Tempted By Fae

by Midnight Coven

  Disheartened, I sat on my knees, my shoulders slumped, my hands dropped to the glass on my sides. A flare of the glow through the water, brought my attention to Zeph’s hand pressed against the glass from the inside.

  ‘Come.’

  He placed both his hands on the door, side by side against the glass. Crawling on all fours, I positioned myself over the door, too, placing my hands right above his.

  ‘Together.’

  I sensed his urge to get me to do something. However, I wasn’t sure what exactly I needed to do. His instructions came as feelings, not words or phrases.

  A wave of light twirled around him, sliding down his body like a snake. Through the water, I noticed the fins fan out of the back of his legs. Kicking his feet though the water, he rotated his body, keeping his hands flat on the lid.

  “Turn?” I believed I understood. “Do you want me to turn this thing with you?”

  Shuffling on my knees along the glass roof, I rotated my body, with my hands firmly on the glass of the lid, right above Zeph’s. The glow from our hands shimmered and sparked, setting off a twister through the water around the spot where our hands touched the glass.

  The lid turned. I moved my knees faster, to keep up with its rotation as Zeph spun in the water, kicking his feet.

  “It’s working.” I watched as the lid rose, twisted out of its frame. As soon as the gap seemed big enough for me to get my fingers under it, I wrenched the lid out and slid it aside.

  The next moment, Zeph’s head broke through the water out the opening. With a deep gasp, he inhaled, his wet hair plastered around his face.

  “Are you okay?” I asked quietly.

  For a moment, he just stared at me, his eyes a deeper shade of aquamarine in the darkness.

  “Thank you,” he said, rough and husky, different from the smooth singing voice I remembered. Exhaustion was evident both in his tone and his expression.

  “Come,” I whispered. “Let’s get you out of this place.”

  He nodded wordlessly, propping his hands on the edge. With another strong kick through the water, Zeph flexed the thick ropy muscles in his arms, lifting himself out of the tank and onto the glass next to me.

  “We need to hurry,” he rasped.

  I shifted back a little, having him this close again felt incredible and overwhelming.

  “I came this way.” I pointed in the direction of the velvet curtain.

  “Right.” He nodded, sliding off the tank in one fluid motion.

  Plopping down on my belly, I lowered my legs, blindly searching with my feet for the bar stool I had used to climb up.

  A warm hand on my ankle guided my foot to it. Then two hands grabbed me by my waist as soon as I placed all my weight onto the bar stool. Zeph lowered me to the floor as I grabbed onto his shoulders, his skin warm and slick with water.

  At the curtain, he took a careful peek into the corridor behind it first.

  “This way?” he asked, and I nodded. Taking my hand in his, he slipped by the curtain, dragging me along.

  All still seemed to be quiet. My focus was mostly on keeping up with the swift pace Zeph had set for us, dashing down the corridor, when a ray of light cut through the darkness just ahead of us.

  A male I mistook for Radax at first, appeared to be inspecting the large crate that had been placed against the same support pole where I had made the gap in the wall to enter. Our escape route had now been blocked.

  Zeph froze in place, making me bump into his wide back at full speed. We both stilled, but it was too late. The flashlight in the man’s hand illuminated Zeph and me. The man yanked a handgun from behind his belt.

  Panic shot cold through me at the sight of the weapon. Without thinking, I tossed the broken paring knife at the guy, having no idea what I was actually doing. It turned through the air, the blade coming nowhere near his skin.

  The handle, however, smacked him in the face, startling him for a fraction of a moment. Zeph lunged forward, kicking the gun out of the man’s hand and spinning past him.

  The dorsal fin on Zeph’s back snapped open then closed promptly. The body of our attacker crashed to the floor, a series of long, thin slashes swelling with blood across his neck and chest.

  The cuts didn’t seem that deep, but the fluorescent blue liquid bubbling through the blood in them appeared sickeningly ominous.

  “Is he…” I leaned against the crate, my knees suddenly weak.

