No Faerie Tale Love (Faerie Series Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

Kheelan’s face appeared behind Eloden. “Their idea of watching you leaves much to be desired.”

  “I did not need babysitters,” I told them, gathering what dignity I could slung over Dain’s shoulder.

  “Don’t deny that you had fun playing with us, Baby,” Falin said from the top of the stairs.

  “Take her,” Dain said to Falin, passing me over like a sack of potatoes. I grunted at another shoulder in my stomach.

  “I can walk,” I protested, again. A dark red stain on the hallway carpet by my door came into view as Falin swung around.

  “Is that blood?” I shrieked.

  Falin gave my butt a smack. I should have known he couldn’t resist. “Keep it down,” he told me.

  “Why is there blood? What did you do?” I asked Falin with horror.

  “I didn’t do anything. It’s Orin’s blood,” Falin explained, kicking my door to stay open as we walked through it last. Nobody had held it for him.

  “Orin’s hurt?” I asked. “How bad?” I added, thinking that was a lot of blood.

  “Where’s Aeric?” Kheelan spoke over me, coming back from the bedroom hallway.

  “He went out to do a perimeter when we saw Orin,” Falin answered.

  They must have just missed seeing Aeric after he deserted me and I had thrown everything on the ground with my mini hissy fit. Now, I understood Aeric’s urgency.

  Kheelan pushed pass us to exit again without a word.

  “Where did you put Orin?” Eloden asked, ignoring Kheelan’s hasty leaving.

  “Bedroom,” Falin answered.

  My head started to pound. I didn’t know how much more of this conversation I could take upside down.

  “Let me go,” I told Falin.

  “Keep quiet,” he said, letting me slowly slide down from his shoulder. His eyes met mine and they frightened me. They were so dark and cold. I felt like I was peering into a tunnel and seeing nothing of what was hidden so well deep within.

  I nodded to him and turned around, seeing blood on my kitchen floor.

  “Can he go to a hospital?” I asked although I doubted it. How to explain a metal allergy to a doctor? Was it even possible for a human to be allergic to iron? How about all of the medical equipment like XR machines?

  “No,” Dain replied.

  “We need bandages. I don’t have anything,” I explained, feeling inadequate.

  This was all happening so fast, I felt like I couldn’t get my bearings even though it was my apartment. These guys had barged into my life and I hardly knew them, yet I felt a connection that I couldn’t explain and I needed to see that Orin would be okay. It was something deep inside of me, squeezing my heart so hard that it was as if I was the one suffering a mortal wound.

  “Fae heal quickly,” Eloden tried to reassure me. It wasn’t enough.

  “Can I see him?” I asked.

  Dain looked a touch surprised. I had reacted badly after Orin hypnotized me, but Orin was one of them, and I don’t think he meant to hurt me at that time. He had been trying to help in his own way.

  “Let her go,” Dain said.

  Falin released my hand that he had been holding since he put me down. I hadn’t even realized he had been holding me. Perhaps I had gotten used to his touch after today, a little closer to him. Even Aeric seemed less cool and standoffish. Kissing him might have had something to do with that. Now, was not the time to think about what happened in the woods.

  They let me lead the way. I avoided the blood in the hallway, girding myself to see a gruesome wound as I walked into my bedroom. The lights were off, temporarily blocking the sight of injuries, only a dark lump from Orin’s body visible in the darkness. The moon must have been new or covered in clouds. My window was open, cool breeze from the night air playing with the curtains.

  “Orin,” I called.

  “Eve?” he said. He sounded pained. I felt my heart squeeze tighter. He could be dying.

  “I’m here,” I said, crawling onto the bed beside him. I wanted to turn on the light, but perhaps Falin had left it off on purpose. I didn’t know where to touch Orin, worried about prodding his wounds. I settled for curling up beside him and putting a hand on his nearest shoulder.

  He groaned, soft and cut off short.

  “Where are you hurt?” I asked.

  “Chest,” he answered. I felt him shiver.

  “Shut the window,” I ordered. Somebody did it.

