by Nicole Hall
She tilted her head in question, but he didn’t want to talk about his suddenly foul mood. “I can get it. Where’s your desk?”
Her serenity made him feel like an ass. He should be keeping things professional, or at least platonic, since she’d be leaving sooner rather than later, but he didn’t have to be a jerk. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it.”
Ryan needed to get out of that room. He’d always thought like his apartment was spacious, but it didn’t feel that way when he was sharing it with a too-compelling, magic-obsessed fairy. The whole situation proved his point that nothing good came from magic.
The worst thing Zee could imagine was a mundane life, but a mundane life was exactly what he longed for.
The laptop didn’t hold a charge, but as long as it was plugged in it worked fine. Ryan grabbed it and the charging cable, but then he sat on the bed instead of going back out into the living room. What am I doing?
He ran a hand through his hair. Zee didn’t want to start something they for sure couldn’t finish, and his frustration wasn’t fair to her. Jake and Sera and all their nauseating coupleness were messing with his mind. He had no qualms about relationships in general, but damned if he was going to throw himself at a fairy that A, wasn’t interested, and B, was going back to Faelandia on the first non-malfunctioning trod leaving the station.
She’d always been hot, but she’d had this air of complete control, like she didn’t need anyone and couldn’t be bothered. Even in her current predicament, she sometimes had an attitude of superiority. Haughtiness. It was the moments in between that were getting to him. He’d assumed her confidence came from her magic and her position. He was fuzzy on the Fae hierarchy, but even without it, she was the strongest woman he’d ever met.
She was going to make it home, probably without needing his help at all, and he’d be hard-pressed to remember that the next time she looked at him with need in her eyes.
As an afterthought, he grabbed an extra mouse and a pad from the stack in his closet. The touchpad was a pain in the ass. At least he could help her with that.
He hadn’t been in the bedroom long, a couple of minutes maybe, but she’d fallen asleep leaning sideways against the couch with her hands tucked under her cheek. They didn’t know anything about her situation, but he was more than a little concerned about how much she was sleeping. The furrows in her brow smoothed when she wasn’t focusing on the problem. Ryan frowned and admitted he’d been a bit blasé about what was happening to her so far, but her need to eat human food was disturbing. Are all Fae the same way? If their magic is gone, will they be able to resort to more human eating habits? Is she special… or in trouble?
Ryan put the laptop down on the table next to her. He hadn’t been making up excuses when he’d said he had to work. The computer lab mostly ran itself as long as he was there, but he had two classes worth of tests he had to grade. Wisps of dark hair escaped from Zee’s braid, and he wanted to tuck them back in, or undo the braid entirely, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate him manhandling her hair while she slept.
The oddest urges kept popping up in his head, and Ryan thought it was best to have a blanket policy to ignore all of them. They could brainstorm ideas for getting her back to the Wood later. He managed to leave her be on the couch without touching her like a weirdo. Keeping his hands to himself was harder than he’d thought it would be, so he closed himself up in the bedroom with his tests and his resolve.
ZEE
For the second time that day, Zee woke up in a strange place. She assumed it was the same day. At the very least, it was day, though much later than she remembered it being. The sun slanted through the window, close to setting. She sat up and stretched, but her neck remained sore from sleeping at a tilt. Are all humans this tired all the time? Ryan had left the laptop next to her with a note about a malfunctioning battery, so she carried it to the kitchen table where she plugged it in and booted it up.
Ryan had taught her, and many of her people, how to use a similar model of computer. It had been one of her crowning moments as a leader. She’d brought the Fae, or at least their little enclave, into the future. Unfortunately, she hadn’t spent as much time as she should have poring over their historical texts. She’d ordered them scanned and had Ryan upload them to a secure server, but not everything had made it in. Not to mention, the computer that had access was still in the Wood with her people.
Zee blew out a breath as a familiar home screen appeared, willing herself to find a solution to the frustrating circle.
There were a few reputable sources on the internet that might have information on what had happened to her. There was also a good source in the apartment with her. She glanced at Ryan’s closed door. He was probably in there, and could probably help, but she was more than capable of performing some basic internet searches. Truth be told, she needed a break from him. His constant presence was wreaking havoc on her priorities.
She didn’t understand him on the best of days, but his downright fear of using magic was highly unusual. Some of it had come through while they’d been connected, but he’d been actively trying to hold it back. She wasn’t sure if it was so he could overcome it and learn to work with magic or because she’d been in his head and he didn’t want her to see it. More accurately, to see the cause of it.
Zee suspected it was probably both. Something had made Ryan afraid of his magic. The laptop chimed, interrupting her musing, and she got to work.
Almost a week later, Zee closed the laptop with a sigh and stared unseeing out the window. None of her emails or texts home had been returned. Ryan was probably right about the tech he’d installed being blown, not that she’d doubted him. Hope was an entirely different response than disbelief.
