Between Realms Read online

  Between Realms

  A LIMITED EDITION NA ROMANCE

  LEXI OSTROW

  Copyright © 2023 by Lexi Ostrow

  Cover by: Self Pub Book Designs

  Edited by: MLT Editing Services

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Acknowledgments

  Dearest Reader,

  Thank you for your support and interest in Between Realms.

  This story is unique - not only in that it is NA which is not my standard genre, but in that it is not going to be on shelves forever.

  This novel is a limited edition run, and will be out of market exactly 365 days from release date.

  When that time has come, a reworked, and longer, adult full length novel will be publish in its place. New cover. Same characters. Extended plot, adult situations.

  Why you may ask?

  Between Realms was part of a NA anthology. There were word count guidelines and content restrictions due to the age range. I love this story because it feels like I wrote it for little Lexi, and such, I wanted to share it outside of the anthology.

  However, my brain wouldn’t allow me to write unicorn shifters only in this sense. As a wrote, a secondary outline formed and I was nothing but a pawn in the character’s game.

  So, if you love NA, I hope you enjoy this! If you love adult situations and wish to see the finer points of Astrid’s and Ronin’s journey, I encourage you to check out what comes next!

  XOXO,

  Lexi

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  One

  Astrid let her head fall back and her eyes close as she took in the warmth of the summer sun.

  The tassel on her cap brushed against her cheek as it fell sideways from the action.

  Her entire life was different now.

  Thirteen years of her life. Exactly 2,535 days. Over sixty-thousand hours spent, and everything was simply over.

  “I’m bummed you won’t be with me next year,” Brenda sighed from her spot on the steps beside Astrid. “We’ve waited our whole lives to walk into NYU, and now I’m doing it alone.”

  Astrid laughed, lifted her head, and opened her eyes. “Correction, you’ve waited your entire life to walk into NYU. I didn’t even know the school existed until we met when I was ten.”

  “Still,” Brenda whined. “You’re really doing this? Your mom is actually letting you take a gap year?”

  Astrid shrugged. “Letting me and not having a choice because I’m doing it really aren’t the same thing.”

  Astrid couldn’t remember a conversation with her mother in the last three months that hadn’t ended with them shouting. Most times, Grams came to the rescue, playing peacemaker to remind them life was too short to argue.

  “I admire you, you know?” Brenda winked, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “You’re going to run off to Ireland and meet some handsome man with the sexiest accent and I’ll be back here studying algebra and intro to English or something.”

  “You never know. Maybe I’ll be stuck surrounded by little old people who drink too much beer while you’re partying with all the college guys.” Astrid smirked. Brenda’s biggest wish was to marry a man with Astrid’s accent so she could listen to him speak all day.

  Astrid barely heard her accent. It seemed to vanish the more she grew up in America.

  “I’m coming to visit over the holiday break, though! You save a man for me, you hear?”

  “Astrid! Brenda!” Mark jogged up, waving some papers in his hand before joining them on the steps. “There are only three hours until the party. What are you doing sitting on the steps just outside of school instead of all that girly stuff that takes you hours to get ready?” He dropped a kiss on Brenda’s cheek. “And you, stop talking to her about all the Irish men you’re going to leave me for.”

  Astrid loved her best friends to death, but she was excited to not be the third wheel for the first time in what felt like forever. Brenda wanted to marry a man with an Irish accent, but she was happy as ever with her very American boyfriend for the last three years.

  “Besides,” Mark grinned, the action accentuating his classic square jawline. “The men are going to take one look at Astrid and not want anything to do with an American Beauty. They’ll want one of their own.” He winked.

  Astrid rolled her eyes. Between her accent, her height, and her stereotypical flaming red hair, she’d had her share of boys following her around when she hit puberty. Dated a few too, but her future wasn’t in America. She knew that.

  It was with her past.

  In the hills of Ireland.

  She’d loved her life in America but missed home, even though she couldn’t remember most of her life before leaving her grandmother’s small cottage. She couldn’t remember her father, either.

  “Come on then,” Mark stood and offered each of them his hands to help them, even though one was filled with flyers for a party he’d already shared a dozen times. “Let’s get you ladies home so we can bring on the celebration. Goodbye high school, hello rest of our lives!” His shout was swallowed by the blare of the New York City traffic.

  “You’re certain you must do this?” Emmaline Murphy touched the bottom of Astrid’s newly dyed curls. “And with teal hair?”

  Astrid had never heard her mother more exasperated than in that moment. Whether it was because she’d rushed off a few days ago and completely hidden her red locks under coats of bleach and color, or because she really was leaving to return to Ireland alone for a year, Astrid would never know.

  “I must do this. You remember so much of home. I remember playing in a grassy field one day and attending Dad’s funeral the next. Everything, save for that gleaming closed casket, is a blur. One minute I was crying myself to sleep, and the next I woke up in America in a penthouse that makes me furious we lived in a tiny shack for so long.”

