by E E Everly
Natalia snickers. “Silly Sasha.”
I grin because Killian used to call me that.
After a few more sips, I’m on a high. “Yes. Oh, yes.” I take the cup from Natalia and suck my shake down in one minute. Brain freeze be damned. As usual, with my ambrosia, I become so relaxed that the hospital could be on fire and I wouldn’t care.
Dumitru rocks Kili near the door. “A nurse is coming. Better take down the blood, Nat.”
Natalia dashes in a blur to the blood, disconnects it, and hides all the evidence that she did a spell to siphon poison from my blood. She sits calmly in the rocker beside my bed. Dumitru steps away from the door as the nurse enters.
“Think you feel like feeding this little fella?” she asks.
My hands go over my breasts. “Now?”
“It’s best to try feeding him soon.”
I glance at Natalia. “Right.”
The nurse looks back and forth expectantly. “Do you need any help? I’ve been trained to assist new moms.”
“Uh. Nope, I’ve got this.”
“All right, then. Let me know how long he nurses or if you need assistance.” She bustles from the room.
Natalia takes Kili and shoves Dumitru out of the room. “I can’t help you vith this. I’ve never breastfed. Never had kids before I became a vampire.”
“How hard could it be?” I say.
I unsnap one side of my gown and take Kili from Natalia. She drifts to a chair in the corner to give me privacy. After a few unsuccessful latches, Kili clamps down on my nipple.
“Oh my hellfire!” I scream.
Natalia jumps to her feet and brushes over.
“Get him off! Get him off!”
Kili has the suction of a sonic vacuum. The strength of a lion in his jaw.
Dumitru bursts through the door. “Vhat is happening?” He sees my compromising situation and looks away. “Vhat is he doing to you?”
I somehow pry Kili from my poor poor nipple. He breaks into a wail.
“Vamp strength,” I mutter. “Vamp strength. Oh, why? Why?” I didn’t think. Though not a vampire, Kili was born with his father’s stolen vamp attributes. Strength, speed, advanced hearing and smelling.
“Where’s the amulet?” I pull my gown up before Dumitru dies from embarrassment and shush Kili with a gentle bounce. “Where’d they put my belongings?”
“You’re going to use the amulet on him now?” Natalia pulls the amulet from my belongings bag. The red stone has long since been stripped of its setting and chain to make it easy to slide into my pocket.
“That’s what I’ve always planned.” Killian’s vampire powers went into Kili at the moment of conception. It was an unfortunate side effect when a supernatural had sex with a storm sprite. I didn’t know Killian would lose his powers. Without them to continually regenerate his undead body, he was doomed to desiccate slowly.
The plan was to save him by returning his powers after Kili’s birth. Kili didn’t need them.
But we never had the chance to save Killian. We hoped his body would last until his son was born, but Killian was killed before we could return his powers.
Thus my ghost.
Where is he anyway?
A familiar breeze touches my temple. Wisps of hair flutter on my forehead. There he is. “He’s cute, isn’t he?” My neck tingles. “He can’t keep your strength. There’s no way I can nurse him.” I need ice. Not for my privates, but for my chest. I’m afraid to look, but I do. “Oh yelping yetis! It’s turning purple. Kili!”
Natalia hands me a latex glove, which I put on, and lays the amulet in my palm. I can’t touch the amulet with my own skin, or I’ll take the power that’s in it.
“Do it, for peace of mind and body,” she says.
I nod. I hold the amulet to Kili’s chest. His eyelids flutter and his legs twitch as the amulet glows. “I’m sorry, boo.”
Then the power transfer’s over. Kili relaxes and purses his lips.
“Now give it to yourself,” Nat says.
“Now?”
“I need peace of mind. If you have vamp powers, then you’ll heal faster. You’ll outrun any vamps chasing you, and you can smell and hear them from a mile away.”
“I could use quite a bit of healing.” Though as a storm sprite I’m “supernatural” according to human lingo, my abilities include controlling the weather and setting up a few measly wards. My body has remarkable, accelerated healing if I consume ambrosia, but not nearly as instantaneous as a vampire’s healing.
I want to be careful to take just the vamp powers. I’ve siphoned about a dozen demons into the amulet as well, and I don’t need their powers. I don’t want to overwhelm my system. “Take the amulet out of my hand after three seconds. That should be enough time to absorb the powers I need.”
Natalia nods. It’s only powered by someone who has my blood, so Natalia can touch it with her bare hand, unless she’s drunk from me recently. But we don’t make that a thing, like ever.
I do not like when vamps drink from me. I mean, who in their right mind does?
