Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance, Oak King Holly King – available now wherever fine books are found!

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“Larkin had fled across the countryside,” Shrike went on. “More concerned with the knights gaining on him than the path ahead, he fell through a fairy ring. He stumbled through the forest—he knew not for how long—until he heard a child wailing and followed the sound until he stumbled upon me. I remember I had fallen out down from the tree. The other fledglings had pushed me out of the nest.”

“The other fledglings?” Wren interrupted.

“Aye,” said Shrike, confused by Wren’s confusion.

Wren hesitated, not wishing to offend, before he ventured what felt like the obvious question. “Were you born a bird?”

Much to Wren’s relief, Shrike didn’t appear offended. Merely befuddled. “No.”

“But you were born in a nest,” said Wren. When Shrike confirmed this with a nod, Wren added, “From an egg?”

“Aye,” Shrike said as if no one had ever questioned it before.

Wren supposed such circumstances were common in the fae realms. That conclusion didn’t prevent his mind from reeling. “Do all fae come from eggs?”

“Some do. Others grow in flower buds, or on the under-sides of leaves, or beneath toadstools, or in hollow logs—or sometimes in bonfires or particularly sooty chimneys. And,” Shrike added with a sceptical twist of his mouth, “some are born from other fae in the same manner kits come from vixens, or a fawn comes from a doe.”

“Or as human babes come from human mothers,” said Wren.

Shrike’s eyes widened with dawning horror.

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