by Lucy Auburn
Suddenly I was taken to another world.
Instead of sitting on the exam table in front of Tae Min I was flying through the air. My chest was a powerful bellows that held unimaginable amounts of air. I pumped my wings up and down, gaining altitude as I soared through the sky. With sides covered in thick scales and claws as sharp as knives, I was invincible, and as large as a full grown bull.
Banking to the left, I turned towards a valley filled with bleating sheep that spooked as my shadow passed overhead. I tucked my wings in and dove towards one, picking its body up in my back claws. It bleated and squealed until I’d bled it dry. Landing on a nearby patch of grass, I tore its body open with my teeth and peeled the meat from its carcass, filling my empty belly.
And then I was in the exam room again, a concerned Tae Min staring at me. “Selena? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” I put a hand against my forehead, but I wasn’t dizzy or sick. “I just... wasn’t here for a while. I was a dragon.”
“A dragon? Have you been using your powers recently?”
“Yes.” I was starting to see where this might be going. “On a dragon fae this morning.”
“And has this happened before?”
“Once. After I fed from Naomi.”
“Fascinating.” He paced back and forth in front of me, the words tumbling from his mouth. “There has been evidence of incubi and succubi taking on some of the memories of those whose energy they consume. We’ll have to run more tests, but it’s possible you have that very ability.”
My stomach churned. “So this is going to keep happening? I can’t even control it. The last one happened while I was driving.”
Tae Min tapped his finger against the tablet in his hand, a thoughtful look on his face. “I may be able to come up with a remedy. Something you can take before sleep so that the visions come to you when you’re not conscious. But I’m not sure that there’s a way to block them completely.”
Because I knew that he was trying to help me, I tried to keep the disappointment off my face. “Thank you.”
“Now.” Reaching out to pick up the blood pressure cuff, Tae Min begin to take my vitals. “Let’s see how your physiology is reacting to your powers coming along.”
I went through all the motions of the doctor’s visit, letting him examine me. This time, I resisted the temptation to kiss him, although it was an ache in my chest.
I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be satisfied by having just one man, like Elah. But I refused to give into my temptations and hurt Tae Min again. I had to be stronger than that.
Maybe this engagement really would be best for everyone involved. Including the people I might otherwise hurt with my new hunger.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next few days passed by in a blur.
I set up the so-called honeypot for our local demon summoner, posing as a woman looking for revenge on her cheating boyfriend. Leon continued to help me meditate and use my powers on a few minor fae, though I only got two more chances to take a crack at that, since there were only so many fae criminals in the city.
I asked him once if I could practice on him, and he gave me a baleful look. “You’re gonna have to graduate from rookie for me to risk something like that. Just learn self-control, Selena.”
So he didn’t want me touching him or seducing him with my powers. I got it—it’s not like me feeding off fae was exactly... comfortable. Whether I wanted it to or not, opening up that connection between me and someone else seemed to turn sexual fast.
And so I had a choice to made. One that I’d known would be coming whether I wanted to face it or not.
I had to get involved with Elah.
As I headed to Petyr’s office to talk to him about it—we had an appointment and everything—I tried to figure out why my stomach was in knots. I was attracted to Elah, after all; and I’d been told time and time again that I could turn down the engagement, or end it once it started.
But something just kept telling me that I couldn’t choose one man to be with for the rest of my life.
So that was the conversation I hoped to have with him, in depth. I didn’t know why I was, it turned out; not only had I changed my major again just a little while ago, but I’d also discovered my parents adopted me, I was really a succubus, and now apparently I was facing up to the commitmentphobe inside me who wanted to stay far away from words like “engagement” and “intended.”
The hunger would be coming back soon, though. And there weren’t enough interrogation rooms filled with leering dragon fae to keep it sated. Elah was my best bet at not turning into a dark fae and getting one of Naomi’s knives to the stomach—whether I liked it or not.
“Selena.” Petyr smiled at me as he opened the doors to his office. “I’ve been expecting you. Have you come to a decision?”
Walking in, I steadied myself and nodded at him. “I’m going to accept the engagement. I just want to talk to Elah about it first, if that’s alright.”
“Of course.” Petyr walked over to his desk and pulled on that familiar ring that he’d used before. “I’ll take you again, if you don’t mind. I’m not sure I trust your Lightblood powers just yet.”
“I don’t even understand how they work,” I admitted. “Am I going to be apprenticed to another fae just to figure those out, too?”
Petyr shook his head. “Unfortunately, there are no fae here who can help you with those particular powers. The Lightbloods are reclusive fae. But there’s no reason to expect that your realm-traveling abilities will sneak up on you the way your succubus powers have. Just don’t wander away while we’re traveling between the realms.”
“I’ll stay right next to you,” I swore, reaching out to take his hand.
“Step in close,” he encouraged me, and I pressed forward until I could feel the heat of his body against mine. “There. Now, let’s go.”
The same swirling colors erupted around us. I held onto Petyr’s hand tight, afraid of winding up in the darkness again with that mysterious stranger. Vincent. I still remember his eyes.
