Fae Borne

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Of course, fairies also used to be just cute little tinker bell flutterers, not hulking, stone faced warriors. They didn’t suck the soul out of you in a single instant, leaving behind drab, empty husks of humans, bound to the earth to roam until their eventual death in a strange zombified state. There certainly hadn’t been vampires or sea monsters who could walk in the sun and on land, going against everything the Old Ones had claimed they weren’t capable of. In fact, until a little over a year ago, we thought we were the top dogs of this planet, highest on the pyramid food chain. Laughable, really, with how self-destructive we are. Now, the veil has fallen between our world and theirs. The group of curious cats who had pierced through it were now either dead, enslaved, or had gone so deep underground that not a single human soul that was left had heard a whisper of their existence. And, really, I don’t blame them.

Within this year, over half the human population has disappeared. Dragons, the loyal Consorts of the Fae monarch, who, conveniently had also disappeared quite recently, have found a nice, sunny, warm spot in Las Vegas, Nevada. Seems to be the biggest hot spot for any strange activity, and now I understood all the talk of Area 51. It really was the initial point of penetration when the veil came down. Anything within a hundred mile radius had been immediately decimated by the ravenous creatures who had looked into our world from boundaries put in place by the Fae queen millennia ago. Leave it to humanities insatiable appetite for power and money to totally screw us. But, looks like some of them achieved their need to be immortalized and placed on a pedestal...it was just the wrong one. It was awfully strange how all the key players had suddenly fallen off the face of the planet, leaving the rest of us to deal with the aftermath of the interspecies battle for supremacy on what is now left of our earth.

The day the veil fell, I was working. A librarian, 8-5, day in and day out. Perfect for me, no room for error, no surprises. Check out, stock, reshelve, paperwork. Watch people fall in love with reading and see the sparkle shine in their eyes when the newest book came out. I love getting lost within the pages of a story, merging seamlessly into the world the author has built, extravagant or otherwise. In the middle of checking out one of my most avid readers, a young, quiet girl who volunteered most nights after school, a deep, very masculine voice had whispered through my mind, “Run, now.” And, just like that, I dropped the stamper, spluttered a quick apology and goodbye, with a quick warning to get home soon, and fled. It wasn’t normally something I would have done, listening to a voice in my head, especially one that wasn’t my own, but there had only been a handful of times that the same alien voice had spoken to me, and each time, since I’d been a child, listening had turned out to be the difference between me staying alive, or me dying. Which, yes, I know, is not normal, but again, I’m into the mundane and safety. I’m not going to question a voice who wants me to stay alive. I’m not going to adventure for danger. Not my forte.

Now, as I lay under the moonlight, arms crossed behind my head, dark, tangled curls spread out in the earth underneath me, I mourn my previous life. The sound of massive beating wings can be heard from miles away, and I shiver uncontrollably. They terrify me, these winged creatures. I’d traveled from a small, midwestern state to just outside Las Vegas, where the dragons nested. For the first half a year, I’d wandered aimlessly, in a self-pity fog for everything I thought I had lost, crying about how unfair it was for me to be displaced from my inner sanctuary of normalcy while others had lost entire families and their own lives to the invasion. Myself, I had a cantankerous old woman who had raised me as a child after my parents had dropped me on her doorstep shortly after my apparently unwelcome entrance into this world, and that woman scared the hell out of anyone who met her. I hadn’t been surprised when, partway through my wallowing in misery, she’d enlisted the help of her new Fae friend, Gavriel, and located me pouting in a penthouse in Colorado, using stacks of money to wipe my eyes that had belonged to the dried out husks on the floor. Apparently, whatever ate them took everything but skin and bones. I don’t even think the marrow in their bones was left. Like I said previously, these beasts that were behind the veil carefully constructed by the Fae queen had been ravenous.

“Brynn, you absolute dolt, get that self-serving butt out here and quit your moping,” she had growled after the male had broken down the deadbolted door, leaving me cowering and snot covered in the corner. Perfect way to meet the most beautiful being in existence, but awkward is my forte. Like I said, cantankerous old woman. She raised me better than I was currently being, and for that I am still thankful. She loved me in a way only a mother would, despite her continuous ravings that I was going to be the death of her. We’ll see, old woman. There are dragons now.

