Talia_Sleeping Beauty Retold

by Daniela Jackson

  “You’re drunk,” I say.

  “I am drunk.” He buries his face into my hair and breathes me in.

  It’s fucking unnerving.

  His arms squeeze me as the body of an anaconda would.

  “Ettrian,” I gasp and see white flashes in front of my eyes.

  “I want to hurt you, Kai. I want to hurt you so badly.”

  Fuck. I knew it. He is going to kill me. Every atom of my body stirs in dread.

  “Ettrian, baby, we’ll go to bed now, okay?” I lace my voice with as much of mermaid sweetness as possible.

  “Together?”

  “Together, baby.”

  “Okay.” He scrambles to his feet and pulls me up as his arm crushes my chest.

  We move towards his bed as he clumsily removes his cut and t-shirt. Then we collapse onto the mattress and it creaks under our weight.

  Ettrian is holding me in a tight grip whilst he shakes off his boots and moves towards the head of the bed and then covers us with a satin duvet. We lie on our sides and my back rests against his muscular chest. I squirm in his embrace, petrified by the hardness of his muscles and the menace radiating from his tall frame. He is so powerful, and I’m so tiny.

  “Don’t move, or I’ll have to hurt you,” he growls into my ear.

  He buries his face into my neck and growls like a wolf that has just devoured a tasty mermaid. I stiffen then shiver. He nuzzles his nose against my neck, his breath hot against my skin.

  I feel him pushing his elven energy into me. My mind gets blurry. The last thought my brain manages to produce before I drift into oblivion is that I’ll fucking kill this elven bastard.

  I wake up as the sun’s rays touch my cheek. My breath stops in my throat. I sit up and my eyes travel to Ettrian. He’s standing by the bed. A towel is wrapped around his hips. His hair is damp as droplets of water shine on his naked chest.

  “You didn’t touch me or something,” I explode as my eyes roam over the perfection of his muscles.

  He looks like a warrior. No, like a god.

  He tilts his head. “No.”

  He rubs his palms against his cheeks then sweeps his hair down his back. There is no emotion on his face like a fucking piece of glacier is staring at me.

  “My dad will chop your dick off,” I say.

  No reaction like I’m talking to the wall.

  Chapter 17

  Ettrian

  Her hair looks like the fury of an ocean, but shines like the sun’s rays. Her cheeks are pink, eyes wide, lips so tempting that I stifle my urge to kiss her.

  I never kiss, but I want to kiss her. I want to kiss and lick every inch of her body.

  I’ve never let any women in my house, in my bedroom. It’s always been a tavern or a barn, a hotel, a parking lot, a bathroom in the pub, a bathroom in the casino. I fucked them and forgot them.

  Kai feels good in my bedroom. She feels good in my bed, in my arms. She feels perfect in my arms like she belongs in my arms. Like she’s part of me.

  I watch her crawl off my bed. She stands in front of me, and I sense her anxiety.

  “I’ll take you to the gate,” she says. “I’ll take you because I want to keep my promise. But after the trip, I will never speak to you again.”

  “Get out of my room,” I say.

  She rolls her fingers into fists and storms out. The door slams shut. I sweep my arm and slam my fist against the wall, breaking three of my fingers. They bleed, but I don’t feel the pain. My heart is crumbling into pieces and it’s agony. I want Kai to come back and say that everything will be alright. But she doesn’t come back to me.

  I slip into a pair of jeans, grab my t-shirt, cut, and boots, and go for a ride.

  I like my bike and I always enjoy speeding along the motorway, but not today. Today, I want to knock someone’s teeth out. Today, there’s a dense fog in my head and I feel sick.

  I roar along the motorway for two or three hours then I park in front of a pub and walk in. As my eyes roam over the interior, I notice a group of human females around one of the tables. They raise their eyes to me and shoot me curious glances.

  “What?” I growl. “You haven’t seen an elf?”

  They drop their heads and an awkward silence layers the pub. I love silence. As I settle myself on the bar stool by the counter, the bartender hurries to take my order. She blinks nervously and her voice falters.

