A feel-good, family-friendly fantasy novella about a modern pixie discovering her power, facing ancient fae threats, and falling for a dangerously charming troll.

Some monsters hide in the shadows. Others hide in plain sight.

Billy already has enough on her plate—college, keeping her mother’s garden alive, and now, troll hunting. When a spoiled teen unknowingly attracts a bridge-dwelling monster, Billy steps up as protector. But Ash, the troll, isn’t just a mindless predator—he’s ancient, cunning, and dangerously charming. And he's far more interested in Billy than anyone expected.

As mysterious gifts arrive and long-dormant magic stirs, Billy discovers her mother’s herbal tea has been suppressing her true power for years. With a banshee on the prowl and the fae courts watching, Billy must embrace her royal heritage—or risk losing everything she loves.

From Autumn Dawn, this enchanting paranormal romance blurs the line between worlds, where a modern pixie finds herself caught in an ancient struggle—and in the sights of two powerful suitors.

A feel-good, family-friendly fantasy with no explicit content. For fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and delightfully creepy fairytales.

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Chapter 1

Preface

A freshly slaughtered animal has a distinctive smell. It’s not like supermarket chicken—bleached, shrink‑wrapped, and divorced from anything that ever clucked. This smell is wild. Musky. Metallic. The scent clings in the back of the throat like fur stuck to bloodied fingers.

Anyone who’s ever prepped a kill knows—hair mats to knives. It doesn’t wash off. Not from skin. Not from memory.

The troll hadn’t even tried. He’d let the stink settle in like fog, curling through the air, coiling around her tongue, turning each breath into a dare. She breathed through her mouth. Didn’t help.

She could taste the rot.

1. Hush, my darling. It’s only the boogieman.

“Not now, Lance.”

Carrie shoved her boyfriend’s face away, already regretting every decision that led her under this bridge. “I’m not making out with you on a pile of rocks.”

The concrete was damp, the ground sketchy at best. Even if she’d wanted to hook up—and she wasn’t ruling it out entirely—this wasn’t the place.

Yasmine had been hanging all over him earlier. Carrie wasn’t about to let the cheerleader steal her boyfriend, but this? This was a tactical error.

“C’mon, Car,” Lance whined, draped in Eau de Cheap Beer. He pressed her back against a boulder and slid his hand under her skirt. “Be nice.”

“Lance,” she snapped, eyes flashing, “I said no.”

But he wasn’t listening. The zipper of his jeans rasped open. “Just a sec—won’t take long.”

Yeah. She got that a lot.

Her palm cracked across his face, hard enough to sting them both. He reeled, then raised his fist.

“You little—”

A low growl crawled up from the darkness under the bridge. The air turned thick. Fetid. Something old breathed.

Lance froze mid‑word. Slowly turned.

And screamed.

The shadows lunged. A hand—huge, gnarled—shot from the dark and clamped around his head. He disappeared into blackness like a prize yanked from a claw machine.

Crunch.

Carrie stood frozen, lungs seized. It was too fast, too unreal. First thought: Lance is dead. Second: I’m next if I don’t run. Third: as she scraped her knees on rocks, heels snapping, heart trying to jackhammer out of her chest…

She thought, Good. And didn’t stop running.

2. Grandma didn’t raise good girls. She said they had poor survival rates.

Billy rolled her keychain between her fingers and squinted at the chaos outside the library.

Jason was at it again. Sliding his board along the handrail like he thought physics was something he could flirt with. Sparks danced off the trucks as he landed the trick, flashing a grin directly at her.

He was working hard.

Too bad she wasn’t hiring.

Jason was the kind of guy who failed his second year of college while wearing a three‑hundred‑dollar hoodie. She could practically see the trust fund leaking out of his earbuds.

Meanwhile, she was clocking thirty hours a week, studying nights, and budgeting her caffeine like it was a controlled substance.

Saturdays weren’t for flirting. They were for the library.

She dumped her overdue books into the return slot and swung a leg over her Harley. It rumbled to life like a dragon with indigestion, and she peeled out from the curb with a smirk. Jason watched her go, probably more in love with the bike than the girl riding it.

