He pulled me toward the door, and when he opened it, I narrowed my eyes at the entire Elite Guard that stood ready for war behind the door. “You did my hair to off me?” I asked jokingly.
“No, it’s just a precautionary measure for your safety. I figured it might be good for you to get out of the castle for a short trip, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it without measures for you and the babes safety.”
As I moved closer into the full Elite Guard’s path, I caught sight of Adam. “Where are we going?” I asked, wondering where in the world we were heading that he needed to take such measures as to enlist the entire guard of thirteen men, plus Adam.
“It’s a secret,” he whispered as he turned me into his arms and smiled.
I hated surprises, but the thought of getting out of this place was tempting. I melted against his body as he wrapped his arms around me protectively. It felt nice to be secure in his arms, cherished even. He sifted us out of Faery and to a busy industrial area in California; if the palm trees and license plates were anything to go off of.
It wasn’t home, but it was close. I looked around the area and noticed a few things. One: it was a factory in the industrial park and the smell coming from it was horrible. Two: there was a woman waiting for our group at the front of the business.
Great, he’d brought me back to my world just to remind me how much it could stink here? I watched as the woman approached us and noticed she had pointy ears. Her eyes were large in her oval face, and sparkled like fresh dew in the morning after a storm. Fae? I hadn’t seen any with ears like that yet.
“Elven,” Ryder said with a small smile that twisted his lips up. “Arista, this is Synthia. She’s here for what I ordered,” Ryder spoke to the woman softly.
Jealousy reared her ugly head, but it was more to do with the way the woman laid her hand on Ryder’s chest, and leaned in to kiss his lips. “Good to see you, my King,” she said sweetly.
I lifted an irritated brow at Ryder. Great surprise! He’d brought me here to watch another woman swoon at his feet. This was just what I needed.
“If you will follow me, Princess,” she said and smiled softly.
At the front doors of the cement building she inserted her key card and pushed a few buttons into a code panel. She fluffed her short blonde curls and opened the door, which the men quickly took for her and held it open.
I shook my head because of the look she gave them in thanks. It was more of a see yourself to my bedroom look. Inside, the smell grew worse, but the sign that hung over the front desk made all of the stink in the world fade away. It read simply OPI Headquarters.
I felt hot tears push behind my eyes.
Holy fairy farting buckets!
“This way please,” Arista said, and I followed her silently.
Inside the hallway, we were guarded on both sides by the men. The entire building was silent as we made our way through it. I was trying to swallow past the thickness that was clogging my throat. It wasn’t until she stopped at a door and clicked numbers into another panel that the tears welled up, dropped.
Inside the room, was shelf after shelf of my favorite nail polish. It wasn’t just nail polish, though, it was OPI nail lacquer. My Fairy had remembered that I was obsessed with it, and that my entire collection had been destroyed when my house had.
“You can pick from any shade. If you leave the bottles you want, I will have them sent to Faery for you,” Arista said politely.
“All of them; I want them all,” I whispered brokenly, even as I turned and threw myself in Ryder’s arms. “Thank you!” I cried, unsure if it was hormones or that he was extending an olive branch and trying to give some of the comforts I’d thought to never have again. There was a lot I could live without, but my nail polish and coffee were both something I needed to just feel like I was myself again.
“We will take one hundred of every color,” Ryder said over my head to Arista.
“Seriously? That’s a lot of polish,” she replied.
“Synthia wants it,” he whispered into my hair, “and I want her to be happy.”
Arista sighed at his romantic comment. Shit, I was sighing! He’d brought me to the freaking OPI factory. Shit! I was at the OPI factory, and was too busy hugging on the Fairy to be grabbing bottles. I ripped myself from his arms and darted my gaze, looking for my favorite shades.
“Can I take a few bottles back with us?” I asked as my fingers itched and my palms sweated to touch them all.
“He is paying for them.” She laughed and shook her head. “So feel free, Princess, to take any of them that you want.”
A few bottles? I left with thirty shades of polish, hand lotions, polish remover, and countless other things that I’d never been able to afford before. When we sifted back to Faery, and the men had piled all the goods into a cabinet that he glamoured for me, Ryder turned and smiled.
“Good surprise?” he asked.