They were the same eyes, of course, almond-shaped and a bright hazel, but there was something very different about them. The morning sunlight caught the irises brilliantly, and when I locked eyes with myself, my gaze was so bright and intense that I found myself almost unable to look away. I sensed a deep, resonant power behind those eyes, which frightened me and sent a foreign shiver down my spine. I knew, somehow, that anyone who was unfortunate enough to meet my gaze would be very much under my control until I deigned to set them free. Draeden had been right—this power was very useful. And I would have given anything not to have it.
There was a loud knock at the door, and I started violently.
"Um, one moment!" I shouted. Damn it, Draeden had even changed my voice!
"Marcus?" came my father's voice through the heavy wooden door. "Are you decent? Let us in, please!"
"A moment, please, Father!" I shouted, furiously combing my fingers through my hair and futilely attempting to dim the brilliant, frantic look in my eyes. However, I realized that there was nothing I could do, save attempt to avoid eye contact for as long as possible.
What was I to tell them? The idea of informing them of the truth was laughable—what if they decided I had been visited by a demon instead? What if I had been visited by a demon?!
"Marcus?" My mother was there, too. "Did the fairy come to you? What gift did he give you?"
Through the door, I said, "Um, yes. I think so. Um, I don't know."
"You don't know?!" shouted my father. "Whatever do you mean?"
"He … he didn't say." I gasped in relief when the lie came to me.
"Didn't say?! Marcus, let us in!"
"No, Mother, I'm really not decent at the moment!" I was leaning up against the door, my head thrown back in despair. What was I going to do?! "I'll be down for breakfast in a moment!"
There was a pause. Then my mother's voice: "Well, alright, Marcus. We'll expect you right away."
"Yes, Mother," I managed, and then slid to the floor while listening to the slow retreat of their footsteps.
By the time I descended to the meal hall for breakfast, I felt slightly more resigned. I had reviewed all of my options (among them running away or staying in my bedroom for the rest of my life), but in the end, the only viable one seemed to be to go to breakfast and deal with the results as best as I could. I had made myself presentable, combing my hair back neatly and donning a large, brown leather coat to further hide my new physique. I had also practiced walking back and forth in my bedroom without taking my eyes from the floor. Aside from that, there was nothing I could do besides shuffle slowly down the stairs and hope that no one looked at me.
Everyone did, of course. The news that I had indeed been visited by a fairy had spread throughout the castle, and everyone was eager to hear my story. I continued to expand my lie from before, explaining that the fairy had neglected to introduce himself or inform me of the nature of the powers with which he had gifted me. My parents were naturally disappointed, but took the news with good humour, deciding that my gifts would most certainly reveal themselves when the time was right, and that the best course of action would be to continue with the plans already made to send me to the king.
I couldn't decide whether to be happy with this decision or not. For one thing, the Wizard Dante had not seen me before and would not notice my sudden change in appearance, but on the other, I didn't fancy going to the king and informing him that, while I definitely possessed magical powers, I had no idea what they were, and was therefore useless. The thought of actually demonstrating or using my powers in any way made me sick to my stomach.
I was alternating thinking about this and attempting to quell the sick feelings in my gut when I was distracted by a serving maid, who was complaining about the soup.
"I swear it wasn't here before!" she exclaimed. "Something blue, like tiny sapphires in the soup!"
"Let me see," my father ordered, and as the maid came toward him with the heavy pot, I made the mistake of looking up.
Our eyes met, and I saw hers widen, and heard the small, soundless gasp that escaped her lips when I involuntarily unleashed the full power of my eyes onto her. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw right into her soul, and felt the flutter of her heart and racing of her blood as her body froze in surprise. Then she shrieked, the heavy iron pot falling from her hands and landing with a thud on the tile floor.
There was a flurry of activity as the other serving maids swooped in to right the pot, but the damage was done: about half of the soup had spilled and was spreading across the floor. Fixing my eyes firmly downward, I could see from my peripheral vision that there did indeed seem to be traces of a deep blue substance glittering amongst the vegetables and broth. Whilst the maids busied themselves with cleaning up the spill, I let my eyes follow the rapidly dissipating line of deep blue powder along the floor, to where it was lightly falling in a trail from the roof. I looked up, and suppressed a gasp when I saw a dark, winged figure sitting among the rafters of the hall. I blinked, trying to see clearer, but the figure disappeared.
The maid whom I had involuntarily influenced seemed to be in shock. I didn't look at her again, but I felt quite certain that she was staring at me, and I could almost feel the pleasurable excitement with which her body had betrayed her still pulsing through her against her will. She apologized profusely to my father, and was allowed to leave on account of feeling faint.
I felt faint myself, and as soon I was able, stood up from the table, announcing that I was not hungry and excusing myself from breakfast.
"Don't go too far, Marcus," my mother ordered me distractedly as I fled the meal hall. "The Wizard Dante will be arriving sometime this afternoon."
I hardly bothered to listen or care.
I had always felt safe in the forest. With the sun filtering softly through the green leaves of the birch trees, and the carpet of mosses and dried leaves muffling all sounds on the uneven ground, it felt immensely peaceful. It was the only place I had ever been where I felt truly alone.
