How Does It Feel?

Jeneane O’Riley explores the darker side of fairy lore in the first in the Infatuated Fae series, How Does It Feel? (2023). While out searching for rare mushrooms, Callie Peterson, an environmental biologist, stumbles upon a portal to the realm of the Fae and falls into the hands of Prince Mendax, royal leader of the Unseelie Fae. Mendax, who leads a plot to invade the world of the humans, suspects Callie is an assassin; she pleads innocence, and he repeatedly attempts to have her killed. Callie shows bravery and the ability to handle the threats on her life. Despite Mendax’s life-threatening behavior, Callie cannot help but be drawn to him—as he is to her—and their relationship navigates the boundaries between resistance and submission, pain and pleasure. Their forbidden connection is abruptly broken by Callie’s later-revealed betrayal, as she is an assassin, a human sent by the Seelie Fae who protect her.

This guide refers to the 2024 Bloom Books paperback.

Content Warning: The novel depicts physical and emotional abuse, manipulation and coercion, graphic sexual encounters, sexual assault, and imprisonment.

Plot Summary

In the Prologue, Callie Peterson is trapped in a dungeon. She is careful not to wake a slumbering monster and incur its wrath.

Callie has relocated to the small town of Willow Springs, where she hopes to study the elusive luna moth. She is an environmental scientist and enjoys her work at the animal rehabilitation center. She prefers animals to people, and they seem to return her affection, but she is eager to leave for Mexico to study monarch butterflies. Callie came to Willow Springs to help repopulate the luna moths; she has been fascinated by winged creatures since her childhood.

Callie once saw a golden fairy in a field as a child, where she protected it from an attacking crow. Shortly after, she woke in the hospital, where she was told that the mushrooms she was gathering were toxic. She was told she likely experienced hallucinations because of her exposure, and she was lucky to be alive.

Still, she never relinquished her belief in fairies, bolstered by her friend, Eli, who always believed her but is now missing. In Willow Springs, she befriends a local man, Earl, who reminds her of Eli. Earl was once employed by the state, doing biological investigations, but he was dismissed. Earl and Callie bond over her new field microscope, and he promises to help Callie find the mushrooms she needs for her plan to help the luna moths. The toxins in the mushrooms will hopefully kill the parasites that are plaguing the moths.

Though they find one of the “destroying angel” mushrooms, Earl appears saddened by their discovery. Callie tries to cheer him up by inviting him to dinner, but she realizes that she left her microscope in the field. When she returns to retrieve it, she stumbles upon a circle of the mushrooms—a fairy circle, or portal to the fairy realm.

Callie tumbles downward, landing on a beautiful and terrifying man. Prince Mendax, the royal heir to the Unseelie throne, believes she has been sent to kill him: Either the humans have found out about his plan to invade their world, or the Seelie Fae are preparing for a coup. He stabs her and leaves her in the field to die.

Callie is rescued by a fox she saw earlier, near her home. The fox drops tears over her body and licks her wound, healing it before disappearing. Before she can figure out how to return to the human world, she is discovered by Mendax’s guards and thrown into the dungeon. Mendax is furious that she is alive, though he is struck by her beauty. Mendax sends in a creature called the forest bog to kill her, and when that is unsuccessful, he takes her to the Blood Chamber, where his faithful assassin, Lord Alastair Cain, will quickly dispatch her. Cain decides to protect Callie: He is a panther, and animals cannot resist her charms. Mendax returns Callie to the dungeon with the forest bog.

Callie kills the forest bog and fashions a key from its fingerbone. She is set to escape when the brown rat she has befriended in her cell returns in human form: Prince Mendax’s brother, Walter, urges her not to try to escape. He will attempt to persuade Mendax to let her go. He, like the other shapeshifters in the realm, knows that Callie is special.

Callie insists on her freedom, and Walter escorts her to a hidden portal on the roof. Before she can find it, Mendax appears, enraged at his brother’s betrayal. He drops Walter off the precipice, urged on by his mother, the Queen, who hates humans even more than Mendax. Mendax promises to deal with Callie, though the Queen scoffs, as Mendax’s efforts have failed thus far.

Mendax’s attraction to Callie prevents him from killing her. Her beauty, resilience, and ruthlessness fascinate him. She, too, is enthralled by Mendax’s dark beauty. The Queen proposes that Mendax be bonded to Callie—he must bond with another to ascend the throne—then kill her before they wed. Mendax refuses to bond with anyone, which would mean relinquishing half of his powers, but he finds he cannot kill Callie outright. Thus, he proposes a series of three trials: If Callie survives all three, she will be freed.

The first trial consists of fighting off giant winged creatures in the forest. Callie’s knowledge of the anatomy and the behavior of bats and luna moths—the winged creatures of her own study—helps her to kill the creatures. She is wounded, and Mendax brings her back to his room to care for her. He has fallen in love with her, and though she resists him, Callie loves him, too. They become sexually entangled.

Before the second trial, the Queen and Mendax welcome brothers Aurelius and Langmure of the royal Seelie Fae. The Seelie have vowed to protect humans, so Langmure feels obligated to return Callie to the human world. Mendax is enraged, killing Langmure on the spot. He demands that he be bonded to Callie before she enters the second trial. Callie survives that trial, discerning poisons from antidotes. The Queen says Callie must die in the final trial: She will not let a human sit on the throne.

Mendax promises to protect Callie. When she enters the trial arena, one door will open a portal to the human world, and the other will unleash a deadly beast. He will tell her which door to choose. She follows his lead and opens the door to which he nods. The dragon-like beast emerges and lunges at her. Callie believes the prince has betrayed her, but Mendax leaps from the crowd and protects her from the beast. He carries Callie to safety.

As they embrace, Callie finds Mendax’s weak spot—the same spot she found on the winged creatures—and plunges her hidden dagger into it, revealing that she is an assassin sent by her adoptive Seelie family. She has been dispatched to prove her loyalty to Queen Saracen and the other Seelie Fae. Queen Saracen keeps half of Callie’s heart until her loyalty is proven.

Callie wakes in a hospital as a concerned Earl looks on. She was found lying in a patch of destroying angels, their lethal toxicity almost killing her. But as she sits up to talk to Earl, she notices the gash in her leg—it was from the beast. She remembers everything that happened in the realm of the Unseelie. Earl transforms into Aurelius, or, as Callie always called him, Eli. If she has succeeded in murdering Mendax, Earl will escort her into the Seelie court, where she will be reunited with the Queen, and the other half of her heart. If Mendax lives, Callie’s life will be forfeit. Unbeknownst to Callie, who grieves for Mendax, Mendax is alive, and she will be hunted for his attempted murder.