by Lucy Auburn
Though the office we walked into had a great deal of empty room, it was full to the brim with things. The abundance of wall size had been taken advantage of by whomever decorated the office; deep shelves, big enough to be balconies, went all the way to the considerable ceiling. Ladders connected each level, turning it into a multi-tiered wonderland for book nerds, the sort of place a librarian would want to get lost in. There were things besides books on the shelves; I saw a few globes and at least one glowing object before my eyes were torn to the man sitting at a desk against the far wall of the room.
“Welcome.” Standing up, he walked around the desk with a pleasant smile on his face, out into the light that spilled down from the chandelier above. He was a tall, well-dressed black man with warm brown skin and an affable expression on his face. His intelligent eyes met mine and somehow made me feel instantly welcomed. “It’s good to meet you, Selena. And to see you again, Maggie.”
“And you, Petyr.”
My foster mother met the ambassador in the middle of the room, throwing her arms around him and getting up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Behind us, the door rolled on its track as the receptionist closed it, and I nearly jumped when it thundered shut.
Noticing my surprise, the ambassador smiled at me apologetically. “I know this space is a little strange, but as an ambassador between realms I have to be prepared for any guests to be welcome. And they all have to feel equal—same office, same level of diplomacy. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” I said reflexively, even though I didn’t really, not at all. My eyes went over to Maggie, searching her for some clue as to how this was supposed to go down, but she wasn’t looking at me. Instead she was approaching one of the many shelves, an entranced look on her face that I’d never seen before.
Petyr was studying me expectantly, so I tried to figure out something to say. “This is, uh, all new to me.”
I blushed at my own stammering hesitancy, but Petyr just looked sympathetic in response. “It’s always new, to those fae who are raised human. I know a little of that myself—my mother raised me and sent me to public school, even. But you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll catch up.”
“Right. Yeah.”
“Shall we sit?” Petyr gestured towards a table and chairs set into one of the far walls, no doubt arranged to make space for giants. Relieved to have something to do besides stand there awkwardly, I walked over and picked one of the chairs, expecting Maggie to join us.
“I’ll just be up on the fourth level,” she said instead of joining, glancing over her shoulder at Petyr. “You have the new Murdoch & Sons book, don’t you?”
“Came in yesterday,” Petyr said brightly. “Feel free to take a look at it while I talk to your charge.”
That was all the permission she needed, it seemed, to abandon me with a stranger in a world I barely understood. Sighing, I tore my eyes away from my foster mother’s retreating back as she scaled the ladders behind us. Petyr at least seemed normal and welcoming—if he was fae, I couldn’t tell just by looking at him, which soothed my nerves. He had an almost calming presence, too; when he sat opposite me I noted how serene he made me feel.
“I just have a few simple questions,” he said, pulling out a little book I hadn’t noticed him carrying and setting it on the table between us. “This is the Elder’s logbook,” he explained, noticing the direction of my gaze. “It’s how I communicate with the fae Elders back in the Realm of Light.”
“The Elders...” I hesitated, not sure how curious I was allowed to be.
“Go on,” Petyr urged me gently. “I’m sure you have your own questions, too.”
Biting my lower lip, I decided to be rude and come out with it. “Just exactly how old are they?”
To my surprise, Petyr tilted his head back and laughed. His laughter was deeper and warmer than I’d expected, sounding almost like something that came from the earth below us. It warmed me to him even further—and I admitted to myself that he’d been a good choice for ambassador, because his handsomeness was only rivaled by his welcoming demeanor.
I only hoped I didn’t find out later that he was one of the cannibalistic ones.
“The Elders are thousands of years old,” Petyr explained with a smile, once he was done laughing. “They’re some of the first and oldest fae in existence—many of them are founders of entire family branches.”
“Oh.” And here I’d been imagining eighty year old men with long beards, like Santa Claus. “So how old...?”
“Am I?” I’d been about to ask him how old fae usually lived for, but I was curious for this answer, too. “I’m half human, so I’m only thirty. Though my lifespan may very well be longer than most humans—and so will yours.”
“Oh,” I said again, feeling like a fool. I wondered how much longer he meant, and decided I was better off not knowing for now. “I guess you should ask your questions now.”
Petyr opened up his journal to a blank page, a strange and heavy pen in his hand. “Let’s begin, then. If I’m understanding correctly, you only recently learned about your powers. Is that correct?”
I glanced up at Maggie, who was pouring over a book up in one of the extensive alcoves. “Yes, that’s correct. Apparently my parents wanted me to have a normal childhood.”
He jotted something down. “Have you ever fed on someone’s energy during sexual relations?”
Now there was a heavy question. “I don’t know? I don’t think so.” But that was a lie, I realized, and lying to the man across from me felt wrong for some reason. “Well, there was this moment the other night.”
“Go on.”
His pen was ready to write down my answer. Staring at it, I saw the ink on the page shimmer and move. It made me queasy, so I had to look away.
For some reason I didn’t want to tell him. I felt ashamed. But I forced myself to do it anyway. “I was kissing this guy at a party. I was kind of tipsy, I guess... and horny.” He smiled patiently, no look of judgment on his face. “And it just happened. I don’t know how.”
