DUVALL of Talfryn adores his new human bride. She’s smart, she’s lovely, and they cherish each other—flaws and all. The half-magic city of Resurrection seems the ideal spot for a honeymoon. It’s far less dangerous than Faerie, and Belle can get her first real glimpse of his fae nature.

Problem is, Belle gets a glimpse of more than he counted on. Will this down-to-earth junkshop owner decide an entitled prince of enchantments isn’t who she signed on to wed? Will Duvall overcome his pride and bare his true heart to her?

Only a honeymoon fit for a faerie can settle this conundrum.

Chapter One

THE faerie prince known as Duvall Duvall—very much not his truename, thank you—was bringing his human bride to the world of magic for the first time.

The trip was their honeymoon, their destination the half-magic city of Resurrection in upstate New York. Invisible to most humans, Resurrection was what was known as a “Pocket” city. A number of these had been created by Duvall’s brethren, places where humans and other races could interact to the hopeful benefit of both. As long as the race could play nice with others, the fae granted it visas. Today, Resurrection sheltered shapeshifters, demons, humans with “extra” talents, and quite a number of other beings. The original land of Faerie, whose essence had gone into forming the Pockets, was too often a magical Wild West: lawless, chaotic, and more than even some fae could handle.

Duvall could handle quite a lot. He’d spent his whole life in Faerie. His parents ruled the land of Talfryn with a steadier hand than most. If an enemy hadn’t chased him into the human realm, where he’d had the supreme good fortune of meeting his future wife, Duvall expected he’d still reside in the Old Country.

His wife had changed everything, Fate bless her.

At the current moment, his beloved was trying unsuccessfully to wave down a train station porter to help them with their luggage.

“Belle,” he said, gently rubbing the sleeve of her beautiful red wool coat. The suburban platform was open to the winter weather, and—unlike him—she needed the garment for warmth.

“They’re ignoring me,” she said, craning around the other departing passengers. There were more than usual. Quite often, humans didn’t notice the Resurrection stop existed. Magic protected it from ordinary sight. Duvall expected the Weretiger New Year celebrations explained the crowd. Any supes who’d scattered beyond the borders would return home for Resurrection’s version of mardis gras. Unfortunately for Belle, this meant she had to compete with beings who more naturally drew the porters’ eyes.

She clucked in annoyance as yet another porter rushed to serve someone else. “This is worse than trying to hail a taxi in Manhattan. I knew I shouldn’t have packed everything I own. Now we’ll be stuck lugging the stuff ourselves. How did you get away with just an overnight case?”

Duvall got away with an overnight case because, here in Resurrection, he could magick anything he wanted. Already, he could feel his batteries sucking up ambient power. They hadn’t been able to do that while he was in her world. Now they filled so quickly he was getting a head rush.

“Belle,” he said more firmly, giving her lovely straight hair a tug.

“What?” she said, a hint of a snap in it.

He smiled. Belle sometimes felt guilty for her temper, but he knew the passionate heart it was an outgrowth of. “They can’t see you, sweetheart. As a . . . non-magical human, you’re nearly invisible to them.”

“Really?” Belle said, her annoyance fading as her curiosity rose.

“Really. I know it’s inconvenient, but it prevents humans who don’t have an invitation into the Pocket from being accidentally escorted in.”

She peered back at the uniformed porters, most of whom were elves or mix-bloods—though that wouldn’t be obvious to her. More spells hid traits like pointy ears or oddly colored skin. Observing nothing peculiar, she returned her gaze to him. At the sight of her dear pretty face, his heart turned over. God, he loved her, from her mysterious dark green eyes to her long straight nose to her wonderful willow-wand figure. Belle didn’t always think of herself as attractive, but she’d become the image of love to him.

Her lips curved as she recognized his expression.“You’re going gooey again.”

“Faeries don’t do gooey,” he said, mostly to see her grin.

She didn’t disappoint, her teeth flashing with the snarky humor he loved. “Careful, Mr. Duvall. That’s sailing very close to a lie. I wouldn’t want you giving yourself a headache before we reach the hotel.”

“Certainly not before I summon a porter.”

“Can you?” she asked.

Duvall smiled and let his concealing glamour fall.

Duvall’s powers had been substantially curtailed in her realm. Belle had seen him twinkle in shared dreams and also in heightened moments of lovemaking. Like all fae, he was out-of-the-ordinary good looking in any reality, enough that he’d thought it best to cover up on the train. As a result, this was Belle’s first glimpse of him fully charged and in his element. Duvall didn’t deny he’d been looking forward to showing off for his beloved. He wasn’t prepared for how taken aback she seemed.

