A picture? They kept pictures on file of all the fairies? News to me! I didn’t have any doubt that I could pick him out if I saw him. I’d seen him at least a half dozen times before I turned ten.
"Sure, I’d know him if I saw him."
Caleb opened his door. "Come on."
"Where are you going?"
"To the library."
I got out and followed him across the street. I looked back and noticed that we had the truck sitting half in someone’s yard and half on the road. Great! We really needed more attention drawn to ourselves. Maybe, for giggles, we could erect a billboard for the whole world to know that something was going on.
Caleb walked up to the tiny red house with the small library sign and opened the brown door. I drug my feet slowly behind him. I was an adult, and still having problems with a childhood fear. I had always felt so drawn to the old library. I felt like I needed to be there, but I was too bugged out by the sensation to want to go in.
We walked in and found ourselves in a small room with books from floor to ceiling. It didn’t look like the place was used much. I glanced down at the new release section and only two books sat there. Either they were hopping with business or they didn’t bother getting too many things in at a time.
The floors were wood and sagged a bit in the center of the room. Caleb stood very still, listening. I tried to hear what it was, but I heard nothing.
"What are we doing here?" I asked in a hushed tone, afraid of breaking his concentration.
He walked forward and went through a doorway.
"Hey!" I called after him. "Don’t you think you should wait for someone to come and help us?"
"There’s nobody here."
That didn’t make any sense, the door was unlocked. Why would someone leave the library unattended? Caleb seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he let out a small laugh.
"I don’t think they get a whole lot of people coming in here. The librarian probably went to lunch or something. Who knows?" he said, moving into the next room.
Even though we had entered another room of the house, it looked identical to the last one. Rows upon rows of books covered the walls. If all the rooms in the house looked this way, we were going to be here a while. I didn’t notice a computer or even a card catalogue when we came in. This was going to be the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack the size of California.
Caleb stopped in the center of the room and whispered softly to himself. I made out only a few words. It sounded like he was repeating "If I were a book on fairies, I would be…." I had to laugh. He turned and gave me a serious look. I shut up.
"Try fiction."
He gave me a strange look. "Its not like people know you’re real," I said. He nodded.
I wandered around the room. I saw another small doorway and walked to it. It was a smaller room set up similar to the ones we had already been in. This one, however, had a small table and chairs, probably for studying. I felt drawn to the back corner of the room. Walking over to it, I felt like a hand had reached in and grasped my navel and was using it to yank me towards the back wall. I found myself standing before a row of books. Nothing was what we needed. They were self-help books. Although I did feel like a good inspirational speech was in order, we didn’t really have the time for it. I started to turn to find Caleb and the pulling in my gut became painful, like someone was ramming a knife into my stomach. I cried out in pain and fell down on one knee.
"Gwen! Gwen, what’s wrong?"
I put my hand on the bookcase to try and pull myself to my feet. I slipped back down and the book I was touching fell with me, landing open on the floor. The pain in my stomach stopped. Caleb was next to me with his hand around my arm, bending down.
"What the hell happened?" he asked.
"I … I don’t know. I just…." I stopped speaking, looking down at the open book. There, before my very eyes, was a picture of the man I had seen all of my life. He was sitting in a large golden chair. He wore black robes similar to the ones I had seen him in. His hair was long and black, like mine, but in the photo he was wearing a crown. It was him. I knew it was.
"That’s him," I said, pushing the book towards Caleb.
He looked at it. "I thought you said you would recognize him if you saw him?"
I pointed at the picture. "That is him Caleb, that’s the man I saw."
He shook his head no and shut the book. "It can’t be the same man, that’s the king of the Dark Realm, or used to be at least."
"What do you mean, used to be?"
"I don’t know. I had been living among humans a very long time when I got the news that King Kerrigan had disappeared."
"How does a King just disappear?" I asked.
He pulled me to my feet. "That’s just it Gwen, Kings do not disappear. He has to be dead. He would have regained his throne by now if he wasn’t. Kerrigan wasn’t a weak man."
