By
Erin R. Flynn

My name is Tamsin Vale… And I’m no longer no one. I’m not simply an abandoned orphan without any answers. Granted, most of the answers led me to ask more questions, but I have at least some now.

Fairies aren’t what I was promised they would be and I’m certainly not what they want, but I’m the only one who can save them from their magical prisons. They’re the best help I have to fix so many wrongs in the world and keep the ones I love safe, given all the threats against me.

And if that wasn’t enough to crack my sanity, I’m still on rocky ground with the men in my life. Why the hell did I think it was a good idea to get involved with more than one?

I’m trying not to run. After almost two decades of knowing that the only way to keep myself safe is to run, it’s not a reaction I can easily change. I might be making a mistake by not running away from what people want of me.

Because who I might become to defeat the monsters would be as bad as the people I’m fighting against.

It’s Spring Break and before they get to relaxing they have a trap to spring for the Vampire council. Tamsin does something really sneaky to one of the councilmen behind it as well. Julian is being a yes man and Tamsin really wants him to snap out of it. As they binge through food and old TV shows Darby, Hudson, Lucca and Julian become closer even as Tamsin tries to make headway with healing her relationships.

Before classes are to start again, Tamsin is going to revive more fairies. This time there will be a difference, some of these fairies are severely wounded. Those fairies with the best healing abilities would be standing by to heal as they wake. Faerie once again takes hold of Tamsin hurting her once more. She can’t move and she needs to let go of the reservoir so Iolas can heal her.

In the aftermath she compares this to a story she once heard and then she walks away.

This is a favorite scene.

I walked off, ignoring the crazy and fighting that erupted behind me. I hadn’t wanted to start drama but… I hadn’t. Our damn planet had, and I’d simply been honest about it.

Without a real goal in mind, I found myself lost, the whole area new to me, but not even remotely where we’d usually drive in from the portal. I reached the end of where they’d been pushing back, moving along the wall of caustic darkness and staring out into it. My mind was a blank. What had happened had fried me out to the point there was static in my head.

I wasn’t sure how long I walked for. A while. Probably not all that far though since my pace was a stroll. I’d honestly walked to Mars for all I knew.

Something moved in the darkness and I thought I’d finally lost my mind. What had happened today and what I’d realized had finally snapped something in me, and the rest of my sanity was just gone.

Turning to look at it, I saw the shape of a large person, much bigger than a fairy. An animal trapped on the other side? We’d found tons of animals now that there were huge sections of Faerie cleared. They were trapped in the darkness, but the magic didn’t affect them the same. Once the darkness was cleared they were free.

I hadn’t seen it, but I really didn’t have any reason to not believe the Light Guardians who had been talking about how cool it was.

A hand shooting out of the caustic darkness snapped me out of my thoughts. Before I could react, it grabbed my wrist with a grip stronger than any I’d ever felt, even now in the supe world.

I screamed. I screamed and screamed, this being one of my many nightmares about Faerie and the darkness. I think I tried to pull away, but I was so truly panicked in a way I wasn’t sure I had been before, I might not have. It was probably the most scared I’d ever been in my life. The nightmares that plagued me about Faerie and the spell, trying to find fairies had been constant.

And people reaching out from the darkness to drag me in had been something I’d dealt with at least three times a week for over a year. So yeah, it was like my personalized horror movie that left me screaming my head off.

Except the man didn’t pull me in, but shoved me back. My whole body was weak from what had happened and panicked from this new crazy, and I landed hard on my ass. I couldn’t focus enough to keep up my barriers or cloaking—though apparently he could reach through all of that anyways.

Yeah, that wasn’t terrifying.

More than terrifying. What came after terrifying on the scared scale?

A leg came out with the arm, and that seemed to give the person the leverage needed to yank out from the darkness. A few more seconds and a loud popping sound and I was staring at the largest man I’d ever seen. He had Hudson and Mr. Vogel beat by at least a half of foot. The girth was unreal. The guy was massive.

And he had bright red hair that was so bright, it looked like it couldn’t be real. Curly red hair… Like I saw in the mirror every day. I’d never seen someone with that color of hair before that hadn’t dyed it.