“How did you know that you’d fed on him?”
“I’m not sure.” Biting my lower lip, I admitted, “He started bleeding a little. And there was a streak of grey in his hair. At the time I thought I’d just gone overboard or something—gotten too eager. But maybe I fed on him?”
“That sounds like what it was, yes.” Petyr didn’t look up from his book as he wrote my answer down. “Since you described this event as happening with ‘some guy,’ I suppose I know the answer to this question, but just in case: are you currently in a monogamous relationship?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Good.” His warm eyes met mine as he looked up from the book and shut it closed. “We don’t generally recommend monogamy for fae of your kind. It tends to get... messy.”
“Oh-okay.”
Not unkindly, he added, “Most fae aren’t as traditional as humans. You’ll discover this as you become more acclimated to our world. Now,” standing up, he looked towards where Maggie was reading, “why don’t I show you to our resident doctor’s office? He can run some tests and give you more information about your powers, including when we should expect you to be fully activated.”
“Should we wait for Maggie to finish what she’s doing?”
“In my experience,” he said, humor in his voice, “no one should wait for that woman to get her nose out of a book, because they’ll be waiting for eternity.”
I wanted to protest, to grab Maggie and drag her along with me, but she’d warned me that I’d be on my own in the doctor’s office. It made sense; she hadn’t come with me to the doctor at all since I got my driver’s license, and never in the exam room. But this world was so strange and new to me. I didn’t know what a fae doctor would do.
I’d promised myself I’d be strong, though. Taking a deep breath, I got up and tried to gather my strength. “Let’s go, then.”
“Excellent. You’ll like Dr. Lee. He’s very persona
ble and knowledgeable.”
I was about to discover what it really meant to be a fae.
Chapter Nine
The doctor’s office was in the same wing of the building as Petyr’s office, so it wasn’t far to walk. Along the way he made easy conversation with me, pointing out various art pieces hung on the wall and asking me about my college classes. Knowing that he was an important person, I took it as a kindness he was doing for someone new and nervous, and tried to ignore the way my stomach fluttered every time his arm brushed mine.
He did smell amazing, though. Like musk and moss combined somehow. I wanted to ask him what kind of fae he was, but I didn’t know yet if that was a rude question. So I just searched his face instead, trying to figure out if he looked more like the incubus we’d met earlier or some kind of pig or cat fae but with fewer obvious tells.
Amused, he noticed my staring and cut off his explanation of how he became ambassador so young. “—and you’re not listening to me at all, are you? I must be very boring.”
“Sorry,” I murmured, reddening. We’d stopped before a door that had to have been the doctor’s office; it had “Doctor Lee” on a placard nailed to the outside. “It’s not boring. I was just curious—you said you’re half human, but I don’t know what the other half was. And it’s okay if it’s private! This is just so new to me.”
“I understand. But it’s not private information, so you might as well know.” His voice took on a tone of pride as he told me the next part. “My father is an ancient fae, a type of tree dryad who has lived for a thousand years. He’s currently in his tree form, so you probably wouldn’t see much resemblance if you met him. But I have many of his abilities.”
I blinked at him; announcing to me that he was half tree was the last thing I’d expected. “So what does that mean?”
“It means that I can commune with nature in many ways,” he told me. “And I’m capable of healing myself and others. Sometimes I do dream that I’ve turned into a tree, but—if I ever do transform, it’s unlikely to happen until I’m very old.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know how else to react. “I guess I have a lot to learn.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get there.” Reaching out, he pushed open the door in front of us and motioned me in. “Dr. Lee has been expecting you, so his office is clear. Let me know if you need anything else.”
Sensing that he was politely letting me know he was done escorting me, I told him goodbye and stepped through the threshold. The door closed behind me as I looked around at the largest doctor’s office I’d ever been in—one which seemed to also double as a lab, and possibly even a surgical room based on the equipment I saw.
It definitely wasn’t any doctor’s office I’d ever been in before. Hesitantly, I stepped in and looked around the empty room. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Just a moment!” The voice came from around a corner; I couldn’t see its source. “Let me just...”
There was a grunt, and then I spotted the person I was looking for. In one of the back corners, amidst a series of open shelves, a man with black hair wearing a long lab coat was pushing a box onto an upper shelf. His white coat was pushed back to his upper shoulders, revealing the tone of his forearms. Brushing himself off, he stepped back from the box and turned to me, revealing a smile that made my heart skip a bit.
“Hi,” he said, extending his arm as he approached me for a handshake. “I’m Dr. Tae Min Lee. You must be Selena.”
For a moment I just stood there frozen, overwhelmed by his angular jaw and the personable sound of my name in his mouth. Then I realized it was getting awkward, and clasped his hand in my own. His palm was large enough to engulf mine; if it hadn’t been for the way he introduced himself and the lab coat he was wearing, I wouldn’t have known he was a doctor at all. He looked more like Kylie Jenner’s bodyguard than someone in possession of multiple degrees—those cheekbones were made for modeling. Even the thin black glasses perched on his nose didn’t ruin the perfect angles of his face.
