More fey with a human? Preferably female as human and fey is male and powerful. Either way I respect your vision.
"You're not from around here, are you?"
"Wow," she said. "That's a pick up line and a half."
She didn't look up, more concerned with the sketchpad balanced across her knees, and capturing the perfect slant of light dappled across the creek.
Brambleton was, decidedly, not where she had hoped to end up in her life. It was in the middle of nowhere. A dud assignment. The only good that came out of it - other then the subsidized rent on the cottage - were the woods that bordered the northern edge of the town. They felt wild. Wild and pretty and not full of backwoods locals.
Well, usually. Apparently that was too good to last.
"A pick up line?" The guy sounded amused. It was a male voice, at any rate. Lovely in the grand scheme of voices. Old-fashioned, though. "Do you normally assume anyone who talks to you is trying to seduce you?"
"Only when they can't take the hint that I'm busy."
"What you are is rude."
She glanced up, scowling, only to pause. The man standing on the edge of the bank was...something. Beautiful, the unhelpful part of her brain supplied. Of course, that didn't change the fact that he was interrupting her, or calling her rude for not wanting to have a conversation with some random stranger when she was minding her own business, but...
Damn.
She paused on his eyes. Heterochromatic. One was a bright, startling forest green and the other the black of a river pebble. They were also...
His head tilted. It was just slightly unnerving, somehow, though she couldn't quite pinpoint why. Her fingers tightened on her sketchpad. She willed herself to stop staring. She couldn't.
"I intended to offer you a courtesy," he said. "You are not from around here. It is obvious."
She felt like she'd stepped in a puddle. Except it wasn't a puddle. It was something that looked like a puddle - shallow, a mildly inconvenient splash - only for her foot to go down into a pit big enough to swallow her whole. Ridiculous.
"Right. And now you intend to...?"
He jumped lightly on a stepping stone to cross over to her side. Had their been a stone there? She looked down at her drawing, frowning. She hadn't drawn a stone. Yet, there was a stone. Her head snapped up again.
He offered her a hand and smiled the most gorgeous smile she'd ever seen. It was actually unfair. "You can call me Jack," he said.
"Ruby," she replied, automatically, though she didn't take his hand. "Sorry. I wasn't expecting to see anyone out here."
"The locals avoid it, yes."
"Are you not a local?"
His smile notched wider, those eyes gleaming. "The most local of locals. My family have been here longer than you can possibly imagine."
It was a pity that a man so very handsome had to sound like such a twat. What the hell was he, some kind of local landowner rich boy?
He crooked his finger and, without him touching it, her sketchbook shot up into his hand. He caught it.
She was on her feet in an instant, heart hammering. She backed up a step, nearly tripping over the roots of the tree sprawling hungrily down towards the water.
Not some rich boy twat. Or not just.
"Careful," he said, attention on her work. Considering.
"What the fuck." It came out raspy.
His gaze flicked up. "Rude," he said, again, soft. "Would you like to trade you some advice for this sketch when it's done?"
"Uh..."
He watched her.
"Did you just..." She was being insane. Surely she was being insane. Maybe she had heat stroke, somehow. People couldn't magically summon sketchbooks. She straightened from her graceless scramble, instincts torn. She didn't want to bolt while he was still holding her sketchbook. She held out a hand for it.
He didn't move.
"Just the sketch," she said. "Not the whole book?"
"Just the sketch," he said.
"...Sure, I guess."
"Rules of hospitality mean you cannot be harmed or taken if you follow the proper rules and etiquette. I find your tongue mildly entertaining, if only for the novelty...the others may find it less so. And I don't believe you need a mouth to paint, if they are so inclined."
"Are you threatening me?"
"No," he said, with that same amusement. "I'm saving your life. Ruby."
She didn't know why his saying her name did something to her. It shivered down her spine, made her knees want to go all wobbly.
Maybe it was worth ditching the sketchbook. She could get another sketchbook.
"Advice two," he said. He stepped closer, using the tip of the sketchbook to tilt her head up to him. "Consider some iron or a necklace of rowan berries, if you intend to trespass here. Watching you this last week has been a bit like watching bunny rabbit nest in a wolf's den. Adorable. Fascinating. But spectacularly unwise."
Ruby laughed. Nervously. She would have stepped back again, but there was nowhere to go. Her brain whirled. Another, more treacherous impulse, whispered for her to get closer.
He really was so very pretty.
"Trespassing?" she managed. "This is a public wood, isn't it?"
"You don't still believe that. Your instincts will have started to itch by now. I'm too close to you for them not to."
What a ridiculous thing to say. Why did it not feel ridiculous?
Why did her head feel like it was swimming in some intoxicating mixture of terror and desire?
He braced his free hand on the tree behind her, and dropped the sketchbook back into her hand. Her breath hitched as his lips brushed against hers.
"Any more advice?" she asked, hyper-aware of the inch between them.
"Don't give your name to the fey."
Between one blink and the next he was back on the other side of the creek, like a dream. There was no stepping stone.
"This is the bit where you say thank you, Jack," the fey said. He sat himself down against the wildflowers on the bank, luxuriating like a cat in a sun spot.
"...thank you, Jack."
"Finish your sketch, love. Then consider running."
