Free The Gossamer Gate by Wendy L. Callahan

one faerie who would not give up, which could be even more troublesome to her than Ronan had ever been. She was not sure what he wanted, but she was fairly certain he was not trying to help her out of the kindness of his heart. Faeries were notoriously deceitful, greedy, and selfish, as she had seen in Ronan’s behavior, past and present.
    With a sigh of frustration, she sank to the ground. It was getting dark, and she was exhausted and wonder ing where she would sleep. She was grateful that she felt neither hungry nor thirsty, but she did not know if that was just because she was so focused on escaping, or if that was normal for the Otherworld.
    She rifled through her messenger bag and sighed again. She had no provisions; certainly nothing that would make sleeping on the ground more tolerable. With no other choice, Khiara laid her head on the bag, closed her eyes, and drifted into a fitful slumber.
    ****
    Although the afternoon and evening had been completely indiscernible from one another, the sound of birdsong heralded the Otherworld morning.
    Khiara pushed herself upright and rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she felt the sun warming her body. She rose to her feet to stretch and look around the forest. The path she had traveled the previous day looked substantially darker in the morning light, the path ahead of her a bit greener and less wild.
    Even though she felt that she was alone, she found two shrubs that formed a tight little circle, and took advantage of the privacy to deal with her bathroom needs. Without food or drink, she realized this would not be a frequent problem. Thankful for small favors, she zipped her jeans and stepped out into the open.
    Picking up her bag, she looked up and down the path. Part of her was concerned that the darker path was actually the one she was supposed to follow; that the green, bright path might end up being the easy road further into faerie, and away from her goal, while the harder road was really the one that would bring her to Ronan’s palace and to the gate that could send her home.
    Wishing she possessed a natural sense of direction, she looked up at the sun to try to gauge. Did it rise in the east and set in the west in this realm, or travel in a completely different direction?
    “Oh, it goes the same way here as it does in your world.”
    “Crap!” Khiara jumped at Liam’s voice.
    “Sorry. I forgot how skittish you could be. How did you sleep?” He looked well-rested and a little too seductively roguish for Khiara’s tastes as he leaned against one of the trees, a brilliant red apple in his hand. His chestnut gaze was much too direct for her comfort, and she felt a shudder of warmth flow through her. It was very different from the reaction she was accustomed to having around Ronan, but she focused on her goal for the day.
    “How do you think I slept?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
    “Oh, we’re going to play that game?” He grinned at her and then took a bite out of his apple.
    She gritted her teeth and shook h er head. She had a feeling he would powerfully outmatch her in a battle of wits.
    “So, it seems you’re wondering which way to go.” He approached her to stand on the path beside her , and pressed his index finger to his lips. “Back the way you came, because, after all, the hard road might actually be the correct one. Or you wonder if you should take the friendly-looking green path, because it certainly seems nicer.”
    “Very perceptive of you ,” Khiara said as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
    He glanced around, and then looked at her again. “In all honesty, the forest is probably the safest place for you to stay, but it isn’t the way home.”
    “Oh?” Khiara glanced back down the darker side of the path. “How could that possibly be safer?”
    “In this particular forest there are fewer faeries and fewer temptations, not counting me, of course.” He grinned again and made a finger-gun gesture at her, as if well