by Zoe Parker
Oh wait, there’s more, there always is in situations like this. Anyone who Awakens also receives a Triad.
It’s a flipping complicated disaster.
A Triad is three people, not counting yourself, who come together to bond with you and to amplify and help control your power. A Pinnacle, who is the strongest of the Triad, they control the power of the group as a whole—always the strongest. An anchor which holds the Center—the Awakened—to the group and keeps them grounded to use magic. Last you have the Hook, which draws power or magic in for the Awakened to use.
Magic aside it’s a prefabbed orgy because sex can be an uncontrollable side-effect of the bonding that a Triad goes through. It doesn’t force them to be mates. It encourages them because any other romantic bonds the members share with someone outside of the circle tends to be tame compared to the one they feel with their Awakened.
I’ll be damned if I’ll admit that it appeals to me, even a little tiny bit.
Sighing I accept what’s ‘potentially’ going to happen, I’ll at least swim that far out of the denial river for the time being. Faerie chooses who gets what and Faerie isn’t something I can stop. Gripping the nylon handle of the backpack slung over my shoulder, I suck it up and take the final steps to the front gate.
The guard, a Halfling—human and Elf mix—looks at me with a frown of annoyance. His face then pales when he looks past me to the ever silent Ciar. Ciar has that effect on people. Amused, I turn to look at him and my mouth falls open in shock. Ciar is no longer an animal.
Holy meatballs!
Before me stands a stranger, an incredibly good-looking one. I know my mouth is hanging open, but I can’t seem to do anything about it except stare at him, hard.
Spiky, messy black hair crowns a face that the devil would envy. Its blood red tips graze his cheeks, lightened by the sunlight haloing his face in a bloody halo. That bright color is an indication of his power and merely a peek.
His eyes are so green and bright that they resemble glowing emeralds as they regard me with pure amusement. Still, I continue gawking. I genuinely can’t help myself. My gaze keeps exploring the revelation that’s him as a humanoid. Perfect red lips surround a mouthful of sharp teeth that are bared in a smile too big to be normal.
Still that smile makes my heart beat faster.
My eyes trail down to broad shoulders and long, leanly muscled arms, and a perfectly formed, hairless chest that tapers to a slim waist hosting an eight pack of abs that flow effortlessly in a v down to—my eyebrow rises—well, that explains the fairies chasing him all the time.
It’s hard not to admire it—uh, him. His legs are long and sinewy with the muscles clearly defined through his bronze skin. Even his feet are gorgeous. People should not be as pretty as the man I’m looking at.
I’ve never seen him in his human form before, ever. I knew he had one but he didn’t share it with me and the fact that he is now makes me a bit suspicious about the reasons. Ciar is the world’s most ridiculously organized planner. He plans out everything, not kidding. Every action, every word. Nagan says that Ciar is the only creature he knows that can damn near equal Mada with the plotting.
Except that Ciar isn’t a soothsayer.
From his Blank Space he produces a duffle bag and, without a care in the world, kneels to dig through it. Refusing to look away—no way I can look away from that—I watch him stand and slide on a pair of worn jeans followed by a plain black t-shirt with the words ‘I poop magic’ on it, all sans underwear.
I laugh at the absurdity of it. Who knew Ciar has a sense of humor?
The icing on the cake is a pair of bright yellow flip flops. Oh gods.
As I laugh harder, he smiles at me again, showing a dimple in his left cheek. My stomach tightens as the suspicions of his plotting something goes into overtime. Which in turn makes me stop laughing. I swallow past an incredibly dry mouth.
“Who might you be?” the Halfling asks, nervously clearing his throat, bringing me right out of the haze of the eye-feast that’s Ciar. In a roundabout way the Halfling rescued me from saying or doing something stupid because I was well on the way to doing just that.
“Keri Nightshade,” I answer. I know I’m on his list. Mada would’ve made sure.
“Yes, I see you’re a third year.” He eyes me up and down, “You don’t look 25 years old.”
My upper lip curls flashing some fang.
