Dancing Dragon

by Nicola Claire

  The knock on the door for my brekkie made me jump, but then everything did right now. I didn't look at the waiter when I opened the door, just held it ajar and pointed toward the small table and chairs in the corner.

  He walked in and placed the tray down and then turned to look at me. I wasn't paying attention, the smell of coffee had all of mine.

  “You look sad, elska.”

  I jumped again, but managed to keep my startled scream in. I didn't think Samson needed to come running.

  Yet.

  “Lutin? What are doing here? Bringing me my breakfast?”

  “It pleases me to serve my elska. You are hungry?” He lifted the lid off the fruit platter and pastries. “Hmm,” he said, poking at a croissant. “Not as nice as in Álfheimr. If you were to allow me to take you home, you would be surrounded by beauty and tastes beyond your wildest imagination.”

  “This is my home,” I answered defiantly, refusing to consider the possibility that Álfheimr actually existed at all.

  “Is it?” he asked pointedly, taking in my packed bag on the floor and then my passport and travel documents on the side table and then looking back at me.

  I was the first to glance away.

  “Here, elska. Eat.” He brushed aside my discomfort and held a chair open for me at the table.

  I looked at him for a moment, taking in how he was dressed today. Faded jeans again, that hugged his body criminally close and a white loose shirt, untucked, black boots with silver tips and a silver bracelet of some description on his wrist. It shone in the lights of the room and had an intricate design wrapped around its circumference. I couldn't see a beginning or an end, it just looked like one solid, two inch wide band decorated in flowers and vines and other indistinguishable images. It was beautiful and I hadn't realised I'd been staring at it for several minutes when Lutin appeared before my face.

  “Fey silver,” he whispered, bringing my eyes back up to his vivid green ones and pulling his shirt sleeve down to cover the bracelet. “Mined in the mountains of Álfheimr. Humans have coveted it for millennia. It has medicinal properties, but is also capable of carrying charms.” He brushed a strand of my hair off my face, making electric pulses dance across my body. “It is also quite addictive. Humans can become obsessed with possessing it. But once owned, it is yours for eternity and subject to your will. This one will be yours one day, elska, but not yet.”

  He took hold of my hand, breaking the spell. I shook my head to clear the last vestiges of fuzziness. Damn I was so sick of the fairy magic he wielded over me with such blatant ease. When he had settled me in my chair he finally let go of my fingers, but trailed his own up my arm and across the back of my shoulders, slowly, delicately. I gritted my teeth and glared at him.

  He sat down opposite me and flashed me an unconcerned smile. “Please eat.”

  I sat unmoving for a moment, but reluctantly acknowledged that I wouldn't be getting rid of him any time soon and I was hungry. Besides, Samson was just a shout away, I doubted the fairy would try anything here. I took a sip of my coffee. The world righted itself momentarily, I closed my eyes and savoured the feeling of that rightness. Allowing myself to indulge in the falsity that the caffeine provided. I love my coffee, it is a panacea to all ills, an elixir of life, a cure-all. It is my largest addiction and one I am not afraid to admit.

  “Do you have coffee in Álfheimr?” I had no idea why I asked that. My eyes shot open at the surprise of the question to see Lutin watching me with a hungry look on his face.

  I sighed. I'd seen plenty a male vampire with just the same look, it didn't quite carry the same weight as it used to. He smirked at me, as though he'd read my mind and said, “We have something similar, which I believe you would enjoy, elska.”

  I wondered how he'd know what I would or wouldn't enjoy, but I didn't have the will to ask. Nor the courage.

  “So, why are you really here, Lutin? I thought you had to stay away because of the... what was it?”

  “The bjóða,” he replied, picking up a grape and popping it in his mouth. “And I just can't take you home to Álfheimr, that's all, I don't have to stay away. Until the challenge is settled though, you must remain with the challenger.”

  “Challenge?” I'd wondered what that word, bjóða, had meant.