  “I’m crazy only when I’m very pissed off,” I say and she nods at me then shakes her head and takes a sharp breath like she’ll burst into tears at any moment.

  Over the centuries, I’ve learned how to deal with humans. The modern world requires me to reveal my true origins to keep my true origins secret. That’s crazy, but that’s humans who think I’m crazy.

  I sip beer and try to calm the hot whirl of my thoughts. Strange. My thoughts are never hot. They’re always calm or cold. Now, my mind resembles that of an average human—a total hot mess. A burning blur. Insanity.

  I think about S’Ylla and my heart leaps. Yes, leaps. She didn’t love Theo. She enjoyed him for a while in her cold detached way. Theo’s son? Well, I like him. I like him very much and I’m a bit cross with my sister because of what she did to little Rebel. Of course, all the women in the compound are like mothers to the boy, but he needs his own mother.

  Yep, I care. I care more than any other elf would and that kind of intrigues me.

  My glass is half-empty as I move it away, tilt my head to the bartender as my goodbye and decide to go back to the compound.

  Kai

  I try really hard to avoid him, but unfortunately my dad asks him to join us during supper. Micah and Talia come over for dinner with their boy twice a week as the others join us around our dining table a few times a month. Theo and his boy are regarded as a permanent addition to my immediate family. It’s been like this since S’Ylla left.

  So, we spread around the table as my mom and Adva deliver the food—both vegetarian and ‘normal’—this is how my dad calls meat.

  Ettrian shoots me a cold glance from across the table, a cold glance like nothing happened last night. What a jerk.

  I drop my head and focus on eating, but my stomach is filled with butterflies and there is not enough room for the food inside of it. I want to throw up. I’m shaky.

  My dad and Ettrian discuss our means of anti demon and anti angel protection as my mom shoots me a curious glance. A half-smile plays on her lips.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” Mom asks.

  Adva turns her face to me then looks at Ettrian who glances back at my grandma like he wants to kill her. The air around us thickens like a storm cloud and I feel breathless. My fork screeches against the plate and everybody stirs in their seats.

  “Somebody died or what?” Dad growls and looks at me. “You look like haven’t slept for ages, Kai. Go to bed earlier and stop reading books at night.”

  “I like reading books,” I snap, “and there’s no other entertainment in this fucking middle of nowhere except books.”

  “You’d better mind your tongue,” Dad says, shakes his head and turns his face to Ettrian. “Beer?”

  “Sure,” Ettrian says.

  “Kai, Murray,” Dad tilts his head to us.

  Murray rises from her seat and goes to the kitchen as I follow her closely behind. We grab four bottles of beer and three glasses and carry them to the dining table.

  I slam one of the glasses on the top at Ettrian’s right elbow and fill it with beer. He looks at me like I’m the ugliest worm he’s ever seen. Tears prick my eyes. I’m not a worm. I’m just a mermaid. I’m not as beautiful as human women, but my dad regards my mermaid mom as the most beautiful woman in the world. And he is a former angel so it can’t be that bad.

  Ettrian’s hand reaches for the glass and he raises it, but he doesn’t tip it to his lips. He just freezes. Our glances collide and a clinking sound makes me shudder. The smell of beer circles around me.

  “Fuck,” my dad says.

 
My glance travels to Ettrian’s hand. Blood is covering it in thin streams and the thick drops of redness splash against the floor.

  Ettrian

  Kai takes the broken glass from my hand and starts pulling out the shards stuck in my palm. My blood contaminates her skin.

  “Kai,” I say. “I can manage.”

  I don’t want her to stop though. I want her little fingers to touch me forever.

  She takes a closer look at my palm. “It’s healing.”

  For the first time ever, I regret that I’m an elf. If I were a human, I’d heal such an injury for three days at least. There would be a lot of opportunities to enjoy Kai’s little fingers touching me—she’d clean my wounds, she’d change the bandage, she’d pitied me.

  Rive hands Kai a piece of cloth.

  “And some warm water, please,” Kai says.

  Murray puts a bowl on the table and Kai wipes the blood away from my hand.

  “Done,” Kai says. “Now you can clean the mess you did.”

  “I can do this,” Murray says. “Ettrian’s not well today.”