“Do you have identification?” he asks, in that same snide tone.
Ignoring it, I swing the backpack around and search around for the envelope Nagan gave me. I open it and look at its contents. Paper money, a draft card and picture identification.
Between Ciar and Nagan I was well educated on how the world works, including how to handle money.
I hand the guard the identification card. He makes doubting noises in the back of his throat as he studies it and then scans it in a machine on the little desk in front of him.
“Smile,” he says.
The camera flash blinds me momentarily. Ciar growls as the machine on the desk in front of the guard whirs and then spits out a card. The guard shakes it to dry it and then hands it to me, along with my ID and with a smirk on his blotchy face.
I sigh when I look at it. The picture is horrible. I look walleyed and one of my eyes are mostly shut. My nose is also all scrunched up above a mouth that looks like I sucked on a lemon.
Halflings are as big of dicks as Elves.
The guard does the same task for Ciar, except nicer. Ciar watches the guard closely for a moment and I can smell his magic, briefly, on the air. Ciar is putting a bit of a magical whammy him. I can see it in the brief glazing of the guard’s eyes and the slight gaping of his mouth.
It’s gone in a blink and I caught it only because I know what to look for.
The man shakes his head and turns to me with the previous sour look once again on his face and says, “You can pick up your training schedule from the main office after you get settled into your room.” He hands me a slip of paper with my room information on it. “I don’t know how you convinced them to let you room with a pure-blood but keep the trouble to a minimum. Or I’ll report it to the campus office.” He sneers at that statement.
Ciar huffs in amusement. Which translates roughly to, the Halfling won’t live long enough to report anything in that case.
Dismissing the guard from my mind, I walk towards the double doors of the building and yank them open to hurry inside. Thankfully there isn’t anyone about. I know this is a mixed dorm house so I’m not surprised when some of the rooms I pass have both sexes together—intimately. Fae aren’t shy and apparently neither are some of these humans. It’s obvious to my nose and ears and in some cases my eyes, they all like to… mingle.
Not that it bothers me. Sex is a completely natural function and under certain conditions, a powerful one. The only people who have hang ups about it, ever, are humans. Except these ones. They’re apparently ahead of the curve.
I hope no one is doing the deed in my room. That will annoy the crap out of me, especially since we’re supposed to have the room to ourselves. Money was exchanged I’m sure. There’s no other explanation for me starting in the Menagerie at twenty-five versus the age of eighteen that comes after whatever schooling they have as a child. If nothing else the lack of questions confirms it.
Mada has the wealth of the forest at her beck and call, I’ll want for nothing while I’m here. Material wise.
‘You realize we’ll need to blood-bond?’
Ciar’s voice in my head is not a new phenomenon but for some reason at this moment, it strikes a deeper chord inside me. Seeing him as a man kind of changes things and I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at him the same way again. These changes may or may not be good, only time will tell.
The blood-bond isn’t my first pick but not unexpected either. I guess in the back of my mind I accepted we’d form one. It’s a way for us to keep track of each other and since we’re strangers to this p
lace, that’s necessary. I don’t resent Ciar being here, in fact, I appreciate it more than I’ll admit out loud and when Mada mentioned it he immediately volunteered to come with me.
“I’m aware that’s an option,” I say, out loud.
Talking to him in my head feels too intimate right now. Something is going on with how he fits into my life and I haven’t figured it out yet.
The silence stretches tight between us, this isn’t anything new. I always have trouble talking to Ciar. His presence is overwhelming at times and now that he’s more than a wolfy-dog...
With relief I find our room on the third floor. Standing outside of the closed door staring at the brass numbers adorning it I sigh. The significance of the room number hits me, sixty-nine, really?
Rolling my eyes I open the door and pause in the doorway to sniff. My nose is pretty good—not as good as Ciar’s, but better than most. The musty, unused smell tells me that no one has been in this room for a long time. Good. I wait for Ciar to follow me in, then shut the door.
