by Hannah West
‘Easy,’ he murmurs.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just been so hard to keep this from everyone,’ I admit.
Drew kisses the top of my head. ‘Anytime, Prim,’ he says. ‘So, are you going to tell me where we are?’
I look around, suddenly nervous about bringing Drew here. ‘We’re in my father’s home.’
‘You met your dad?’
I bite my lip. ‘Yes. We’re in the Dark Fae Realm, and he’s sort of the king.’
Drew blinks at me then starts laughing. ‘You know what that means, right?’
‘Why the hell are you laughing?’
‘You’re a faery princess, Prim.’ He laughs even harder. ‘Princess Primrose!’
I shove away from him and push to my feet. ‘Shut up, you giant moron,’ I snap but it’s a challenge to hide my grin.
Drew teased me endlessly whenever I did anything remotely ‘girly’ as a child. He’s called me Princess Primrose to annoy me for years.
‘Don’t make me blast you,’ I warn when he keeps laughing.
He sobers a little. ‘Blast me?’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ I mutter then change the subject. I don’t want to talk about my ability to kill Drew. Instead, I prop my hands on my hips and stare at the wall where the mirror used to be. ‘Look, it’s not that I don’t trust Aric-’
‘Who’s Aric?’
‘My dad,’ I answer and meet Drew’s gaze. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust him, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to find you here.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know what the rules are,’ I admit. ‘I brought us here to escape Zephyr-’
‘The guy chasing us?’
I nod. ‘He kidnapped me and took me to the Light Realm. It’s where I’ve been for the past week, except time is different there and it was only two days for me.’
‘Prim-’
‘Let me finish,’ I cut in. ‘There are humans there and they didn’t look happy, Drew. I don’t want Aric to find you here and decree that you can never leave. We need to get you out while we still can.’
I trust Aric as much as I can trust someone I just met. I once thought myself a good judge of character, but everything I’ve seen has me questioning what is real. Fae are masters of deception and I doubt my ability to see through their glamour. It’s a risk for me to leave the Dark Realm before the equinox is over, but Drew is important.
Drew’s face pales. ‘No offense to your dad but I don’t want to be stuck here, Prim.’
‘Agreed,’ I say and press my palm to the wall.
Drew stares at the wall when the mirror shimmers into place beneath my hands. ‘Where are we going?’ he murmurs.
‘I can’t take you back to the village while Zephyr’s there,’ I say.
‘Take me to Liverpool then,’ he answers.
I hold out my hand and Drew takes it, lacing our fingers together. He gapes when his student bedroom appears on the other side of the mirror.
‘You’ll never need your passport again,’ he says mimicking my thought from earlier.
‘I’d rather need a passport to travel than be forced to mate a fae with a god complex,’ I mutter.
‘What?’ Drew asks.
‘Nothing,’ I say and pull him through the mirror.
The feeling hits me as soon as we step into Drew’s bedroom. I swear a second before Zephyr pops into the room.
Drew curses behind me. ‘He teleports?’
I meet his incredulous gaze. ‘After everything you’ve seen, this surprises you?’
‘You’ve got to admit, it’s kind of – Watch out!’ Drew yells and leaps in front of me.
Purple light smacks him in the shoulder, throwing him against me. His head connects with my jaw, as we crash to the carpet. I hiss in pain but ignore it and scramble to my knees. I push Drew onto his back as his body arches from the floor. I search his shoulder for injury but there’s nothing there. Purple light crackles over his body and his jaw is clenched in pain, but he’s not dead.
‘What did you do?’ I shout at Zephyr.
‘It won’t harm him,’ Zephyr answers.
‘How do you know?’ I screech.
‘Because it was meant for you!’ he shouts back then his tones softens. ‘I’d never hurt you.’
‘Looks pretty painful to me,’ I snarl.
‘It would only have knocked you out,’ he argues.
I get what he’s saying. I’m fae, so whatever Zephyr threw would have rendered me unconscious. But Drew’s human.
‘Drew,’ I murmur and shake him gently.