  “Should we turn on some lights?” I asked.

  “Do you have candles?” Eloden asked as a suggestion. “Electricity may be problematic.”

  I may not have bandages, but my stepfather had insisted I have candles and flashlights. “In the kitchen, the drawer with the silverware, at the back. The matches are there, too.” I heard Eloden step out.

  “We need to apply a poultice from the supplies we brought. Can you undress him, Eve?” Dain asked.

  “Of course,” I responded, glad for something useful to do.

  “He isn’t glamoured fully,” Dain warned. “Eloden is spent and I would rather not waste the magic while we are in the apartment.”

  “What about Falin?” I suggested, not sure I wanted to see another unglamoured Fae so soon after my glimpses this afternoon. Would I react to touching Orin’s skin like I had to Falin and Aeric?

  “I can do it,” Falin offered.

  Dain sighed. I think he was disappointed in me.

  I started undressing Orin, slow because Eloden wasn’t back with the candles and it was very dark in here. I unbuttoned his shirt by feel, shivering myself as I felt the cold, damp cloth soaked by blood.

  “You’re going to be okay,” I told him.

  He wasn’t the first seriously ill person I had been around, but injuries like his were as foreign to me as gangrenous amputations to a psychiatrist. I didn’t know what to do for that much blood but call 911.

  By the time I got to the end of the buttons, Eloden returned, lighting the injury to my eyes, an ugly red slash through the left side of his shirt from the shoulder to his hip. The blood was even worse than what I had felt, covering almost the entire front of his shirt and down his pants, only protected from the bed by a blanket-like cloth Falin had put underneath him. It wasn’t mine, the beautifully woven pattern soaking up Orin’s lifeblood like sand drinking the ocean waves. Would the blood never stop?

  “Kheelan is making a poultice,” Aeric said, stepping into the room. I glanced over and saw him place his sword on the bed. It was thankfully, blood-free.

  “I need to take your shirt off,” I informed Orin, trying to sound clinical like I was discussing Petri dishes at the lab. I looked up from his bloody chest to his face, seeing pale, sweaty skin and clear, blue eyes. I swallowed hard, knowing this was no detached experiment I was working on. He stared at me, not flinching as he tried to shift to help me.

  “No, stop,” I said. “I can do it on my own.”

  Orin nodded and lay back. There was a smudge of blood on his left cheek. It somehow bothered me more than the chest I was about to bare. Had he touched his face after trying to hold his chest together, a simple brush to move his hair from his eyes while he ran for his life?

  “Give me a knife,” I said.

  Eloden handed me a dagger. “It’s not iron,” he said. “Bronze made for Fae.”

  Aeric’s sword must be bronze as well and the arrowheads. I had wondered how he used metal weapons.

  “Bring the candle closer,” I said.

  I started by parting his shirt. The actual wound was as bad as I had anticipated. No organs protruded but I could see the red of muscle from a very deep cut. It was much too big for me to put my hands on it to stop the bleeding. Most of it looked partly clotted, just sluggish red pooled along the edges.

  "I think I should cut your sleeves off,” I said to Orin. This time I didn’t look at him for permission. No way did I want him shifting and opening that wound further again.

  Eloden’s knife was cunningly sharp. There was a curve to the blade that easily
caught under the shirt and let me slash upwards through the sturdy fabric like it was silk as I ran it up one sleeve from the chest to the cuff. I had to be careful with my strength and avoid slicing my own ear off after too much enthusiasm with the first sleeve. Eloden cursed and tried to take the dagger from me but I told him to back off. I could do this.

  Dain spoke up and told Eloden to let me do it.

  The dagger made quick work of it, even with me being more careful. I couldn’t believe I had been balancing Aeric’s sword on top of my precarious bundle of our things earlier. If I had known just how dangerously sharp they kept their weapons, I would have handled it with more respect.

  “I should put the poultice on,” Aeric said.

  “Does it require magic?” I asked, reluctant to give up my role.

  “Yes,” Aeric said.

  “Do you have enough?” Falin asked.

  We had forced Aeric to ride in the car multiple times today.

