“Thank you for understanding,” she said in relief. She flew up and placed her palm against my cheek. “It is my turn to leave this place for a while,” she continued. “I have to help ensure the baby gets safely settled in his new life, and I have to go back to the elders to let them know my work here is finished. But I’ll come back. I promise.” She kissed the tip of my nose. “Will you come to see me in about a week?”
“Of course.” I wasn’t happy about it— in fact, I was nearly heartsick over it— but I’d wait. Mostly because the alternatives— either risking Lily’s punishment by staying just then or not returning at all— were unthinkable.
I found the hatchling and gave him one last pat on the head before I turned toward the trail that led down the hill and back to the real world where life suddenly seemed much more boring and common.
6
Large Possibilities
Jake returned from his winter break the next day, and classes resumed the day after that. The busyness of starting a new semester— buying books, finding classrooms, meeting professors— succeeded in keeping my mind off of Lily and wondering what she was doing for most of the daytime hours. But in the evenings, when my homework was finished, my brain had little else to occupy itself. I wasn’t quite sure what to think of the situation I found myself in. It was obvious— even to relationally-awkward me— that Lily had somehow become the most important person in my life. But what did that mean, exactly? I had never stopped to think about what the future of the relationship would be, or even what it could be. It wasn’t like I could just introduce her to my friends and family, after all. What were the long-term prospects between a human and a fairy? Were there any? What if her role as Guardian made all such considerations moot?
I exhausted myself chewing over all of these questions. I finally had to admit that I honestly didn’t care what the answers were. There might come a time when I did, but for the time being, I was content to just let our friendship go where it would. And perhaps, at some point, Lily could help clarify things, as well.
I had my dorm room to myself for the whole evening after my fourth day of classes. I didn’t have any idea where Jake was, but the quiet allowed me to get my homework done before midnight, for a change. I stripped down to my t-shirt and boxers and hopped into bed with the remote control and the ambition to watch bad television until I fell asleep.
I was halfway through my second episode of a crime drama rerun when I heard scratching. Please, not a rat. Some other students a few rooms down had come back from break only to find their room taken over by rodents, and the idea of the furry vermin making their way into my space was nauseating. I tiptoed out of bed and listened closely. The scratch came again, and I was able to follow it to the outside wall of the dorm. In fact, it was coming from the window. I pulled up the blinds and was greeted by a most unexpected, but very familiar, purple glow.
“Lily!” I cranked open the window, and she pulled the screen out a little and wriggled her way through the space. “What are you doing here?”
She plopped down on the edge of my bed. “I was lonely,” she answered simply. “And I got tired of waiting for the end of the week.”
“But—” I was at a complete loss of words. I had never thought about Lily and school in the same context. They were two entirely separate parts of my life. I was having trouble resolving the fact that they were suddenly very much together.
My reaction seemed to make her uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” she said almost right away. “Do you want me to leave?”
“Of course not.” I looked down at what I was wearing— or rather, assessed what I wasn’t wearing— and grimaced. “I just wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“You don’t have to do anything special on my account,” she tried to comfort me. “This is your space. I just wanted to see how you live.”
Like a broke college bookworm. I straightened up the textbooks on my desk, keeping an eye on her all the while. “How did you know this was my room?”
She gave me a sly smile. “You know the flowerbeds that surround the building?”
“Yes.” They were all brown and barren at this time of year, but I had certainly seen them.
“The garden fairies who live there know who you are. I asked them to show me your window.”
Well, that was unnerving. Was there no place safe from the eyes of the unseen fey folk? I sat down at my desk. “Aren’t you back early? I wasn’t expecting to see you for a few more days.”
“Yes,” she answered succinctly. “I finished with my duties earlier than anticipated.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “The elders offered me guardianship of another egg. I declined.”
That took me aback. Guarding eggs was what Lily did. She derived her passion and purpose from it. It was completely out of character for her to turn down an offer like that. “Why?”
“Because it would have taken me away from you.”
My breath caught. Did she have any idea how much those words affected me? I doubted it. Not even I could have guessed before she said them. But I suddenly felt so much less alone knowing that I meant something to her, as well. I couldn’t let her ruin her livelihood for my sake, though. Her happiness was more important to me than my own. “Lily,” I said softly. “Please don’t give up something that means so much to you just for me.”
“I want to,” she came back. “Being with you makes me happy in a way guarding the eggs never did. The safety of the eggs is important. Very important. But there are others who can take care of them. There’s only one you.” She fluttered over to my shoulder and snuggled against my neck. She’d always enjoyed that spot. “You’re…” she trailed off and then smiled. “Well, you. You’re smart and funny and real. You’re more than just a warm shell and a noble quest.”
I cupped my hand over her. It was the closest I could get to embracing her without squashing her. And as much as I’d have loved to hold her that way for a very long time, I just couldn’t. She was positively frigid. It was like holding an ice cube against my neck. I shivered. “You’re freezing!”
She laughed. “I know,” she responded. “I’m not taking care of an egg, so my body temperature cooled off.”
