by Olivia Hart
“Then why am I freaking topless?” I asked, verging on shouting.
“Had to take off your shirt if I was going to let your wings out. Seeing your tits was just a bonus.” I snarled at him, but something pulled at the edges of my mind. I reached behind me with one hand while pulling the blanket tighter against my breasts with the other. I felt something stuck in a line down the middle of my back. It came off easily enough in little broken pieces.
I looked down at the almost black flakes and realized what had happened. Everything last night was so cloudy. Pieces were missing. I remembered drinking and hurting. The only thing I really remembered clearly was that dream that was so real.
This piece of red turned black reminded me of what had happened. Sebastian had taken me to a dreamscape while he’d cut my wings out of me.
My wings.
“Do I have wings? Is that why you’re calling me Tinkerbell?” My voice was barely a whisper. Sebastian turned from where he was pouring water into cups and grinned at me.
“Want to see them?” he asked, not sassy in the least. “They’re beautiful.”
I nodded, and he said, “Then you’re going to have to get out of bed. Mirrors are quite a bit less common here than in your world, and I’m not going to rip this one out of the wall.”
I glanced at Sebastian who was holding two cups of water in his hands, and I sighed. He may have played with my body in a dream, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to be naked around him.
I wrapped the sheet around me like a towel, covering myself and dragging the sheet across the ground. I had to take little shuffling steps so that I didn’t step on the sheet and fall over, embarrassing myself further, but I slowly followed Sebastian to a little corner next to the stove. It was a full-length cabinet with a lock on the door. Not big enough to stand in, I understood the purpose.
I’d walked through a mirror before. I knew that they were gateways. No one would be able to sneak into his house through the mirror in such a small space. At the same time, he could step through it when the doors were open. His own fancy little portal maker that he could lock up tight.
He stepped back and let me get in front of the mirror. I gasped as I looked at myself. Everything about me looked rough. Wild hair that still had bits of gravel from the sinkhole. There were smudges of ash on my cheeks. Everything about me made me look like some homeless girl.
Except the shiny black wings rising from the center of my back.
They looked to be made of shadows that seemed to repel the light flickering from the oil lamp that was still burning.
They were darker than shadows, yet they shined like obsidian with a black fire inside them. Rising almost a foot above me, they made me seem taller. An unfelt wind seemed to make them ripple, making their dark light flicker against Sebastian who stood behind me.
They were nothing like the fairy wings on postcards. Thin veins of what I could only assume were magic ran through them and seemed to pulse with my heartbeat. Living wings made of pure magic.
Reaching a tentative hand out, I touched the edge. I felt it then, the power that Sebastian had talked about. There was no shock of electricity. This was a different kind of power. Deep and slow, it seemed to pulse.
When I pressed on the wing, there was a bit of resistance, and then my fingers slipped through it. I frowned, and Sebastian said, “They’re newly formed. Eventually, you’ll learn how to make them solid. You’ll also learn how to make them completely ethereal where they’ll be invisible and impossible to touch. It’s important if you want to go to the Mortal Realm.
I set my jaw. This was real. Not just a lie that Sebastian had told me. I really was a fairy. One of the Fae. Immortal.
Then I saw my face and jumped in surprise. The wings were something brand new. Something supernatural. My face was different. I’d been born with one face. A face that was “wrong”. I’d grown up hearing that I was odd, that something was off about me. That I looked like a bug or a frog.
Now, I understood. My face hadn’t been right because I hadn’t claimed my magic, hadn’t become the person I should have been. Now, instead of having eyes too large and too far apart, my face had shifted slightly. Just that little bit was all that had been needed. Now, my face was thinner and slightly longer.
My nose had narrowed, and my eyes had shifted into place as well. Everything about my face was now built on angles. Angles that humans tried their best to make for themselves with makeup. Contours that were impossible for a human to ever have. A sharp jaw and high cheekbones that seemed to have been sculpted.
The eyes that had been slightly too large fit my longer face perfectly now. Everything that I’d hated about myself for so long had been almost right which had made me look hideous. Now it had all slid into place, and I looked more beautiful than anyone I knew.
Sasha would have nothing on me. She’d have tried to build a face out of makeup so that she could look half as perfect as me now. I turned to Sebastian and saw the same elements in his face. A man’s version of my face.
“I’m beautiful,” I whispered.
“You’ve always been beautiful, Rose. No different than a child who has to grow into their body. Anyone who thought differently had no idea what you’d grow into.”
I felt a tear begin to form at the corner of my eye, and I blinked it away. I’d hated my face for so long, and now I understood it. If my parents had survived long enough, they’d have explained it to me. They’d have taught me. But instead, they’d died, and I’d gone through life thinking I was a hideous toad.
I smiled at Sebastian, and my lips quivered as I tried to keep from crying in joy. “Thank you,” I whispered.
I reached around him and hugged him, not quite so worried about covering myself up. I needed to say thank you to him. For bringing me to the Immortal Realm and fixing the part of me that I’d always thought had been broken. For showing me who I was meant to be.