I drop the amulet into my ungloved hand. I instantly stiffen and feel a peculiar warmth flush through me. My arms flinch, and a sense of vitality fills me. With a strange clarity, a thump thump enters my hearing. The smell of blood fills my nostrils. Though Kili is nestled between my legs on the bed, all the fine hairs on his shoulders become clear. Even the little pores on his face are in sharp focus.
Natalia scoops the amulet from my palm. “How do you feel?” She checks my neck. “It’s healed.”
I try not to freak out. She’s so loud. I blink my eyes. “Can you whisper?” I touch Kili’s cheek. He’s still real but in high-def. “You’ll have to give me a vamp crash course on how to control these powers.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I feel dizzy.”
“You’ll get the hang of them,” Dumitru says. “I can’t vait to show you some moves.”
“One thing at a time.” I pick Kili up and prod my nipple. It’s healed. “Let’s try this again. Without the horrifying pain.”
THREE
One year later
I refused to give my son up during the first year of his life and send him to Belyven where he’d be safe with my mom. I also knew holding on to him for so long would make giving him up even harder. The truth is, I can’t keep him safe on Earth. Every supernatural being wants his storm sprite blood.
We’ve had too many close calls.
I was naïve to think that because his father was a vampire that the storm sprite scent on him would be diluted. That was foolish, wishful thinking. A vampire’s human anyway, a trapped, cursed soul in an undead human body. That’s all a vampire is. Their DNA doesn’t change.
Killian assured me that our son would not come out craving blood, that the human part would prevail. He was right. Because Kili was conceived by human sperm, he’s half storm sprite and half human. Well, actually…
I’m half storm sprite and half human, so I guess that makes Kili a quarter storm sprite. That quarter is enough for vampires and seed demons to crave his taste, especially since he’s young and fresh.
So here I am, in Killian’s old flat—with Natalia and Dumitru, my vampire bodyguards—clutching my son as I prepare to make the dangerous trek to my planet.
Dangerous because my planet will kill me. Dangerous because of the stupid curse on my head that says I have to stay exiled to Earth or I die.
Natalia helps me slide on a backpack full of things for Kili. It probably doesn’t matter. They’ll have everything they need to take care of him on my world. Earth is far different from Belyven—what humans would call a type of Middle Earth. We don’t have modern amenities such as cars and electricity.
What we have is magic.
“I vish ve could come,” Natalia says. Though she and Dumitru have an extraordinarily strong constitution, they can’t be trusted on a planet full of storm sprites. The slightest slip, the merest whiff, of say a storm sprite with a paper cut, and they’d mas
sacre everyone in sight. They’ve never tried to drink from me or my son, by sheer luck. They also swore, before Killian died, that they’d protect me, so they didn’t go around looking for opportunities to sink their teeth into Kili or me.
After all this time, they’ve kept their word.
But I can’t have Kili around as a temptation for them and other supernaturals.
“I wish you could come too,” I say. “I just don’t think you’ll be able to withstand the alluring aroma of thousands upon thousands of storm sprites on my world. Not to mention the other magical fae. Since the magnetic field is different, you might find your tastes altered. You might want to kill me once we cross over.”
I adjust my sleeping bundle in my infant carrier. At one, my son is big, but I have stolen vamp strength to support him. He’s just awkward in my arms. I have to hold him while I teleport between worlds because the stolen demon power inside me works by contact to bring someone along.
I know. I said I wouldn’t take any other powers from the amulet, but I caved. Even though I initially started with vampire power, demon power has this whole teleportation thing, and I need the demon power of teleportation to travel between worlds since my mother won’t open a portal to Earth without just cause.
“Be careful, okay,” Natalia says. “You teleport back if you feel the least bit sick.”
“I will.” I have no idea how long it’ll take for my curse to take effect once I teleport off Earth, but I’m willing to do anything for my son. I’ll appear outside the city since I can’t teleport past the wards around the city. Then it should take only a few minutes to fly to my mother’s palace and another few minutes to deliver Kili into her arms. And one last horrible moment for me to say goodbye.
I can do it.
What could possibly go wrong?
I’ve practiced teleporting across the world. Just not between worlds. It takes a bit of mind control and nothing more. Demons do it all the time.
I close my eyes and focus on my destination. The forest edge outside the fae city. The trees there have bright orange blossoms at the height of summer. I can picture the exact stream flowing around a mound of purple-tinged grasses.
As if I’m being drawn forward, as if space and time folds and contracts, I move past the boundaries of this world. The trees fly past and the sky grows dark as we leave Earth’s atmosphere. Past sun and stars. Past rocks and ice blasting through space.