And I needed badly to be alone now. My mind was awhirl with emotions and frantic thoughts. Since the day before, my life had changed so much, and not at all in the way I had thought it would. I wanted very badly to be a small innocent boy again, to not know or care anymore about my future than what I was told to by my parents and tutors. I hated that fairy, Draeden, and the way he made me feel—as if being such a sexual and base creature was something that was acceptable; as if I should be grateful for the evil curse which he had forced onto me. Most of all, I hated myself—hated myself for thinking that I should have any say in my future. Me, the spoiled, sexual deviant.
Without realizing it, I had picked up a long branch from the ground and begun to swish it back and forth, enjoying the satisfying thwack that resulted whenever it impacted with a branch or trunk of a tree that happened to be in my path. I was staggering aimlessly, not certain of where I was or where I was going; I focused only on the rhythmic swing and impact of the branch, imagining that its targets were everything that I hated about my life: me, that stupid fairy, my stupid powers, and my disgusting and evil sexuality. I barely noticed when the twig impacted, quite forcefully, with a human obstruction.
The obstruction had, unfortunately, been carrying quite a heavy load of dry wood, which toppled everywhere upon my directly running into him with a branch. Blushing and apologizing profusely, I immediately stooped to help gather up some of the wood, and before I could remember not to, I stared up into a pair of surprised blue eyes.
"Adam," I blurted out, and proceeded to drop several pieces of wood onto his hands and feet. The entire load of wood once again toppled to the ground around us.
"Um. Adam," I said again. "Here, let me help."
"That's alright!" he exclaimed, skirting away from my help, obviously dreading another instance of the heavy logs dropping onto his bare feet. "It's fine. Marcus?" He stopped gathering wood for a moment and looked at me, shoving the sweaty blond hair from his face
. "What are you doing here? You look … different."
I was staring at him again, unable to focus on anything but the intense concentration it took to keep my new powers in check, unable to even look away from him. The fact that he was quite possibly the most beautiful human I had ever laid eyes on didn't serve to lessen the difficulty of the situation any.
"Adam," I said, and then again, "Adam." I walked toward him, slowly, with my hand outstretched. The scene was fiercely reminiscent of one from mere hours ago, when a dark fairy had moved in close to a young, innocent boy, hand outstretched to take from him all his inhibitions. Only this time, I was the seducer, and Adam was helpless against me. I saw his breath, shallow in his chest, and felt the intense, heated core of him move subconsciously forward to meet my outstretched hand. I saw those blue eyes flicker to mine—there was unmistakeable lust in them—and a foreign shiver ran down my spine again. Except it didn't seem quite so foreign this time. Lust, power, and control were quickly becoming more familiar.
We stayed that way for a few incredibly long moments, my hand outstretched and tense, his body pulled taut toward it, as if on an invisible string, and our eyes locked with all manner of unspeakable, unsaid things passing between us. I knew then that I could have Adam, take from him whatever I wanted, and own him completely.
For a moment, I considered it; thought about moving close to him, touching him, ordering him to take his clothes off … Then my guilt surged back in full force, and I ran.
I didn't dare look back until I reached the castle, and then I bent over double, raggedly gasping, my legs shaking. What was wrong with me? How could I think those things? Of course it had been fine to think about them before, when there had been absolutely no chance of them ever happening, but now … everything was different. I had to be careful. I had to be careful, or else I might …
I shook my head violently and ran in through the front gates, intending to lock myself in my bedroom and seriously reconsider my plan to stay there for the rest of my life. That's when I noticed the carriage stopped in front of the heavy wooden doors. More similar to a covered wagon, it was made of weathered wood, painted in different, faded colours, and garishly decorated with hanging trinkets and jingling chimes. Perhaps I was simply not in the mood to like anything, but I found that I disliked it intensely. I rather thought I disliked its owner as well, despite never having met him. I would soon, of course, and the sinking feeling in my gut was not at all unfounded.
"Marcus!" I heard my mother call, as I attempted to sneak past the meal hall to my bedroom. "Marcus, Master Dante has arrived! Come and meet him."
I sighed and slumped into the meal hall, only to have my mother do a double take, and exclaim, "Marcus, are you alright? You look like you've been running!"
"I have," I said, still a little out of breath. "Um. I was exercising." She was staring at me, and I realized that I had lost my coat, and the top few buttons of my shirt had come undone. I hastily did them up and reached up to smooth my hair down, before turning to Dante.
He was an old man, but still seemingly quite healthy, dressed in formal long wizard's robes of a gaudy blue. His off-white beard was scraggly, as if he had been trying for several years to grow a long thick one and failing, and his hair fell in long unclean-looking ringlets over his shoulders and was thinning quite drastically on the top to reveal a shiny spotted scalp. If he was indeed the owner of the motley cart outside, then I had been quite correct in assuming that I wouldn't like him. Something about him made me intensely wary—the way he bent over to invade my mother's space as he spoke to her, the way his eyes slid nervously over me as he introduced himself. I made eye contact with him a few times as we spoke, but had no trouble controlling my powers—the very thought of feeling into his mind disgusted me horribly.