We traveled for several seconds, this time hurtling towards a wondrous, yawning valley covered in verdant green grass. A thin fog blanketed the ground and somehow made me feel like I was traveling not just through space, but back in time as well, to a peaceful moment in history free of modern concerns. Horses galloped past us as we slowed down.
Ahead of us, rising from the mist, was one of the most gorgeous houses I’d ever seen in my life. Crenelations thrust towards the sky at the four points of the house. Beautiful iron gates stood open towards a long drive that circled around the grand front. And an exquisite fountain sat in the middle of the drive, a woman on a rearing horse pouring water from a vase into the pool at her horse’s hooves.
We came to a stop, which was when I noticed that Petyr had one arm wrapped around me, pressing against my shoulder. I glanced up into his face and was startled to find him staring straight down towards me, an oddly yearning look in his eyes. My breath caught in my chest.
“Are we done now?”
“Yes.” He let my hand go and stepped back, the inches between us somehow yawning wide despite how close he still was. “Welcome to the Havaala duchy, at the edge of the Realm of Light.”
“The edge?” I looked around us towards the horizon and saw only peaceful blue sky. “It ends somehow?”
“You won’t see until you’re closer. Just don’t go north.” He pointed past the house towards two peaks in the distance. “Demons often attack that mountain. But don’t worry—Elah and the other warriors in the area wiped the latest insurgence from the map.”
I was quiet for a moment as I considered the peace of this place, and the conflict Petyr described happening not that far away. Looking all around us, I marveled at the size of the duchy we stood on. “It must be difficult, defending these lands.”
“It’s easier than you think.” I swiveled to face Elah, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere on the other s
ide of the fountain. His thick black hair was pushed away from his piercing eyes. Behind him, calm as ever, was the black mare, the saddlebags on her back full and a sword strapped to the pommel of the saddle. “Sorry to disturb you. We were in shadow form.”
He dropped his horse’s reins and approached me, taking my hand and kissing the back of it. Petyr took a step back, his eyes cast down and away, no doubt to give us privacy and space.
“Shadow form.” I studied his face, desperately curious to know more about this man I was about to bind myself to, temporary engagement or not. “I’d love to learn more about your powers, if I can.”
“Everything in due time,” he said with a smile. Pivoting to the ambassador, he politely asked, “Would you like to come in? My mother has no doubt had our servants prepare food and wine for you.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Petyr said with a tight smile. “Selena, I’m going to go visit the capitol. I’ll return in... an hour?” He glanced at Elah.
“An hour will be more than enough time, I expect,” Elah answered, and I nodded my agreement. “It’s so nice of you to bring her straight to my door, ambassador. Thank you for keeping her safe.”
“Of course.”
Petyr grabbed the ring on his hand and vanished before I could get the last of my goodbye to him out. I stared at the space he’d occupied, biting my lip and wondering if I somehow had offended him. He seemed jealous of my engagement to Elah, which if true would be incredibly unfair of him. It’s not as if I’d chosen this for myself—though when I looked at Elah I didn’t exactly mind the choice that had been made for me.
My intended was focusing on me, so I put thoughts of Petyr’s contradictions out of my head. Elah held his arm out to me and I smiled as I placed a hand on the crook of his elbow, tickled to be treated like a lady out of a Jane Austen book. The men at LSU had never been so effortlessly gallant.
“They told me that you’re from one of the old families, but I never realized exactly what that meant.” Looking around, I admired the obvious craftsmanship that had gone into building his family’s home and keeping the grounds around it neat. “I’m still so new to all this. I feel like I know nothing about you.”
“Ask me all the questions you want,” he said, taking me past the house and to the gardens nearby, his mare an ever-present shadow behind us. “Now that we’re each other’s intended, we should try to catch up as quickly as possible.”
I had a thousand questions to ask, but decided to start with the simple ones. “They told me you’re a blackfyre knight. What does that mean?”
“It’s easy to forget sometimes that you were raised among humans.” We passed a rose bush in his family’s garden covered in roses that changed color to everything in the rainbow, and I took a moment to stop and marvel with them as he told me about himself. “A blackfyre is a type of fae—I’m a knight because it’s a tradition in my family for sons to become knighted and fight in the outer realms on our sixteenth birthday.”
I looked up at him at that, startled to find out he’d become a warrior so young. “I can’t imagine fighting demons at such a young age.”
He chuckled fondly. “I didn’t fight my first demon one-on-one until my twenty-first year. The early years were just small practice skirmishes and training. Occasionally I rode with the other knights and got a small taste of battle, but they always kept me from the front lines and protected me. At most I held the Havaala banner and helped other men put on armor.”
“It’s so different here,” I observed, as we strode around the rose bushes. “You still fight with horses and swords.”
“And magic. Technology doesn’t work well on demons—guns have a tendency to misfire in their presence. Magic is something else.”
“Your magic?” I prompted him.
“I can call fire to my hand,” he said. “Let me demonstrate. Stand back.”
I let go of his arm and backed away from him, watching in fascination as Elah pulled a pair of black leather gloves on and held out a cupped palm. He did nothing that I could see—no gesture or words—but suddenly there was fire in his hand, licking his fingers and crackling as merrily as any bonfire. When he decided he was done with it, all he had to do was close his fist and it vanished like it was never there.
