatly, the discordant hum of a sword drawn in his words both comforting and off-putting.
Sidhe voices pulled. Sirens lulled. Cu-sith voices shivered with iron, unless they were about to scream you into death by terror. So, a good sign, as was the fact the two sat down across from Dwyst and Matheu rather than continue looming.
“Sense of smell’s even luckier.” That, from Aultyr, the only changeling in Faerie. Unlike most changelings, he was unseelie. A barghest. That worried people. It was whispered his prophecy must be worse than most if even the death aligned were eager to throw him away.
Matheu rather liked him, whatever the prophecy. He liked them both, their different shades of blunt and abrupt.
Next to the three men, Dwyst–the best and brightest and cleverest of them all–looked like a frail shadow of a fae, never mind that she was deadly in her own way.
“Surprised to hear from you two.” Aultyr looked past Matheu’s shoulder, a quick search before those black eyes focused on him. “You you.”
Matheu glanced at Dwyst in confusion, then shook his head. He kept his mouth shut at the approach of the bartender, and the delivery of two empty mugs, passed carefully to the unseelie men.
“I’m not following,” Matheu said, once the pixie withdrew back to the artfully scuffed bartop. “Who else would we be?”
“We’ve contacted you about work before,” Dwyst added. “Recently, in fact.”
“Heard something about oaths to the House of Cassia Hold.” Winter, he’d forgotten how piercing Aultyr’s stare could be. “Working for them exclusively.”
“We’re not the sorts that Cassia likes to mess with,” Harke added, darkly amused.
Fucking Surrien. Matheu’s rush of anger echoed through his bond with Dwyst, answered by her icy indignation. He hadn’t heard about Cassia promising them out, acting like they were oath-bound to the House. They told the House, told Surrien, no.
“We made no oath to the House of Cassia Hold,” Dwyst said, crisp as the iceberg shiver of her soul. “If Surrien misconstrued an intended agreement from a lack of rude dismissal to a proposal, that’s a comprehension issue on his part.”
“They offered formally, and we respectfully refused.” Matheu didn’t break the mug. He didn’t snap at long-time associates. He couldn’t keep himself from sounding pissed, though. “Surrien knows that. We’re still self-employed. The House is claiming we only take jobs for them?”
Aultyr shrugged. “Someone in the family. Didn’t ask. Figured you might’ve had a hand in Kylan’s match.”
“Kylan had his eye on that brownie for over a century. We worked with Surrien, and the job ended when he bonded. We got signed to the current job shortly after and didn’t swear shit.”
Aultyr and Harke exchanged a long glance. Winter. Not for the first time, Matheu was glad for the barghest’s strangeness. The man lived by a strange code outside of Protocol Matheu didn’t understand, but he knew that loyalty was a part of it.
“Yeah, alright,” Aultyr said eventually, turning back to them, expression unreadable. “Why call us?”
Matheu let out a breath. He hadn’t walked away. Maybe the rumors weren’t that convincing, if Aultyr and Harke were willing to set them aside.
“It’s always refreshing to talk to someone who doesn’t bother with sideways talk.” Matheu wagered on the quip, and it paid off. Aultyr’s cheek twitched in his version of a small smile.
“Pesky changeling things.”
“That’s what we wanted to speak with you about. We’re working for Metara–”
“The siren? Done some work for her.”
Matheu knew better than to ask what sort of work.
“Yes. And Dwyst believes she’s found a promising match. A changeling, as it turns out.”
The idea of utterly composed, sharp-tongued, clever, and keen Metara with the strength of a changeling behind her would discomfort most. Winter, if he didn’t know her how he did, that scalpel of her mind and fierce protectiveness of her people, Matheu would be uncomfortable with it.
“A changeling,” Aultyr said, level and blank as the void. “She wants a changeling to run a House.”
“She didn’t specify ‘changeling.’”
“What’d she specify, then?” Harke asked. Still shimmering with the reassuring shudder of knives in the words. “Death aligned?”
“Pretty much,” Matheu replied, as Dwyst snickered. “In the same tone, too. But with a sneer.”
Harke snorted, his smile quick and curved and fanged, gone as soon as it arrived.
“Better hope the changeling’s not a pretty little unicorn.” Harke tapped the edge of his mug lightly with one slightly too sharp nail. “Ruthless bastards, even to one of their own.”
“I don’t think it matters what kind of fae they are,” Dwyst interjected in that slightly distant, curious tone she got when thinking.
“Metara is not the sort to bow her head to a seelie bond, thinking they do her a favor. And no unseelie potentials have manifested. A true human presents issues, even if that kelpie has proved them possible. But a changeling? Such a match might be better for her than anyone in Faerie.”
“Stop.” Aultyr’s expression hadn’t changed, but a darkness crept along the table under his relaxed fingers, and his shadow bristled, snarling soundlessly.
“Stop?” Matheu asked.
“Why the fuck would a changeling be better for her than a seelie?” Harke asked, the words bitten out.
“Siren’s fond of power,” was the barghest’s answer, though Matheu didn’t think Harke meant the question for him. “Maybe thinks a changeling’s a weapon in easy reach. Awed or scared. Simple to spell. Weak.”
“Would you want to be bonded to someone raised to think you’re below them?” Matheu asked. “My parents didn’t bring me up believing a lot of what’s said, and even I had some bullshit drilled into me.”
“Mostly orgies. He’d been warned a ‘death aligned’ bond would want him to join in orgies.” Dwyst smiled thinly, but leaned her shoulder against his.
Matheu sighed, feeling heat creep up his face, color the quartz-pale marks gray. Aultyr didn’t smirk the way he expected him to and Harke, with another sidelong glance, remained likewise stoic.
“Humans get locked away for believing in fairies,” Aultyr said, glacier still and just as warm. “High chances you fuck them up by telling them the truth. When told, there’s no untold.”
Matheu didn’t wince, though it was a near thing. “That’s why we asked to speak to you two. We would like to avoid shattering anyone’s reality.”
“Where they at? On Earth.”
That, Matheu could answer without bracing himself. He smoothed a hand over the empty table space, glamouring into being a respectable version of the northern part of the Americas. (North America, Dwyst had told him, with an eyeroll, and enough exasperation that he refused to call it that.)
“Here, roughly.” A quick, narrow loop around a cluster of large lakes sitting in the midline of the continent, almost the middle, and tracing to the far left. “Any more specific and Dwyst won’t be able to sleep without finding them.”
The duo followed the path of his finger. Harke kept his attention on Aultyr, who was, in turn, staring hard at Matheu once again. Winter, it was unnerving.
“Gonna do it anyway. No matter what I say.”
“It’s our job.”
Without it, they didn’t have somewhere to shelter under. Faerie wasn’t a place you wanted to be on communal ground for long. Rules were enforced only if you could back them up. And Surrien’s little play for them wasn’t the only way a House could force someone into taking oaths.
They needed this to go well. To prove to everyone that they were just as reliable as they had always been, and that they didn’t belong to Surrien or anyone else.
Aultyr and Harke, who traded space for their own talents outside of a House, knew as well as they did that a comfortable place to sleep came second to safety.
The barghest drained his cup. Set it down with purposeful calm, full lips pressed thin and jaw tight. The tension eased when he took a breath and let it out, slow.
“Fuck,” he said. “Alright. Let’s talk.”
Ready for the rest? Pick up A Changeling's Guide to Love & Prophecy. It's our sweetest story, full of self discovery, magic, and love.