I was mercifully left alone at dinner, the arrival of Dante being the new and exciting event. My father questioned him about life at the palace and the state of affairs in the capital.
"Is it true they've made prostitution legal?" my mother asked, causing me to gape and drop most of the soup from my mouth back into the bowl. Luckily, no one noticed my momentary lack in manners.
"Oh, prostitution has been legal in the capital for several years now," answered Dante, carelessly slathering butter onto his bread (didn't he know how hard the maids worked to make it?!). "It's male prostitution that's recently become legal."
"Oh, dear," said my mother.
"Yes, and the next thing you know they'll be allowing male prostitutes to service other men!" my father grumbled. "Disgusting."
There was a collective murmur of agreement, and then a moment of silence for the lost propriety of the capital. I felt sick to my stomach.
"Oh, Marcus, could you please pass the gravy?" Dante's voice startled me from my self-loathing reverie.
"Oh, um." I looked around for the gravy boat. It was at the far end of the table, obviously nowhere near me.
"Ah!" said Dante. "Never mind, then!" He delicately lifted a hand, and the gravy boat slowly rose into the air to float down the length of table, before setting itself down neatly next to Dante.
There was flurry of appreciative gasps from around the table, and several people clapped.
"Did you see what he did, Marcus?" my mother gasped at me. "What strong magic he must have!"
After what I had seen Draeden do the night before, I was utterly unimpressed. Granted, Draeden was a fairy and Dante a seemingly normal human being, but still—the self-satisfied smirk on Dante's face seemed entirely unwarranted to me. I glared at him, and he caught my eye.
"Don't be jealous, young Marcus," he said, loud enough for the whole table to hear. "I'm going to attempt to teach you some magic on our journey. Perhaps by the time we reach the capital, you, too, will be able to make gravy boats float to you."
"Oh, won't that be wonderful?" my mother gasped, beaming at me.
"Yes," I said. "Brilliant."
Still smarting from being called 'young Marcus' and treated like a jealous child in front of the entire table, I escaped up to my bedroom as soon as dinner was over. As I lay on my bed with my eyes closed, I began to think about Adam again. I could picture him very clearly—his shaggy dirty-blond hair, his strong chin, and those big, beautiful blue eyes, full of desire … desire for me.
I jumped up when the door opened, and for a moment, thought that my daydream had formed itself into reality. Adam was indeed there, bare-chested as usual, with a couple of thick logs in his arms, but his face was lowered, and he looked up at me cautiously as he shuffled in and set the logs down by the fireplace.
"I was delivering the wood," he said, by way of explanation. "They told me to bring some up here—and to tell you that Lord Dante wishes to leave at sunrise tomorrow."
I realized I was staring at him. "Um, alright," I replied. "Thank you."
He turned to go, but then turned back suddenly. "Ah, Marcus," he started. "About today … "
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Yes, Adam, I'm so sorry."
"No! No, it's me who should be sorry, I shouldn't have—"
I wasn't aware of standing, but suddenly, I was right next to him, holding a finger to his lips. "It was my fault. I'm sorry."
"Yes," he said. "I—"
I shushed him. "Don't talk." I had never been this close to him before. I wanted to look at him, just to take in his perfect, smudged face, to run my fingers over his jaw and his cheeks and forehead. I leaned forward, breathing in his scent. Then, without really realizing what I was doing, I said, "Kiss me."
I could feel the power in the command as it slid from my lips, and I knew that he couldn't resist—and didn't want to. He leaned in, pressing our lips together. I clung to him, wanting him, needing him urgently. His lips and tongue moved over mine, devouring me, and I knew he felt the same way.
"Moan," I commanded, the power I was feeling making me light-headed and selfish. "My name."
Adam gasped, coming up for air. "Marcus." His voice was rough, and he moaned again when his
lips returned to mine, his body pressing heavily into me. "Marcus … "
I backed toward the bed, pulling him along with me. I couldn't think.
I didn't want to.
"The bed," I breathed. "Push me onto it."
He obeyed, shoving me down, and I pulled him down on top of me. He was ridiculously heavy and warm—I couldn't bring myself to care that his weight was painful and that I couldn't breathe. I gasped as his mouth covered mine again, smothering me with dry, urgent kisses.
"Adam!" I gasped, arching into him.
He cried out and pressed against me harder. His body was completely out of his control, but he managed to gasp out, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Marcus, I don't know what's happening to me. I've never wanted a man this way before. I—"
He broke off as another moan of pleasure escaped his lips. For a moment, I was in pure ecstasy, wanting him, wanting him to take me, wanting to make him feel things he had never felt before with anyone …
Then the meaning of what he had said made it through my clouded mind, and I knew that I couldn't go through with it.
"No!" I gasped, and tensed, shoving at him with all my might. "No, get off of me!"
Adam backed away immediately, hunched over with uneven gasps, his eyes hazy.
"What?" A hand covered his mouth as a little of the reason returned to his eyes, the realization of what he had been doing slowly creeping into his consciousness.
"Get out," I gasped. "Don't tell anyone."
He nodded and fled the room, leaving me completely alone and panting on the bed.
I wasn't alone for long.
The Fairy Gift Page 2