“That’s an understatement.” I wrapped my fingers gently around her and lifted her away from my neck. I shifted over to the bed and sat on the mattress. “Here,” I said as I set her next to me. “Wrap up in the blankets. They’ll help warm you up.”
“I know something better.” She scooted over to my leg and climbed into my lap.
A whole host of novel and intense sensations rippled through my mind and body as she crawled as close to my belly as she could get. Goosebumps pebbled my skin as she settled down over parts of me that not even my mother had seen since I was about five years old. “Um, Lily?”
“Hmm?”
“Those aren’t eggs.”
Her grin was enormous. “I know,” she replied as she nestled in further. “But it’s so warm here.”
Things were about to get awkward in a hurry. I scooped her up and plopped her down on my pillow. “I have a couple extra blankets,” I said just a bit breathlessly. “I’ll make you a bed.”
A disappointed, petulant pout overcame her face. “Can’t you share yours? We’ll be warmer together.”
“You might be,” I countered. “I think I’ll be perfectly warm on my own. Besides, I’m afraid I’ll smash you.”
“I can fix that,” she said. “Wait here.”
She flew into the bathroom Jake and I shared with our suitemates and used all of her strength to push the door shut. I didn’t have time to wonder about what she was doing in there before the door opened again, and she stepped back out. At least, someone did. Intellectually, I knew it had to be her, but she was so strikingly different than what I had ever seen that it took me a minute to reconcile the Lily I knew with the new one standing before me.
She was as tall as a full-grown woman, and for the first time, I could c
learly see her in ways she’d been too small to allow before. Every inch of her was some shade of purple, and I do mean every inch. There was not a scrap of clothing on her. Not that there had ever been much there to begin with, but she had exuded so much frenzy and light that her near-nakedness had never been obvious. Not so anymore. It was incredibly difficult not to stare at all of that smooth, lavender skin, especially since so much of it along her sides and across her breasts was marked with dots and swirls in darker purple that reminded me strongly of henna tattoos and drew my eyes almost involuntarily. There were also quite a few of what appeared to be white crystals embedded into the designs. There were even tiny gems near the corners of her eyes, along the upper ridges of her long, pointed ears, and scattered throughout her thick, amethyst hair.
I stood up in a hurry and made sure to fix my gaze firmly on her face. “What did you do?”
“I thought it was obvious.”
“Well, yes, but…” Words were utterly failing me. “I didn’t know it was possible.”
A catlike grin curled her lips and squinted her violet eyes. “Not many do.”
“Can you stay that way for long?”
“A while. A day, maybe a little longer.” She ambled up directly in front of me and placed her palm against my chest. I could feel how cold it was through the thin material of my t-shirt. “May I do something I’ve daydreamed about for a long time?”
After what had happened the last time I’d had a girl this close to me, my wariness was hard to curb. But this was Lily. Did I really have anything to fear from her? Maybe. “Yes,” I answered.
She leaned into me, lifted herself onto her toes, and brushed her lips against mine in a sweet, barely-there kiss. She then proceeded to nibble a line along the underside of my jaw with her teeth.
That was almost more than I could take. Shivers exploded down every nerve in my body. “Lily,” I gasped.
“Yes?” Speaking made her stop, at least for the moment. I was at once grateful and disappointed over the reprieve.
“Your teeth are making me nervous.”
She giggled and then nipped my neck. “Don’t worry, Grant-Man,” she reassured me. “I won’t leave a scar this time.”
Just then, Jake— with horrendously impeccable timing— turned his key in our lock and walked through the door. He had his earbuds in, and his attention was turned downward toward his keys, so he didn’t notice us until he was several steps into the room. As soon as he jammed his keys in his pocket, he looked up and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Oh, crap.” His face flushed bright pink. I’d never before seen him looking flustered or unsure of himself. His embarrassment only made my own that much more dreadful. “Shit, Grant,” he stammered. “I’m sorry.” He backpedaled toward the door. “I’ll…” He took a quick glance at Lily and then grabbed at the doorknob. “I’ll just leave you two alone.”
Lily was not going to let him escape so easily, though. She practically leapt across the room at him. “You’re Jake, right?” she enthused. “Grant’s told me about you.”
He froze. I didn’t blame him one bit for the lightning-fast glance he cast down at the show she had on full display. His confusion was so painfully obvious that I would have felt sorry for him if I’d been in a clearer state of mind. As it was, neither one of us seemed to know what to do about the situation. “Jake, yes,” he managed to spit out. “And you are?”
“Moonlily the Guardian.”
I had to bite my tongue to keep from groaning out loud. That response had certainly not helped things at all. Jake squinted his eyes, but whether it was from further confusion, skepticism, or aversion, I couldn’t tell. And then his face suddenly brightened, and he smiled. “Oh, I get it!” he exclaimed. “You’re one of those role-players, right? Like one of those geeky weirdos that goes to those conventions with all the video games and anime and stuff?”
“They’re called comic cons.” I couldn’t believe I was going along with it. Still, better he thought Lily was a cosplayer than he knew the truth.
