Editor's note: Hello! A Bargain for Wings is book 2.5 in my ongoing fae romance series. Book #1 is The Fae Queen's Pet and can be found here. Book #2 is A Bargain for Bliss and can be found here. 

A Bargain for Wings serves as a side story but still features many of the characters from books 1 and 2, including Sierra and Varella. I hope you enjoy this new tale. Thanks for reading! 

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The wedding day. It’s supposed to be the biggest, happiest day of any woman’s life. That is. . . if you ask my mother. But as I stood there staring into the mirror for the 50th time, I wished that I could just disappear from this day altogether. 

Pinned-up black hair and wide green eyes painted with a taupe eye shadow stared back at me. A 35-year-old woman who’d been called “Amazon” by some girls she dated and “Mommy” by a few others. . . that was me. Anola Crys, the woman who “wasn’t getting any younger” and should be happy a nice boy like Blake Williams was willing to put a ring on her finger, also according to my mother. 

I stared at my trumpet bridal gown, an avalanche of white fabric that hugged my bony shoulders and string bean body. 

My soon-to-be husband was only an inch taller than me at six feet two. Thankfully, he wasn’t the type to be easily emasculated. He really was a kind man, but you don’t get married to someone because they’re nice to you, right? You get married because someone comes along that makes you weak in the knees and wet between your thighs. 

No man had ever managed to accomplish either of those things for me, but when your parents guilt you and hound you for grandbabies over the better part of a decade as no viable alternative appears. . . I guess you learn to make do with what you’re given. And since the age of seven, I’d been given Blake Williams, a childhood friend who never really found anyone else that caught his eye. 

“He had two different straight women pining for him, but I just had to wind up being the lucky lady,” I muttered, staring at my hips, wishing I could fill this dress out a little more. 

I’d spent most of high school here in southeast Washington being teased for my lack of development while other, more endowed girls my age were shamed for having what I lacked. Honestly, as a teenager, I didn’t know which was worse, but I quickly learned that women didn’t win either way. 

A knock at the dressing room door caused me to slowly turn and call “Come in.” 

There she was, my mother. Catherine Crys, kindergarten teacher, church piano player, and all-around master of the guilt trip. 

“How’s everything coming along?” she asked, brushing a fuzz off the shoulder of her very formal blue dress with a small matching ribbon tied around the center. Her blue eyes locked with mine, scanning for any obvious thoughts or mood shifts as it became clear to me my role here today was simply not to fuck things up and embarrass the family like when I’d been outed as bi at Mom and Dad’s 20th anniversary by my blabbermouth of a cousin. 

“Oh, you know, just peachy,” I said with a fake smile.

Her eyebrow raised a little, but I wasn’t willing to give my mother any more satisfaction than necessary. This entire fucking thing was her fault, all the ridiculous needling about fertility and the future of the family, which was her keyword for grandbabies. All her friends had them, Jan, Ellis, and Margerie. Their sons and daughters had done their duty in their 20s. Why couldn’t I in my 30s? Hell, even Blake’s parents already had grandkids courtesy of his younger brother, Jonathan. 

Why was I wasting my years playing with girls when I should have been settling down with a nice young man who could help further fill out our family portraits in an acceptable?

“Would it kill you to smile a bit more, sweetie? This is the happiest moment of your life, and you don’t want Blake to think you’re getting cold feet,” she said, cocking her head ever so slightly to the right to remind me this was a command, not a suggestion. 

No, the happiest moment of my life was Jessica Neery eating me out after we’d gotten drunk eating tacos at 3 a.m. during one of my many trips to Seattle, I thought. 

Against all my inner willpower, I raised the edges of my lips to grant Mother Dearest the smile she’d so kindly asked for. 

“Good god, Anola. Not that much. You don’t want him to think you’re faking.” 

Good point. I should save my faking skills for tonight in the honeymoon suite, I thought, trying not to shatter the fragile smile I’d pinned to my lips.  

“Just remember, dear. You’re a happy bride, not one of those dreadful Stepford wives. I’ll leave you alone to keep practicing. Remember, your future starts today. All you have to do is sit back and do what comes naturally. For me, for your father, for Blake, and ultimately for yourself. With all that in the front of your mind, it should be easy to work up a natural smile. I know I smile thinking about what’s to come.” 

That’s just it. After today, I’ll never cum again, not without the help of my Magic Wand, I thought. Marrying Blake guarantees I’ve buried my face in the breasts of a blushing brunette for the last time as of three months ago. 

It was easy to say these things in my mind while keeping my mouth perfectly still. I’d grown up doing it. Years of practice was an understatement. 

