Drystan
I love the way your passion shines like a bright star in the sky. If only you’d point it at me where it belongs.
Only select libraries around the world have portals, and they only go to very specific places. Once, the portals were plentiful, and you could travel freely between any one.
But, like everything else, Silence ruined that. In an effort to keep Silence separated from the monster world and keep them from regaining power, the portals were shut down.
That meant travel was stunted unless you were someone like Keary who could travel by different means. Or if you had wings. I always wished I had wings. I’d have flown away from Silence when I was a kid.
Rainer and Kaida walk beside me as we travel down into the hidden bowels of the library.
Much of the library has remained the same as it had been when humans built it, intending it as a place to read, research, and escape into stories.
There are back rooms with archives and boxes of books that had been waiting to be unpacked.
Old machines are here, dust-free. I could probably turn one on if I pushed the button.
Rainer looks around as I take him through the maze of shelves. Old inventory. New inventory. Books being processed.
When the beasts were first released, there were no barriers to stop them. If they were chasing a target, nothing stopped them from reaching that victim.
Except libraries. Even before monsters realized that the beasts avoided libraries, they did so on their own.
As if there is true magic within the walls that humans created.
I think it’s the books themselves that create magic.
Each book is its own portal, after all. You just have to know how to activate it.
Once monsters realized this, they began weaving protective magic into all libraries to assure that they remained safe havens for everyone. It took maybe a decade for monsters the world over to seek out every library standing and set magic within their walls for absolute protection.
It serves two purposes, really. Not only is it a safe haven for the roamers, but it’s also the preservation of millions, maybe billions of stories. And history. Human history has not been erased. It simply stopped being recorded a hundred years ago.
“Ah,” I say, touching the frame of the bookshelf where the portal symbols are carved. “Ohh, this is a nice one. Ready?”
Rainer looks at me skeptically. He raises one shoulder, giving me a dubious look.
I run my fingers along the symbols in the combination required to activate it. Simply put, the symbols spell out the name of the place we’re going.
T H O R N W O O D
As soon as my finger brushes the D, the books and shelves and back of the bookshelf disappear.
Within the frame is a swirling portal, resembling a whirlpool, its contents looking like liquified glass.
Rainer’s mouth hangs open as he stares with wide eyes.
“This is the most blatantly clear bit of magic I’ve seen yet,” he says.
Grinning, I offer him my hand. While portals are almost always accurate, there are ways to veer off if you’re new to them. Rainer, still entirely mesmerized by the appearance of the portal, lets his hand fall into mine.
I grip it tightly, just because I can. My monster reacts, shifting under my skin and focusing on this new touch.
Ooooh. No wonder Keary is so keen on this human.
He’s certainly ours. I can feel the pull far more clearly now.
If I hadn’t been so focused on Keary since he’s being a buttface and refusing to complete our monster mash, I might have noticed this as well.
Keary did immediately. Why? Why, when he’s so damn determined to keep us away, does he accept this human?
I try not to let it hurt me. I’m not convinced that Keary is intentionally trying to hurt me or Notto.
There’s something else behind his insistence for remaining a stag slut, which is kind of funny because he hasn’t slutted it up in years.
Instead, he reluctantly lets me and Notto give him orgasms then turns into a royal ass for the next day or so.
With Rainer’s hand securely in mine, we step into the portal. It feels like a cold liquid covers my body, but the viscosity is all wrong. Instead of leaving me wet, it feels wet to the touch but doesn’t cling to the skin like water.
We step out on the other side, walking into a forest. The trees are tall and twisted, with long bending branches.
The trees themselves can look a little creepy, like something that might make up nightmares, but there are flickering little lights everywhere, sparkling like glitter, changing the atmosphere entirely.
“Wow,” Rainer says. He twists to look behind us where we’d seemingly walked through nothing to get here. “What is this place? What kind of… door was that?”
“It’s a transport portal. Once, they connected to every other portal, and you only had to tell it where you wanted to go. Now, they’re connected to specific places that are considered a retreat. Like the libraries, if your intent is bad, the portal will tear you to pieces in transit.”