I must be moving at the speed of light—faster than the speed of light—the universe flies past in a blur like in sci-fi movies.
Weightlessness gives me the sensation of soaring. The feeling is gone so quickly and is replaced by heaviness that I know I’ve moved.
The sweet aroma of the crysalant trees send peace through me. My eyes blink in astonishment. “Kili, we made it!”
My heart is so full it could burst. I haven’t been on Belyven for over two years, not since my eighteenth birthday when the curse went into effect. A look at the sprawling city sprouting up between the trees and craggy rocks tells me nothing has changed. A waterfall gushes over a cliff along the far edge of the city. Its river winds through and spins past me, heading into the forest beyond.
The small stone homes are narrow and pointy so they can fit between the trees that are everywhere. A low wall circles the city. That doesn’t mean it isn’t well protected. Storm sprites and their kin—other pixies, faeries, elves, nixies, various other sprites, and so on—don’t have many predators on our planet. The danger comes from other worlds, from predators who sneak on-world and kidnap or murder our inhabitants for their blood and magic.
Our city has magical protection keeping those foul beasts from coming in.
I take my first step toward the city. Mother probably knows I’m on my way. I haven’t talked to her in months. It took me a long time to forgive her for betraying Killian and his sister. She tried to make amends in her own way. By sending Killian to haunt me.
“Killian? Are you here?” I rub Kili’s belly through the carrier. He’s wide awake and taking in everything. “Can you sense your daddy?” I always have the strange sense that he can.
Kili blows raspberries. “Da. Ba ba.”
“Right. You’re so helpful.” A funny twinge hits my belly, and not in a good way. “Ugh.” An urge to vomit swims through me. “We better hurry.” The city gate is only thirty yards away, but it’s farther to the palace. Maybe a guard can send for Mother.
“I’ll fly,” I say to Kili. I snap my wings into existence. They shimmer behind my shoulders, a glorious span of energy that lifts me off my feet.
A dizziness spins my head, and my wings fall limp as I drop to my knees. It takes too much energy to sustain my wings. After blinking them out, I clutch Kili to myself and shrug off my backpack. Its weight feels as if it’s crushing me. “I’m not going to make it.” This truth slams into me, and tears bead in my eyes.
I should probably teleport back, but I have to take Kili somewhere safe. I will not let this trip be for nothing.
This is the first time trying my curse out. I knew I wouldn’t die instantly, but the speed of the weakness and the sick feeling that spreads through me I did not know. Perhaps my vampire healing is slowing the curse—just not fast enough. “Mom!” She’ll hear me. She has some sort of telepathic connection to me, because I’m her daughter.
“I have you,” a man says. His voice is throaty, heavy.
“Who—?” I look up through fuzzy vision. The first thing I see is a thin silver circle through his left nostril. He grins, and I have a weird urge to flick his nose ring.
“Don’t worry, Sasha. I’ll take you to the palace.” He stoops over and holds his arms out. A brown leather cuff covers his right wrist. Three silver circles set in the leather gleam in my eyes and make me squint.
I don’t recognize him. He’s not a guard in uniform. His hair is auburn and sticking up straight. The brown in his eyes almost looks orange. He wears simple clothes, a green top and brown pants. His jacket is elenat leather, smooth and brown, stippled with black.
“Who?” I repeat.
“Thandoran. I’m from Haventon. Traveling here for the day to see family. I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are, princess. Let me help you.”
I fall forward onto my hands. Kili’s weight makes me front heavy. He coos as if he’s on a merry-go-round. “All right.” What choice do I have?
Thandoran hoists me around, with Kili still as goofy and happy as can be in his carrier, and lifts me into his arms. His wings snap out, and we’re off.
“Don’t let me drop him.” I clutch Kili to me with all the strength that’s left in my arms.
“Don’t worry, princess. He’s fine. That thing you have him in looks secure.”
“I’m only saying it because everything’s going black.” My arms fall slack, and my head flops back. For one second, I see the sky above me in the center of my vision and then nothing more.
***
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank my beta readers. I’m always so grateful for their input, especially my rock star reader Julie L. Spencer. Many thanks also go to Rachel John, Diana Barker, and Lisa Swinton, whose keen eyes caught errors and suggested fantastic improvements. I am ever so grateful. And for my sister, Laura, who likes everything I write.
E.E. EVERLY
once trampled through the Appalachian woods and built forts in bramble bushes. She loves the sun in winter and the rain in summer. She believes in miracles, the power of love, and magic. Other worlds do exist, and her writing opens portals to them. Cake is always to be savored, and her soul animal is a cat. Meow.
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