  “Dead.” Zeph confirmed, his chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. “Poison from the spines in my fins.”

  His fins?

  He spoke of them as if they were real.

  Lifting his arm, he let the other fin open. It stretched from his wrist to his elbow and proved to be strong enough to cut through the canvas wall of the tent, as Zeph slashed a long opening.

  His fins seemed translucent and delicate. Their spikes, however, must be as strong as steel and as sharp as needles. He used them as weapons.

  What was he? Definitely not a regular human.

  Things no longer made any sense.

  Getting hold of the two sides of the opening he had just made, Zeph ripped the hole big enough for a person to get through.

  “I’ll go first.” He turned to me. “Just in case there are more bracks out there. Keep an eye out for any still lingering inside.”

  “Bracks?” I repeated, confused.

  Zeph pointed with his gaze at the motionless body on the floor, then silently slipped through the rip in the fabric.

  “Ivy.” I heard his lowered voice a moment later.

  He remembered my name.

  The thought curled around my heart with an unexpected warmth.

  “Come.” He poked his hand through the hole, searching for mine. “Quick.”

  Grabbing his hand, I hurried after him.

  “Now where?” Zeph asked me, surveying the surroundings.

  It was late, the fairgrounds were closed, though some employees were still moving around. A man, passing by with a cart overflowing with garbage bags, threw a curious glance our way.

  “The streetcar is this way.” I gestured north. Zeph, nearly naked, save for his long loin cloth billowing in the summer breeze, would definitely attract attention. “Or we could catch a taxi.” I yanked my phone out from my back pocket.

  Zeph lifted his head, drawing in a deep inhale, as if sniffing the air.

  “What’s that way?” He gestured south.

  “Lakeshore.”

  His hand squeezed mine harder as the stomping of approaching footsteps came from inside the tent.

  “A lake?” Pulling me behind him, he ran south to the chain link fence that separated the fairgrounds from the parking lot behind.

  Letting go of my hand, he scaled the fence in one leap, waiting for me on the other side. I climbed over it, too, although considerably less gracefully.

  “There they are!” Radax’s voice shouted, and a gun shot fired.

  ‘Much quieter than in the movies,’ I thought for some reason.

  Then a real-life bullet clinked against the fence post.

  “Holy cow, they’re shooting!” I yelled as Zeph was dragging me by my hand across the parking lot and toward the waterfront. “For real!”

  “Quick,” he ordered, maneuvering between the honking cars across the street and toward the bridge to the park on the lakeshore.

  Here, people still lingered. A lot of them must have come from the fairgrounds, and they didn’t seem to be in a rush to go home.

  Some stared at us as we dashed by. Some yelled something. But all got out of the way under Zeph’s warning glare.

  The shots at our back stopped. Radax obviously didn’t want to attract more attention in the crowd. I was too scared to look back, keeping my gaze straight ahead and running as fast as my sandals would carry me.

  Reaching the water edge, Zeph hopped onto the rocks of the breakwater that descended into the dark lake.

  “I can’t swim!” I halted, guessing his intentions
.

  I could tread water for a little while if I had to in an emergency until someone tossed me a lifesaver, or doggy-paddle out of the deep end of the pool. But jumping into the dark, cold lake in the middle of the night…Freezing panic seized my heart, making it hard to breathe.

  “You go.” I waved at him. “They don’t want me, anyway…”

  I glanced over my shoulder, spotting several burly figures quickly approaching, weaving between the groups of people. Terror lodged in my throat, the sound of my own pulse swished in my ears.

  “Ivy, you set me free. We’re in this together.” Zeph’s voice came as though from far away. Then he took my hand in his again, prompting me to meet his eyes—clear, cerulean-blue, beautiful, and imploring. “I’ll swim for both of us.”

  The man I hadn’t seen for over a year was asking me to jump into the darkness with him. And the only way I could do it was by trusting him. Blindly.