Rainer flinches. “Pleasant.”
I grin. “It’s to keep Silence from infiltrating these places. Just another wall.”
“So, what is this place?”
“Thornwood. It’s a fae forest.”
“Fae. As in fairy?”
“I dare you to call a fae a fairy,” I say, amused. “In fact, I’ll even introduce you to some fae for convenience.”
He rolls his eyes. “Then what is a fae if not a fairy?”
“They’re fae. There’s no other explanation.”
“Talking to you is like talking in circles sometimes,” he notes.
I pull him along down a path, his hand still firmly in mine.
Trees and rocks create arches. Through the arches are very clearly different biomes within the forest. I enjoy watching Rainer’s face as we walk.
Kaida is obviously very comfortable. She frolics through the flowers and rolls around like a puppy. It’s cute.
“A fairy is from a child’s imagination, like the little flying things in fairy tales.
The term kind of humanizes them and makes them far less threatening—harmless childhood magic.
A fae is the exact opposite. A fae is dangerous.
Twisted. Dark. Their magic is deep and winding, often connected to one of the elements, and infinitely stronger than what you’re taught a fairy is. ”
“Is this a safe place?”
“Definitely. Again, like the library, the magic reads your intent. Not your verbal intent but your unconscious intent. There’s no fooling fae magic.”
I’m sure he’s paying attention, but he hasn’t stopped looking around. Admiring the forest. Watching critters peek out from within the flowers. A soft breeze makes a mini tornado of witch lights spin before breaking apart, the sight mesmerizing.
We follow Kaida through one of the arches and into a different biome. This one has a crystal clear pond that’s incredibly deep. You can see the bottom, but it’s far, far beneath the surface. A trickling waterfall feeds the cavernous pond.
Rainer jumps when Kaida runs off the side and dives in. She swims down, down, down until turning and propelling herself back up.
“Is the water safe?” he asks.
“Yep. Want to swim?”
He looks down at his clothes. I laugh and begin peeling mine off. The flush in Rainer’s cheeks is delicious. Maybe I watch a little more intently than I should when he begins taking his clothes off too.
We’re left naked, staring at each other.
He has a pretty body. Hard lines make up a body that has spent its entire existence fighting for survival.
There’s a scar on his hip and another across his right pectoral.
I can see the line of where the poison from the beast raced up his leg toward his heart.
It’s a shadow, lingering just this side of his skin.
I’ve seen him mostly naked, of course. The entire week that he walked around in a towel. I knew he was pretty then, but my attention wasn’t on him as much as it is now.
Besides, I can see his dick now. It’s not quite soft, which I’m going to choose is a reflection of being naked with me.
My eyes travel up to his face and, much like he observed the fae woods for the first time, curious amazement reflects in his expression as he examines me. I glance down, noting for the millionth time, how vastly different my body is.
There are no gender parts. Nothing at all. I’m a blank surface, featureless. Like a doll. No nipples. No holes. Not even a belly button.
Rainer meets my eyes, his eyebrows knitted together.
“Early on, Silence didn’t know how to turn off genders, but they eventually figured it out.”
His mouth opens and closes a couple times, unsure what to say.
“We weren’t created to breed,” I continue. “We were supposed to be expendable weapons.”
He doesn’t like that explanation, so I offer him another. “I can breed. Probably. I can also… uh… make genitals. You know, like my horns come and go.” I reach up to the twisted horn on my head.
His eyes follow my hand and narrow. He comes closer and wraps his hand around my wrist to turn my arm over. There are three numbers carved into the outside of my arm. 914.
“We were numbered,” I tell him, shrugging. “I can’t remember—did I tell you I was named when the nice lady at the rescue facility took us in?”
Rainer nods. He softly runs his fingers over the numbers. “I hate this past for you,” he murmurs. “I used to think that there was no worse way to live than that of humans born into this world. I realize now how incredibly fortunate I’ve been.”
“Well… maybe not fortunate. You did watch your parents die.”
