Because sometimes a second was all it took for someone to tag you—and just like children, no one wanted to be It.
As I scanned the environment, on the hunt for the current unfortunate It, I took note of the ample foliage. The maples. The birches. You just didn’t get anything like this in the city, not with their beautiful canopies of fresh green leaves, far enough from spring to be lush and beautiful, but still weeks from fall that they held their crisp greenness that we fae were drawn to. If I came up here by myself, I was sure I could lose hours and hours just staring at the trees.
That being said, elves were undeniably worse than fairies when it came to appreciating nature. While I could watch the wind rustle through the leaves and branches, or spend a day in a meadow admiring each flower, an elf could lose themselves for months, unable to resist the siren call of the wild. The outdoors was like crack to an elf; at least fairies maintained their dignity. I could appreciate beauty without getting mind, body, and soul lost in it.
Just as I found myself admiring the black knots in a stark white birch, the only one surrounded by a cluster of maples, a twig snapped underfoot behind me. I whipped around, eyes wide, to see one of my sisters—Adriana—sneaking up on me. We both froze, gazes locked, before I turned and shot off with a half-shriek, half-giggle. She pursued, hot on my heels, our two blurs cutting through the forests and up the mountain slopes, but I eventually managed to lose her after jumping some thickets and skirting across a stream.
Chest heaving, I crouched behind a fat maple, its whole trunk enough to hide me away, a ridiculous smile on my face, and listened to the world settling around me.
“Too slow, Adriana,” I muttered.
“Or did I do it to tire you out?” Her voice appeared from somewhere behind me, and I tore off into the wilderness with another laugh. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped contentedly, and the forest at the base of our mountain retreat seemed to swell with happiness at our presence.
And why shouldn’t it? Mother Nature always recognized her sweetest, most mischievous children…
When we let her.
* * *
Fun and games were put on hold after lunch when the arrival of a new batch of fae sisters traipsed up the mountainside. There were always a few who had to be fashionably late, but this was kind of ridiculous.
“Oh, of course,” Belladonna said, sighing. “Hardly surprised she is the reason they’re late.”
I sat up on my knees from my place around the fire pit, which we had used to cook our fish lunch paired with an overabundance of pre-made kale salads. Seriously, could we be any more stereotypical? I’d managed to conjure up a cheeseburger for Catriona earlier for breakfast, but it left me more depleted than I would have liked. So, I sucked it up and shoved big pieces of kale leaves drizzled in some weird, slightly too vinegar-y dressing into my mouth and pretended it was the best thing since sliced bread. The fish, meanwhile, splurged on from Alfheim by the organizers, had the taste and consistency of salmon, but because it was from a magic-heavy realm, we could order the filets without the iron. Same with the kale in the human world, fish and many dark leafy greens were a rare delicacy that we had to very carefully prepare.
“Who?” I asked, unable to see around my clustering fae sisters, all clamoring and chattering as they swarmed the new arrivals.
Belladonna went back to her food, stabbing her fork at the final bits and pieces of her salad. “Jasmine.”
“Oh.” Any excitement I might have felt wheezed right out of me, and I sat back down with a roll of my eyes. “I’d hoped she might skip this year.”
“She never skips a year,” Belladonna bemoaned, “but we should say our hellos. No need to be overtly rude.”
I stayed seated while my sister rose. “No, that’s her style, I guess.”
Lips pursed, I grasped Belladonna’s outstretched hand and eased myself up, wiping the dust from my shorts before joining the herd. Things had been going so smoothly, so calmly, and now Jasmine was here to shit all over that.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved all my fae sisters—but the degree of my love varied. Catty and bratty Jasmine ranked somewhere near the bottom of my affection scale, and unless she’d had a massive personality overhaul since last year, that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.
