by Rachel Angel
They continued to fight, and each time it took more time and more energy to throw Harley to the ground.
“The sun has been down for over an hour,” Harley said. “And it’s getting cold. Can’t we call it a night?”
“You know, in war time, we don’t often get a chance to ‘call it a night’. In fact, battles sometimes go on through the night.”
Harley pushed him off her and stood. “Well, that’s why I’m a student here and not a soldier out in the field.” She held her hand down to help him up.
“Point well taken,” Zed said. He stood up, kissed Harley, then swept her up into his arms and carried her inside.
The moment they were inside his dorm room and he’d kicked the door shut behind them, Zed brought her to his bedroom, and threw her onto the bed.
“Nothing like a bit of fighting to put you in the mood for a bit of loving,” he said, quickly throwing off his clothes and hopping into bed.
Giggling, Harley rid herself of her clothes as well and eagerly welcomed him into her arms. They made love in a quick almost frenzied way, as if war was truly waging just outside their door and this might be their last night together.
They climaxed together, clung to one another, then fell asleep in each other’s arms.
For the next weeks, they continued to train and fight almost every night, and almost every night they ended up in bed together.
On some nights, when cut up and bruised by Zed’s hands, Harley retreated to his room where he tenderly administered medical attention to her wounds.
“You need to be more careful,” he told her.
“Me?” she said. “You’re the one who ought to be careful. You treat me like a soldier. I’m not a soldier.”
Zed chuckled. “Oh, believe me, I’m not treating you like a soldier. If I did, you wouldn’t be standing right now.”
Between fighting and training with Zed some nights, then studying and working with Red on other nights, the weeks flew by. In addition to the help they gave her, they sent her sweet texts during the day, and sometimes even during the night.
One day, when neither were in the classes she shared with them, she was worried and eager to meet with them at their place. After her last class, she didn’t even take the time to stop at her place. She rushed straight to their dorm room.
“Guys!” she called out without even bothering to knock on their door. “Guys, where are you? Zed? Red?” She looked around the empty apartment wondering where they could have gone.
Then she heard their muffled voices coming from the hall and two seconds later they opened the door and burst in.
“Hey, Harley,” Zed said with surprise.
“Don’t hey me,” Harley spat back. “I’ve been worried sick. Where were you guys today?”
“With our mom,” Red said. He turned to Zed. “I thought you’d texted her.”
“I thought you had texted her.”
“Texted me what?”
“Sorry, Harley,” Zed said. “Mom’s birthday is next week and we had planned a special day for her, but she has to go away for the week so we decided to celebrate her birthday today. We took her into town for lunch.”
Letting out a long, relieved sigh, Harley fell back into a kitchen chair and sat staring at the table for a moment. “All day, I’ve been wondering. I texted you guys and you didn’t answer.”
“Sorry. Mom has a thing about us being on the phone too much when we’re with her, so we both left them here,” Red said. He headed into his room and came back with his phone and checked his texts. “Wow. You really were worried,” he said as he rolled through her numerous attempts to reach them.
“Well, at least I now know that you guys are okay.” She looked at them and smiled, amused by her own fretting. “So,” she said, hoping to change the subject. “How is your mother?”
“Well, if you’re talking about our mom, she’s great. Fit, healthy, strong. All is good,” Red said.
“But if you’re talking about the woman who is dean of this Academy,” Zed added, “she’s still trying to get over the loss of that Soccer Cup.”
Grinning with a strangely mischievous gleam in their eyes, they looked at her.
“What?” she said defensively. “Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t my fault.”
“No?”
“No,” she said plainly. “All I did was cook dinner for Oak and help him relax. He’s the one who went out on the field and couldn’t play.”
“You helped him relax? Seriously?” Zed said. “We were right here, Harley.”
“And you and Oak were right there,” Red said, pointing across the grassy courtyard to Oak’s balcony. “We saw it all, and it looked far from relaxing. You did all you could to turn him on and excite him. Hell, you excited everyone who happened to be looking that way.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” Harley said. “Oak is the one who initiated sex. I protested. I told him he should take it easy, but he wanted it.”
Zed and Red looked at each other, then at Harley.
“Now what are you looking at?” she said.
“Every once in a while, I still dream about the sight of you with Oak,” Red said.
“Yeah,” Zed added. “I still get a hard-on just thinking about it.”
“It was better than any porn I’d ever seen,” Red said.
“Yeah, the sight of you fucking him, right there in person. Woe. It was better than anything.”
“Well,” Red said. “Almost anything.”
“What does that mean?” Harley said, almost afraid to hear the answer.
“The visions of that night are such a distraction,” Zed said.
“And we’ve often wondered how to get past it, and we thought that maybe…” Red said.
“Yeah, maybe…” Zed added.
“Maybe what?” Harley said.
“Well, maybe we could… you know.”
“Bring those memories to life.”
Harley smiled, wanting to protest, but the truth was, she wanted it.
Yes, she wanted to relive that night with Oak.