Couldn’t blame him. Dad’s old panhead was a beast. And the chaps? Well, leather made everyone’s butt look good. That was just science.

The old farmhouse didn’t care what she looked like. Still, she liked rolling up the driveway with power purring under her and the wind tangled in her braid.

The house wasn’t glamorous—unless you counted the riot of blooms that coated the property year‑round. Between Billy’s green thumb and her mother’s… other talents, the place was a botanical explosion.

Pixies and plants. Match made in heaven.

She still caught herself calling her mother Gran sometimes. Old habits die hard—especially when your maternal figure lies like a rug and calls it strategy.

The woman had told everyone Billy was her granddaughter. Made it easier to hide her from the Summer King’s spies. After all, a full‑blood pixie princess is a lot harder to disguise than a random half‑blood orphan.

Billy found out the truth after graduation. Along with the fact that there was a “suitor” waiting in Underhill to breed her like a prize cow.

She’d refused. Loudly. Violently. That summer vacation had ended in blood.

Now, Billy lived in her house, on her terms. She had a schedule, a job, and hot water that worked most of the time.

So when she spotted a sleek black BMW idling in the gravel driveway, its driver clearly waiting for permission to emerge… she didn’t rush.

Maura. Of course.

Half‑blood. Full attitude. Sister in the loosest possible sense of the word.

Billy let her wait, fingers drumming on that fancy steering wheel like it might summon patience. She wasn’t getting out until invited—and she knew it. This was Billy’s ground now.

Finally, Billy gave her a bored look. “You can come out. Sit on the porch if you want. I’ll make tea.” She didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t have to. Maura heard her just fine.

Billy turned and headed inside, perfectly aware of the dagger glares following her. Maura wouldn’t try anything. Not here.

Billy poured tea into the old jelly‑jar glasses and added a twist of lemon. It was tempting to add poison, but today wasn’t the day. Protocol mattered, especially with fae who shared your blood and still managed to be enemies.

Maura perched on the porch bench like it was beneath her, ankle crossed over knee, sunglasses pushed up into her hair. “How’s school going for you?” she asked, all breezy civility. “You have a few classes with Carrie, don’t you?”

Aaaaaand there it was.

Billy didn’t flinch. Just sipped. “Some overlap.”

It was a dig, naturally. For Billy, Underhill had been one long, awful summer. For the rest of the world? Years had passed. Her mother’s house had been musty when she’d finally walked out. The garden overgrown. The fridge moldy. And Carrie—bratty, sparkly Carrie—was now sitting in her freshman lectures, swapping lip gloss while Billy took notes like her future depended on it.

They weren’t close. They weren’t enemies either, not officially. They operated on a strict policy of mutual avoidance.

Maura sighed, the sound surprisingly human. Tired. “Carrie had a… difficulty last night.”

Billy raised a brow. “What’d she do, get in a slap fight with one of her jocks?” Carrie would’ve won, obviously. Pixie blood was no joke. Still, the image of her niece having to break a nail for dominance was amusing.

Maura sipped and didn’t smile. “She ran afoul of a troll.” She paused, letting that sit. “It ate her boyfriend.”

Billy lowered her glass with a soft, startled, “Huh.” Not exactly what she’d expected from a family gossip session, but hey—points for shock value. Carrie wasn’t dead, or Maura would’ve opened with wailing and possibly a vendetta. “Did anyone notice?” Billy asked.

It wasn’t as dumb a question as it sounded. Most humans had a natural blind spot when it came to the supernatural.

“Of course not,” Maura snapped. “Carrie’s not an idiot. Once she pulled herself together, she pretended nothing happened. Humans saw what they wanted to see. Probably think he ran off, or fell down a ravine. But the troll—he worries me.”

Billy made a face. “They stink, right? She missed that?”

“Carrie ignores things that don’t fit her worldview. If her reality says it’s river funk, she’ll believe it. Her boyfriend wasn’t exactly helping, either.” Her tone sharpened, rage threading through the cool civility like a crack beneath ice. Whatever that boy had done, he’d flipped the mama‑pixie switch.