  Emmaline scoffed. “We did not live in a shack. You just feel it was so small because what compares to living forty stories up in New York?”

  “See! You’re proving my point, Mom. I don’t remember enough. Grams is okay with this. Why can’t you be?”

  Emmaline turned to glare at her mother. “Grams still wishes we’d never left Ireland. We did what we had to do without your father.”

  “More like we ran where we had to run,” Grams snickered, her accent still heavy on certain words. “But that is neither here nor there. My granddaughter is setting off on an adventure to learn her history. Alone. Do you think the pair of you might find a way to, what do you say, chillax?”

  Astrid coughed to cover a laugh. Her grandmother was older but never failed to try to fit in.

  “I’m just grateful you kept the place.” Astrid never knew how much money her family had, but the cottage remained in their family, unrented, despite there never being a moments talk about returning.

  “Do me a favor, Sweetheart,” Daniel, her stepfather, stepped in to cut the tension as he often did. “Text right before they make you turn your phone off, when you land, and call while you’re in whatever type of transit you use to get you to the cottage.”

  She wanted to roll her eyes at all the precautions, but a small part of her understood how dangerous what she was doing could be. “Always.” she stepped on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. “I love you all. I’m going to be fine!”

  Grams wrapped her in a hug and squeezed her too tight for her almost eighty-five years of age. Astrid kissed her grandmother’s cheek as well and turned to look at her mom.

  Tears shone in her mom’s dark green eyes, almost making them sparkle like emeralds. “I hate this, do you understand me?” Her voice wavered slightly. “Do all the things Daniel asked and one extra for me.”

  Astrid nodded, not trusting her voice as emotion finally washed over her as she stared into her mother’s eyes. Suddenly, she was ten years old again, curled into a ball, crying hysterically on an unfamiliar, hard couch.

  “Avoid the fae.”

  Astrid barked a laugh and swiped at a tear that fell. “The fae, Mother? Shall I look out for the little people, too?”

  “Astrid!” Emmaline hissed. “This is nothing to joke about.” As always, when Emmaline yelled, her American accent vanished entirely.

  “Okay, okay,” Astrid still couldn’t hold back her laugh. “I’ll watch out for all things mystical. Deal?”

  Her mom nodded, but didn’t seem content with Astrid’s tone.

  “I love you all, but I need to remember who I was before we came here. It feels like part of me is missing.”

  “Mind your manners and the fae,” her grandmother smiled. “Now off through security or you’ll miss your flight!”

  Sniffling, Astrid grabbed the handle on her carry-on bag and turned to walk away.

  She’d never dreamed she’d leave her family behind and spend a year abroad, but she had so many questions to answer and memories to try to regain.

  Astrid was going home.

  “Dad?” Astrid called to the man with silvery-white streaked hair with his back to her.
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  It couldn’t be. She knew that, but assumed walking into the cottage pummeled her with memories already of things that used to be.

  Dropping her backpack, Astrid didn’t grab the two bags she left on the small porch. She kept walking through the house, the narrow halls suddenly fresh in her mind as she weaved through the old home, chasing the specter of her father to see what memory he brought.

  “Dad!” Astrid called again, knowing he couldn’t respond, but trying to understand her emotional response wasn’t in the question. “Dad!” Astrid began to jog and stopped when she found the memory standing in the kitchen.

  He turned, and a bright red blossom exploded across his chest. Brown eyes locked with hers before his knees buckled and he dropped onto the dark wooden floor.

  “No!” she screamed as her eyes flew open. Astrid’s heart thumped in her chest, and she flushed as people turned in their seats to look at her.

  Right. You’re on a plane. That wasn’t real. Astrid blew out a breath.

  “Sorry!” she muttered and wished she could melt into the uncomfortable seat.

  How she’d ever slept from Ireland to New York City and the ride from the airport to their penthouse was beyond her. If she’d had a nightmare simply returning home, there was no way ten-year-old Astrid who just buried her father had anything short of night terrors.

  Shivering, she closed her eyes again, hoping what came next was less intense.

  “This is a fool’s errand,” Ronin growled disrespectfully at his king. Speaking out loud may be new to him, but such a rude action toward his liege was not common for Ronin - whether spoken or not. He was not acting like himself because he had good reason.

  “Then consider yourself a fool,” King Patrick spoke with no malice in his tone and a smirk on his lips. Black hair streaked with silver glowed in the moonlight as the king ran a hand lazily through it.

  “Is there not another who could take this task on? I am not suited for … babysitting. I don’t even belong in this form.” Ronin had never shape-shifted to human in his entire life. Walking on two limbs and speaking with sound versus thoughts didn’t feel right.

  “There is no one else I would trust with such an important task than my chief of war.”