As always, Jasmine marched at the head of the pack, arms outstretched to block the sisters behind her so that she was in the spotlight. I fell in line behind Belladonna, but I could still see the coils of tight black weaving down around Jasmine’s pointed, delicate facial features. She was like a husky, the ones with the piercing blue eyes and dark fur. In many respects, she had the demeanor of a husky too: aloof, distant, uppity. Unless you were so far up her ass, she tasted you, I guess.
My fae sisters flocked in to hug her, embracing her as one of the older, more respected fairies present. She and Belladonna air-kissed, neither groveling as technically they were on the same plane as far as aged respect went. When Jasmine’s ice blues fixed on me, I immediately noted all the ways they were different from Catriona’s incredibly pale blue eyes. Catriona’s were still somehow warm and kind. Jasmine’s gaze had that piercing quality that shot straight through you, assessing every flaw with rapid speed and apparent disinterest, like you weren’t worth her time.
“Kaye,” she greeted, ushering me into her arms like a goddess might her lowliest servant—putting on a show for the people. I offered two stiff back pats with one hand, the other hanging in a loose fist by my side. “Always the black sheep of the herd, sister.”
“Good to see you too, Jasmine,” I muttered, then rolled my eyes harder than I should as she stroked my hair, my chin resting on her bony shoulder.
“I see you’re still working to get a handle on the weight thing. Don’t worry. You’ll beat it one day,” she mused when we broke apart. My eyes flashed a warning I was sure she saw, but she merely smiled and offered a tinkling giggle before moving on to the rest of her adoring subjects.
Fucking… bitch. She’s the kind of self-assured narcissist who can break a person down while wearing a breathtaking smile. Yet when I was younger, I was part of the pack who craved her attention. Thankfully, once I was out of high school, I saw straight through her phony charade.
I couldn’t say the same for the rest of my sisters, many of them still oohing and ahhing over her floaty sky blue gown, like a millennial hippie straight out of Coachella. Drawing a deep breath, I swallowed my instant annoyance with her, before moving on. After all, there were other sisters to greet, many of whom would be passed over or ignored for the sake of appeasing the resident Queen Bee.
So, I put on a forced smile and pulled the nearest new arrival into a hug. There were too many other sisters here for me to spend time with; Jasmine was not going to ruin this weekend. No matter how many snippy underhanded insults I had to endure, I absolutely refused to let her spoil my good time.
Still, though. What a bitch.
* * *
My sisters oohed and ahhed over me later that evening, right after I added a splash of near neon green to our Illumination display overhead. Well into the night, a few hours after dinner, Ulia had thrown a blast of purple light over the fire, laughing as the heat carried it up. The wards had eventually snagged it, keeping the light magic from rising out and into view of unsuspecting humans. Ulia’s random burst of magic had sparked a light show, with fae sisters seated around our large bonfire contributing with splashes of whatever color they desired.
The outcome was stunning. An array of light and vibrant color. A rainbow that couldn’t sit still, and morphed into different shapes and patterns. Whatever lingering tension I felt from Jasmine’s arrival faded away as we worked in tandem to create a living, breathing piece of art.
Illumination had always been my favorite type of magic. Even if it wasn’t the most useful, it was the first fae-born skill I conquered as a kid. To this day, seeing color glow from the tips of my fingers, or the palms of my hands, brought a blessed sense of ease to my
day. If I found myself walking home alone at night from the subway, a gentle pulse of soft off-white in my palms, easily mistaken for a cell phone screen, made me feel safe until I reached my destination.
Although light conjuring wasn’t especially useful in a fight, neither a defensive or offensive form of magic, I’d heard stories that it sent vampires and demons and other night-dwelling supers running if you chose the right hue. In a pinch, it would do.
“Someone’s craving Christmas,” I noted when Catriona added a burst of red threading through my green light, her hair crackling with magic. Even if humans had noticed our show, the simpler of the lot would think they were somehow seeing the Northern Lights… all the way down here in New York.