“Right!” He smiled wider, obviously pleased with this explanation. “Well,” he continued, “your makeup is on point. I’d love to see your costume someday.” He pried the door open. “See you later, Moonlily the Guardian. And you, too, Grant.” He sidled through the opening, and just before it closed in his face, he shot me a wink and a thumbs-up.
Lily caught sight of the eyeroll I hadn’t tried hard enough to suppress. “Don’t do that,” she admonished. “I like him.”
“I like him, too.”
“But you’re not happy I met him.”
I laughed in disbelief. “That’s not the problem,” I tried to explain. “I don’t mind that you met him. I just don’t like that it was like this.”
“Why?”
“He just caught me in our room with a naked girl.”
She just lifted her eyebrows at me as if to say, So?
“What do you imagine he thinks we’ll be doing this evening?”
The smirk on her face was pure, evil mischievousness. “I imagine he’ll think we’re having sex.”
That was more blunt than I was expecting. “Yes. Sex.” I coughed a little to try burying my discomfiture as I felt myself blushing.
“Why does it bother you if that’s what he thinks?”
“Because I don’t like people believing things about me that aren’t true.”
“What if we fix it?”
“How?” I asked. “Now that the idea’s in his mind, we can’t just make it go away. And if I try to convince him otherwise, he’ll just think I’m trying to cover myself which will only make him believe it more.”
“Oh, Grant-Man,” she sighed as she patted my cheek with a grin. “We can’t keep him from thinking it, but what if we made sure it was true?”
“Excuse me?” I didn’t trust that my ears had heard her correctly, not even after she wrapped her arms around me and pulled us so close together I could feel her heartbeat against my chest.
She traced one fingertip along the length of my collarbone. “Haven’t you ever thought about it?”
Oh, yes, I had. Often. “Of course. I just didn’t think it could work.” After all, she’d only been about six inches tall up until a few minutes earlier.
“Why not? You’re a grown man. You should know how everything goes.” She licked the tip of my earlobe and breathed in my ear, giving me goosebumps for the second time that evening. “Fairies have all the same parts humans do.” Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Plus some extras.”
I nearly choked. “Extras?”
“Wings, Grant-Man,” she replied as she pushed me down on the bed and sat on me. “Fairies have wings.”
I had been so distracted by everything going on since Lily had changed that the fact that her wings were no longer on her back had not even registered in my mind. I tried sitting up. “Where are your wings?”
She gently but insistently pushed me back down and then bent over me, bringing her face right up to mine. “Grant.” She sounded both exasperated and amused. “Stop worrying about my wings.” She kissed the underside of my chin. “Focus on me, instead.”
I knew an order when I heard one. After all, she’d given me quite a few since we’d met. This one, though— for once, this was one I was more than happy to obey.
The shrill screaming of my alarm woke me up the next morning. It would have been easy for me to believe the night before was just an explicitly detailed figment of my imagination if Lily hadn’t rolled over in the bed next to me. Her hands shot up and covered her ears.
“Ugh! What is that horrible sound?”
I slammed my hand down on the snooze button. “It’s my alarm. It’s what wakes me up in time for my classes in the morning.”
“It’s awful.”
“I agree.” In a moment of panic, I sat straight up and looked over at Jake’s bed. It was still empty. I laid back down with a sigh of relief.
Lily rested her head against my chest. “S
till bothered about Jake?”
“Yes.”
She ran her fingers down my ribs and hip, making me twitch. “You worry too much, Grant-Man.”
“Probably.” I wrapped my arm around her and hugged her close to me. For a minute I just relaxed there, breathing in the wonderful, outdoor air scent of her hair. And then my brain started getting ahead of me again. “Lily?”
“Yes?”
“When we first met, you called me a walnut.”
I felt her smile. “I did.”
“What is a walnut?” I was one-hundred percent certain she wasn’t talking about the crunchy little bits bakers put in their brownies.
“People usually use the word dumbass, I believe.”
“Oh.” I had expected something along those lines. Still, it was a definite blow to the ego.
“Don’t worry, Grant-Man,” she assured me as she gave me a squeeze. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes,” I countered. “You damn well did.”
She giggled. “Okay, yes. I did.” She kissed my cheek. “But that was before I knew you. I don’t think you’re a walnut.” She burrowed her face into her favorite spot on my neck. “I wouldn’t have fallen in love with a walnut.”
“Wait. What?”
She cupped my face in both of her hands and stared intently into my eyes. “I love you, Grant Henry Harrison.”
She didn’t give me a chance to respond before she covered my mouth with hers in a fiery kiss that stirred all sorts of delicious and needy sensations up and down my body. Desires that barely ignited before they were immediately snuffed out by my alarm going off again.
Lily pulled away from me with a grimace. “By the Great Earth Mother, turn that thing off,” she scowled. “How can you stand it?”
I made sure to avoid the snooze button and actually shut the alarm all of the way down. “You get used to it.” I stared at her for a minute, trying to digest what she had just confessed. I knew I should say something in return— and that avoiding the topic was the cowardly move of a selfish asshole— but the moment was gone. The words clung to my tongue like leeches and refused to be spoken. That was the first time I remember hating myself.
A Paranormal Easter: 14 Paranormal & Fantasy Romance Novellas Page 48