Zephyr snarls when my hands make contact with Drew’s torso. My gaze snaps to Zephyr and his irises are glowing bright purple.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
‘You’re touching another male,’ he snarls. ‘It’s forbidden.’
I feel my eyes bleed to black as anger blasts through me. Zephyr’s eyes widen in response but I don’t care. I’m done hiding what I am from everyone. The fact I can open doorways using mirrors should’ve clued Zephyr into the fact I’ve been lying.
‘If Drew dies I’ll never forgive you.’
Zephyr’s eyes narrow into slits. ‘You love him,’ he growls.
‘Of course I love him!’ I shout, curling my hands into fists against Drew’s chest. ‘You’ve taken everything from me: my humanity, my life and now my best friend. And you expect me to trust you? Lay down and mate you?’
‘Prim,’ Drew croaks, drawing my attention.
I gasp when I look down to find him staring up at me with glowing, blue eyes.
‘What the hell,’ I whisper.
‘Help me up,’ he whispers back.
I help him to stand then steady him when he staggers back and bumps into the mirror. He pinches the bridge of his nose then groans and grips his temples.
‘It hurts,’ he groans, as blood trickles from his nose.
‘Oh God,’ I breathe panic blooming.
‘It’s too late to reverse it,’ Zephyr says.
Drew and I both look in Zephyr’s direction. ‘What’s happening to him,’ I demand.
‘The same thing that happened to you, when I activated your dormant fae genes.’
My eyes snap to Drew. ‘He’s half fae?’
‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ Zephyr says. ‘Halflings are a rarity, yet I’ve activated two of you in less than a decade.’
Drew stares at me, a bead of blood forming in his tear duct. It rolls down his cheek, followed by another and another, until twin streams paint his face. I stare at him in horror, remembering Aric’s words about most Halflings dying during the change into fae. My heart thumps a heavy beat and tears fill my vision. The relief that Zephyr’s shot didn’t kill Drew shrivels to nothing, and I choke back a sob.
‘I’m dying,’ Drew whispers.
‘No you’re not,’ I answer.
‘Probably,’ Zephyr counters earning a scowl from me.
Drew leans heavily on the mirrored door of his wardrobe and closes his eyes. Sweat sheens his skin and he’s panting hard. He opens his eyes and looks at me. There’s so much sadness in his eyes I fail to hold back another sob.
‘Sorry, Prim,’ he whispers.
‘For what?’
‘I let you watch your mum die, I won’t make you watch me,’ he says then falls backward through the mirror.
I stare at the mirror in shock, Drew standing on the other side of the glass. He’s in woodland that I don’t recognise and could be anywhere. He opened a doorway. How the hell did he open a doorway? Forget the fact that he even knows how to do it, where the heck do you find a reflective surface in the middle of the woods? Drew drops to his knees and clutches his head, and I move for the mirror. It closes before I make it through, and I hit the glass so hard it shatters.
‘No!’ I scream and smack my palms against the wardrobe door, where the glass used to be.
Drew’s gone, and I don’t know his destination enough to open a portal to get to him. I think of
the agony I went through during the change and cry harder. He’s going to die alone and I won’t be there to help him through it.
‘Primrose,’ Zephyr murmurs behind me.
He grips my shoulder in a gentle hold and turns me to face him. I stare up into sympathetic eyes and fall against him. He wraps his arms around me and just holds me while I cry. I cry for Drew, who’s dying in a field alone somewhere. I cry for my mum and the grief still simmering beneath the surface. And I cry for the human life I had that was stolen.
By Zephyr.
My skin prickles against the force of my anger, an essence orb forming in the palm of my hand. I conceal the orb behind my back and push away from Zephyr, wiping the tears from my eyes with my free hand. I take a deep breath then throw the orb at Zephyr. It hits him in the chest and launches him across the room. He smacks into the opposite wall, creating a crack in the plaster, before hitting the floor.