“I always think they pair so well together,” she said dreamily, head cocked back as she watched the lights intermingle, bowing toward one another and then swirling into each other’s arms as if engaged in some great, magical dance. It was stunning.
The stunning moment was spoiled, however, when Jasmine stomped through our circle and sent a few of my sisters shuffling so she could have prime real estate in front of the fire. She shivered dramatically, as if that excused her behavior, and tightened her velvety blanket around her before extending her feet toward the bonfire.
“Ugh, what is that smell?” she demanded, nose in the air as she scanned the circle. “Don’t you all smell that?” When we murmured answers—all I smelled was bonfire and a bad attitude, but I didn’t say that—she huffed and crossed her arms. “Smells like dirty shifter out here.” A shiver shot right down my spine. “I’ve been catching whiffs of it all day.”
“There’s nothing inside our wards,” Belladonna countered from the other side of the fire. Lily and Rose were half-asleep and leaning against her, blinking sleepily at the flames. “Whatever you’re smelling must be coming from inside your nostrils.”
A few of us giggled and I noted the way Jasmine’s cheeks darkened.
“No. I know what I smell.” She sniffed noisily once more. “It’s a fucking shifter.”
In all fairness, I hadn’t showered since my run-in with Darius the Dragon in the cave last night. And, considering we ended the meet-up with a little face-eating, I probably had his scent on me. It would have faded over the course of the day, and no one else had said anything. Jasmine must just be hyper-sensitive.
And an attention whore, but that’s beside the point.
“I dated one once, you know,” she admitted after a few beats had passed. I rolled my eyes and tossed up a pastel purple flash of light, shooting it toward the cluster of other gathered pastels, as Jasmine nodded. Maybe she thought our sisters were staring at her with wide-eyed curiosity, but I couldn’t imagine that being the case. “Yes, as humiliating as it is to admit… I did, in fact, slum it with a beast once. I don’t know what I was thinking. Such a degrading thing to admit to.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from snapping at her. Catriona must have noticed the way I stiffened, because as other sisters chimed in to comfort Jasmine, Catriona pinched my thigh and shot me a pointed look.
I’m not going to say anything, I tried to tell her with my eyes. We both went back to adding color to our floating mosaic, trying to ignore the conversation going on around us.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be totally clean again,” I heard Jasmine whine. “It was like sleeping with an animal. A filthy, disgusting animal. They ought to be banned from Alfheim completely.”
“Jasmine.” Belladonna’s voice issued a warning, one that my least favorite sister was happy to ignore.
“If I could help it, I’d just get rid of them all,” she continued. Much to my surprise, a few around the circle nodded along vehemently to every hateful word. “They serve no purpose. Just like humans. I think the worlds would be better off without either of them polluting up our atmospheres.”
My hands fell to my lap, and, unable to stop myself, I turned and gawked at her. She caught me staring and shrugged.
“What?” she snapped. “You can’t deny it. They don’t deserve to live—”
“What a horrible thing to say,” I snapped back. “What a hateful thing to say. Every creature in this world, and the next deserves to live. Don’t be ridiculous, Jasmine.”
“Yeah,” Catriona said, jumping in before Jasmine or any of her supporters had a chance to contradict me, “you’re killing our vibe.”
A few of our sisters laughed again, and just like that the conversation switched to something much less polarizing, many resuming our game of creating a gorgeous rainbow overhead.
Later that night, as Catriona and I lay in my messy pile of pillows and blankets, this time sans tarp so we could look at the stars, I glanced over at her, unable to shake Jasmine’s words—and Darius’s lips—from my mind.
“Do you put any stock in what she had to say tonight?”
“Hmm?”
“Jasmine. Her idea that the world would be better without shifters.”
Catriona scoffed, her arms crossed and brow knitted. “Of course not. She’s always been a snob about these kinds of things. I didn’t think she had any extremist leanings. I didn’t think any of our sisters did, but I guess there’s always at least one surprise that rattles you at these things.”