“Wow.” Reaching out, I grabbed his hand and he let me pry it open and stroke the gloved palm. “It’s still warm.”
“That’s not my only power, but it is the most impressive one.” He took the gloves off and took my hand in his own, fingers threading between mine as he led me down a part of the garden where archways were covered in vines and creeping roses. “My mare is another part of my powers,” he said, and I glanced back to see her quiet form hovering just outside the archway in hesitation. “She and I are bonded, and we share some abilities. We can teleport ourselves across the realms—though not between them—to any point we can see with our eyes. We use portals when we need to go further. And we can use our shadow form to become entirely silent and almost completely invisible to the eye.”
Considering all the abilities he listed, I could see easily how Elah was a warrior capable of destroying demons with his sword. “What is your mare’s name?”
He smiled down at me. “Fira. She’s following us even now—on the other side of the arch.” I glanced over and saw her shadow cast itself on the vines to our left. “She’s not a fan of confined spaces.”
“Is she a fae, too?”
“In a way. Our horses are not like the earthly ones you’re used to. They live longer, and are much more intelligent. But without me she would be no different from any other fae horse—though we breed her kind on a ranch nearby to specifically train them for battle.” We reached the end of the tunnel, and he tipped his head up towards the sunlight as we left it. “My turn to ask you questions.”
“Okay.” We were back at the front drive now, so I took a seat at the fountain’s edge and skimmed the water with my fingertips. “Ask away.”
“What was it like growing up human?”
His question surprised me. “I’ve never really thought about it. I guess I don’t know what it’s like growing up any other way.” I cocked my head at him. “What do you think it’s like?”
“Peaceful. Simple.” Elah looked up towards the sky. His mare, Fira, nudged his shoulder and blew a gentle breath against his skin, and he began absent-mindedly petting her nose. “We fae grow up with such grand expectations about our lives, and so much evil to fight. I always thought it would be nice to live a simple life on Earth. Whenever I visit, the humans seem so unconcerned about all that happens around them, because they don’t know the full truth of their world.”
I thought about his words, and realized that for me they were at least partially true. “If you mean we don’t worry about demons or fight battles with swords anymore, that’s true. But there’s still war, famine, disease, and so much anguish on Earth. If people there knew about fae like you with these amazing powers, they would think it was the most amazing thing. They would be jealous of you.”
Elah grinned a cocky smile. “Of course. Who wouldn’t be envious of me?”
I laughed at the fake airs he put on, wiggling his eyebrows like a fool. When I’d first seen him standing there with his sword, his black clothing, and his horse, I hadn’t imagined a sense of humor. Maybe the Elders did know something when they picked him as my intended.
When I was done laughing, he held out his hand to me. “Shall we go inside, Selena? You can meet my family.”
“That sounds lovely.” Taking his hand, I glanced down at what I’d worn for this adventure: dark blue jeans and one of my nicer blouses, with a floral print. “I’m dressed okay, aren’t I? Should I have worn that fae dress they made for me to meet the Elders? It was sewn on so tight that I don’t know how I’d get it on again.”
“You don’t have to wear anything that isn’t you. My parents know that you grew up in the earthly realm; they wouldn’t expect you to wear the same garb as us.” As we
strode towards the front door together, he whistled and a servant appeared seemingly out of nowhere to take Fira’s reigns. “Rub her down for me, Samheil.”
“Yes, Heir.”
The unusual title caught my ear. “Heir?”
“Of the household, and the duchy itself. It’s my title until I’m married with an heir of my own, at which point my parents will step down.” No doubt sensing my nervousness at talks of marriage and heirs, Elah added, “Which won’t happen for a long time.”
I paused at the entryway to the grand house, looking up into his eyes. “We should still probably talk about it, though. Before we agree to the engagement one way or another.”
“Of course. My mistake—I should have made sure we had that conversation first. Let’s talk in private.”
He looked towards the grand entryway and ushered me to a side room, closing the door behind us. I glanced around at the grand furnishings; we seemed to be in a study of some kind, except unlike the studies I was used to this one had at least one book in a metal birdcage, flapping its cover like they were wings. There was a sword hanging off one wall, a tapestry with a colorful depiction of men on horses battling demons, and an assortment of glowing rocks, small bones, and other odds and ends displayed in a case against one wall.
“My uncle’s study,” Elah explained. “He’s away in the Summerlands. No one will disturb us here.”
I pushed down my curiosity about the flying book and the strange things in the glass case, determined to have a serious talk with him. “Before we even think about getting engaged, you should know... I’m not sure I can settle down with just one person. Ever.”
Elah cocked his head at me. “Of course you can’t, Selena. You’re a succubus. I expected the moment I found out I’d been chosen as your intended that I would have to share you sexually from time to time.”
Nervously, I wound my hands together and pushed through to tell him the rest. “It’s not just because I’m a succubus. My last big relationship didn’t last because the spark faded. I’m scared of that happening again.” Glancing up at him, I added, “What if I say yes to this, and then fall in love with someone else?”