“Let me see if I can get your shirt fixed up,” he said. “Then we need to go.” His hands wrapped around me, and his fingers touched my bare skin. He wasn’t trying to seduce me with that touch, but I wasn’t sure his touch would ever be anything but seductive. It seemed to ignite the same feelings that I’d had in my dreams, and a throbbing between my legs woke inside me.
He released me and gave me a half-smile as he turned around. “Lock the door when you’re done,” he said. I looked at myself in the mirror one last time and noticed the final change. My ears had sharpened just as much as my face had. The tops ended in sharp points rather than the naturally rounded ears of most people.
I really was a freaking fairy. I took a deep breath and giggled a little bit before I shut the cabinet and locked it, leaving it as it had been when we’d arrived.
When I turned around, Sebastian was holding up my shirt. The back had a giant slice from top to bottom where he’d cut it off me. Sebastian sighed and said, “No, I don’t think I can patch it. Let me get one of my shirts for you to wear until we can get you some clothes.”
He tossed the shirt on the bed and turned to the small chest of drawers next to the bed. I didn’t know what to say. I knew that I was going to look ridiculous no matter what I wore since I’d basically been wearing sleep clothes this entire time. The thought of wearing a shirt like that silk one he’d worn yesterday made me shiver.
In movies, it was the sign of a girlfriend sleeping over. Something she would put on after they’d had a long night full of hot, dirty sex. I thought of the mess my hair had been in when I’d looked in the mirror and knew that this was even worse than bedhead.
The thought of a shopping trip during my first “walk of shame” made me want to throw up. Especially walking with Sebastian. I shivered.
He pulled a linen tunic from his drawer and tossed it to me. I held it up to myself, keeping the sheet around me with my elbows, and I realized that it was almost dress length on me.
I grinned at him. “You’re really big.”
“That’s what most women s
ay,” he said with a wide grin, and I wanted to slap him. Had a fairy sex god actually just made a “that’s what she said” joke to me?
“So funny. Turn around so I can get dressed with some bit of modesty.”
He raised an eyebrow that seemed to say, “You weren’t very modest last night,” but after a second, he sighed and turned around.
I dropped the sheet and hurriedly pulled the linen tunic over my head. It was huge on me and looked like I was wearing a potato sack, but at least it didn’t make me look like a whore like a silk shirt would have.
I realized that it shouldn’t have gone over my wings, but it had. “Done yet?” Sebastian asked.
“Uh huh,” I muttered as I reached behind me to figure out if it was stupid looking. Just before I turned to go back to the mirror, Sebastian said, “It looks fine. Until you can make them solid, clothes will pass right through them.”
How did he do that? It was like he could read my mind or something. “Oh,” I muttered, putting my hands back at my sides.
Sebastian picked up his shirt from yesterday and put it on. He slipped on some socks and then his boots. Then he began rooting around in cabinets until he pulled out a big leather bag. He rolled up his cloak and put it inside the bag which he slung over his shoulder.
I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to get the tangles out, but it was hopeless. I was destined to go on my first shopping trip in fairyland looking homeless.
I caught Sebastian grinning as he watched me. “What?”
“Oh, I was just thinking of offering you the use of one of the most important Fae inventions.”
“And what would that be?” I asked, every ounce of my frustration flowing into my words.
He walked over to a cabinet next to the mirror and pulled out a brush. “We call it a brush.”
He held it out to me. “How was I supposed to know that you had a brush? I figured that you just wiggled your nose, and your hair was styled.”
“Once again, you didn’t ask, little fairy. You may need to start working on that.”
I snarled at him, but he ignored me as I opened the cabinet once more to look in the mirror. I tried to brush my hair as best as I could, but I needed a shower. It had been a rough couple of days, and my hair was not behaving in the least. I put the brush up and locked the cabinet.
Sebastian was still grinning when he asked me if I was ready.
I nodded, my fingers still trying to convince my hair to be a little less wild.
He chuckled at me and walked out the door, a pack on his shoulder. At least I would have some shoes again after I was done with this shopping trip. What would it be like to go shopping in the Immortal Realm? What kind of Fae would I meet? And when was breakfast?
Chapter 12
Sebastian
It felt good to have fed at least a little bit. I was nowhere near sated, but at least I wasn’t starving. My body didn’t have the same aching sensations, and I could fight again.
With anyone else, I wouldn’t have gotten that much power from the little bit of foreplay that Rose and I had shared last night in the dreamscape, but she was far stronger than I’d have expected.
First times were always more powerful though. That could be it. I thought about the alternative. This naïve and inexperienced girl being a Queen of the Dark Court? How would she survive?
Seraphina would kill her just as she’d done with the previous Dark Queen. Just as she’d done with the previous Queen of the Light. There would be no one to help her. Within the Fae, murder was not illegal. Even the murder of a Queen. A Queen had to be able to protect herself. Other people could help, but Seraphina would destroy them without a second thought unless Rose was capable of fighting on her own. Not even I could go toe-to-toe with Seraphina.
Her guards were for protecting her from assassins and armies, not from fighting another Queen. At least not for fighting a High Queen. I sighed. It would be better for Rose if she could just go into hiding even if she was a Queen.