Thankfully he didn’t seem to be aware of my staring at all. “Come on over here,” he said cheerfully, leading me over to an exam table. “I’m just going to do a few basic tests today: heart rate, blood pressure, the typical stuff. There are also a few blood tests I have to run. For the most part fae are just like humans on a DNA level, or at least the ones who looked human are. The differences are subtle, like hormone and protein levels in the blood, or oxygenation of the blood under aerobic stress.” As I hopped onto the exam table and he got his equipment ready, Tae Min continued rambling on. “I saw on your chart that you’re a succubus—an interesting subtype. Does your body temperature tend to run a few degrees below average?”
I stared at him, my brain catching up to his series of observations. “I don’t think so? Or I don’t know, really. If it does I haven’t paid attention.”
“Fascinating.” And he really did look fascinated, I realized as he pulled out an ear thermometer and leaned forward to check my temperature. “When is the last time you were sexually active to the point of completion?”
I choked. He was so close that his lab coat brushed my leg; beneath it, he was wearing a graphic T-shirt with some superhero I didn’t recognize on it. His sleeves were still rolled back, his bare skin near my cheek as he waited for the thermometer’s reading—and for me to answer his question.
“It’s, uh, been a while,” I stammered. “The other night—night before last, I—well, almost, but you said completion, so...” I did a mental tally; my last sexual encounter had been more of a giver than a taker. “At least a few weeks.”
The thermometer beeped. Pulling it back, Tae Min glanced at the reading and frowned. “96.5—lower than I would hope for someone whose powers are still supposed to be somewhat dormant.” I breathed out, thankful that he wasn’t going to ask further questions about sex, but apparently I’d gotten my hopes up too soon. “How many orgasms?”
“What?”
“Your last sexual encounter,” he said patiently, pulling up a two-in-one laptop and folding it into a tablet that he held in his hands. “It’s important to get as much data about your abilities and appetite as we can, you understand. So we know what to expect. It’s all for science.”
“For science,” I echoed, feeling like a lost and bumbling idiot. “I, uh, well, I guess just the one, then.” I’d faked a second one, but only because the guy I’d been sleeping with at the time was the type convinced his penis was just as skilled as his tongue—and he wouldn’t stop trying to prove it to me.
“Got it. Remember any sexual encounters further back?”
I must’ve blushed scarlet. “No,” I admitted, embarrassed that my tawdry sexual appetite hadn’t made it into my long-term memory storage. “It’s been a busy month, I guess, so I just didn’t...”
“No worries. From now on, we’ll have to be more precise, but I don’t expect to get exact data at this first appointment.” Tae Min jotted that down, then pocketed his tablet and grabbed a blood pressure sleeve. “I need to get a few more baseline readings, but I’ll try not to take too long.”
“Got it,” I said weakly. “This is all new to me.”
“No worries. It was new to me too, at one point.” I held up my arm for him as he fitted the blood pressure cuff on, cheerily talking the whole time. “Unlike you I was born human, so this was even stranger for me, if you can imagine. I was attacked by a dark wildling as a child—a sort of beast from the fae realm that had escaped. One of the fae Elders saved my life, and in doing so bestowed some of his powers on me.” He smiled as the cuff tightened to the point of near discomfort, then slowly loosened again. “In return I promised to work for him as soon as I was old enough to give back, and now here I am.”
I studied him, curious. “So you went to med school for the fae?”
“They paid for it.” Writing down my blood pressure, he pulled the cuff off and grabbed his stethoscope to record my pulse. “I owe the fae everything, including my life. Now, just
a few seconds of silence...”
As he took my pulse, I was sure that my heart rate was soaring to impossible heights. His fingers curled around my wrist as he pressed the stethoscope to my bare skin. This close, I could smell the shampoo he’d used to wash his hair, which was thick and glossy. He didn’t seem to even notice that I was looking—or sense the undercurrent of my fascinated gaze. His attention was single-minded and focused on what he was doing.
“There,” he said, pulling back and leaving me with the absence of warmth on my forearm. “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“No,” I admitted, leaving out why.
“This next part is less fun,” he told me, reaching over to grab his sterilized tools. “I have to take some of your blood for testing. Are you a fainter?”
I wasn’t, but the fluttering in my heart was unmistakable. “I think maybe I should lie back.”
“Don’t worry.” Tae Min gently took my arm in freshly gloved fingers and started searching for a vein. “I’ll try to get it over with quickly. While I’m working, let’s get your mind off what’s going on.” I looked away as he swapped the spot on my arm and tied a thin rubber tourniquet above my elbow. “Do you have any questions about your abilities?”
“I know that I drain energy from people,” I said as he prepared the needle. “And it has something to do with sex. I’m not sure I understand why it’s so dangerous, though.”
“Most humans don’t have the energy for you to get your fill,” he explained, and I felt the sharp puncture of the needle. “When succubi first came to be, they fed off of other fae. Fae have strong energy—they live long lives and typically have supernatural powers of their own. Humans tend to be weaker.”
“So I should just... drain fae,” I said, trying to imagine myself having sex with some pig-faced creature and wrinkling my nose in disgust. “But how does it happen? How do I drain them?”