  Ronin snorted, surprised by the strange way his throat vibrated when he made the sound. “Following your daughter around is hardly a task one needs skill to do.”

  “Keeping her safe once the magic in her blood is sniffed out by other fae is not babysitting,” Patrick growled, his voice booming through the empty courtyard.

  “I did not mean to imply it was. When the time comes that her life is truly in danger, I am happy to assist in her protection. It could be months before those in our realm take note of her in the human realm.”

  A bushy brow lifted. “You think I mean for her to stay in the human realm?”

  “Umm, do you not?” Ronin wasn’t sure how the king thought a human of any kind would survive in their realm.

  “My daughter has been out of my reach, believing me dead, for almost a decade. Her return to Ireland means she is looking for answers. She needs to find me.”

  Ronin groaned. Not since the king got word from his wife that their daughter was returning to Ireland had they spoken of such a scenario.

  In fact, when the human invoked the magic in the candle Patrick gave her, she specifically told her husband to stay away from their daughter and return her back to the states in one year without harm to her.

  “Bringing her here is completely counter to the promise you made to your wife.”

  “My ex-wife. She has remarried.” The snarl was unmistakable, though quiet.

  “Can you blame her? She married the King of the Unicorns, who was only granted twenty years as a human. What was she to do? Abandon your daughter and run away with you here?” Ronin didn’t mean to challenge his lord, but he certainly had.

  Those humans who had not yet reached two decades of life could survive forever in the fae realm, with consequences. It was the reason so many fae broke free to live human lives, they would not be able to do so once they’d lived twenty years. Shifters could only hold human form for so long, and in Patrick’s case, the man traded the ability to shift for twenty years as a human.

  “Did I ask for your protection or your opinion?” Green eyes narrowed into slits and a flash of silver spoke of the magic Patrick threatened to release.

  “My protection,” Ronin sighed. “I want it known I think this is a terrible idea.”

  “That is fine. I want it known that I want to know my daughter. You bring her here, and then you protect her while she is here. That is your duty.”

  Ronin sighed again. King Patrick was a good man, but it seemed he had blinders on when it came to this human woman.

  The fae could sense the lack of magic in a human’s blood from thousands of kilometers away. They could sense magic anywhere. The minute his half-fae daughter stepped into this realm, her life would be in danger.

  Patrick’s rule was as well.

  The fae bowed to their own rulers, but unicorns held ultimate power for their ability to wield magic and shapeshift. If word traveled there was indeed a princess, but one born of the human realm, it would not end well. The fae would not be content with the rule of a part human in their realm should she ever stay for good. Her life, and Patrick’s, would be under constant attack unless a full-scale war broke out and Patrick retained the throne through battle.

  “Ronin?” His name was growled.

  “I understand. I don’t bloody like it, but I understand.”

  “Good, then you may return to your natural form. If a man approached my daughter, I’d like to hope she’d kick in him the balls. If a unicorn approaches her, I think she would believe it to be a dream, but eventually accept that you are there.”

  “With pleasure.” Ronin closed his eyes and the change from man to unicorn was complete. The magic was instant and painless.

  He smacked a hoof into the ground and bowed his head before turning to build the speed needed to run between realms.

  Two

  “It’s beautiful,” Astrid whispered, nearly dropping the phone from her hands as the driver pulled up the small cobblestone road and revealed the cottage she’d long forgotten.

  The cottage was bigger than she remembered, but still far smaller than the floor they had above the city. The gray stone roof was adorable, and the peaks the stones made above the entry door, the bay window, and the small window on the second floor must look stunning draped in lights. The rounded, dark brown entryway reminded Astrid of a tree trunk that she could sneak inside and find the fairy world or something equally fantastical. The small green bushes that lined the house were well cared for, and only the ivy climbing up the doorway made Astrid question if someone in Ireland hadn’t been caring for the house all these years.

  “Don’t hang up!” her mother snapped, drawing Astrid back to the phone. “I want to know the neighbors know you’re there as well.”

  Astrid glanced at the driver next to her and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

  The young man merely smiled and stopped the car in the driveway.

  “Mom, I promise you I’m not going to be murdered by the driver in the next twenty minutes. He can hear me when I tell you, I’ll go straight next door and tell whoever lives there that I’m here, so they don’t think someone has broken into the place.”

  “I already told them.”

  Astrid flinched. “You speak to them? You’ve had a link home this entire time?”

  “The house is still ours. We pay for upkeep. There is electricity and running water. How did you think you’d see at night? Bathe?” Emmaline laughed.

  Astrid had fought so much with her mother in the last few months she’d forgotten how pretty her mom’s laugh was. So light, almost airy. Despite how Astrid felt, her mom wasn’t being overbearing right now. She was just scared.

  “May I?” The young man gestured toward the phone and Astrid curiously passed it over. “Hello, Ma’am. If this helps, I live three doors down. I promise, no harm will come to your daughter.”