I bit my lower lip for a moment, plump and fuller than most of the fae I knew, and sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”
It was hard to shake the anger from my mind, however, and it mingled with flashes of images and feelings revolving around Darius—who hadn’t once come down from his cave to find me. Even as I fell asleep beneath the stars, my head continued to swim, and the dreams that followed were distressed, full of strife and conflict between shifters and supernaturals.
And Jasmine’s smug face was there, right in the middle of it all, haunting me until morning.
* * *
Sunday rolled around in no time at all, as it always did. In the morning, a few of my sisters were weepy at the start of our last day, but we managed to enjoy ourselves nonetheless. There were more magical games to be had, meals in front of the fire, and fae-wine for all to savor one last time.
Unfortunately, I found myself struggling to get a certain dragon out of my head. For the better part of the day, Darius had lingered in my mind; the phantom caress of his fingers along my arm, down my neck, sent random chills through my body, tearing me away from whatever activity I should have focused on and bringing me back to him instead.
I hadn’t heard or felt him for the rest of the weekend, and yet there was his smiling face—what I remembered of it, anyway. While Jasmine didn’t complain about scenting a shifter anymore, she brought up how miserable they were every chance she got, dragging down the group conversation to something awkward and tense where before it had been spritely and free.
As we packed up with the setting sun, Catriona sniffling and whimpering at the thought of being apart—silly thing, we only lived two hours away by train—I decided enough was enough. Clearly, my subconscious had other plans for Darius the Dragon: namely that it wouldn’t let me forget him. So, once I had my things stored away in my bottomless bag, I told Catriona I’d be back momentarily— “One last walk into the mountains!”—and flitted toward the path that led to Darius’s cave. I passed Jasmine on the way, who, big surprise, had others packing her things for her. She shot me a narrowed look, but I merely rolled my shoulders back and pressed on without a word. She hadn’t made me snap yet, besides my brief defense of shifters and humans last night, and she wasn’t going to.
My smile faded, however, the more I climbed. Last time the pull had been so intense. My feet knew where to walk because something unseen guided them through the dark. Now, the sun still shone, but I felt clumsy in my finding of the cave. Unfortunately, as soon as I rushed down the tunnel and made it to the inner sanctum did I understand why.
Darius was gone.
I stood stiff and still as I stared at the remnants of his fire. The soot and ash were cold. He’d been gone at least a day. My hand tig
htened around my phone, which I’d brought with the intention of swapping numbers.
Fine. Leave then. Not like I care, or anything.
With a huff, I turned and stalked back down to camp, trying not to let his absence bother me, hurt me—but knowing that it already had.
Chapter Three
“Well, hey, Kaye the fae.”
I dropped my keys on the ground, as my heart jumped straight up into my throat, when the last voice I ever expected to hear in the city, sounded behind me. After hastily squatting to grab my mammoth key chain, upon which lived all the keys I needed to keep my business premises safe, I whirled around to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. My soft gasp, followed by the quickening of my pulse, told me I had not, in fact, dreamed up Darius’s voice out of thin air.
Because there he was, standing right in front of me, grinning in that sexy way that sent a shiver of heat up my spine. Dressed in a black tee—hellooo biceps, welcome back into my life—and a pair of clean, crisp dark jeans that fit just right, he looked like every other model wandering around New York City. Only most of those models were too self-absorbed to stop and pester me while I was trying to lock up for the evening.
“Darius,” I said curtly before turning back and shoving a key into the front door’s lock—only it was the wrong key, so I had to fumble around and try to get the right one into the lock, with trembling fingers and a skyrocketed heartbeat, while his eyes burned holes in the back of my head.
Oh, and did I mention that all I could think about as he was standing behind me, was his soft lips on my skin, and his masculine scent that made me want to rub my body all over his?
“Why the frosty reception, fairy?”
Magic Fire: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shifting Magic Book 1) Page 3
