“Don’t make me say it,” Quinn muttered under his breath, and that mutter stops me dead in my tracks.
“Holy shit.”
“May -“
“Sex.” I creaked out the words like an old tree in the wind. “It’s sex, isn’t it?”
“You’re already under his glamor all the time anyway,” Quinn hastily covered. “He can’t know what we’re up to until the ritual is complete. Your mind will be clouded by the glamor, so he won’t be able to read the murder in it. It’s a flawless plan.”
“Oh yes, a flawless plan that involves me getting dicked down by a fae I happen to not like so much!” I half-shrieked, barely keeping it together. “I have to do this, holy shit you tricked me into doing this!”
“I didn’t trick you,” He corrected coldly. “It was right there in the contract.”
“It said ‘ritual’, not ‘ritual fucking’!”
“Then you should’ve asked for clarification.”
“Excuse me for being a little busy,” I snarled. “Worrying about my future kid! Vil was right - he’s a shitbag but he was totally right; you fae make sure humans never come out the other side okay!”
“It’s not - “ His whole face flushed, like he’s a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “You want to, don’t you? Even if you hate him.”
“Earth to not-Earthly fae? That’s his glamor making me want to. Also, newsflash; he knows that. He’s the one who rejected me because he…” I gulped. “Wants me lucid. So this whole bit about me seducing him for this ritual is over! It’s not going to happen! Even if I manage to swallow my pride and approach him, he’s going to stop it before it ever begins!”
“You have to at least try,” Quinn insisted. “You’ve already paid the price - what’s the human saying? ‘You might as well get your money’s worth’?”
“Oh you’re a peach,” I threw my hands up.
“I’m a peach who’s being shipped off to war,” He murmured. “To kill my own people. The people I promised to protect.”
That punctured me like a water balloon, all my rage spilling out into the ether. We walked back in silence, my mind spinning. And here I am now. Debating and torn. It’s wrong the fae are bound to Van Grier - the way he treats them is wrong. And I could fix it, if I just swallow my fucking pride and have sex with Dane.
That haunts me better than a ghost for the next few days.
I have a dream so vivid that night I can feel every inch of it - the wind on my face, the smell of the flowers in the garden we’re standing in. Monster Garden. Just before the red rose dome. And it’s ‘we’ because it’s Dane and I, his face beautiful and somehow gentle and that’s how I know it’s a dream - he’s never looked at me gently in his life.
But if he did…
I’d treasure it. I know it in my dream with absolute fucking certainty - if he was gentle to me, kind, I’d treat those moments like gems, hoard them away inside myself.
It’s weird, I say to him in my dream. I miss you. The shape of you.
That much is true - I can feel it resonating with my dream-self and my real self watching the dream. I sort of…miss him? I miss being mad at him, and seeing that crooked smile on his face because of it. I miss hearing him purr in my doorway, unable to come in but still bothering me. Fuck, I even miss him calling me an idiot. But why? That doesn’t make any sense.
My dream-self leans up, nervous and afraid but desperately wanting nothing more than to kiss those broad, soft-looking lips.
And then I wake up. And I hate the part of me that wishes the dream could’ve gone on a little longer.
Vil knocks on my door one morning, and I start up from my place doodling on the bed - he’d gotten me some gorgeous moleskins and inking pens, and I’d been doing nothing but sketching Sir Charles in my free time. Sketching let my mind run free of all my problems, but his single knock brings me back down. Sir Charles perks his ears up, watching as I walk over to the door.
“What’s up?” I try to sound as light as possible - it’s hard to act natural around someone you’re planning to murder, but so far I’ve managed it.
“It’s time,” Vil smiles at me, his white teeth blinding against his tan. “The pink rose is in the feeding room, waiting for you.”
“R-Right.” I put my moleskin down and puff my chest out. “I’m on the job.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Vil nods, pleased, and walks away. I watch his back, thinking about how he’s destined to die and I have total control over it. I almost feel bad for him, but then I remember Dane’s scars, the way Vil threatened me with a knife not-so-subtly, the way he called the fae ‘his’ and how it made me sick.
I make it down to the feeding room and walk in, instantly whirling to put my blindfold on.
“What are you doing?”
A woman’s voice. I lower the blindfold hesitantly and turn. There, standing completely naked in front of me, is the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous lady I’ve ever seen. Her bright pink hair almost reminds me of Caelthea’s house, but it’s a little fainter, with orange streaks on the bottom like a sunset. Her thin arms cross over her perfect breasts, Her legs longer than a supermodel’s and the scowl on her heart-shaped lips just as artsy as one. Her round face glows in the steam from the tub, and her eyes have that same jewel-quality to them, though hers are dark amber with faint gold sunbursts in them. Her skin is the color of rich, dark earth, though it’s got a faint gold sheen to it that I swear has to be magical.