From then, after being ‘properly’ introduced to Gavriel (I can’t help feeling angry with him, he could have just found with me without bringing along the guilt trip), I was then left in his care, an unwilling key participant in the game of chess between the species. The Fae queen was missing; there was an uprising from some inner caste Fae, as well as lower caste Fae who have been long dissatisfied with the strict rulings, and look to utterly decimate and eat out world; there was a group of scientists who were using some sort of otherworldly technology previously unknown to the general public to send their agents back in time, to try to reverse the events that led to where we currently are now. Something tells me they’re unsuccessful thus far, but here’s to hoping. And, there were now Fae addicts and sympathizers. Not to mention it was the new fad to have a Fae friend in politics. They were the top manipulators. And now there was a Fae prince, and a disgruntled librarian who had just recently been thrown into the middle of a warzone.

This is the life I deserve, I suppose, for being such a bad karma person. I glance towards the figure curled on his side next to me, his strong jaw softened with sleep, lashes sweeping against his bronzed cheeks. A dark lock of hair obscures the scar that reaches from the corner of his left ear to the tip of his chin, a deep slash that only added to his savage beauty. I had been led to believe that Fae and fairies were tiny, dainty things. Or, you know, Orlando Bloom. Not Vigo Mortensen, but darker, more ethereal. Their beauty was deadly, and Gavriel sets me on fire. When we argue, which is more often than not, seeing as I still had little to no idea what my importance was in this savage takeover, it feels like an invisible force is yanking me closer to him. On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself straddling his lap, hand fisted in his dark hair as I yank his mouth against mine, and he crushes me to him, before we spring apart and make formal small talk for the next few days. It’s insanity, what I feel for this normally aloof, disapproving male, and I know I aggravate him too. But, as I found out the moment he opened his mouth, it had been his voice in my mind since I was a child, and now I could understand a little of his consternation. But he also knows just how much it bothers me to not know my role in our forced adventure.

As I study him, he opens his eyes, and I’m trapped. They swirl with otherworldly colors, as he returns from his “dreaming”. When he’s fully with me, they burn with a bright intensity, a combination of gold flecks in blue eyes, a rim of silver around the outside of the iris. His pupils are just a little larger than a humans, which makes it easier for them to entrap you. Unfortunately, he’s not using any glamour on me, and my own attraction is the reason why I’m lost in his gaze. He had been my savior many times, and for that I am grateful, but it really makes it difficult to know if it's not just hero worship or if I actually like him as a person. Which, you know, goes against everything I am. Again.

“Do you never sleep?” I ask shortly, glowering at him. A rumble of laughter starts in his bare chest and I pointedly refuse to look. He refuses to dress appropriately until we find something he deems soft enough to sleep in. I don’t point out that sleeping on the hard ground isn’t that soft, because it has done me no good to argue sensibly. I think he enjoys the affect he has one me. Just another point of aggravation for me.

“Fae do not need sleep, princess,” he says smoothly, “because we recharge in... other ways.” The way he says this leaves little room for interpretation, especially when he raises both brows suggestively. I groan and swat at his arm, something that amuses him to no end. Apparently, I’m the only one, except for the old woman, who would show him such disrespect. I grumble a response about how most people can’t get past his pretty face to see what an ass he actually is, and then he laughs, and I’m awestruck again. The man does something to me, I swear.

I frown. He calls me ‘princess’, which I assume is due to my attitude, but tonight it’s just too much. “Why can't you call me by my name?” I ask, irritated. Normally, I just ignore it, but with how close we are to enemy territory, I’ve had just about enough. I glare at him expectantly, watching as his lips form that small smirk I’d come to associate with him being smug that I finally figured out something.

He grins, and his incisors glint sharply in moonlight. They make me shiver for an entirely different reason and I clench my fists, breathing deep. “Because, Brynn, you are a princess. You are the Faery queens only daughter, and the dragons will only listen to one of her lineage. As such, you are a coveted asset.” His grin widens when I stare at him, jaw slack, inner gears grinding and short circuiting. The train’s going off the rails, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve officially lost it. “However,” he continues, and now there’s a note of seriousness in his tone that brings me back to my attention, and within the bottomless depths of his eyes, I see the barely veiled threat in his eyes, “you are mine, and have always been. Anybody who thinks to take you from me will feel the full wrath of Gavriel Thornopkus, Prince of the Northern Region.” He pauses again, and suddenly there’s unadultered passion in his eyes that scorches me. “Mate to the Fae queen apparent. Now, Brynn,” the way he says my name makes me hot, and once again I’m fighting for control of my own body, even as I know it is nothing he is intentionally doing, “I think it’s time we find your mom, and set the world right again. But first, we need the dragons.”