  “I’m fine,” I growl.

  “He’s still growling,” Kai says. “He’s fine.”

  Our glances meet. She’s still holding my hand in hers for some mysterious reason. I wish I weren’t an elf and I wish I could lie to her. I’d tell her I am very unwell and she’d pitied me. Maybe she’d pitied me enough to take me to my bedroom like previously and she’d stay with me the whole night.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “Maybe you should go to bed,” Kai says.

  I nod at her. I feel very tired. Tired like never before. Tired like life has evaporated from me and left only the heavy shell of my body.

  Kai stares at me for a moment, then her face softens and she loops her arm through mine. “Maybe it’s elven flu or something. Come on. I’ll walk you to your bedroom.”

  They’re so compassionate, those little mermaids. So kind and caring. Kai is the kindest of them all. The most beautiful of them all.

  Theo erupts into laughter. Adva chuckles and Murray looks at me with concern.

  I wish I had a very bad elven flu, but unfortunately elven flu doesn’t happen. Elves are immune to all the bugs of the world. We die when we’re decapitated or stabbed straight in the heart.

  I rise to my feet and sway.

  “Fucking hell,” Kadmiel rumbles. “Go to bed, man. My wife’s been cooking, but—“

  He has no chance to finish, because Rive nudges his chest with her elbow, making him huff.

  Kai leads me to my room. “Are you going to be okay for tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?” My head is hazy like a rainy autumnal morning.

  “Our trip, remember?”

  I bow my head. “I am okay.”

  “Something is wrong with you, no offence.”

  “I don’t know, Kai. I’m dizzy, nauseous, and I have these butterflies in my stomach. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “Are you fucking in love or something?”

  “I don’t know. There is one woman—“

  “One? Only one? I’m sure there’s at least three of them. I heard some rumours, you know. You guys sometimes gossip like chicks.” Her tone is casual, but her jaw muscles twitch and her eyes blink a few times in a row.

  “One woman,” I say.

  “Thank God, it’s not me. I’m a girl, right? A nasty mermaid girl.”

  “Yes, you’re a girl.” I nod.

  Her arm shivers against mine as we enter my bedroom. “Have a good rest. We’re going on a long trip tomorrow. Don’t be late.”

  “5 am. You’re always late. I’m good at timekeeping.”

  My comment makes her widen her eyes. Her cheeks tinge with dark red. Her lips part. My hand jerks to grip the back of her neck and push her on her knees so I could drive my cock into her mouth, but the last remnants of my rationality restrain me. I bring my fist to my chest instead.

  Yeah, I’m sick.

  This disease is called ‘your dick replacing your mind’.

  Chapter 18

  Kai

  I leave him and something heavy sits on my chest. I feel like I’m very exhausted and a strange flutter goes through my heart. I shuffle to my bedroom and fall on the mattress as the frame creaks like a tormented soul.

  My mind drifts away far from here, travels to the sea I’ve visited twice in my life. My mermaid craves to face the brutal power of sea waves, to taste the sting from the salt on my lips, to experience the unity with all the good creatures living underwater. I sometimes forget that I am a mermaid. I’ve taken mermaid form maybe ten times in my life. It’s easy for me to be in human form. My sisters and I grew up in the human world, after all.

  Then my thoughts float to that elven jerk who looked like shit during our meal. He has a woman he loves I’m certain. His words to me almost confirmed it.

  Pain stabs my heart for some mysterious reason.

  Well, maybe she’s a good looking nymph or a wolf. Or a human. No, he’d choose a dragoness. Definitely a fierce dragoness. A tall dragoness with small tits.

  I have large tits, but apparently he doesn’t like them.

  Right, I’m not a dragoness. I’m an ugly, smelly mermaid.

  Ugh, what am I thinking about?

  I roll in bed the whole night.

  As the day is about to dawn, I have a shower, go downstairs to eat a sandwich, wake Adva to tell her I’m going out with Ettrian, and I walk out of the clubhouse. Ettrian is waiting for me by his motorcycle.

  I zip up my bomber jacket and squat down to tie the shoelaces in my boots.