All I could do was nod as Mom closed the door behind her and I was left alone with my bitterness and anger. And it was the kind of anger that left me wanting to do something really stupid, like tearing this dress off and sending some nudes to Michelle. 

Why had none of the girls I’d dreamt of ending up with carried the same desire for a long-term commitment? Nancy, Tia, Emily, August. . . they were all good for four or five dates and a few nights of mindblowing sex before they were off to be with someone else. Casual was fun, but when you’ve got a mom and dad breathing down your neck to plan for the future, whatever the fuck that meant, your desire to anchor yourself to a pretty girl, any pretty girl grew exponentially. 

Ah, there we go. I was wondering when the tears would show up. Turning to burying my face into a red cushion, I let out the loudest scream I could muster. 

In 90 minutes, I’d be all but signing my future away to a man who didn’t know any better. A signature on a marriage license next to the word “Bride” under the word “Groom.” All I’d wanted for years was to sign a marriage license with the word “Bride” typed twice on it. I’d put my name on the line next to one “Bride” space, and my soon-to-be wife would put her name next to the other one. 

The veins on my neck were sticking out as I yelled. It was my mother’s least favorite quality about my body. She pointed it out at least once a week. 

I plopped down on the red sofa and let out another scream. I hated my life. I hated my choices. I hated my family. What horrible thread had the universe weaved to ensure I’d end up here at the end of this horrible path?

Was I fated to end up like Mom? A cynical woman in her 50s who admitted she’d once found women attractive but settled for my father and told everyone she was the happiest girl alive? A woman who went through enough wine bottles each month that glass filled 90 percent of our recycling bin? A woman so deep in the closet she put all her focus on grandbabies to drown out how dissatisfied she was with her love life?

“Fuck me,” I muttered, lowering the pillow and placing my feet flat on the plush white carpet of the bridal dressing room. I looked back over at the mirror. “I should probably see the damage to my makeup.” 

Outside the French double doors that led out into an orchard, a robin flew by and landed on a birdfeeder, helping itself to a smörgåsbord of seeds the groundskeeper had been kind enough to leave it. 

A small voice spoke up from across the room. 

“Your makeup is fine. I wouldn’t worry about it,” the voice said. 

I jumped to my feet and spun to witness something my brain struggled to make sense of. A tiny woman, no more than five inches high and standing with the wings of a dragonfly. She was dressed like a tiny elf. Hell, she was a tiny elf. 

A garb of green and yellow in the pattern of near-microscopic wildflowers. The skirt ended right where her strappy sandals began with laces that tied upward to her calf. 

I dared to move closer because some stupid part of my brain wanted a better look at my visitor. What was the best shade to describe her eyes? Fuschia? It was far from human. 

“Gods you’re tall,” the tiny visitor said as I gave her a blank stare. 

“If we’re stating the obvious, you’re extraordinarily small,” I said, crossing my arms. 

She giggled. 

“Fair enough, I suppose.” 

“What are you?”

She smiled. 

“I’m a wild piskie, a lone traveler of Faerie without ties to any court.” 

What could I do except blink at a response like that? I shook my head and wiped my eyes, wondering if I’d snapped. 

“Yup. Still here. Still real,” she said, taking flight and hovering a few inches from my face. Her wings beat, carrying that tiny body up into my view until she was all I stared at. As she flew, the piskie’s dandelion-colored hair came loose from the bun holding it and scattered in every direction to avoid getting tangled in her wings.  

I took a deep breath and shook my head again. 

“So this is what it feels like to lose your mind,” I sputtered, looking around the room for a glass of water. I found a basket with ice and bottles of water in it and walked over while the piskie followed me. 

Even after a long drink, the piskie remained in my sight. 

Fuck. She is real, I thought. 

“What’s your name?” I asked, feeling like I might as well have been talking to a mirror or a teddy bear. It all seemed ridiculous. 

“I am called Sylva. And you?”

“Um, Anola.” 

The fae nodded and crossed her arms, looking to be deep in thought for a moment. I didn’t dare interrupt her. She finished with a quick nod and smile. 

“That’ll work,” she said. 

I raised an eyebrow. 

“What will work?”

Flying to my left and darting over to the mirror, I watched Sylva twist and turn to examine her reflection. She didn’t seem happy with the image shown to her, and her eyes slowly found their way to mine. 

“You know, for a mortal about to be married, you don’t look all that happy. I’ve seen plenty of women in your shoes who were much more joyous,” she said. 