"This King, you speak like you knew him. Did you?"
Caleb bent and picked up the book. "Yeah, I knew him. I know his successor more though."
"Who replaced him?" I asked.
Caleb put his hand on my shoulder. "Let’s hope you never meet her, she’s an evil woman."
"Caleb," I said, reaching out and touching his face. "That is the man that came to me, I know it. Look." I closed my eyes and allowed him to share my memories of when I was hit by the drunk driver while riding my bike. I thrust the images of the man who came to help me into his head. He jerked away.
"Impossible!" he said. I don’t think he believed that what he had seen hadn’t taken place, he was just surprised.
Without another word, he led me out and back to the farmhouse.
Chapter 10
I was exhausted by the time we got back to the house. Caleb said he had to make a few phone calls, and I headed up to bed. I slipped my shoes off, took the white shirt off and climbed under the covers. I was just on the edge of sleep when I felt a cool breeze tickle my neck. I twisted my head into my pillow lightly.
"Gwyneth," I heard my name, but didn’t recognize the voice. I jerked my eyes open and screamed out. It was mid-afternoon, and the drapes to my room were blowing gently from the slight breeze outside. I relaxed. It was only my imagination. The door to my room burst open.
I sat up. Caleb was standing there. He scanned the room and then looked at me.
"I heard you scream," he said frantically.
"It’s nothing. I just let my imagination get the best of me," I said, looking at him in the doorway. He had taken his shirt off and had the top of his jeans unbuttoned. My eyes slid down his smooth, hard body. He was so tall he had to duck down a bit to keep from hitting his head on the door frame. I smiled at him and put my hand out.
Slowly he came close to me. I tried to keep looking into his dark green eyes, but my gaze kept falling lower. I remembered how it felt having him in me. It was good. It was safe, it was right. A tiny burning sensation started deep in my body. I shifted my legs and felt the moisture building. I started to blush. Caleb came and stood next to my bed. I reached my finger up to touch him near his opened jean button. He caught my hand.
"You don’t have to do this Gwen, you don’t owe me anything." His voice was so sad.
I put my fingers into his jeans. No underwear, just like I thought. God, he was gorgeous, and I could feel my body yearning for his to be wrapped around me. Something was so right about him being near me, almost naked. I pulled the zipper down, exposing his tiny hairs to me. I slid my hand in and wrapped it around him. He was ready for me, as I knew he would be.
I leaned forward on the bed and bent my head down, planting tiny kisses on his lower stomach. I pulled on his jeans. They slid down his legs slowly, freeing him, and leaving him bobbing near my face. I cupped him, kissed him, and welcomed him. He cried out. I let my tongue slide out and run along the tip of him. I brought him into my mouth. He was moaning now. His hips began to move slightly back and forth, back and forth. I moved my head up and down, cupping
my fingers around him as I went. I felt him tightening in my mouth. He pulled my head back from him, and pushed on my shoulders. He guided me down on my back, sliding his hands over my shorts, pulling gently.
They came down and exposed my white cotton underpants. I grinned and shrugged. They were more comfortable then the red string I had been wearing. Caleb bit the top of them with his teeth and moved them down my body. When I was naked from the waist down, he moved back up the bed, kissing my legs. When his kisses reached my inner thighs, I cried out. I felt his fingers touching me between my legs. He slid one in, and I clutched the bed. I felt his lips touch me, his tongue sliding over the spot that every woman wants to have touched, yearns to have caressed, and folds once toyed with. His finger pushed into me as his tongue flickered over me. I knew that my hood retracted and that I was now engorged--swollen with the promise of pleasure. I cried out. He increased his speed, and brought my orgasm with a fierceness I’d never seen. I gripped the sheets on my bed so tightly I felt them pulling loose from the ends.
I was lightheaded, and my body felt satisfied. I smiled as Caleb moved his body up me on all fours. When he was above me, I felt him hard and waiting to enter me. His hair spilled down around us, enclosing us in a wall of shining blonde beauty. I looked into his eyes. They were starting to change. The dark green color started to recede and a green glow flooded in.