So that night, Zed and Red lived out their fantasy.
Chapter 5
With finals just around the corner, Harley spent an entire weekend locked up in her dorm room working. The timing was great, she thought as she looked out her window. It was a dismally grey day with intermittent rain showers.
The grey skies fueled her desire to create beautifully colorful worlds.
“Hey, are you in there?” a shout came from behind the apartment door.
“I’m working,” she called out.
“I know. That’s why you need a break.”
Smiling, she put down her paintbrush and went to open the door. Just from the voice she assumed it was Zed, but she really wasn’t sure. She opened the door to find both twins standing there.
“What are you doing cooped up all weekend?” Zed said.
“I told you guys. I have a lot of work to do before finals.”
Red glanced past her to look at her work. “Wow. Is that for your magical arts portfolio?” In awe, he walked to her easel.
“Yeah, but it’s not finished.”
“You’re going to put everyone else in that class to shame,” Red said. “This is amazing, Harley.”
“Why do you sound so surprised? You know I can draw, don’t you?”
“Of course. Yeah,” he said. “I know you have talent, but this is beyond… human.”
Smiling, she was immensely pleased with his praise.
Zed approached her easel but then looked at all her other paintings and sketches spread around. “You do have a wild imagination,” he said picking up a sketch of a new world.
“All so brightly lit and colorful,” Red added, still staring at her painting. “I love the way you make everything so brilliant and alive. I almost feel like I could reach inside your painting and pick a flower.”
Harley looked at her unfinished painting, impressed with what she’d accomplished so f
ar. She was proud of her work, and sometimes even a little amazed. Although she’d always loved to draw and paint, and she’d always known she had some talent, she had never really thought of herself as a brilliant artist.
Still going through the sketches laid out on the table, Zed picked one up and analyzed it. “You have to bring one of these to life for class… a 4D magical image. Have you chosen which one?”
Harley shrugged. “No. I thought it was the professor who made that decision.”
“Well,” Zed went on. “This one is certainly interesting.”
Red came to look over his shoulder at the drawing, still just a sketch with vague shadows and highlights.
It was a cityscape with buildings in strangely impossible shapes.
“This is wild,” Red said, pointing to a building that seemed to be floating on air
“Isn’t it?” Harley said, excited by the unique design of the building. “I got the idea from a suspended bridge. They’re barely visible, but there are all these cables that are holding the structure up.”
“But how do people go in and out of the building?” Red said.
“Always the pragmatic,” Zed said.
Harley frowned for a moment then looked at them. “By helicopter,” she said. “This is a very exclusive, high end building and all the occupants travel by helicopter.”
Red smiled and returned his gaze to her painting. “And this,” he said, pointing to a luminescent flower. “I would sure like to see that come to life.”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
***
The day came for her magical arts final, and the professor chose the floral painting for her 4D image. Harley glamoured the room, turning the bland walls into bright luminescent bushes filled with flowers in every color.
Every student in the small classroom marveled at the beauty of her work and at the realism of everything she had created, included a wildly exotic bird with bright green plumage that shimmered purple in the light.
“I think you just passed with flying colors,” Zed said.
“Bright, luminescent colors,” Red added.
Then it was time for her final assignment for her magical devices class. She’d secretly worked on it since starting the class. All she could do now was cross her fingers and hope it worked.
“Miss Harley,” the professor said. “It’s your turn. Come and show the class the device that you’ve created.”
Harley pulled a long narrow box out of her bag.
“What’s in there?” her classmate, Troy, called out. “A watch?”
Ignoring him, Harley made it to the front of the class and set the box down.
“While working on my project for my magical arts class, I realized just how time consuming it could be to put my ideas to paper, only to then work some rather difficult magic to bring it to life.” She opened the small box and pulled out her magical device.
“A pen?” Troy called out in an annoying tone. “You invented a pen?”
“Troy,” the professor snapped. “Unless you have something constructive to say, keep your trap shut.”
“As I was saying, I found the procedure of drawing and glamouring tedious and time consuming.” Harley held the pen up as if to draw on an invisible blackboard. “So, I’ve developed a way of saving myself some time.”
She closed her eyes, and the world that she wanted to draw appeared in her mind’s eye. It was a world with a glistening turquoise sea, flocks of red, yellow and green seagulls, and three suns that cast brilliant light on the shimmering beach of bright violet sand.
As she moved her pen in the air, creating this vision, she could hear the students around her gasping and pointing out various aspects of her new world.
Floating over the ocean, she drew large air bubbles, each containing a small world of its own. Some had tiny birds flying around, while others had herds of small unicorns.
Finally, out of the turquoise sea, she drew a large green and yellow dragon, its scales lit up like a Christmas tree and its emerald eyes gleaming. Instead of breathing fire, it breathed confetti, that fell to the sandy beach, adding more vibrant colors to the already multicolored image.