I frowned and spoke without thinking, anger building back up in my chest. Clenching my fists, I ground my teeth before words came down from my brain. 

“Yeah, well, most of those women were probably going to marry someone they actually wanted to be with.” 

Sylva flashed me a look of pity. 

“Aw, your betrothed doesn’t quite measure up?”

“If by ‘doesn’t quite measure up’ you mean he doesn’t have a nice pair of tits for me to fondle, you’d be spot on.” 

The piskie’s eyes widened as understanding arrived. 

“Oh. That is a problem,” she said.

Silence filled the room as I ground my foot into the carpet until I expected friction to spark a fire. Couldn’t have a wedding if the carpet caused a fire and burned down the little picturesque resort. 

Sorry, Blake. It’s a sign from God we aren’t supposed to be together, I thought. 

Without thinking I blurted out, “I’d give anything to be someone else right now.” 

Sylva flew between me and the carpet, capturing my gaze. 

“What’s stopping you from walking out those doors right now?” she asked. 

I threw up my arms. 

“Family obligations? Not wanting to break poor Blake’s heart again? Guilt from my mother? I have so many chains keeping me tethered to this place that they might as well change the name from Apple Springs Resort to the Dungeon Orchard. That’s what this place has felt like since I arrived with my parents.” 

As the piskie rubbed her chin, I scoffed. 

“You’re lucky, you know that? With those wings, if you’re unhappy where you are, you can just fly someplace else. Easy peasy.” 

A look of resentment flashed over her face for a moment before she covered it with another smile. And her grin had a devious nature to it that left me flinching. 

“You think so? Well, I’m inclined to give them to you, ya know? Then you could fly right out of here without looking back.” 

I giggled and said something stupid again. 

“That’s awfully kind of you. I wonder how fast I could reach Seattle with your wings. Maybe I could be at Michelle’s apartment in time to get bagels tomorrow morning and convince her to blow off work and fuck me instead,” I said. 

Sylva shrugged and said, “Maybe.”

Snorting, I asked, “And what would you ask for in exchange for those lovely little wings? Do you want my mother? Blake? This dress? You can have all three.” 

She rubbed her chin again. 

“I wouldn’t mind being a little taller,” she said with all the seriousness of someone standing at the checkout counter and holding a credit card in their fingers. 

Looking in the mirror again at my giant figure I shrugged. What was a few inches? I’d never asked to be an Amazon. Sure, my dress probably wouldn’t fit anymore, but who cares? I’d be flying away in this purely hypothetical scenario. 

“Why not? I’ve always hated being a giant. You’ve got yourself a deal,” I said as Sylva’s grin turned downright devilish. 

The first thing I felt was a fluttering in my chest as the French double doors kicked open with a mighty gust that filled the room, spilling papers, knocking over the basket of bottled water, and lifting me off the ground a few inches. 

“Wha?!” was all I had time to say as the breeze whisked me over to a desk with a tattered red book slamming open upon my arrival. 

Magic spilled out from the book as invisible hands grabbed me and held me in place. Terror gripped my chest as I tried to call for help but found my voice strangely missing. 

Sylva flew over as if the wind didn’t bother her in the slightest and landed in front of the book. 

The pages rattled by so fast my eyes couldn’t keep up. There were hundreds of them spinning between the covers of this textbook-sized tome. Each looked as wrinkled and weathered as parchment kept behind glass in world-class museums. 

“What are you doing?” I sputtered, finding my voice again. 

Sylva ignored me, raising her hands that glowed with a golden aura, calling more magic from the book. 

Finally, the pages stopped and laid flat. 

Peering into the book, I spotted what looked like a vast galaxy made of millions of strings between stars and celestial bodies. 

“Simple, Anola. I’m granting your bargain.” 

“What bargain?!” I snapped. 

“The one you just agreed to over by the couch. And I have to say, sweetie, as far as mortal bargain blunders go, that was one of the worst I’ve witnessed. It’s like no one taught you to be cautious with your words around the fae.” 

I tried to turn my head away from the swirling book and the massive world inside its pages, but those damn invisible hands held my face steady. 

Gold lines and swirling blue cosmos danced before my very eyes, and it was almost enough to overload the senses. The best drugs I’d taken had never gotten me close to a sight like this before. It was everything. It was the space between you and me. It was existence put to page. Everything philosophers had spent their lives debating about through the ages was all right here, and my very existence was nothing compared to the vastness of this undulating scene before me. 

“Takes your breath away, doesn’t it? The Book of Tevaedah. I lose myself every time I crack it open.” 

“What is it?” I asked, eyes lost in the daze of raw magic and power on full display. 