I leaned up to him, kissing at whatever part of him I could get my mouth on. Our lips met, and I felt him sliding into me slowly. The smallest grunt came from my mouth, which was still on his. I felt his tongue caressing mine. I wanted to explore every inch of his mouth as he was doing to me below. He was easing himself in and out very slowly, savoring every stroke. I pulled at the back of his head, encouraging him to be aggressive. He stopped moving altogether and fell on me, smothering me with his kisses. He went at my mouth like it would be the last time he’d ever be allowed the pleasures of it again.
He sat back on his knees in front of me on the bed. He pulled my body down to him, moving my hips up and onto his thighs. He pressed himself back into me, rubbing my tender, swollen nub with his fingertips. I screamed out.
"Yes, Caleb, yes!"
The pressure of him inside of me increased, as did his thrusts. He was pushing so hard that I was moving up the bed. I loved it, I wanted more of it. I tilted my head up. My eyes closed tightly--they felt strange, they felt different. My groin and thighs tightened as I screamed for him. He slammed into me. I felt him getting ready to join me, our bodies becoming one. We looked into each others eyes. He yanked away from me quickly, finishing partly in me and partly on me. I grabbed at his body. He fell next to me, embracing me.
I didn’t know why he pulled out before he was completely done. We were both magical, so sexually transmitted diseases didn’t apply to us. As far as getting me pregnant, there was a fat chance of that. I’d gone and seen my doctor, who was also a witch (but managed to keep that off her sign on the door to the public), when Ken and I had gotten engaged, because I though it would be wise to get on some sort of birth control. Her office waiting room was littered with pamphlets about conception--how to achieve it, how to avoid it. I picked up the one regarding Si pregnancies. It was bleak. It basically said that intercourse between a human and a fey almost never ended with a pregnancy. It had something to do with a tiny difference in female Si reproductive systems. We rejected human male sperm. There were costly medications and treatments that one could try in an attempt to conceive, but that in itself was no guarantee. I took the pamphlet in and discussed it with the doctor. I told her I was actually three hundred and ten years old, what a lie. She said that was good, because my chances of conceiving prior to the age of one hundred were zero without medical assistance. I asked about my chances of conceiving with a faerie partner instead of a human one. She had told me that the odds of that were even slimmer than getting pregnant by a human. She never said why.
Needless to say, birth control was not necessary with Ken. I told him all about what the doctor had told me, and he said when we were ready to have a family we would do it, cost was not an issue. That had made me feel better. I really did want to have a family someday. Not today, but someday.
"Why did you stop?" I asked Caleb, holding him close to me.
He smiled and kissed the top of my head gently. "You were ripe."
I pulled back from him slightly. I was ripe? Did he think I smelled funny? I was about to ask him what exactly he meant by that when I heard the phone ringing. I kissed him on the cheek and pulled away from him. I walked out into the hall and picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
No one answered me. I heard something on the line but no voice, just a low throaty growl. I repeated myself, but only the growling noise remained. I hung up the phone and turned around. Caleb was standing in my bedroom door completely nude. Oh, was he a sight to behold. Just looking at him made me want to run my hands all over him, and has his body deep within me again.
"Who was on the phone?" he asked running his fingers along the woodwork.
"Wrong number," I said as I walked up to him, putting my arms around him, hugging him tight. His picked me up and carried me back to bed. We made love several more times throughout the night, and each time he withdrew from me prior to his release. We lay in each other’s arms exhausted as sleep came.
Chapter 11
When I woke, Caleb was not in bed with me. I sat up. My room was dark. Had I really slept until nightfall? Wow, I must have been wiped out. I grabbed a robe from my closet, put it on, and headed downstairs to look for Caleb. The smell of food hit me when I reached top of the stairs. I headed down to the kitchen.
Before I had even reached the kitchen, I saw Caleb standing near the stove, frying something that smelled delicious.
"Smells good, but I’d rather eat you again. Why did you get up?" I asked, heading towards him.