  “Yes. Your vampire has challenged me to a duel, for you. I am humouring him of course, I am not a savage, I would give the man his pride. At least he can tell himself he tried everything, before losing you to your fate.”

  I knew a thing a two about fate, since I'd discovered I was a Nosferatin, born to hunt vampires, something I had little control over. I couldn't choose to not feel the pull, that evil-lurks-in-my-city pull, it was part of who I am. Fate, you might say. As was becoming the Sanguis Vitam Cupitor, or the Prohibitum Bibere and the Lux Lucis Tribuo. But, according to Nut, we have our destinies planned out for us before we are born, we may travel winding paths to get there, but we all end up where we are meant to be at the end of our lives.

  I had reconciled myself to my destiny or fate. I was meant to bring balance to the universe, or at least to our world. The Prophesy I am part of is evidence of that. The Light will capture the Dark, and will hold it dear. Nowhere in that fate had I imagined there to be a trip to another world called Álfheimr. I'd told myself as well, that Michel was my fate, he'd be by my side while I battled the Dark and spread the Light. But, now look at where I was. About to leave my home on a jet plane to the other side of the world.

  About to leave my kindred behind. Metaphorically speaking of course.

  Was that fate?

  I was actually heading closer to my kindred though, him being in Paris and me heading to Birmingham. But, you get what I mean.

  “You are of course,” Lutin went on, helping himself to another grape and slowly popping it in his mouth and rolling it around on his tongue, while holding my gaze, “making it difficult to stay within the rules. Where are you running to, elska? Or should I be asking, why are you running at all?”

  No way was I going to open my heart up to Lutin. I didn't trust him, I didn't like him. He had a magic I could not comprehend, let alone fight. I was scared of this fairy before me, and I don't like feeling scared.

  “Why are you here, Lutin?”

  “Visiting with my elska,” he replied, slicing a piece of apple with a sharp knife. The whole process looking like a magical trick, the knife flipped in his hand, the apple rolled down his arm, a slice of apple appeared in his fingers. He reached over the the table to offer me the slice.

  I just stared at it and crossed my arms over my chest, leaning back in the chair, then glaring at him.

  “Why are you really here?” I asked, more firmly.

  “I told you. I am visiting with my elska, I am ensuring you are happy and safe.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “That's not an answer,” I huffed.

  “Yes it is.” He blinked and suddenly the vivid green in his eyes danced into a swirl of verdant shades: chartreuse, lush lawn, spring bud, apple green, pistachio, mantis, jungle green, spring green, pine green, lime, all of them capturing me and pulling me forward.

  My arms came apart and fell into my lap loosely, my mouth opened slightly and the slice of apple was placed on my lips. My inner monologue jumped up and shouted out in alarm. My whole body jerked in response to that cry of fear, but Lutin just held my gaze and I found myself, unbelievably, chewing the slice he had prepared and then another. But I didn't even remember him placing it on my lips, there was a blank spot in my memory. My inner monologue humming a constant warning in my head. And another slice of fruit, and then another, blank spots materialising in my mind, no knowledge of how I was letting him influence me, but a building sense of fear clawing up my throat as each piece of fruit went down, until the apple was just a core. He threw it in the trash bin in the corner, without letting me free of his gaze. Then picked up a peach, my inner voice swearing a litany of foul words that my mouth
seemed unable to voice, and he just repeated the entire process all over again.

  “I'm full,” I somehow managed to say, once we'd come to the end of his little performance, peach stone discarded in the trash, knife still twirling in his fingers, back and forward, forward and back. His eyes still dancing a forest and grass sea of green.

  I let a little huff of breath out on an hysterical laugh. He'd just magicked me into eating fruit and I'd had absolutely no defence against it. The slices of eaten fruit sat like lead weights in my stomach and threatened to come back up and out. I rubbed my belly and swallowed the bile that had risen up my throat. Damn this fucking fairy!

  A small sparkle appeared in his eyes. “Feeding one's elska is a very intimate and personal thing. It will be my greatest honour to take care of you.”