Zephyr groans, face down on the carpet. I run from the room and across the hallway, into the shared bathroom and lock the door behind me. A tiny part of my brain is wondering why all this noise hasn’t brought Drew’s housemates running, but then they’re probably in classes right now. I press my hands to the mirror on the wall then scream when the bathroom door blasts open. Zephyr stands in the doorway, expression furious.
‘You’ve been keeping secrets from me,’ he snarls.
I throw another orb at him, aiming for his feet so he’s forced to look down to dodge it. I take that moment to open a doorway I know he won’t be able to follow me through. My hips snag on the frame of the exit mirror, but I push through with enough force that I don’t get stuck this time. I hiss in pain when I crash to the floor, knocking items from the sink on my way down. I meet Zephyr’s gaze through the mirror, as I push to my feet. He watches me from the other side and I see my name on his lips. I shake my head and back away, watching him until the doorway closes between us.
‘Zephyr’s worried about you.’
I gasp and spin to find the dark-haired girl from earlier, standing naked in the bathroom doorway. That mesmerising, pearlescent light shimmers over her skin, seemingly brighter in the diminishing daylight.
‘He’s here?’ I ask, worried he figured out my destination already and arrived through a different mirror.
The girl shakes her head. ‘He left to search for you? Why do you run from your mate?’
‘You know you’re naked?’
She nods. ‘And you’ve disposed of your ripped dress. But you didn’t answer my question.’
‘I didn’t choose him,’ I tell her. ‘And I won’t be forced.’
The girl’s eyes widen. ‘Zephyr wouldn’t-’
‘He put his Mate Mark on me without my permission,’ I cut in. ‘Then he stole me from my home and imprisoned me in the Light Realm.’
‘Because he loves you,’ she says.
‘What part of abducting me and holding me prisoner sounds like love to you?’ I snap. ‘He stole me because I’m compatible. Zephyr doesn’t love me. He wants me for the light I carry and he’ll take me whether I agree or not.’
‘This doesn’t sound like the Zephyr I know,’ she murmurs.
‘It’s the Zephyr I know,’ I counter. ‘I’ve seen many emotions from him over the last few days, but not one of them was love. Being compatible doesn’t mean he owns me.’
‘No,’ she says, surprising me with her agreement. ‘It does not.’
‘Then, you won’t tell him I’m here?’ I hedge.
She shakes her head. ‘Zephyr is my friend but I won’t aid him in acts of wrong doing.’
A tiny bit of tension leaks from my shoulders. ‘I’ve, um, never met a mermaid before.’
‘It’s strange to meet a fae that doesn’t know of my kind,’ she tells me. ‘And I’ve never met one with such dark wing markings.’
Tension creeps back into my shoulders. ‘I get the trait from my father,’ I mumble. ‘Look, it was really nice meeting you, but I don’t suppose you can direct me to another mirror? I really need to leave.’
‘I will show you to a mirror but I have conditions.’
‘What conditions?’ I ask, wondering if I should just squeeze back through the bathroom mirror. I rub my sore hip at the thought.
‘You won’t tell Zephyr I assisted you in evading him,’ she says.
‘Done,’ I agree.
‘And you’ll consider mating him,’ she adds.
‘Didn’t you hear what I just told you?’ I scoff.
‘You must know how rare it is to find a female who has light compatible with Zephyr’s,’ she says.
‘There are other, willing females,’ I argue.
‘Not compatible ones.’
‘But Zephyr said-’
‘His parent’s are fading,’ she cuts in. ‘The time for him to mate grows short.’
‘Fading?’
‘Dying,’ she clarifies.
I suck in a breath, heart squeezing in my chest. The grief at losing Mum grows unbearable at times, but Zephyr’s about to lose both his parents?
‘I didn’t know.’
‘You don’t seem to know much about fae culture, for a fae,’ she agrees.
‘I wasn’t raised with other fae,’ I tell her. ‘I know almost nothing about them.’
‘Then I must tell you that finding a compatible mate is akin to Zephyr winning the lottery. Your kind live so long, Primrose,’ she says, shocking me with the use of my name. Of course, Zephyr was shouting my name like a maniac the last time we were here.