  Aeric snorted.

  “He’s young but strong,” Kheelan said, re-entering the room with the poultice. I expected it to smell foul but it was quite pleasant, lemony and a hint of rosemary.

  I backed up, crawling the opposite way I had come. Dain’s arms reached around my hips and pulled me up against his chest.

  “It will have been a long time since Orin had a female tend his wounds and witness his bravery,” Dain said.

  It wasn’t thanks, but it felt like gratitude nonetheless. It was also incredibly sad. As Aeric leaned over Orin, I felt like I was invading something personal.

  “I need to clean up,” I said to Dain, feeling the sticky blood drying on my hands.

  Dain picked me up from behind, carrying me from the room. This time, I didn’t even bother to protest. He deposited me on my feet soon enough, anyway, in front of the sink.

  I washed my hands with the bar soap and then rinsed the bar and the sink, watching all the red swirl down the drain. I looked up at Dain through the mirror when I was done, towelling my hands.

  Orin was half-dead and covered with blood in the bedroom, but Dain looked perfect, not a hair out of place, no dark circles under his eyes, no sweat, no dirt, everything exactly as the last time I saw him when he had softly kissed me.

  Was he hiding some injury under his glamour or was he untouched by whatever had taken a slice out of Orin?

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked.

  “He’s Fae,” Dain dismissed. He crossed his arms and stared at me, seemingly in no rush to leave the bathroom.

  It felt like a closet with him taking up most of the space. Already, I was breathing a little harder and faster, feeling the need to escape the claustrophobic room. There was nowhere to hide in here.

  “What happened?” I asked, inching towards the door.

  “He will tell you if he wants you to know.”

  I was tired of Fae telling me what I didn’t need to know or wasn’t ready to hear. They treated me like a child incapable of being told a harsh truth.

  “I believe you, okay,” I grouched. “You’re Fae and I’m a Halfling.”

  “What convinced you?” Dain asked, not even a hint of satisfaction at my acceptance.

  “Everything,” I said.

  “Then what about what we want from you?” asked Dain, uncrossing his arms. He stepped closer to me. I backed into the sink. I think I was hyperventilating, the room darkening around me as my vision narrowed to Dain’s big body.

  “A place to stay?” I evasively suggested.

  Dain shook his head. “You’re a female Fae. I told you how special that is for us.”

  I looked down at my feet. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Babies? Definitely not,” I dismissed, aware that if they were telling the truth about my Fae heritage then their claim that I would not pass on defective genes was also likely true. It was just the thought of wanting babies had been so foreign to me that I couldn’t even imagine it right this moment. I felt very young and unprepared.

  “You don’t want babies but you are willing to accept lovers?” Dain said, probing me for more with his eyes on mine.

  I dropped my gaze, focusing on the big chest in front of me. What would it be like to have him over me, making love to my body as he seduced me with his sweet kisses so out of keeping with the rest of his hard body and dominant personality? I would be foolish to let Dain persuade me to allow him to be my first. He was the kind of guy who destroyed you, not cherished.

  “Fae braids? Who did them?” he asked, fingers tugging on one to pull me out of my thoughts before I panicked.

  “Aeric.”

  I looked up a little, about shoulder level. I could smell the sweat and smoke off his shirt, inches from my nose. I didn’t think any of them smoked, but it reminded me of the smell that I associated with magic from Eloden and Falin. It must be a dark Fae characteristic.

  “You let Aeric Mark you today?” Dain remarked. He wound the end of the braid he had caught around his index finger like a dark ring.

  I nodded, feeling another tug of my captured braid.

  “Why?”

  “He asked,” I said.

  Dain brought the braid in his hand up to his nose, bending over me and sniffing. Did he smell smokey magic from me? Was I like him? I wanted to ask, dry swallowing as I worked up the courage. The light around me dimmed further as Dain’s body blocked the ceiling bulb.

  “And if I ask to Mark you?” Dain said, cutting off my query before it was given voice.

  The hitch in my breathing was the loudest noise in the bathroom for an eternity.