She’d claimed the kitchen table semi-permanently during her research marathon, and for the most part, Ryan had left her alone during the day. The trees were pretty with the midmorning sun shining through them, but the view didn’t do anything to relieve her frustration, so she got up and wandered into the living room.
Zee picked up an errant sock and returned a plate to the kitchen. Somehow over the last week, she and Ryan had fallen into a comfortable pattern living together. After that first day, they hadn’t tried any more magic lessons, and though he’d been feeding her regularly, they just sat side-by-side at the breakfast bar and mostly ate without speaking. She’d once asked why it was called a breakfast bar when they ate all their meals there, but he’d only shrugged. She’d had longer conversations with the sprites. At least he kept her well stocked in breakfast pastries.
The second morning, he’d tried to give her his bed, but she refused to kick him out of his own space. What she hadn’t told him was that she didn’t think she could handle sleeping in a place that contained so much of him. It had taken less than a day for him to find an air mattress for his extra bedroom, and she was thankful she could retreat there when she needed to.
Then there were days like today. She was restless and wasting energy cleaning the messes they’d both left behind. Usually, Ryan was already at work when she woke up. When he was at the apartment, he spent most of his time shuffling papers in his bedroom. That suited her fine. She’d never have gotten anything done if he was sitting on the couch, or worse, trying to help. His presence was distracting enough when he was in the other room.
His presence is distracting no matter where he is. Zee sighed and admitted the truth as she stacked dishes in the sink. She was avoiding Ryan in the hopes her feelings for him would go away, but he was making that hard for her too. When they were around each other, he couldn’t seem to keep his distance. The proximity was driving her crazy. He’d brush his hands down her hair when he’d walk past, but ignore her when she turned to look. When they had to share the kitchen, he’d invade her space, not touching, but close enough that she could feel him. She wanted to respond, to bridge the distance that was always there, but being a prudent Fae, she also wanted to proceed with caution.
At lea
st, most of her did. A small part of her wanted to storm his room after dark and see if he slept naked like she suspected. And that part grew stronger every day.
The dishes didn’t take long to rinse and put in the dishwasher, and her circuit brought her back to the useless laptop. With or without the distraction of Ryan, the Fae server had been a bust. There was no way she could access it outside of their network in the Glade. After that, the internet had seemed like the best place to find any information. She’d been hopeful when she started her research, but with each day that passed, she was becoming more convinced that humans would be the cause of their own extinction.
Zee shook her head slightly. How could humans and Fae, and others for that matter, live in the same world and have such completely different experiences?
She was staring out the window at the sunny park, thinking about going for a walk, when Ryan’s bedroom door opened. Zee glanced over, then did a double-take and hoped he hadn’t seen it. He wore loose grey pants that sat low on his hips…and nothing else. Oh my.
She’d known he was fit. He’d jumped into a Fae sparring match once when he was in the Glade repairing something, and he’d held his own. The broad expanse of chest surprised her though. How did he maintain that level of muscle if he taught children and sat in front of computers all day?
He yawned then stopped short when he saw her. Zee thought for a second he was going to retreat back into the bedroom, but he walked through to the kitchen instead.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” he asked in a husky voice.
“Sort of.”
He opened the refrigerator and stared into it before pulling out the orange juice, which he chugged straight from the carton. Zee wrinkled her nose. He didn’t even shake it up first.
“Are all humans slovenly?”
He swiped his arm across his mouth and put the container back before responding. “Slovenly. What a fancy word. Sometimes I forget you’re not human, then you say something like that and I’m reminded again how different you are.”
Zee felt a pang of hurt, but it was true. She was different. “You’re not at work today.”
“It’s Saturday. On the weekends, we only torture the really dedicated kids.”
“Right. The arbitrary human work week.”
Ryan absently rubbed his abs, and Zee valiantly fought to keep her eyes on his face. “You sound cranky. Run out of donuts?”
Zee leaned back in her chair with a sigh and waved at the closed laptop. “Humans are stupid. They can’t even get the simplest of Fae stories right. Instead, they insist on adding in flourishes and taking out relevant information.”
“You’ve been trying to find data in fairy tales?”
“I’m trying to find factual information on the Fae, where would you have me look, Wikipedia?”
He held up a hand. “Wait, start from the beginning. Why are you looking for info on the Fae? You are Fae. I’d argue you know more than any human, alive or dead.”
Zee clenched her fists in her lap, trying to hold on to her temper. She wasn’t frustrated with him in particular, but she was tired of days of useless searching. It should have been a simple matter of research, but her people were infamously close-lipped. When they’d first moved to Texas, the original Fae had made a pact with the Wood which created the barriers surrounding Torix and the Glade. It was well before her time, so all she had was second-hand knowledge of the ritual, and no facts. She needed specifics.
Of course, Ryan wouldn’t know any of that because she hadn’t told him.
“I want to find out the details of the original pact with the Wood so that I can reverse the consequences of breaking it…somehow.”
“I thought you knew the details.”