His nod is subtle. “Yes, I did, but I had loving parents. My childhood wasn’t filled with horror. Yes, there were things that scared me but not anything like what you’ve been through.”
A vision flashes before my eyes of a man standing over me as I cower in a corner, having returned from my first assignment where I refused to kill someone.
He’d already beaten me with a spiked paddle, and I could still feel the dried blood on my skin.
Now, a length of chain rests in his thickly gloved hands, the middle burning hotly.
Rainer hasn’t seen those scars on my back.
I touch my hand to his chest. “I was able to live the second part of my childhood worry-free. I grew up on Base 6. I had friends and family. I went to school and learned shit. Now, I’m out in the world, and I kill pods when we come across them.
I’m sure that the specific monsters who hurt me are all dead, but I know I’m not the only teko who would cause a mass riot if the remnants of Silence rose again.
Trust me when I tell you that we’d rather see the world burn, along with every living thing on it, than let those monsters gain power. ”
His hand moves to my cheek, and his touch is so soft, so gentle. I’m left breathless as I stare into his eyes, his gaze locked on mine. “I’d fight alongside you,” he says.
Kaida’s yap makes us jump. Rainer takes a step back, spinning to look at Kaida. She’s chasing a fish in the water. She yaps at it again and follows it under the surface.
“Let’s swim,” I say, taking Rainer’s hand to pull him toward the water. He lets me guide him.
At the edge of the water, I count to three and jump from the side with Rainer next to me. We sink into the warm water. Bubbles surround me, covering my skin like little tickling fingers.
This is the clearest, cleanest water in the world. There’s no sting when you open your eyes. Nothing at all to hinder your sight under the surface.
Rainer’s eyes are closed. He hovers where he is for a minute before swimming toward the surface. Amusingly, I’m right at dick height when his head is out of the water, so I get to see this thing standing up.
It’s sexy. I wonder if he’d let me take a lick. Just a small one? Or, you know, a longer one. Whichever he’d prefer.
I don’t try, though. I’d rather ask than touch him without permission. I don’t like to be touched without being asked first, though him taking my hand or wrist in his hand doesn’t bother me. Any other time, the other two touches might have. I would have pulled away.
My monster doesn’t cringe away from Rainer though. That’s probably one of the things that convinces me, more than anything else, that he’s mine. His touch isn’t a deterrent. It’s not something that makes me uncomfortable.
I want it.
We float around on the pond for quite some time as Kaida plays with the fish, then we wander the fae forest for hours, leaving our clothes beside the pond. I hold Rainer’s hand as often as I can, and I’m hypnotized by the way his dick stays hard almost the entire time we’re in the forest.
I’m disappointed when he doesn’t ask me to touch him though.
It must be seriously frustrating to be hard for so long without getting off.
Does he need me to tell him that I’d get him off?
I’m sad when he puts it away, though. He’s beautiful all over, but naked, he’s a work of art. I’d carve stone monuments in his honor.
With his hand in mine and a dripping wet lut at our sides—she decided to have another quick dip into the pond while we dressed—I take Rainer back through the portal and into the depths of the library.
The smells of the forest are replaced with the smell of books. The magic lights that danced in the air are replaced by the soft glow of old, dim lights. The soft forest floor is now cement beneath linoleum.
Bummer. I already miss the forest.
“Time to see if they’re finished fighting,” I say. He doesn’t pull his hand away as we leave the basement, and I love that. I love his touch. This is the kind of touch I crave all the time. Companionship. Maybe our own kind of magic is spreading between us. That’s a thing, right?
Our peace is broken when we reach the room we’d been staying in. Keary is on his feet and in our faces as soon as we step inside. He shoves me away.
“What the fuck, Drystan! Where have you been? How dare you take him. You can’t steal him away!” Keary fumes.
Rainer frowns, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks at Keary. His eyes meet mine, and I shake my head. It’s not worth fighting about. Keary is determined to be belligerent right now because he let Notto get him off last night and he’s feeling defensive about it.
I don’t respond. Instead, I take a seat on my mat and let the damn sun god who holds my heart in his golden hands rant until he’s out of breath.