  I frowned at him, still unable to form any words past the constriction in my throat, the ball of fury lodging itself halfway up my gullet. He didn't even know me, he'd met me a bare 48 hours ago and here he was talking of things that leant themselves to... what? Love? Duty? Honour? Destiny? I wanted fervently to show him exactly what I thought of this little charade. My hands balled into fists in my lap, but I couldn't seem to do any more than that.

  “We will have eternity to get to know each other,” he said, softly.

  I shook my head at him, dazed at how entrenched in his own perception of the world he was. How wrong that perception was, in fact. “I'm not who you think I am, Lutin. You've made a mistake.” It seemed to be the only words I could get out, yet so many more were tumbling through my mind. None of them ladylike in the slightest.

  And he didn't know me, on so many levels, least of which is the fact that I can't have children. Nosferatins, the ones born to hunt vampires like me, cannot conceive. I guess the idea behind that is we can't be tempted to settle down to a normal human life, with a normal human partner and have babies and turn our back on the world of Nosferatu. Apart from the whole die if you don't join before you turn 25 thing, it had actually been a lot easier to accept this life I now lead, knowing I wasn't missing out on something else.

  I couldn't be a mœðr, I was therefore not his elska. He'd made a mistake. A whopping, great, huge one.

  “Elska,” he said reproachfully, but followed it up with a dazzling smile. “The Fey do not make mistakes. We rule, we direct, we engineer whim and fancy.” His voice lowered with a sexy husk. “We make love like no other, we indulge our appetites and spread our desires.” His eyes began to sparkle and glow again and I tried with all my might not to get trapped by that vivid, but spectacular dancing display. But, I liked green, I decided, I liked it a lot. I shook my head and concentrated on my inner monologue's thoughts on that little statement. “Would you like to indulge your appetites, would you like to share my desire?”

  Before I even realised what I was doing I nodded. Then firmly placed my lips in a thin line and attempted to shake my head, to correct my reply. I couldn't and that scared me more than anything in my life had ever scared me before. His control was unfathomable. He was engineering the response he wanted. To hell with reality and what I really felt, Lutin wanted me to want him, so he was making me behave in a way that suited his needs. Delusional, crazy, fucking fairy!

  His gaze held mine a little longer, a wicked, mischievous grin spreading across his face.

  “Come, elska. Come play with me.”

  Lutin stood in a graceful movement - all sinuous and smooth - and held out his hand to me, palm up and open. My mind was shouting, No! My body was simply following the call of his eyes.

  I stood up and took the three steps needed to place my hand in his, unable to pull my gaze away, unable to stop myself from making the biggest mistake of my life, unable to do a thing. I was so scared.

  He pulled me toward his chest, letting his lips brush over mine, my body shuddering from a barely contained release and then he whispered, hot breath against my skin.

  “We're breaking the rules a little, but I never did like being told what to do.”

  I numbly thought that Michel would never break the rules of the bjóða, but Lutin obviously didn't play by rules. That meant he was more dangerous than I had even begun to comprehend.

  Then his wonderful, beautiful, compelling and captivating Light enveloped me, momentarily calming me despite my raging fears within, and his strong arms wrapped around me, then the world as I knew it fell away.

  Chapter 14

  Fairy Play

  The first thing I felt was the warmth of the sun, the second was the breeze, wrapping around my bare legs, cooling the sting from the sun to just right. I opened my eyes and took in the scene around us. White, white sand, blue-green sea and copious amounts of palm trees. I spun around in a 360 and took it all in.

  Some few feet away lay a picnic blanket with brightly coloured cushions and a hamper, champagne chilling on ice. I glanced over at Lutin, he was dressed in form fitting white swimming trunks, his golden skin soaking up the sun, his body, more perfect than anything I had ever seen in my life, as though he had been sculptured by the gods. There was no way a human could have a body like that; just the right tone, just the right musculature, just the right everything. He was divine, picture perfect, designed to pull you in and spell you with his looks alone.

  He was dangerous and delicious and just so damn not right. I hated him. I feared him. My fists clenched at my sides.