“You must be the feeder,” She frowns. “Well? What are you waiting for?”
“Y-You,” I start, her authoritative voice making me jump like a trained dog. “You have to get in the bath for it to work.”
“Ugh,” She sighs. “Fine.”
I pick the herbs that jump out at me - a strong, bright scent of frankincense and lilies and lemon peel. She sinks into the bath one long leg at a time, and I pull the stool up nervously behind her. I hesitate to touch her, but she sighs again.
“I won’t bite. I’m just hungry and angry about it.”
I put my hands on her smooth shoulders. “Humans have a, um, word for that.”
“Do you?” She scoffs.
“Yeah. Hangry.”
“Hangry,” She considers it as I ease my hands up and down her swan-like neck. “I like it. A lot quicker to say.”
I laugh under my breath. Of course she’d like it - she seems like the impatient type. But being impatient also means she doesn’t hold back; her sighs of contentment ringing out when I feed a good spot. She’s the most responsive fae I’ve fed for sure - she especially likes her shoulderblades, and I rest my hands there for a while.
“You really are the real thing,” She moans. “Bright Lady damn you, why didn’t you pop up sooner?”
“Sorry,” I smirk. “I was a little busy believing fae were just made-up by bored medieval humans to blame the chicken pox on.”
This gets a genuine chuckle from her. “Well, you aren’t all wrong about that.”
“I’m May.”
“Estella,” She offers her wet hand, and I shake it. “Did I do that right? That’s how you greet each other nowadays, right?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s a middle finger.”
“Middle finger,” Estella muses. “I swear you humans pick the weirdest body parts to obsess over.”
“Sometimes it’s not a body part at all!” I lean in. “Sometimes it’s a concept, like death, or time, or unrequited love or how expensive avocado toast is.”
Her chuckle this time is louder. “Okay, I get it. You’re one of those humans who think you’re clever.”
“Me? No. I’m stupid as hell.”
“Modest, too,” She whistles through her teeth. “I hate to admit it, but Van Grier found a good one.”
We laugh and get quiet, my hands inching over her shoulders. It’s so much less anxiety for me to feed a woman fae - her breasts don’t faze me at all. I’m too busy ma
rveling over how amazing they are, how amazing her whole body is. I’d give a lung to look even an inch like her. The Bright Place really does make fae perfect.
“You -“ She starts. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you smell like him.”
“Like who?”
“Dane. Rosemary and g-“
“- gin,” I finish for her, and Estella’s laugh ripples the water.
“Yeah. That.” I sniff at myself, but she stretches her arms over her head. “You can’t smell it. Not like I can.”
“Is…is that your sense?”
Her amber eyes flick back to me. “You’re sharper than you look.”
“I try.”
She leans back in the tub and lets her pink hair fall in a curtain over the lip, and I rake my hands through it as she talks.
“I can smell the connections between people and fae. Animals too, if I try hard. And you reek of Dane.”
I frown. “Th-That doesn’t mean anything.”
She laughs. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
I move to her stomach, the flat plane of it so different from the men fae, so slender and picturesque, like she’s every woman who’s ever posed for a naked painting by a famous artist.
“You remind me of her,” Estella murmurs, her eyes closed as I thread my fingers through her hair.
“Who?”
“The Bright Lady,” She says. “Just being around her made me feel like everything was going to be alright. You’ve got the same sort of feeling, I think. I’m sure the others have felt it, too.”
“Two of the others, maybe,” I grumble. “The third one, not so much.”
She cracks one amber eye open with a grin. “What, did he call you an idiot one too many times?”
I go still. “How did you -“
“Because he did that to me when we first met. He did it to Altair, and Quinn, and Axel. Everybody. The Bright Lady most of all. He’s an ass about it but we love him for it.”
I watch as she waves her delicate hand through the water listlessly.
“I’m surprised he called a human an idiot,” She muses. “He usually just fucks them without talking to them at all.”
The fragrant steam puffs up against my face, warming my goose-fleshed cheeks. Estella splashes water playfully up at her toes, laughing again.
“He gave the Bright Lady a nickname, once, and I remember I felt so jealous. Over both of them. He’s my brother and she was my everything. But at that moment I wanted a nickname from him too, you know? He never gave me one, the bastard. I bet if I try now he’ll turn me down again. He loves doing that.”
“What -“ I clear my throat finally. “What was the nickname?”
“Little monster?” She frowns. “No, little demon? Definitely not. God, it’s been three hundred years -”
“Little beast?” I whisper. All my organs sink like lead to the bottom of me. Estella sits up and looks back at me over her shoulder, her pink eyebrows drawn tight.
“How do you know that?”