The boy was probably lucky he got eaten.

Billy leaned against the porch post and folded her arms. “Okay, so: boyfriend gets eaten. Carrie screams. They flee. Didn’t pay a toll. Troll gets cranky. Got it.” She frowned. “But trolls don’t usually… wander, right?”

Maura’s fingers twitched toward her polished nail, then curled away. Old habit. “I tried to find him. Offer gold. Maybe talk him down. But he’s left the bridge.”

“That’s bad.”

“It’s worse,” Maura said. “I gave Carrie some of my expensive gold. He might accept it eventually. Might. But until then…” She shook her head. “Trolls that start wandering don’t stop quickly. The world’s just too full of easy prey.”

Billy inhaled slowly. A feral troll stalking around Spokane wasn’t just inconvenient. It was deadly. “Maybe Carrie could spend a semester abroad?” she offered hopefully.

Maura glared. “This is our territory. Ours. We can’t just roll over and give it away because some cave‑dwelling maniac got hungry.”

Billy set down her glass and gave her sister a level stare. “So you’re going to kill him?”

Maura didn’t blink. Just stared back.

Billy sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She pushed off the rail and crossed her arms tighter. “Maura, I have school. Work. Bills. I do not have time for troll slaying.”

“Mother is gone,” Maura said softly.

Billy didn’t flinch. She was used to hearing that truth used like a weapon.

“You’re the strongest. It’s your duty.”

The fact that Maura looked like she’d swallowed a lemon dipped in arsenic while saying it was just the cherry on the sundae. She hated that Billy was stronger. Hated needing her. If she could’ve killed Billy and taken her power, she would’ve done it ages ago.

Billy let that silence linger. Then: “If you want the glory of being clan head, Maura, be my guest. Slay the troll. Reap the prestige. You and Carrie can be a glorious family of two.” Because Billy would be dead, and that was not an outcome she was signing up for.

Still. Even as she dismissed the idea, something gnawed at her gut. Trolls weren’t just creepy—they were killers. Apex predators. You didn’t ignore a tiger loose in your city and hope for the best.

Her mother hadn’t just trained her in glamours and etiquette. She taught Billy the food chain. Trolls ate their way to the top.

“You think I can actually win against one?” she asked aloud, skeptical. “What am I supposed to do—challenge him to a duel? Out‑wrestle him in the parking lot? I’m tough, sure, but trolls eat people like me for lunch. Literally.”

She’d seen pictures. Hulking brutes with fungus‑tangled hair, fangs for days, and a scent profile you could weaponize. Basically, frat boys with worse hygiene.

Maura didn’t flinch. “If you won’t do it for your family, then do it for the humans. You know what’ll happen if they get in his way.”

Billy pinched the bridge of her nose. “If the police catch him, they could—maybe—put him down. With, like, tanks.”

“If they catch him. They won’t. You know what he is. You’ve seen what they can do.” Guilt. Ancient weapon of sisters everywhere.

Billy groaned. “You’re just the worst.”

Maura smiled faintly. “You could ask for help, you know.”

Billy gave her a look. “From you?”

“I meant your friends,” Maura said, horrified. “Obviously.”

Of course. Heaven forbid Maura lift a finger. Offering help might imply she cared.

Billy tipped her head back, then swung off the railing with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll keep my eyes open. If the troll shows up looking for seconds, I’ll… think about doing something.”

Maura rose gracefully, smoothing her designer skirt. “You’re a credit to your clan,” she said sweetly.

Uh‑huh. And if Billy was a credit, then Carrie was a pustule. A festering, glitter‑coated boil. Maura was too elegant to be a pustule. More of a… cancer.

Billy waited until the BMW rolled down the gravel drive and disappeared through the trees. Then she sighed, drained her glass, and stared up at the clouds. She was really going to have to kill that woman someday.

With that cheery thought, she headed back inside, already dreading tomorrow.