  I managed to look away from the god in front of me and stifled a groan. He had me in the teeniest, tiniest bikini, three little triangles of hot pink material strategically placed. Nothing else. I was not used to displaying my body so in company. Sure, I wear short skirts and tight fitting tops, but I do have a line I never cross. I don't bare my midriff and I always cover my butt.

  This bikini did neither of those things.

  “You could have chosen a sun dress,” I complained, angrily.

  “Where would the fun be in that, elska?” He took a slow perusal of my body, starting at my head, flowing down each contour, over each plane, then once he found my toes, reversed the whole procedure back up again. “I am not disappointed at all.”

  I glared at him and crossed my arms protectively over my body. “You engineered this so you could see my body?” I asked with bitter incredulity.

  “If I had wanted to see just your body, elska, I would have stripped you in the hotel room.” The way he said it, I truly believed he would have, had he had the inclination to do so. My stomach roiled at that thought, because part of me knew I probably couldn't have fought back, even if I vehemently wanted to. I seemed incapable of my normal defences in front of this man, fairy, whatever. “This was for your benefit,” he added, then glanced over at the hamper and cushions. “Come. Let's have a drink.”

  I wanted to say no, go away, pick on another human to be your elska, but my feet went on automatic and I slipped onto a cushion on the ground before I had even realised what I was doing. My inner monologue consuming my mind, screaming in fear. He wasn't even looking at me, with those beautiful vivid green eyes, but somehow he was having an influence over me, that I wasn't even aware of at the time. Sweat started to coat my skin, despite the cool breeze coming from the ocean, I was drenched in my panic and fear.

  It felt like a metaphorical noose was tightening around my neck and I wasn't even raising my arm to try to dislodge it. Before too much longer it would be snug and there would be no way to loosen its hold.

  Pushing past that body-gripping fear, I asked in a pitifully small voice, “Where are we? Is this Álfheimr?”

  Lutin flashed me a grin. “No. To take you to our home would be breaking the bjóða. Stealing you away for a few hours may be against the rules, but an acceptable breach of them rather than a complete break. This is an island in your world's Bahamas.”

  He smoothly lowered himself on to a cushion right beside me, his arm coming out to stroke my own as he settled himself back in a casual recline. I felt the electrical pulses he created in me dance across my skin and then start to dig
deeper, he didn't stop, but kept petting me, stroking me, building the electrical charge between us, until a fire was burning and I was leaning toward him seeking more of his touches, more of him. My mind was screaming a cacophony of warnings, my body was on autopilot and out of my control.

  He shifted slightly and pulled me down from my sitting position, making me lie in the curve of his arm, wrapping me up against his broad chest. His hand went up into my hair, the other continued to lay sparks down the skin on my side, then round to my naked butt cheek. It was surreal, it was as if it was happening to someone other than me. My head reeled at the thought that he was touching me, my body craved more than his fingers. I wanted his Light.

  A part of me decided to curl up and stop the fight. A tear tipped over the edge of my eye and traced a pattern down my cheek.

  Ma douce, fight back.

  I couldn't place the voice in my head, I couldn't identify with the words in my mind. But, somehow they made me more aware of the predicament I was in. Somehow, they cleared a little of the fog.

  “You are gorgeous, elska,” Lutin whispered against my lips and then slipped his tongue between my teeth, making me alternately shudder against him and want to vomit right into his mouth.

  Fight him, ma douce. Use your Light.

  It was the thought of Light, from where I could not tell, that did it. I may have been craving Lutin's Light, been dreaming of it incessantly since I first met him, couldn't stop myself hoping it would appear again, but the words in my mind reminding me of my Light were enough to make me seek it out. Finally, to do something to stop this lunacy, this ridiculous moment from escalating to somewhere frighteningly bad.

  My Light wrapping around me was enough to wake me up. I feared this man, this thing, this creature. I wasn't attracted to him physically, what he was creating in me wasn't real, wasn't me. It was all false. And I despised him for it.