  “Why?” I whispered.

  I felt him smile against the shell of my ear, turning to sniff closer to the Mark Aeric had left on my neck.

  “Falin likes you,” he cryptically replied.

  I put a hand on his chest, ready to push back for some space but he wasn’t moving an inch, a heated, solid wall of muscle. My fingers curled unconsciously against one pectoral, the thump of his heart tickling my sensitive fingertips.

  I wanted to say that I hadn’t asked him about Falin’s feelings but I was too intimidated. I tried a different angle. “Falin threatens me every day. He puts up with me because you told him to do it.”

  Dain didn’t deny or admit it. He picked me up with one hand and sat me on the countertop by the sink. I looked at his face and got caught in his golden gaze.

  “Liar,” he accused. “I’m getting better at your tells.”

  “You can’t order Falin to like me,” I said, feeling more confident in facing off against him then I would have yesterday. The archery had done that for me, showing me I had something deeper inside and I only needed the courage to bring it out.

  Afterwards, in the woods, an entire world of possibilities had been opened up to me. It was secret now, but what would Dain say if he knew about my new fanged form? Would he still be so hot to kiss me or would there be some trepidation in his approach? It gave me a power over him as I met his eyes with my secret knowledge giving me strength.

  “I can’t order Falin to stay away from you,” Dain said with an amused smile. He slowly traced his fingers over the angle of my jaw, down to my chin and tipped my face up to him even further, denying me the distance I usually preferred. “Falin is very possessive over what he considers his and you are his newest treasure.”

  I thought about getting thrown at Aeric’s knees in my lustful state by Falin when I had been changed. Falin had wanted me but his magic had driven my libido out of control if I had understood correctly, and Aeric had been necessary, safer to cool it down. One of them had made a misjudgement because that wasn’t what had happened. Dain had said they all wanted to share me, a harem with me in the center. Sharing would be necessary.

  “Falin is possessive and I’m his treasure but you want him to share me with all of you?” I said, arching an eyebrow. I had him there.

  Another twitch of Dain’s lips. I think he liked our verbal play.

  “Fae males have had to share females for centuries. Humans may b
reed enough to promote monogamy in their short lives, but Fae are more practical. We celebrate fertility in ritual orgies, blessed by how many times the males can make a female orgasm, many lovers' hands on her body, inside her, seed planted by each male before the night is over in hopes that even one child will be born.”

  I thought about how I had felt out in the forest. If Falin and Aeric had both touched my body in that state would I have protested or writhed for more? Were Fae biologically driven to reproduce in the outrageous way Dain described?

  “I grew up with a different culture,” I said, trying not to picture all the guys with me naked. This was not like public speaking. Picturing them naked was very bad for my focus.

  “If we don’t take you, another group of Fae likely will and the freedom we give you would not be replicated.”

  “I can’t even go to the washroom alone. How is that freedom?” I complained.

  “It’s for your safety,” Dain said, thumb brushing over my lips. “Orin says you need watching.”

  Was he going to kiss me again? And what did Orin know? I remembered his blue eyes lingering on me when I had stomped into the apartment with Eloden on my heels and my grief chasing me into my bedroom to cry it out alone. Orin hadn’t said a word and neither had I. He knew nothing.

  “Orin is too much of a worrywart,” I concluded. He did seem the coddling type. “I’m not in danger,” I said. “I swear that gangster at the Changs’ apartment never did anything like that before and Eloden was helpful, but I don’t need a regular babysitter,” I added. It was the only real danger I had faced.

  “It’s not the humans I’m worried about harming you, Halfling”

  What now? I had my glamour back on. “Fae were never a problem for me until you guys came along with your fairytales and tried to sweep me off my feet.”

  I thought Dain would chuckle but he looked even more serious. “I’m going to find your sire and have a talk with him about leaving his beautiful daughter unguarded.”

  Holy crap. Was that the Fae equivalent of the proposal talk? My mind seized on the mention of my biological father. Did Dain think he was alive? I didn’t know how I felt about it right now, overwhelmed too much to want to ask further questions yet.