He stopped cooking and stood very still, eyes fixed on the wall behind the stove. I started to ask what his problem was, but when I entered the kitchen, I saw the problem. Pallo was sitting at the end of the kitchen table with his arms folded across his chest. His dark eyes locked on me. Pissed was an understatement.
Pallo scanned up and down my body, stopping slowly at my waist. I felt uncomfortable and reached down to make sure my robe was closed.
"Well, you have certainly made the most of your day off, haven’t you," he said bitterly.
Caleb turned from the stove slowly and walked up behind me, bending to kiss my cheek. I think it was more for show than anything else. I didn’t want to play their little game. I’d had enough.
"What the hell are you doing here, Pallo?" I asked.
I heard the wooden chair scrape against the floor and saw a flash but it was too late. By the time I had registered what had just happened, Pallo was about an inch from my face, staring down at me.
"It’s nice to see you too, Gwyneth, or should I say donnaccia?" he said. Sarcasm oozed from every word that came from his mouth.
Caleb pulled me back from Pallo and stepped between us. "Enough, Pallo, you’ll not call her that. Enough." His voice held a warning that even the densest of men could hear. I wondered what donnaccia meant, but thought it best not to ask
Pallo tilted his head and looked back at me. "I would have thought your earlier spectacle would have been enough. I guess I was wrong."
Caleb’s hand came up, and I felt his power rising. I was sick of this macho crap and turned, walking out of the room. I stormed upstairs to my bedroom. I flicked the light on and got dressed. While I was lacing up my boots, I heard the two of them shouting at each other.
"She’s a grown woman, and if you ever call her a slut again…." I heard Caleb yelling. The rest was muffled and hard to make out. I didn’t care anymore what they said. I needed some fresh air, I needed away from their bickering.
I headed downstairs and walked quietly out the front door. They were too busy screaming at each other to notice that I left, and that was perfectly fine
by me. I walked out down the lane, but in my haste to leave the house, I hadn’t brought a flashlight with me, so I decided to stick to the stone driveway. I didn’t want to fall and break my neck.
I sucked in the fresh air. It was cool, damp, and smelled of pine. The crickets and frogs were on overtime tonight. I walked at a fast pace, feeling the stones crunching beneath my feet. The faster I walked, the more Pallo and Caleb’s arguing faded. It was wonderful.
I couldn’t remember how I had let my life get so chaotic. I knew it had been going pretty well up until Ken’s phone call requesting me to go to Pallo’s theme park. I was trying to remember why Ken had wanted me to go when I heard a faint howling. I slowed, listening. It sounded far off in the distance, whatever it was.
It felt good to just walk my worries away. I was walking faster than I normally jogged, and my pulse was speeding up. I reached the end of the lane and stopped at the road. For a split second, I thought about heading back to the house. The road spiraled down a small hill just past the entrance to the farmhouse lane. At the base of the hill was a bridge that ran across the river. I hadn’t been down there for at least five years. It had always been so beautiful at nighttime. The stars would reflect off the water, and the faerie man had appeared to me often there.
I jogged down reached the bottom, slowing as I hit the bridge. The view was everything I remembered and so much more. I leaned onto one of the steel beams and looked out at the winding river. It was flowing fast tonight, but was not too high. The sound of the water splashing past the rocks, combined with the crickets, sounded like a lullaby.
I climbed onto the beam and sat. I had always loved doing that when I was younger. I pulled my knees up to my chest and laid my head down on them. It was such a perfect night. Such a glorious--
Something hard struck my body. I kicked my feet out instinctively, trying to catch my balance but failing. My stomach leapt into my throat as I went over the edge. I hit the river with such force, it knocked the wind out of me. Water was all around me. It was pitch black, and I couldn’t tell up from down. I kicked wildly about for a moment and screamed. Water filled my mouth, bubbles floated from my lips. Bubbles--that was it--air would go up. Follow the bubbles and go up. I did, and my face broke the surface of the water. I sucked in the cold night air. I was caught in a fit of coughing. I tasted the fish water coming from my mouth as I treaded water and started toward the bank.
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