“Wow,” she said a little shakily. “With a heaping helping of gosh.”

Duvall’s stomach went oddly tight. Had he frightened her? Would his alien display cause her to regard him in a less easy light? He didn’t want that. Many races liked to claim faeries were half pride, but Belle was his equal in every way that counted. In truth, Belle was his soul mate.

Before he could decide what to say to make it better, a bowing elf porter rushed over. To go by the gold braid on his uniform, he was the captain of the station’s crew.

“Prince Duvall, sir!” he exclaimed. “Forgive me for not seeing you there. How may I serve you and your companion?”

Elves sometimes resented faeries, who—admittedly—didn’t like to let them forget they were a few rungs down on the magical power scale. Duvall gave this one points for referring to Belle politely. Elves were much less snobbish than faeries, but even they occasionally snubbed non-magical humans.

“No matter, cousin,” he said, for that’s what elves were to faeries. “We’d like our luggage organized and a limo to transport us to the Downtown Grande. Also, if you could recommend a trustworthy driver, I’d be grateful. This is my wife’s first visit to the city. We’ll probably do some sightseeing.”

The elf’s slanty brows went up a millimeter at him identifying Belle as his wife. Faeries dallied with humans considerably more often than they married them.

“I believe we can satisfy you, sir,” he said. “There’s a brand new Spink demon come on staff. Passed the gargoyles’ voluntary trust test with flying colors. Darius knows the city and can make sure you and your wife aren’t bothered by riff-raff, no matter where you go.”

Duvall hesitated. Trust test notwithstanding, he wasn’t sure he wanted to expose Belle to a demon so early on. He hadn’t forgotten her ear-splitting scream of reaction to her first ghost.

“It is Weretiger New Year,” the elf reminded. “Hard to rent muscle at the last minute.”

This was true. He looked at Belle, whose eyes were as round as saucers. He’d explained to her that some demons lived here, but he supposed it wasn’t the same as being driven around by one. “Would you like that? It’ll be safe enough. The gargoyles’ psychic exams are difficult to pass. Plus, you’d want someone with you if you did any wandering on your own.”

“I’d like to meet a demon,” she said in a lowered voice. “I’m just afraid I’ll accidentally do something insensitive. Will it be offended if I say ‘Oh God’?”

The elf burst out with a surprised laugh, which he then attempted to cover with a cough.

Duvall searched for a diplomatic way to explain the porter’s amusement, one that wouldn’t reflect too badly on his own kind. He’d known Belle long enough to guess at her ideas of what was fair. “Demons have very strict visas, my beloved, and faeries more or less set the rules for them staying here.”

“You mean the demon wouldn’t dare complain, no matter what I did.”

“Yes,” Duvall admitted with a sigh. “But it’s also probably very grateful to be here instead of its former home. They don’t call them Hell dimensions for nothing. It truly might not feel an insult, given that.”

“Spinks aren’t religious,” the elf added, “if sir will pardon my saying so. You can swear to anything you want in front of them. Just be yourself, ma’am. They’ve met enough mundanes to know how you folks are.”

His unthinking use of the pejorative made Belle bite her lip in amusement. Mundane wasn’t the most PC term for non-magical humans. Aware he’d used it once or twice himself, Duvall decided not to kick up a fuss.

“All right,” his beloved said to the elf. “We appreciate your help.”

~

Harvard Business School hadn’t prepared Belle for Resurrection—or for seeing Duvall drop his camouflage. Back in Kingaken where they’d met, he’d been gorgeous. Here, he was a creature at least half concocted by special effects. Stunning was the best word she could think of for how he looked. It disconcerted her that the porter knew him by name, though she didn’t blame him for fawning. The power her husband radiated was hard to miss. In truth, she found it hard to look at him and breathe at the same time.

Had she really reminded him to take out the garbage before they left the house this morning?

Perhaps Duvall knew she was off balance. He reached for her hand as the jockey-sized porter loaded their suitcases onto a wheeled trolley. She truly shouldn’t have packed so much. It wasn’t her usual M.O. She’d just been nervous about this trip—with reason, apparently. She suddenly regretted having spent the bulk of their courtship in sweats and jeans.

At the moment, that seemed as ridiculous as the garbage thing.

Their luggage settled, the porter began pushing the trolley toward the far end of the train platform, where a concrete ramp led down to the parking lot.

“Here we go,” Duvall said, squeezing her gloved fingers.