Was it a thing for fairies to die their hair?

No, right? And fairies didn’t get this big. So he was some type of fair folk I didn’t know about?

Yeah, probably. I would bet good money there were other species of fair folk I didn’t know about. I certainly didn’t have any clue about the plant or animal life of my home world.

“Tamsin,” he croaked. “Tamsin, stop.”

Oh, right, I was still screaming.

People must have heard because they started showing up in a blur of fairy rune speed, Taeral one of the first.

“Get away from her!” he roared when the man moved towards me, launching himself at the new person.

“No, don’t,” Iolas shouted, blocking the Dark Guardian and standing in front of the man recovering from the darkness.

That he somehow broke out of all on his own.

I was still slightly stuck on that.

And how he knew my name.

Why did people seem to always know who I was in this fucking world?

“Tamsin, don’t be scared,” he said in between coughing. He moved closer and looked like I’d slapped him when I backed away with a whimper.

“Did he hurt you?” Taeral asked.

I couldn’t make my mouth work, shaking my head to answer.

“I would never hurt her,” the man snapped.

“Oh well, now that you’ve said that, we’ll just believe you,” one of the other Dark Guardians drawled.

“You should,” Iolas sighed. “He’s her father.”

Well, that explained the red hair… Just not how he could break from the darkness, and why he hadn’t before now.

“How were you able to get out of the dark magic alone?” Taeral demanded, not backing down just yet and keeping close to me. He shot me a quick glance. “Did you release him?”

Again, I simply shook my head.

The man didn’t even give Taeral any notice, focused on me. “I saw when the first light came back to Faerie. I’ve been trying to move through the darkness since then to find you. We never thought—we never dreamed—it was like fighting to move through tar. We couldn’t have known that.”

There was a long pause, and I realized he was waiting for something from me. I nodded. I’d seen it myself how hard it had been for him to get free of it.

“We never thought all the portals would die. I’ve activated portals many, many times. I couldn’t. I couldn’t get to you.”

I held up my hands in front of me to hold him off. He wasn’t making sense. Or jumping around. I was still ready to pee myself that someone had reached out from the darkness and grabbed me.

“How did the magic not affect you?” Neldor demanded. “Every fairy was frozen until Tamsin was able to—”

“I’m not a fairy,” the man stated easily as if saying the sky was blue. “And refer to my daughter as you should, Neldor, or you won’t like what I do. Meira might have thought you were crucial to the survival of all fairies should the worst of her visions come to pass, but I didn’t, and my mate is gone.”

That was a whole lot to digest and no one seemed to know what to say for a few moments, Taeral finding his voice first. “You’re not a fairy?”

“No, Lageos is a demigod,” Iolas explained. “The last demigod.”

My vision went black, and I never felt myself fall to the ground.

I thought fainting was a fairly appropriate response to hearing that.
Flynn, Erin R. Managing Expectations (Artemis University Book 9) (Kindle Locations 1554-1631). Supernatural Script, Inc. Kindle Edition.

The discovery of her father and what he is shocks Tamsin, but it also explains a lot of things. Especially with regard to her power.

So many things in this book as Tamsin takes more control of her life, but also allows help from a different source. Reveals that aren’t really reveals are both fun and interesting.

Laughter, tears, fun, fighting and of course plenty of sizzle in the page-turning read. I really can’t wait to see what’s next for Tamsin.

5 Contented Purrs for Erin!

3 Hisses for Editing Though, with several right words, wrong spelling/meaning.

Erin is a born Chicagoan who decided to state hop a bit, given she works from home. She currently resides in Georgia with her pup, Lord Vader Flynn. With an eclectic and addictive personality, there isn’t much that doesn’t interest her or she won’t pour herself into if it catches her fancy. She has always been interested in the darker aspects of life and mythologies—especially vampires, shifters, the occult, and anything paranormal.

To date, she has published more paranormal books than she can keep up with the characters for, in different genres with dedicated readers who await each release to her numerous series under any of the three Flynn names she writes.