  “I’m not leaving you behind.” He squeezed my hand tighter, holding my gaze with his.

  I threw a nervous glance over my shoulder again, fighting the panic and fear that paralyzed me.

  “I can’t let them get you,” Zeph said resolutely. “Come here, please.”

  With a small nod, I forced my feet to move from rock to rock, following him. Not letting go of my hand, he stepped into the water. The rocks piled along the shore descended steeply into the lake. The long ends of Zeph’s loin cloth floated in the dark water around his legs as he stepped deeper.

  “Stop!” One of the men Zeph had called bracks yelled from across the path, rushing our way, the gun in his hand again. More bracks were on his heels, with Radax among them.

  Following Zeph, I jumped onto a rock submerged in the water, and my breath hitched. Despite it being the end of summer, the water was cold. From here, it went straight down. Deep. The next step appeared as though it would take me straight into an abyss.

  “Don’t be scared.” Zeph wrapped his arms around me and jumped in, taking me with him.

  Chapter Five

  The shock of cold water knocked the air out of my lungs. Darkness closed over my head as we sank deeper and deeper.

  With Zeph’s arms around me, I felt the movement of water around us, guessing we were swimming now. He was swimming, taking me along as I clung to his shoulders.

  Starved for oxygen, my lungs threatened to expand. Pressure intensified with every second, turning the urge to draw a breath into burning pain.

  Pressing my hands into Zeph’s shoulders, I shoved away from him, wildly kicking my feet in a desperate struggle to get back to the surface. His arms tightened around me, keeping me under.

  He was going to drown me!

  My mind grew black with panic.

  ‘Calm.’ The command came through the water surrounding me.

  A cool glow fluttered through my closed eyelids.

  Flexing one arm tight around my waist, Zeph pinched my nose shut with the fingers of the other hand. Then I felt his mouth close over mine. His tongue brushed by my lips urgently, demanding entry. I gasped in shock, noiselessly, as air rushed from him to me.

  Breathable air.

  I greedily sucked more of it in, bringing my panic under control as more air entered my starving lungs.

  ‘Slowly.’ Zeph’s calming emotion seeped into me through the surrounding water.

  I made an effort to regulate my breathing, drawing in measured breaths.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  How was he doing this?

  I had no idea. And at that moment, I didn’t even care that much about how, I was just grateful he kept me alive deep in the cold dark water.

  Slowly, a relative calm settled over me. I stopped flailing my arms, wrapping them around his neck, instead. My fingers brushed along his back, encountering the base of the hard needles of the dorsal fin along his spine.

  These were real. The fin was too.

  All of this was incredible. Insane.

  But real.

  Suspended in the water with nothing but Zeph’s arms to anchor my soul to my body, I could easily believe I was floating in a dream…had it not been this freaking cold.

  As soon as I had calmed down, Zeph must have increased his speed; the water appeared to move faster around us, rapidly taking away my body heat. Bending my knees, I pressed my thighs around Zeph’s hips, leaning into the warmth of his body.

  I had no idea how he could keep any sense of direction. For me up and down, left and right had long since become abstract concepts.

  Then, our heads broke through the water, and we surfaced. Zeph let go of my mouth.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Not sure.” I drew in my next breath on my own and blinked the water out of my eyes, feeling disoriented. “Where are we?”

  “Still in the same lake. I have no idea what it’s called.”

  “Lake Ontario.” We both were in the water upright. Clinging to him like a monkey to a tree, I made no effort to swim or even tread water on my own. Zeph kept both of our heads above the water somehow, seemingly effortlessly. “Where are the guys with guns?”

  “Back on shore. Bracks are not very good swimmers. I suspect they may try to procure a boat to search for me.”

  “What does ‘bracks’ mean?”

  “Those who chased us. They used to be humans, before Ghata enslaved them.”

  I had so many questions about all of that, but first things first.

  “Who are you?”

  “A Water Fae,” he replied simply then added with a slight wince, “Well, technically.”

  “Technically?”