She heard the waves of the ocean, heard the cry of the seagulls and felt the heat of the three suns. Opening her eyes, she gasped at just how successful her little pen was. All around her were the exact images she’d seen in her mind. If anything, everything was even more vibrant and detailed than she had imagined.
The professor, smiling and jubilant, applauded. “I do believe you’ve created quite a successful device, Miss Harley. Not to mention a very enticing world; one that I am sure we would all like to spend more time in. I appreciate how you maintained a degree of reality, a world we can already relate to, but you’ve brought in elements that heighten the experience.”
Beaming, Harley looked at her handiwork.
“Very well done,” the professor said.
“How do you make it go away?” Troy said. “I have my device to show and all these colors will ruin it.”
Everyone glared at him.
“It’s easy,” Harley said with a smile. “Ready?”
“Just a minute more,” Georgina, a slight and shy girl called out. “I want to just look at it for a minute more.”
“Oh, grow up,” Troy said.
Harley let Georgina enjoy her imaginary world a moment longer, then held up her pen. “Here we go.” She clicked the pen and her entire made up world disappeared.
The students groaned their displeasure while Troy grinned.
“Thank you, Miss Harley,” the professor said. “Safe to say that you passed your finals.”
Beaming, Harley returned to her seat.
The end of the summer was near and the hard road to getting through all these classes was almost over. All that remained now was getting through her Dark Arts’ exam the next day.
With that in mind she headed to her dorm room. After the day’s events, she wanted to relax. Stripping off her clothes along the way, she left a trail that led to the bathroom. Despite the summer heat, she was eager to soak in a blisteringly hot shower.
She stepped into the shower, turned on the water and turned up the heat until she couldn’t take any more. The heat soothed her, relaxed her tense muscles while the steam filled her nostrils. It was heaven.
Through the spray of water she suddenly heard movements from outside the bathroom. “Red?” she called out. “Is that you?”
Nothing.
“Zed?”
Footsteps clip clopped along the floor getting closer to the bathroom door. Trying to remain calm, Harley nonetheless felt her heartrate soar. The door to the bathroom opened.
“April?” Harley turned the shower off and listened.
Through the dense steam she thought she saw April’s slight frame. With rapid circular motions, she tried to wipe the steam off the glass shower door. “April. Is that you? Are you back?”
When no answer came, Harley knew something wasn’t right.
“Guys. If it’s one of you, this isn’t funny. If this is some kind of a trick, I am not amused.”
She opened the shower door, letting even more steam fill the room. But then she saw it; a tall dark shadow. The figure of a man approached her.
A fae, but not the kind of fae she was accustomed to. She knew just by the size of it that it wasn’t any student from the Academy.
Zed had told her about the dark faes, and while she didn’t know a whole lot about them, she knew just enough to recognize that she was now dealing with one, right there in her bathroom.
The tall dark figure morphed and Harley was looking at April, complete with her playful grin and loving eyes.
“April? Is that you?”
“We’ve been watching you, Princess,” the morphed form said.
“Get out!” Harley shouted, quickly realizing that she was being played.
“Hmm,” the shadow resumed its tall dark form.
“Get out!” she ye
lled, immediately regretting the hysteria in her voice. But despite that note of hysteria, she was ready to fight.
The shadow shifted closer. No steps, no stride. Just an eerie glide closer. It was barely three feet away and Harley looked around her, looking for a weapon. Anything.
She grabbed a bottle of shampoo and threw it at him and when he continued to approach, she took her luffa sponge on a stick and wielded it at him. She knew it was useless, but it was all she had.
Prepared to attack the intruder, naked and wet, she was about to step out of the shower when Zed and Red rushed in, their swords high in the air and ready to kill. They easily found the dark fae through the thinning steam, stabbing at the shadowy figure until it completely disappeared.
Stunned, Harley stood there staring at the spot where the shadow had been. She was shocked by the intrusion, surprised by the twins’ intervention, but it was her own lack of ability to fend the figure off that stunned her.
“You okay?” Red said. Despite being naked and wet before him, Red made no lude remarks and no crude innuendoes. He simply grabbed the big fluffy towel off the rack and wrapped it around her.
“Harley,” Zed said, snapping his fingers in front of her face. “Are you in there?”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “I’m here. I’m okay. Just a bit shaken.”
Red dried her off then wrapped her up in her thick terrycloth robe and led her to the living room where he sat her down on the sofa. “How does a cup of tea sound?”
“Great,” Harley said. “Thanks.”
He headed to the kitchen while Zed sat across from her.
“I’ve been trying to help you build up your fighting abilities,” Zed said, reaching for her hand.
“I know. I guess I’m not a very quick learner. The first chance I have to put your lessons into practice, and I freeze up. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zed said. “It’s just beginner’s stage fright. Many faes also freeze up when they meet a dark fae for the first time.”
With a wan smile, Harley looked at Zed. “You’re just saying that to cheer me up.”
He grinned. “Is it working?”
Chuckling, she pulled her robe tightly around her waist and let out a long, tired breath. “A bit.”