  “Good morning,” Ettrian rasps.

  I rise to my feet. “I’m gonna do what I promised to do and then we’re strangers to each other.”

  “We will never be strangers to each other. How can we be strangers to each other while we’ve already become family members? We are a family. We can’t be strangers to each other.”

  I’ve never heard him talk that much and he seems to be nervous. I’ve never seen him nervous. He’s always aloof.

  I shake my head. “Whatever.”

  He widens his eyes at me. “On my bike.”

  “I thought I’d ride mine.”

  He shakes his head like I’m a badly behaved kid then jumps on his bike and gestures for me to join him so I settle myself behind him.

  I love riding a motorcycle. My bike to be precise—my beautiful beast of steel and red colours my dad bought for me five years ago. The boys sometimes take me for a ride on theirs, but I definitely prefer my bike.

  I’ve never sat on Ettrian’s bike.

  I wrap my arms around his chest and cling to his cut that he’s wearing on top of a black hoody. Thank God, he’s decided to have his long hair plaited today so I won’t eat it during the ride. His pointed ears are exposed and look kind of funny.

  I don’t know what has come over me, but I raise my ass and pull his ear lightly. And I freeze, shocked by my own lack of restrain.

  Ettrian grunts, but not like I expect him to grunt. No, that grunt is low, kind of sensual, almost like my touch’s been pleasant to him.

  “Sorry,” I shriek. “I—“

  “Just don’t pull my ears during the ride.”

  “Okay.”

  “You can pull them after I’ve parked the bike.”

  “Really?”

  He starts the engine so I hold on to him, plastered against his back like a piece of wallpaper.

  We shoot forward, and I bury my face into his cut, leaving the smear of my lip-gloss over the inscription The Shadow Immortals MC.

  Ettrian

  She clings to me like her life depends on it, and I fight the urge to park the bike and capture her into my arms.

  I’d beg for her tiny fingers to touch my ear again and give me that jolt of pleasure.

  It has never happened to me before.

  I heard of it though. It happened between elves who were in love. A true rarity among my kind.

  My dick is
so hard it’s painful and I can barely focus on riding my motorcycle.

  I have to focus. We’re outside of our protection zone and I’m responsible for Kai’s safety.

  I try very hard to recall the words of an old elven song in my head, but her thighs pressed against mine are all that I can focus on.

  In two hours, we’ll reach the seaside.

  I wish I could ride with her chest pressed against my back for four hours.

  Then her voice reaches my ears through the roar of the engine. It’s a mermaid ballad. And it fucking makes me feel insane. My heart pounds in my chest. Fever surges through my veins. My rationality evaporates and a primal instinct replaces it. I need to fuck. I need to fuck like an animal.

  I take a sharp turn and deviate from the motorway. The bike moves along a car factory then across a village until I spot a narrow path leading into the woods. I slow down and we immerse ourselves into the darkness that smells of earth after rain and resins. I stop, twist my chest and grab that naughty creature sitting behind me. Kai sighs as I plant her on my lap.

  “Why are you singing to me?” I growl.

  “What?”

  “A mermaid song. You know what it can do to me.”

  “What?” Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “You’re an elf. My songs don’t affect you in any way.”

  Kai

  His fingers dig into my waist as he rests his forehead against mine. I’m no angel, but my genome enables me to sense something dark and fierce from him.

  The handlebar is digging into my back, but I ignore the pain. I’m seated on Ettrian’s lap and every atom of my body screams that this crazy elf is going to do something horrible to me.

  “Your songs affect men,” he says as his hot breath brushes against my cheek.

  “Men who might desire a mermaid. Human men. You’re an elf. You don’t desire me, right?”

  He growls then draws me closer to him as my ass rubs against the bulge in his jeans. Oh. My. God. He is hard. And his dick is massive.

  My gaze shifts to his. Even though it’s dark here, I can see the navy blaze of his eyes. His irises keep changing the colour from navy to purple then to navy back again with more silver. This silver tinge starts blazing and his eyes look like the diamonds reflecting the sun’s rays. His aura hits me hard—earth after rain, the neutrality of death and life, the cold instinct of the warrior raging inside of him.