Petra MacDonald is a bisexual, pagan artist who lives and works on a small Scottish island. While in a trance, she paints a young girl who has been abducted by the Queen of the Fae and it falls to Petra to save her. She must travel to Faery, collect three items for the queen, escape the sex spell of the Selkie prince and steal the loyalty of her fae guard. Can she bring the child home before it’s too late?
Read on for an extract:
1
It was dusk when Petra came out of her trance, her arm sore from wielding the brush. Her hands were covered in paint and she could feel speckles drying on her face. She looked at the canvas and frowned. She had painted a young girl, facing away from the viewer, shoulders slumped and head down. That was unusual; Petra rarely painted people during trance work, except those she knew.
Even more notable was the menacing feeling of the painting. Shadows crowded around the child, claw-like shapes reaching towards her. As Petra studied the canvas she noticed the glint of eyes, peering towards the girl who hunched away from them.
The painting made her distinctly uneasy and she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. She spun, the gloom-filled corners suddenly threatening. Her studio was small and she could see the whole room from where she stood. All was as it should be. Making her way over to the light-switch, Petra became convinced that someone lurked behind one of her spare easels or the canvasses leaning against the wall.
She flicked the lights on and walked a circuit of the room, checking thoroughly. She was alone. She let out a slow breath and turned back to the centre of the room, ready to clean up and pack away her tools but instead she cried out and stepped back, until she was pressed against the wall.
The girl in the painting was looking over her shoulder, straight at Petra.
Petra McDonald and the Queen of the Fae, available now.