Belle screwed up her nerve and looked at him. His eyes weren’t dark brown here, they were some color that mixed gold and earth and mysterious black gemstones. His lashes were luxurious sable fans, and his lips just plain made her shiver. Thoughts of kissing them ran like lava to her sex. With his hand on hers, she wasn’t so much walking as gliding dreamily.

The porter, who was wiry but on the small side, wasn’t gliding. He grunted as he turned the unwieldy luggage cart down the exit ramp.

Just like that, Belle’s brain snapped back to normalcy.

Shouldn’t Duvall be helping the man with that?

“That’ll do it,” said the porter, obviously happy to have gotten their belongings to their next transfer point. This end of the parking lot was filled with limos and yellow cabs, many of which were taking on passengers. The porter signaled to a group of men—drivers, she assumed—who were standing in a knot chatting. Spying the porter’s hail, an extremely tall individual peeled off from his fellows and trotted to his vehicle.

“Mind the spell barrier,” Duvall said.

His hand was on her elbow, steadying her as they followed the porter down the ramp. Belle had no idea what he meant by a barrier until they stepped through it. The thing felt like plastic wrap made of water pressing against her face. She had to physically push her body past the resistance.

“Brr,” she said as it snapped wetly behind her. Curious, she glanced back at it. Though the barrier had been invisible from the other side, now she saw a shimmery sort of curtain wrapping the train station.

“Sorry,” Duvall said, chafing her upper arm through her coat. “I forgot about that affecting you.”

“That’s all right,” Belle said, turning back to him. “That was pretty inter-”

Her mouth stopped working mid-word. More was different on this side of the curtain than whether she could see it. Their chauffeur was stepping out of a shiny white limousine, having driven it to the curb they stood on. The car was nice but normal, so far as she could tell. The driver, on the other hand, not so much.

Belle was tall for a woman, but an eight foot . . . being was sufficient to put a kink in her neck. The Spink demon, as the porter called him, was simply huger than humans got, more like a cartoon character than any creature she was used to. Barn-door hulking as far as muscle went, he was dressed in a very plus-sized double-breasted suit. His skin was a smooth slate gray, his features more or less human despite their color. Two boarlike tusks curled up from under his upper lip. His charcoal eyes glittered down at her, the emotion behind them unreadable to her.

“I’m Darius,” he said, doffing his shiny chauffeur’s cap. “If you’re agreeable, I’ll be your secure driver for the length of your stay.”

His basso voice made Barry White sound like a tenor. Belle shut her mouth and swallowed, wondering if apologizing for gawking was the wrong thing to do.

“Prince Duvall,” her husband said, obviously unalarmed. “This is my wife, Princess Belle.”

Darius bowed to both of them. Huge or not, the demon was graceful. His ham-sized hands made the suitcases look like toys as he transferred them to the limo’s trunk. That accomplished, he held the back door open for Duvall and Belle. He didn’t touch her, but left it to her husband to help her in after him. Belle expected that wasn’t an accident. He’d seen that he startled her.

“Thank you,” she said before he shut the door.

His eyes met hers, so alien his inner nature was hard to fathom. This is a demon, she told herself, trying to wrap her head around the concept. She didn’t register a sense of evil—not that she necessarily would have. Instead, she felt as if she were looking into the soul of a wild and very smart animal.

The moment ended when Darius nodded.

“All right?” her husband asked her.

Belle nodded at him too, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. It occurred to her that Duvall was unalarmed by the demon because he was more powerful. That was a concept to wrap her head around as well. She was glad faeries didn’t have the ability to read thoughts. Duvall smiled reassuringly, patted her knee, and slid open the partition between them and the driver.

“We’re booked at the Downtown Grande,” he said. “Please take us via the Fifth Avenue approach.”

“Will do, sir,” said Darius.

The partition slid back in place without anyone touching it.

Their privacy assured, Duvall fell back against the coffee-colored leather with an unmistakably sensual sigh. The limo was swank, with sterling silver fittings and an oriental carpet to add luxury to the floor. Duvall rubbed the seat they shared, then turned his head to her.

The expression in his eyes was hot enough to burn.

“God,” he said, intimate and intense. “I am so charged up I could burst.”

His voice wet her panties all by itself.

He was also starting to sparkle, tiny points of light jumping off of his perfect skin. Despite her arousal, the ramped-up display increased her tension.

“You mean your power reservoirs are filling,” she said as calmly as she was able.

“Yes.” His sultry gaze locked on hers. “Come here, Belle. I want to kiss my wife.”