I’m dead silent, too heavy to talk. My tongue even feels like lead.
“Oh no,” Estella murmurs. “Oh no, he didn’t. May, tell me he didn’t.”
My silence is answer enough for her, and she stands up instantly. I barely see her true form out of the corner of my eyes rooted to the floor - a brilliant orange dress with pink underlay that vibrates in and out of existence, floaty like chiffon and dusted with quivering gold.
“I’m going to rip his balls off,” She growls. “How could he? And a human - “ She cuts herself off. “Thank you for the meal, May. But I’ve got some rage to express healthily before I self-destruct.”
I nod limply, the sound of the door opening and closing a relief.
****
If I wasn’t grateful for my moleskin sketchbooks before, I am now. I doodle the garden outside my window, curled up in the window seat with a mug of the house fae’s hot chocolate and a blueberry scone and trying desperately to not think about anything. But the brain - or my brain, at least - loves to do the opposite of what I want it to.
Little beast.
I didn’t even know I liked the nickname until Estella told me it wasn’t mine. The moment I realized Dane had used it for someone else before me, I felt like I’d been stabbed square in the back. Still do, my back aching with the imaginary wound.
Sometimes it takes the absence of something to make you realize you miss it. And I missed Dane calling me ‘little beast’. I thought it was all mine, I thought it was unique and different and maybe, just maybe in the very depths of my soul I’d never admit to, I thought it was endearing. I thought it marked me from the rest of the humans in his eyes. The women at the club could have his glamor, but I had a nickname.
And now I don’t even have that.
I know the Bright Lady is special to them all, somehow. They use her name like a prayer, a swear. But I thought she was a god - their god, and yet Estella talked about her like she was a tangible person. Like she knew her and…loved her.
For the next few days I hang out with Estella. She likes to sun herself on the lawn in a tiny orange bikini, and on rainy days she makes do with the window seats in the library. I bring her drinks from the house fae’s silver cart and while my skin doesn’t tolerate the sun as well as hers, it still feels nice. When she drops me off at work she asks me to bring back some human magazines and I do, and we pour over them together as she asks me incessant questions about who every celebrity is, what every fashion item is called, and why the hell all the kids these days are shading their eyes with their forearms and sticking the other arm way out. It takes me a second to realize she means dabbing, but when I do I absolutely lose it.
She tells me Vil didn’t let her out as much as the others over the three years they’ve been bound - mostly because her connection sense wasn’t deemed as useful to him. She says he barely even listens to it at all and I reel in how ironic it is; if he does die, it’ll be because I decide to have sex with Dane. If Vil listened to Estella’s sense better, he’d know exactly how I feel about him.
Even if I still don’t know how I feel about him.
I ask questions about the Bright Lady, and fae history - things Quinn didn’t want to tell me. She tells me most of it; that the fae courts warred with each other a long time ago, killing each other and ruining the Bright Place with their powers. But the Bright Lady, a fae from a small village with no particular magical strength, pulled together eight high fae under her banner, and went around trying to peace-talk the other fae-courts into unifying the land. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and they had to fight. But eventually all the courts recognized the Bright Lady as a powerful agent of peace. She might’ve not had much magical ability, but her strengths lied in her genuinely good heart, her negotiating skills, and her great empathy for everything and everyone. They all loved her in different deep ways - Altair like a mother, Estella like a beloved sister, Quinn possessively and Dane obsessively.
But, Estella tells me with darkened eyes, the Bright Lady knew the peace wouldn’t last forever. So she sacrificed herself (something immortal fae never do) to become ethereal - a force of the nature of the Bright Place itself. And now she watches over all fae.
“We made a promise to her,” Estella flips through a magazine slowly, her eyes racing over the words even a they fill with tears on the rims. “To protect all fae in the Bright Place, no matter what. And that scum Van Grier used it against us.”
I start. “He what?”
“He came to all eight of us and lied,” She frowns. “Told us someone in our group was planning a war. We didn’t believe it at first, but it’d been three hundred years since the Bright Lady left us. We were heartbroken, still, still dealing with it in our ways. Poorly, of course, because we’re fae and we live forever and why deal with emotions now when you have forever to deal with them?”
She takes a sip of her daiquiri and breathes out.
“We were so
suspicious of each other we just…we all wanted to prove we were still faithful to our promise to the Bright Lady. He offered us what seemed like a peaceful solution from a neutral third party; if we all agreed to his binding, if we all really wanted to protect the fae we’d put aside our pride and unite again under one banner, his banner…” She trails off.
“And then the fae who didn’t agree to it would’ve been the ‘traitor’ planning ‘war’,” I muse. Estella nods.
“Exactly. It was a show of good faith that just went so, so wrong.”
“He took advantage of you,” I hiss. “And he’ll pay for it.”