“It’s everyone, Anola. Every single soul and person. Me. You. Blake. Your mother. . . even Barsilla. Took me the better part of a century to track it down. And now here we are, ready to take it for my first ride. Hold tight, mortal. This is going to be a trip for both of us.” 

My eyes widened. 

“I’ve changed my mind! I take it back. I don’t want your wings!” I almost yelled. But my voice had been reduced to a harsh whisper. 

Sylva looked back at me one last time with that mischievous smile I’d soon learn all fae were capable of. 

“Bit late for that, mortal. Once started, a bargain can’t be stopped. Now hold steady while I find our strings.” 

She turned her attention back to the Book of Tevaedah, hovering over the pages as wind swirled once more through the room and the furniture rattled under my very feet, vibrations racing through the carpet in every direction. 

The piskie suddenly plunged a tiny hand into the page and pulled out a silvery strand. 

“Got ya. And now for me,” she said, squinting. 

Without warning, she plunged her remaining hand into the page and yanked out another silvery strand. One glowed with dandelion light while the other had a dimmer gray highlight to it, not quite a glimmer. 

Sylva put the dandelion strand in her mouth and made the shape of scissors with her fingers. Without warning, she cut right through the gray strand, and I felt my very existence tear. It was every bit as unsettling as you’d imagine. Coming untethered from reality, my vision spun, and I started to whimper. Someone had turned off gravity in my heart, and every bit of the person I was threatened to fly away. 

“Whoop. Hang on there,” Sylvana said, putting what I assumed to be my severed strand into her mouth and severing her own with another scissor-like motion from her fingers. 

As the room continued to spin, I saw a multitude of colors in the corners of my vision, and the piskie tucked half of her strand under an arm. 

She then tied my strand to hers and visa versa. And the moment she finished, pushing both strands back into the swirling cosmos of a book, I felt like I’d been hit by a falling power line. Remember that scene in “Jurassic Park” when the kid is scared to climb down the electric fence and gets zapped and sent flying? This felt 20 times worse than that. 

My vision went black, and I felt myself tumbling across the room without a shred of mercy. The motion was so violent that I wanted to puke. And before I knew it, everything came to a sudden stop, and the seatbelts of my consciousness yanked me back into the metaphorical seat of whatever the fuck I’d been riding in since I met Sylva. 

A quick review of the previous 20 minutes of my life revealed I’d been roped into some abstract nonsense. I was about a marry a man when I liked women. I’d apparently agreed to a fae bargain without realizing it. And I was now the personification of dizziness. 

When the room stopped spinning long enough for me to try speaking, I managed to choke out, “Motherfucker, Sylva. What did you do?”

That’s really weird. I must have hit my head on the way down because I could swear that’s not my voice talking, I thought. 

“Seriously, what happened?” I asked again. And it was the same. 

My eyes snapped open, and the first bizarre thing I saw was. . . me. I was standing in front of the mirror in my wedding dress spinning around and practically beaming. 

“It worked!” I said. “I can’t believe it! I’m so fucking tall.” 

And while the girl standing in front of the mirror looked like me and sounded like me, she in no way could have been me. Because. . . I was me, right?

I slowly stood and looked around to find a whole new perspective on life. Nothing was right. For starters, I was on the desk. Not by the desk. On it. And I didn’t take up nearly enough space. 

The Book of Tevaedah was closed, but the goddamn thing was 20 times bigger than it’d been previously. 

“There’s no way,” I muttered, again hearing Sylva’s voice. Looking around the room, my vision began to swim. The couch was the size of the Grand Canyon. And me. . . er — the person that looked like me dancing in front of the mirror and singing to herself was a giant. I actually had to raise my head to look at all of her. 

The table I stood on looked like the size of a football field I used to march on in high school. 

“What’s happening?” I squeaked, noting the double French doors were now the size of those statues Aragorn pointed out to Frodo on the river when they went canoeing. 

Before I could react, the girl who looked like me walked over and said, “Wow. It is so trippy to see you from this angle. Is that what I’ve looked like all these years?”

All I could do was shake my head. 

“Here, let me help,” the girl said, reaching down and delicately grabbing me by. . . the wings?! What the fuck? 

I started to kick and fight, but it was hopeless. 

She walked over to the mirror carrying me. 

The reflection didn’t lie. I was five inches tall now and looked the spitting image of Sylva. 

“Why do I look like you?” I asked, looking up at the giant woman in the reflection behind me. 

“Oh, little fae, you don’t just look like me. You are me. Consider our bargain fulfilled. You got my wings. And I got your height, exactly as I wanted.” 

