Page 2 of Touched By Moonlight

Chapter 1

Sienna,presentday

The bar crowdwas drunk and having a good time. I just wanted to be left alone to guard my secrets and hide from myenemies.

Hard to do when one of them sat sipping a beer directly across fromme.

Being Fae and bartending in a room filled with werewolves, werebears and other shapeshifters is like a chicken hanging out with a den of foxes. Still, I had done such great job pretending to be a psi human that even the smartest shifters never realized I was a powerful Faeprincess.

Noworries.

Except tonight when an Elven Fae decided to waltz into the club. On a busy Friday night, when I was slammed with orders, I didn’t need this newthreat.

Fae usually avoided shifter establishments the way shifters avoided Fae colonies. None had ever visited in the weeks I’d worked here. It made me wonder if my luck had finally runout.

Most of the shifters eyeballed the pretty exotic dancer on stage. Four argued about hierarchy in their pack. Those four looked ready to fight. Typical Friday night at the Crossroads Gentlemen’s Club. But my magick kept flaring, like a beacon in the distance. Probably thanks to that damnFae.

You wouldn’t know he was a Fae unless you’d been around them before, and most of the shifters in this club were too drunk tonotice.

The Fae sipped his beer and stared at the stripper grinding away on the stage. Sweat poured down my spine. The newcomer had the forest-rich scent and shoulder-length ash brown hair of a woodland Fae. Woodland Fae were mild and mostly harmless, except if you threatened to chop downtrees.

Put any Fae near me and my pulse jumped from normal toerratic.

“Sienna, gimme another round.” Nathan slammed his mug on the counter. Golden beer sloshed over theside.

“Say please,” I shot back. Nathan was an arrogant beta wolf from a pack fifty miles from Cheyenne. Without his alpha around, he acted like a big shot. Everyone knew he was all bluster and noaction.

“Pour me another or I’ll bite.” He grinned, showing pearly whites sharp enough to make the bravest dentistquiver.

“Bite this.” I flipped him thefinger.

Snarling, he seized my wrist. “Gimme a beerNOW.”

Fingers wrapped tight around my skin suddenly fell away. Nathan released a loud howl of pain as threads of pure lavenderglowed.

Not on the hand that held me captive, but on Nathan’s groin. Despite my relief, I winced. That had tohurt.

“Leave her alone, needle dick,” snapped Cass, the senior bartender and my savior. She set down the wand used for containing shifters like Nathan. The wand acted like a magick stun gun, scrambling shifter senses and making them feel as if a thousand biting ants crawled under theirskin.

I nodded thanks at Cass, poured the beer, the point having been made for the whimpering Nathan. He was just another punk shifter, throwing his considerable weightaround.

Nathan slunk away, hand still on his groin. He didn’t know I didn’t need the wand or Cass. I had enough power to slam him against the far wall and break his neck with just a flick of mypinkie.

I don’t do magick anymore if I can help it. Because of this, I’m more vulnerable at the club than any other employee. Not for the first time I regretted this second job that helped pay the rent on an apartment I planned to vacatesoon.

The Fae’s expression remained inscrutable. What did he want? Woodland Fae preferred the lush quietness of their homes, not rowdy shifter bars. Most shied away from cities. It was one reason I had moved across the country from city to city in the three years since I’d fled my home and mycolony.

As much as my spirit longed for the outdoors and nature, I stuck to buildings and concrete, even avoiding cityparks.

The woodland Fae finished his beer and gestured to me. As I approached, he touched my hand. My skin tingled a little.Shit.

But the Fae didn’t notice. He slid a Jackson across the counter. “Another one, please. Keep thechange.”

Polite. Good tipper, giving me twenty for a $4 beer. I looked at the bill as if it were crawling with maggots and beckoned toCass.

“I’m busy,” I muttered, scurrying to the bar’s other end to tend to theorders.

No indication he knew what or who I was. Didn’t matter. The Fae could be the nicest guy in the world and I’d never relax aroundhim.