The lights come on automatically, which surprises me. I hope they don’t do that when I’m trying to sleep. That’d be jarring. Nice peaceful dreams about some hot guy I saw on TV and then boom lights on I jerk up and fall off the bed.
‘Magic lights, monster girl. They won’t turn on while you’re asleep.’
I frown at him. For one, I don’t know how I feel about him hearing my inner monologue about ‘peaceful dreams of hot guys’. For two, I didn’t know that he can read minds—because that’s exactly what he just did to me. That potentially means he’s heard every single bad thing I’ve ever thought about him.
I fight to keep the smile off my face. A little part of me is glad he did.
Instead of saying anything about the mind reading, I ask, “Do you know the reason she sent me here?” He stares at me for two seconds before simply raising an eyebrow. So yeah, he knows something. “Ciar, why are you really here?”
Catching me off guard he steps forward, closing the distance between us. Automatically my hands lash out to defend myself but he blocks the flight of my fist too easily. My instincts scream at me to freeze, so I do, while trying to stop the panicked tempo of my heart.
I can be sarcastic all I want in my head—well, maybe not as much as I thought—but it’s never good to show fear to Ciar, the Lord of the Wild Hunt, ever. Not that fear is all I’m feeling.
“We came here to find your Triad.” As he speaks the scent of him surrounds me. Spring, the smell of fresh turned earth, the dew on the grass at twilight. “You are going to Awaken, monster girl, and I will see it happen,” he says, his eyes flaring to a bright green before he releases me.
Like the coward I am, right now, I go sit on the bed by the farthest wall. Having a Triad means power and that’s not something I consider myself eve. I’m some lost mutt whose mother hated her.
“I’m kind of dreading who my Triad will be. My luck it’ll be the smelly guy that delivered groceries to us.” Not only one weird guy, either. A Triad consists of three individuals of the Awakened’s sexual preference—another hint from Faerie about mating—so I’ll have to contend with three strangers, not just one.
All bound to the soul strings of the Awakened, or the Center as some call it, so thoroughly that not even death is able to separate you. Hell, I’m more nervous about the Triad part of it than the potentially dying bit.
Another question pops into my head but before it can leave my mouth he’s answering it. “It was my choice to come with you. I will not return to the forest, Keri.”
Well, at least he saved me the hassle of figuring out how to ask.
Mada sending me here is starting to make sense and even them sending a guard to look over me. Ciar himself coming… that doesn’t make sense to me. Ciar has gone out of his way to mostly ignore me for years. Don’t get me wrong he’s always around—wait, he’s always around. Lurking at the fringes and watching. Full of snide comments and cold shoulders but a constant presence in my life.
I tilt my head to the side to study him. Ciar always has a motive. Always. It’s one of the first lessons I learned about him. Along with how cold and unfeeling he can be but that I never hold against him. I can’t compare him to a human. Not even a normal Fae.
Ciar is the Lord of the Hunt, Faerie justice incarnate. Some legends even say he’s the first of the Sluagh. For some reason I find it believable.
Nagan carefully tutored me on what the world is like outside of the forest, how to act, how to fit in. We even had the Ley-net in order for me to search online and see the world from that perspective too. In that respect, I’m not coming into this blind. He made sure to educate me about all the races and customs, including humans and their increasingly weird traditions.
Nagan also taught me to have an open mind and to never be afraid of being who and what I am. Because of him I’ll never be ashamed to be a creature of the forest, of the Sluagh.
However, everything else about this situation is unknown to me. I smile and the tips of my teeth bite into my bottom lip. I have my doubts about this Awakening hoopla, not that it’ll happen—but what will come out of it. For all I know I’ll be the worst janitor in history.
Although I do sense and adventure and well, I like a good adventure.
“What are you going to do while I’m doing all this classwork that I don’t want?” I ask him, laying back on the bed.
It’s surprisingly soft and as I sink into its lushness I feel a twinge of longing for my bed in the trees. For the sound of wind blowing through the leaves and the giggles of the Spriggets as they steal my shoes.
Mentally shaking myself, I look over at Ciar standing in the door as he says, “Joining you of course, to guard you.” His green eyes bore into me.