I snapped at her. 

“This isn’t anything like what we agreed on! You were just supposed to give me your wings! And you were supposed to take a few inches, not my entire body. Bitch, you better fix this, or I’ll —” she interrupted me. 

“You’ll what?” 

That stopped me cold. What would I do? What could I do in this tiny body? Next to nothing, I imagined.

“Exactly,” she said. “Get used to it. You made a dumb bargain and got your soul sucked out by a magic book and locked inside the body of an ageless sprite. But look on the bright side, you don’t have to marry Blake now!” 

I scoffed. 

“This is like burning down a house to get rid of a goddamn spider, Sylva! And you know it. You twisted my words entirely.” 

With a sudden motion, the ex-fae held me right up to the glass. 

“First, take a good look. You’re Sylva now. I’m Anola Crys, bride-to-be. Second, twisting words is what we do. That’s practically the very definition of being a fae, which you now are. So start practicing,” she said before pulling me back to her face. My old face. “Got it?”

I scowled and tried to kick her, but she pulled me back before I could. 

“Well, you’ve definitely got the orneriness of a piskie down.” 

“Put me down! I’m going to use the fucking book to change us back. This isn’t what I agreed to,” I yelled. 

Sylva scoffed. 

“This isn’t a grocery store, little piskie. You can’t take your bargain back with a receipt and get a refund.” 

“Watch me!” I snapped, gritting my tiny teeth. It was about the dumbest comeback ever, but my brain was a little fried after everything that’d happened. 

The ex-fae scoffed and started to carry me outside. 

“Wha? Where are you taking me?” I stuttered, more fear in my little voice than I intended. 

“I figured you’d behave this way, so I had a backup plan ready just in case you chose to fight back instead of peacefully flying off into your new life.”

The giant woman took me into the orchard out a ways and selected an apple tree seemingly at random. I spotted a large hollowed-out portion where a branch once hung. The inside was dark. . . abnormally so. It swallowed any light dumb enough to try and penetrate the shadow of this wooden cave. 

“What are you doing?” I asked, again with more fear in my voice than I intended. 

She raised me toward the notch in the tree and said, “Sending you to Faerie where you won’t bother me anymore. If we’re being honest, you don’t belong in the mortal world anymore now that you’re an elf. And I’ve got a wedding to prepare for.” 

“You can’t do this!” I yelled. 

But she, in fact, could. And she did, tossing me into the hole without so much as a goodbye. Instead of landing inside the tree, I plummeted to an impossible depth. If Loki fell for 30 minutes, this felt like I’d fallen for at least an hour, tumbling down the proverbial rabbit hole. I was just missing the tiny pocket watch and startling realization that I was late for a tea party. 

“Fuck meeeeeeeee,” I howled, somehow appearing in a strange world and leaving the land of my birth behind. The air was saturated with. . . magic? I felt its strands whistling by my tiny body as I plummeted through dark clouds and rain. 

Of course, I’d come into Faerie during a thunderstorm, I thought. Because I’m just that fucking unlucky. 

The wind was strong enough to whip me this way and that as I fell. I tried my wings, but they might as well have been third or fourth arms that I had no idea how to use. They fluttered uselessly in the gale that swallowed me. 

I was at the mercy of this horrendous storm, exploding from one giant raindrop to the next as I tumbled toward a bog of some kind. 

The air smelled of swamp grass and algae-filled water. I wasn’t a big fan. Then again, I wasn’t a big anything anymore. 

I curled myself into a tiny ball as giant trees raced up toward me, and I narrowly missed branch after branch. A tiny twig scraped my cheek, and I hissed, feeling warmth scar my new tiny face. 

The hurricane-force winds threw me toward every tree imaginable, and I somehow missed them all thanks to my tiny stature. 

And just before I hit the ground, I felt myself splat into a dense jungle of fur. Fur? What the hell? Whatever I was on jostled and moved as it darted over mud and between trees. Clinging for dear life, I grabbed handfuls of hazelnut-colored fur and tried to move in a direction I imagined to be forward. 

When I finally got to the head of whatever was carrying me, I realized it was a wolf! A giant fucking wolf racing through the swamp with the rain and winds parting for her every stride. 

I was grateful and horrified. Did the giant wolf feel me back here? Was she going to eat me?

Looking up, I watched the wolf burst out of the swamp forest and into a clearing, racing toward a cozy-looking log cabin at full speed. 

All I could do was wait to see what fate awaited me at the wolf’s mysterious home and hope I wouldn’t be her dinner.