  “Can you still be called a Fae if your magic has been taken away from you?”

  “Magic? Fae? Are you saying that Madame was telling the truth, all along? Did you come from some mystical ocean in a magical kingdom?”

  My teeth chattered, and full-body shudders ran through me, but I paid no attention to the cold at this point. All the incredible things I’d heard and seen today rushed through my brain, overwhelming my senses.

  “Madame? Are you talking about Ghata? She is the one responsible for my kidnapping and captivity.”

  “Is she a Fae, too?”

  “Yes. She is the disgraced queen of Sarnala, stripped of her magic and banished from Nerifir for her cruelties—” Zeph cut himself short. “Listen, you’re freezing.” He rubbed my shoulders with his palms when another shudder ran through me. “I need to get you out of the water, now. Where do you live? Does Ghata know who you are?”

  “No, she doesn’t.” I shoved his revelations aside for now. He was right, we had to get out of this lake. I’d think about Nerifir and the Fae later. “Where exactly are we?” I turned around, finding the brightly lit shore of a city in the distance behind us. “Is that Toronto?”

  “You mean the same city where Ghata’s tent stands?”

  “Right.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Okay, we should get east of downtown but before The Beaches area.” I pointed in that direction. “There’s a small park there. It’s not very busy even during the day. From there, we can easily walk out to Leslie Street and get a cab.” I patted the back pocket of my shorts. My phone must be ruined now, but I still had some money on me.

  That part of the city was close to movie studios, a number of clubs, and other big entertainment venues. Zeph’s outfit of a loin cloth would attract attention, but it wouldn’t be wildly out of place.

  Most importantly, it was far away from the CNE grounds and Madame’s goons.

  “I need to get you someplace warm before you get hypothermia.” Zeph’s voice rang with sincere concern as he touched the side of my face then rubbed my arms again.

  “Okay. Let’s go.” I hugged tighter around his neck. “Keep right, please. I’ll show you the park when we get closer.”

  He brought his face to mine, his lips parted. “Ready?”

  I realized he was going to breathe for me again. Yet the way he said it—his voice drop
ping down a notch, his gaze sliding to my lips—sent ripples of shivers along my skin. And this time it had nothing to do with cold.

  “Ready,” I said breathlessly, leaning closer.

  Instead of covering my mouth the way he did before, Zeph brushed his lips against mine softly. Memories of our nights together rushed me, spreading heat through my belly.

  “Zeph…” I whispered against his mouth. “I missed you.”

  The confession came out against my will, as if the feelings I had been struggling to suppress all this time finally burst out straight from my heart. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

  With a low groan, he drew me to him, claiming my mouth. His lips caressed mine, his tongue slipped inside. My fingers tangled into his wet hair as I kissed him back with the passion I didn’t care to contain any longer.

  Heat from the kiss spread through my body in waves. Desire vibrated from my chest to my lower belly, sudden and unnerving. Breaking away, I panted for air under his stare. His eyes, darker in the moonlight, flickered between mine.

  “Missing that date with you has been one of the biggest regrets of my life,” he confessed, leaning his forehead to mine.

  “What happened?” I cupped the side of his face. “Why didn’t you show up?”

  “Bracks kidnapped me that morning.”

  My heart dropped in shock.

  “Is that how long you spent in that tank? Over a year?” My chest swelled with pain and compassion. “Zeph…I’m so, so sorry.”

  All this time I had been forcing myself to hate him when none of this was his fault.

  “You got me out.” He gave me another kiss. Brief this time, it was warm and tender. “Now I need to keep you safe.”

  I leaned closer to him. “I’ll be the one taking you home tonight.”

  Chapter Six

  Despite the late hour when Zeph and I finally made it to my basement apartment uptown, Fleur wasn’t there. My cellphone was damaged by water, and I had no land line to call her.

  All possible kind of scenarios of what could have happened to her roamed through my brain as I quickly changed into dry warm clothes and found something for Zeph to wear, too.