Guard me, huh? Why do I feel like that isn’t what he really means?
I stare at the cracked ceiling above me and I ask, “What do they think you are?”
There’s no way they know he’s a Puca, they’re so rare that they freak people out. Trust me I’ve dealt with it every single time we came into town together.
“A Selkie.” I snort at his answer.
The man wahooed the guard into seeing a Selkie instead of a Puca. To be fair, with his dark looks he can pull it off with minimal effort. His glamour is subtle but strong. I can only see through it because I know what’s under it. Well, I know what’s under it now. I had no idea that the—hot guy… yes, definitely a hot guy resided under all of that fur.
“You lack fish de-toilet.” I tease. Selkies smell like rotten fish, bless them.
Ciar smells… not bad.
Keri shut up because the last thing you need him to know is you think he’s—
“Hot?” The amusement in his voice is more than necessary.
I roll my eyes at him and say, “a dick.”
He chuckles, his tone indicating that he doesn’t believe me at all. We both know I’m a terrible liar but calling him a dick is nothing but the truth. This back-and-forth-goes-the-insult banter is normal for us, it’s a perpetual cycle when we speak. Except usually it involves a lot less… levity.
While I was growing up he elected himself to be my weapons, survival and fighting the world trainer. Basically anything that involves killing or maiming someone. Grouchy poodle took every opportunity to tell me how bad a fuck up I am at everything.
‘Keri, were you born with four feet? I have never seen someone trip on air.’ He’s said many times, ‘Keri, do you expect everyone to coddle you? Stop being weak.’ On and on like a bad habit.
If I were less of a person it might have affected me in a more negative way, instead I worked harder simply to annoy him. I worked harder period. It took me awhile to realize that a tiny bit of it was in the hopes one day he would tell me good job. Just once.
He didn’t, and I squished that hope early on for the most part.
“Come, we need to go get our schedules,” he says, sounding like none of this is anything but normal.
I si
gh and roll to my feet. His shirt should say ‘Bossy Bastard’ because that’s exactly what he is. I follow him out the door not really paying attention because my mind is already on what’s ahead. Running nose first into his chest brings me right out of my thoughts. I step back, and he leans forward reaching around me to magically lock our room.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Ciar has always had an unusual effect on me, but this particular feeling is strange and new… and I don’t know what to do with it. This time I decide to do nothing. With a smirk on his still new-to-me-face he turns, and I follow his yellow flip flopped feet through the hallway. I’m more careful this time to keep a little bit of distance between us. One face-smoosh to his chest is enough for me today.
“Why did you come here?” I ask him.
“Because you will go through your Awakening.” He says it in a tone that makes me want to throw something at him.
“Yeah, okay.” I mutter and then switch tactics. “Why have you never changed into a human before?”
“It wasn’t the time.”
That’s a very vague answer, not that I’m surprised by it. He always dances around answers and basically plays around in general with conversations. I think it’s part of his nature. Giving up on having a conversation about it I look around me.
All the dorms are connected via tunnels to the main campus, for those that can’t go out in the daylight, which makes getting around easier for everyone, in my opinion. There are several Fae that can’t tolerate the sunlight just like there are Fae who can’t tolerate moonlight. I’ve never had an issue with either but several of the Sluagh can’t go out into the direct sunlight.
I shake my head as I notice all the appreciative looks Ciar is getting. Their attention on him is not that big of a surprise. I mean, look at him. Even I’ve caught myself admiring him a time or two as we walk, how can I not? Those jeans fit him perfectly! There’s one problem though, why do I want to smack every single one of his admirers?
It isn’t jealousy. It’s deeper and feels… almost territorial. Oh no, the heck with this, I’m not falling into that trap. I push it all down and keep walking, some honeypots are poisonous and it isn’t my place to feel anything remotely like that about Ciar. How many times in my life has he told me I’m not good enough to be a Sluagh? Even if I’m willing to admit a sudden attraction to him I can’t act on it. I’ll never meet his standards.