‘Wait,’ I say hoping I’ll finally get some answers. ‘How long are we talking?’
‘Fae are one of the longest lived of the Archaic Races,’ she answers. ‘Your kind can live millennia.’
Archaic Races?
‘Are you serious?’ I bark, making her flinch.
‘This upsets you?’ she asks, perplexed.
‘Thousands of years; Zephyr is thousands of years old?’ I scoff.
Does that mean I’ll live thousands of years? I don’t think I want to live that long. Hopefully the fact I’m half fae will mean I’ll die sooner. No wonder Aric was so vague when I asked him his age. How does anyone even live so many years and not go mad with boredom? I shiver at the thought then think of Zephyr and try to imagine things from his perspective. The loneliness since Mum died is suffocating, and she’s only been gone weeks. It almost chokes me to think of years without her, and Zephyr’s gone millennia. He had his parents, but the relationship seems cold and indifferent. He doesn’t appear to have the bond with his mother that I shared with mine. I’ve only seen his father once, from afar at the banquet, and he didn’t even acknowledge his son. Mum and I were more like best friends than parent and child. I could tell her anything and know she’d support me. It makes me sad that Zephyr doesn’t have that.
The girl nods. ‘Did Zephyr not tell you of the time he’s spent dreaming of finding a compatible match?’
‘No,’ I snap, angry as hell at him.
‘That’s how rare you are,’ she tells me. ‘Zephyr is over two millennia old and you’re the first compatible mate he’s found. Can you understand his rash decision to claim you now?’
It upsets me that I can. I want to hate Zephyr with every fibre of my soul for what he’s done, but I can’t. I can’t even bring myself to imagine the years he’s lived, let alone the loneliness of not having someone to share his deepest thoughts with.
‘He should’ve told me;’ I mutter, ‘asked my permission.’
‘A mistake on his part,’ she agrees. ‘But now he’s chosen you there can be no other.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Zephyr put his Mate Mark on you, Primrose. Only if you die can he claim another,’ she answers.
‘Then what happens if his parents fade and Zephyr has no mate?’
‘Zephyr will ascend the throne unmated,’ she says. ‘His chance to mate lost.’
‘But why?’
‘It’s fae law,’ she answers.
&nb
sp; ‘That’s stupid law!’
I don’t know what to think. I’m angry at Zephyr, but I empathise with his plight. What the hell am I supposed to do? Am I stupid to feel sorry for the guy, or am I just a nice person? It makes me angry that I want to help him.
I want to help him.
I shake my head, dislodging the thought. He kidnapped me and was about to force me into mating him. But if I don’t mate him he’ll be alone for the rest of his life, which sounds like a very long time.
‘It’s their way,’ the girl says. ‘There are reasons for fae laws, but I’m not privy to all of them.’
Something occurs to me. ‘If putting his Mate Mark on me prevents him from taking another mate, what does that mean for me? Please tell me I can mate whoever I want?’
The girl bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry-’
‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’
It’s one thing to ruin his chances of mating anyone but me, but to steal the choice from me on top of everything else he’s done? Darkness fills my vision and prickles over my skin. The girl gasps and I follow her gaze to the onyx pattern swirling over my hands. I’m wearing jeans and a long-sleeve top, so only my hands are visible, but I feel the darkness all over my body.
I glance over my shoulder to see my reflection in the mirror. My eyes are two pools of midnight and black filigree curls in complex patterns over my neck and face. I take a deep breath in and let it out slow through my nose, trying to calm the storm brewing in my centre. My darkness is raging and feels like it did the day of Mum’s funeral. But I’m not frightened of it this time. Instead, I feel empowered. The only thing that scares me is if Zephyr were here, I’d use it on him.
I meet the girl’s worried gaze. ‘I’m not mad at you,’ I tell her. ‘I’m just struggling to understand how he can do this to me.’
‘Please, consider my words and don’t punish Zephyr too harshly,’ she pleads. ‘He has waited for you for such a long time, and I know he feels deeply for you, as I see you do for him.’