We stepped into the yard, and I locked the door to my cottage. I was sad to have to leave. Regardless of where we went, people would know what and who I was. At least our shopping trip today would be amongst friends.
We got outside the gate, and I took Rose’s hand. “I thought we were going to a town near here?”
“We are. It’s just in the Mortal Realm. A quick step into the warrens and then out again, and we’ll be there.”
She seemed surprised. “Oh. I just thought that we’d buy clothes from this side.”
“The people that I have to see work in an illegal business. They forge scents. It’s far easier to hide in the Mortal Realm.”
She nodded in understanding. “So the Mortal Realm is like the ghetto. Got it.”
Not entirely sure what she meant by that, I shrugged and touched the shadow that lay across the ground. Slipping into the warren, I called for the mists. They covered our feet as always when I walked through the warrens, and Rose didn’t make any screams.
Good. She’s learning. We moved silently through the tunnels for only a few minutes, and I reached out to touch the wall. Yes, this was the right place. The image of a small alleyway between two imposing buildings came into my mind.
I stopped walking and glanced at Rose who nodded. She was beginning to impress me with how quickly she learned. She was even beginning to be a little less annoying.
I pulled on the image in my mind, and we slid through that space between the realms. Stepping out of the shadow, Rose tensed. Darkness blanketed the alley. She was not comfortable in a city. Especially in a dark alley.
The thought made me chuckle. If she only knew that there were very few creatures that lived in this Realm that could actually hurt a full-blooded fairy, she would probably be a lot less nervous.
I whispered to her, “Calm down. We’re in your world. You don’t have to be afraid. I have a friend who’s going to take care of you while I get something to hide your scent. She lives in this building, but you really shouldn’t leave the shadows until she gets here since you have wings now.”
“How will she be able to help hide my wings?” Rose asked, running her hand behind her to touch the midnight wings again.
“She’s a full-blooded succubus and extremely good with illusions. I need to leave you here for a few minutes while I get her.”
Rose seemed to think for a moment, but then she took a deep breath and nodded. “Fine. I’ll be okay, but try not to take too long.”
“It may be a few minutes if she’s with a customer, but I’ll try to hurry.” I stepped out of the alley before she had a chance to ask questions. The last thing that I needed was to try to explain that one of my better friends happened to be a whore.
The brothel was as close to an old-world feel as was possible in this age. Everything was made of wood. No paint. Even the floors were wooden and creaked slightly. It was made to be simple. No one was coming for the décor. They were coming for her. For the experience that they’d never get from a human woman.
Slipping inside the building, the sound of men drinking at a bar filled my ears. Humans. Food. How Ast managed to leave them living after she had fed on them was still beyond me. I’d tried time and time again, but they were so fragile, so easily drained completely.
“Look at what the storm brought in,” a waitress said. Barbie. I had no idea what her real name was, but that was the only name I’d ever heard anyone use. The first human that Ast had hired for this brothel and bar almost fifteen years ago. Immortals couldn’t stay anywhere too long, or people would realize that they didn’t age. This particular brothel was fifteen years old, but it was probably her hundredth.
Barbie was a pretty woman, but she was getting older. Her blond hair and round face were still very youthful, but the rest of her body was showing the signs of age. She ran the place when Ast was busy with supernatural things. Or when she was busy with her own clients.
She also happened to be one of the only mortals that Ast trusted enough to sh
are her secrets with. It wasn’t that uncommon to have mortal confidantes for the Fae that lived in the Mortal Realm. Even the Fae needed to share their lives with others.
“Evening, Barbie,” I said with a smile. “Is Ast around?”
Barbie grinned. “She’s upstairs with a guy. I’m sure that they’d both like the company if you’re a little low.”
I shook my head. “I think I’ll pass. I tend to overindulge, and bad things happen, but I do need to interrupt her.”
Barbie just shrugged and handed another beer to one of the men. It didn’t seem as though Barbie was struggling with finding customers because, as she leaned over the bar, nearly all of the men stared at her cleavage.
It was almost sad how easily mortals were seduced. Leaving Barbie behind, I climbed the stairs up to the ‘hotel’ above the bar. Each of the doors would have a woman servicing a man. I needed to find the right one, and I took a deep breath, inhaling the smells of sex, cigarettes, and cheap beer. And power. Only one person in this building had anything more than a spark of power, and she was the one I was looking for.
I opened the second to last door, not bothering to knock. Ast was already getting dressed. The man she’d been with was fast asleep, drained of a fair amount of his life’s energy.
He’d recover it. All beings slowly regenerated their energy. Fae took longer unless they had a source to feed from. It was one of the most important weaknesses of fairies and one of the most important strengths of many of the other Fae. Fairies could not feed on any other source of power while most of the rest of us could draw life from our surroundings.
Bright red hair that seemed to glow ran to her shoulders. Made to stand out, Ast’s features were all slightly more obvious. Like a siren, her body was the bait. Her back was to me, and I could see everything that wasn’t covered in her black lingerie.
Another man would have been entranced by her curves, but I waited patiently, completely unaffected by her body. When she turned to me, I smiled at her. Like her hair and backside, her front was just as obvious. Large breasts, bright red lips, a thin waist. And green eyes that almost seemed to glow.