Time to bring him in on a few more secrets. “I’m not as old as you think I am. I’ve only been leading the Fae for fifty years or so. Before that, we’ve had other leaders. Most of the originals who came here from Europe have moved on. The trods go many places, and while we weren’t permitted to leave the Wood, we could travel to other Fae villages. Some leave and don’t come back. Some die.”
Ryan sat down next to her. “So you didn’t help put up the barriers.”
“Correct. I was born in the Glade well after the pact was made.” Zee forced her hands to relax. “I know how to renew them, but it never occurred to me that someone would remove them entirely. I wasn’t even aware that was possible. When the pact was broken, we entered uncharted territory as far as my experience and knowledge are concerned.”
She stared down at her short nails. “I don’t even know if I lost my magic because I’m the leader or because I happened to be in the trods when it happened, or because you magically pulled me from the Wood. And I can’t access our database outside the network, so I can’t gather any more information.”
“Other than from fairy tales.”
Zee rubbed her thighs and tilted her head up at him. “And one prolific conspiracy theorist who believes we may be aliens, but he has a disturbing amount of other information correct.”
Ryan perked up at that tidbit. “Are you going to send fairy assassins after him?”
For once, Zee couldn’t tell if Ryan was joking or not. It would be like him to think they had Fae assassins, and she couldn’t explain that truth without risking much greater repercussions than just missing her magic. “No, I’m going to keep an eye on him and pass the information along to other, more suitable parties.”
Ryan nodded and smiled. “Yep. Fairy assassins.”
Zee rolled her eyes. “Or I could have you hack his website and shut it down.”
“Nope. I told you I only do ethical hacking. By the way, it’s hot when you use words like slovenly and hack in the same conversation. Makes me think of a sexy, young school marm.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Well, now you’ve ruined it with your talking.”
His face scrunched up. “Ruined what?”
“All the strutting around without your shirt on.” Her eyes flicked south of his face for barely a millisecond, but she glanced away immediately, lifting her chin.
Ryan grinned and flexed his shoulders. “Ruined it, huh? That’s too bad. Guess I’ll have to make it up to you.”
You’re not interested, remember? She tried to keep her eyes averted, but failed, and her body flushed with excitement anyway. “What did you have in mind?” Though her voice was bland, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she was going to have the strength to resist.
But he sobered, all joking dropped from his demeanor. “Actually, I have some information you’ll find useful, but you have to promise not to punish me for it.”
Zee raised a haughty brow. “That promise doesn’t sound like it would be in my best interests to make. What did you do?”
Ryan hesitated for a long moment, eyeing her skeptically, but then shrugged. “I guess you can’t do much without magic anyway.”
Zee was tempted to show him how very wrong he was, but decided to wait until he gave her the information.
“When I configured your network and database, I granted myself admin access.”
He said the words like the information was important, but Zee didn’t know what it meant or how it could help her. “Can you explain that in simpler terms?”
“Let me first say that I would have told you this earlier if I'd known what you were trying to do, but…I can get into your network. From here.” He gestured at the computer in front of her. “I can use that laptop if you want. It was a fail-safe because I wanted some insurance.”
Zee looked at the closed laptop then back up at Ryan. “You have access to our database? The one you assured me was secure.”
“Oh, it is secure. I check it regularly like a good IT monkey.”
She’d thought Ryan had been developing more of an appreciation for the Fae over the last week. He’d been kind when he didn’t have to be, and he’d been receptive to learning how to control his magic. The change made it more painful to find out he’d made plans to take
advantage of them should the need ever arise. Zee recognized that he was now telling her the truth to help her, but his distrust cut deep.
“Why didn’t you tell me before? I’ve been wasting time all week.”
“I didn’t know what you were doing, and honestly, I had other things on my mind. I wanted to get through this week at school and get some breathing room before we tackled the mounting problems of a pissed off forest and a powerless fairy.”
Zee stiffened at the ‘powerless fairy’ remark and crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. “Well this has certainly been a day of revelations.”
“And it’s only mid-morning. If it makes you feel better, you’re adapting remarkably well for someone whose life changed in an instant. If I had to adjust to living in a new world, I’d have lost it on day one.”
Some of her ire drained away. “The food helps.”
Ryan grinned, possibly thinking he was out of danger. “Speaking of food, Jake and Sera want us to come over for dinner tonight.”
Zee’s mouth dropped open. “I can finally find some answers and you want to go to dinner like it’s some kind of double date?”
“How do you even know about double dates? And no. I want to relax and go visit my best friend after a hard week at work. Best case scenario, I’ll drink more beer than I should, eat some steak, and give him shit for letting Sera take over his life. That’s what I want to do tonight.”
She waved him away and opened the laptop. “Give me access, then go I’ll probably get more work done if you’re gone anyway.” As much as she wanted him to stay away as ‘Ryan the temptation’, she wanted his help as ‘Ryan the tech god’, his words. But she was also disappointed in his seeming unwillingness to truly help. No matter, I’m used to working on my own.
