K.J. Sutton

The room was warm and inviting. A cheery fire burned, the bed was made, and a bath awaited. Nothing had changed since I left hours ago. It seemed bizarre, even wrong, because everything had changed.

Feeling hollow, I walked to the water basin and put my hands inside. Red instantly bloomed across the clear surface. As I watched it, a whimper escaped me. Suddenly I was frantic. I rubbed at my skin so violently that water sloshed over the sides of the bowl. Within seconds all the blood was off, but it wasn’t enough. I kept rubbing, scraping, splashing. I needed to feel clean.

Only when my hands were pink and stinging did I realize the truth; I would never be clean again.

Fallen. I hadn’t had to use that term in ages. Every species—faeries, werewolves, shapeshifters, nymphs—were descended from angels. No one knew whether it was mutation or evolution that had separated us.

Laughter drifting through the wall. For a while, I let myself cry. Mom always said there was no shame in it, but usually I refused to. It either drew attention or made me feel vulnerable, two things I loathed.

While any partner I had would be focused on the sex, all I would able to feel were the fears emanating from his skin. It was also perturbing that, when they looked at me, they saw a face that wasn’t truly mine. Once, I’d almost gone through with it just to have the experience. Something stopped me, though. Maybe some misplaced sense of nostalgia. My parents had been deeply in love, and I couldn’t help wanting the same.

“Watch yourself, Ian,” I growled now, glaring down at him. “You may have your daddy’s money to protect you, but someday even that might not be enough.”

Growing up, one of my parents’ strictest rules was restraint. To not use our powers unless we had to. But Dad wasn’t around to see all the perverts and assholes I dealt with on a daily basis. Sometimes restraint was overrated.

Tentatively, I stepped over the threshold. “Listen… I’m really sorry that I took off like that. It wasn’t cool.”

Silence settled over the small room. One thing I’d learned about Cyrus over the years was that he wouldn’t lie. Responses people usually gave because it was expected or normal didn’t occur to him. “You worried us,” he said finally.

“You escape a black market full of slavers and the first thing you do is go back to work?” a familiar voice asked.

I stiffened. Part of me insisted that it was a hallucination or an illusion—there was no way he’d found me here. When I turned, however, there he was. The faerie from the black market. He stood next to Bea’s truck, hands shoved in his coat pockets. He looked different from our first meeting. The glamour was still there, but it had altered. The features that had been nondescript during our first encounter were sharper and brighter. The most notable variation, however, was a long scar along one side of his face. It dragged the corner of his left eye down. Somehow it didn’t detract from his allure.

“Not sure if you know this, but it’s considered creepy when you try to learn things about someone without talking to them directly.”

He gave an elegant shrug of his shoulders. Laughter drifted in from the street. “Actually, she volunteered that information. I said I was there to see you. She started talking and couldn’t seem to stop.”

Everything about his demeanor was nonthreatening, but the power emanating from him was even stronger now. It felt like sparks. This creature didn’t come to Bea’s for conversation.

“Listen closely, because I’m only going to say this once.” I spoke as though there were a razor in my mouth, slicing and cutting with every word. “I’m not a faerie groupie, and I don’t like people that come on strong. Whatever you want, you won’t get. So go away and leave me alone.”

The faerie appraised me. “I’ll respect your wishes. But first, I’d like to give you something.”

Alarm bells went off in my head, and every muscle in my body went rigid. If he reached for a weapon or used magic, I would fight. No one was going to take me again. “You have no idea what I’m capable of,” I warned, readying myself.

“Of course I do,” he replied affably, giving me that faint half-smile again. “You’re a Nightmare. Your kind has been feared for so long, you’ve been hunted nearly to extinction. Your hearts are coveted like the fountain of youth. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered power like yours, but I recognized it instantly.”

Hearing the truth out loud, as if he were talking about the weather, made my breath catch. If he had already figured out what I was, nothing I said would deter him. But that didn’t stop me from trying. “If I see you again, I’ll kill you,” I managed. My eyes searched the alley around us, hoping to spot something I could use against him. Then I remembered the knife in the trash bag.

My threat rolled off the faerie like rain down a roof. He inclined his head, looking thoughtful. “I don’t make such statements lightly, Fortuna Sworn, but I swear that I intend you no harm,” he told me.

I’d had no choice but to go to bed. I would’ve thought sleep would be impossible, but it had been disturbingly easy. However much my mind roiled, my body was eager for respite. For once, it won their eternal war.

Oliver was the calmest, most level-headed person I knew. “I assume the slavers are dead by now?” he asked evenly.

“If not, they’re wishing they were.”

“I wish I could’ve been there,” he said through his teeth. “To protect you. To stop it from happening.”