Chapter 11 Izzy
IZZY
“Right, yes, of course.” Myel sighed. “I should also mention, I don’t have a whole lot of time right now. I can’t be away for too long. I can come to you tonight, once it’s dark. We can talk more then, but I should tell you about who you are, shouldn’t I?”
“Yes, please.” If I was going to be stuck in this world, I needed to know a whole lot more than who I was, but that seemed a good place to start.
Myel blew out a breath. “Right… Well, nymphs are fae of the gentil caste with water affinity,” he said, as if those words made sense. “Nymphs can also alter their appearance to look like any humanoid, hence why you’ve passed as human for so long.”
“Wait, does that mean my parents were nymphs?” I asked, that revelation hitting me hard.
“Yeah, probably,” Myel said. I felt something just a bit off through this burgeoning connection of ours, but I didn’t question it. I was still reeling from this new information about my parents.
I’ve thought about my birth parents — and who they might have been — almost every day. They’d died in a fire… I think… I didn’t really remember it. I had faint snippets of memories: light and heat, loss and pain, vague things. I’d been too young, only about two-and-a-half when it had happened.
From what I’d heard, when I’d been found, I’d known only my name, Izzy, that was it. And apparently no one had been able to find any government records pertaining to me or my parents. But if they’d been from this realm, perhaps they’d never had any legal documents.
It may not have been much, but even knowing this one small bit of the puzzle made me feel better. Myel had just given me a gift. I knew more about my parents than ever.
“I’m curious…” Myel said, tone hesitant, seeking. “Is there a reason you can’t control your appearance?”
Couldn’t I?
“I don’t know,” I breathed. “How am I changing?” Yet even as I said it, I thought of the shifts in my appearance I’d noticed lately.
Myel laughed lightly. “You changed quite a bit when we were—” he cleared his throat, “—together.” He grinned.
Curious, I slipped my phone out of my pocket, unlocked it, and selected the camera app. I didn’t see anything amiss, same dirty blond hair, same… wait.
I zoomed in on an eye.
Wow.
Usually my irises were sea-green with a narrow band of dark emerald toward the center, and a ring of mostly blue around the edges. But right now, they were almost completely emerald green, dark and lustrous.
Myel swept my hair back over an ear, his touch feeling as natural as my own. “And your ears.”
Yup, my ear definitely had a point at the top, stretched up, taller than normal.
“Your eyes are pure green now, but they go the most beautiful shade of blue when you’re aroused,” he whispered next to me.
Did they?
“And your hair goes nearly platinum when you…ah… get off.”
Apparently, I did change, quite a lot.
I shrugged. “But that’s normal for a nymph, right?”
“Yes and no,” he hedged. “Changing yes, but not because of outside stimuli. Your form should stay solid till you wish it to change.”
“Oh.”
“When did this start?” he asked.
I shrugged. I’d noticed it some time ago but discounted it as my imagination.
“Maybe a few years?” I put my phone away.
He sighed. “You may have morphopathy. It’s a rare condition, where nymphs can’t control their forms.” When I shifted to look at him, his face was contorted. He didn’t seem convinced. “But if that were the case, you’d be changing a lot more than you are. It’s, very strange.”
Said the vampire-bat-shifter man. Yeah, strange.
I shrugged. “Should I see a doctor? Is this condition dangerous?” Was I going to lose all cohesion and become a puddle of goo? I may have watched a few too many Star Trek reruns.
“No, not dangerous. As for a doctor, perhaps. You’ll need to see one to get the contraceptive binding anyway. But maybe you’re just out of practice as a nymph and you need to learn to control it.” His turn to shrug.
If he didn’t know, I had no clue.
Okay, so… seeing a doctor was high on my list of things to do.
“Anything else about nymphs I should know? You mentioned water?”
He nodded. “You should have some control over water, maybe mist?”
My superpower…
I laughed
“What?” Myel asked with a kind smile.
“I’ve always been able to pour a drink perfectly, exactly an ounce of liquor or six ounces of wine, no spills. It’s what made me a great bartender. I’d thought of it as my superpower… apparently it actually is!”
Huh.
“There will probably be more you can do,” Myel said with care. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again. Perhaps he could tell I’d reached the limit of information I could handle.
As much as I needed to know everything about this world — and myself — as soon as possible, there was only so much I could take at a time.
“Thank you, Myel,” I said, sincerely.
“Any time… well actually, no… whenever I’m free and we can be together in secret… I’ll help you how ever I can. I have to. The bond demands it.”
As much as it was an imperative, I still appreciated it.
And as we gazed at each other, I saw something deeper than just our forced relationship in his dark, soulful eyes.
Something I wasn’t sure I could reciprocate.
“Myel… I…” How did I tell him that sex was one thing, but that I didn’t know of I could give him my heart. I was so not ready for that.
“I know,” he whispered. “It’s okay.” He smiled. “My life till now has been… rough.” I had a feeling that was a drastic understatement. “But being with you was… is heavenly, like a dream, the best dream I could ever think to have.”
As compliments went, that one was up there. Definitely top ten, probably top five, I’d ever received.
“Thank you, Myel.” It was all I could say for now. Because meeting up for sex in secret was one thing, but… what did I know of a committed relationship?
I avoided them like the plague.
If I didn’t get close to a person, they couldn’t hurt me. A lesson I’d learned early on in life, which had been reinforced time and again in the foster system.
I didn’t have girl friends and men were useful for sex, but didn’t get any part of my heart.
Most men are pigs, they only want one thing from you, to get in your hoohah.
Once they have that, they won’t care about the rest of you.
That had been the advice given to me by my second foster mother, Beatrice Moonie.
She’d been seventy-four and I’d been nine and she’d been trying to impart her wisdom before she passed, which she had a year later.
The other half of her advice had been, the few men who aren’t pigs… well, they’ll just break your heart. Only much later did I realize there must have been a long story behind that advice.
And after she’d passed, I’d learned just how awful men could be.
My next foster home had been a horror. I hadn’t understood why my older foster sisters cried at night. Then I’d turned thirteen and started to become a woman and my foster father had begun looking at me in a way I didn’t much like.
One night, the man who should have protected me from the world came into my room… into my bed.
To this day, I don’t know what happened next.
I’d curled up and wished horrible things on him as he touched my hair. He’d stopped instantly and fled.
After that he hadn’t bothered any of the girls. A few months later the house had been raided by police. One of my sisters who’d aged out a year before had finally spoken to authorities about what she’d endured, and they’d arrested the man.
So yeah, I had trust issues with men.
Old Lady Moonie had been right. Most were pigs, and the rest… well, they left eventually one way or another and broke your heart. So better to not get too close.
But I had no clue where that left me and Myel.
Although… If we kept our relationship to just sex to sate our bond…
Myel seemed to think that would be best. At least that was what he said. Yet, the longing in his eyes told a different story. He wanted me. He wanted what this bond promised, a solid and lasting relationship.
And I didn’t.
And we couldn’t even be seen together, or he’d be killed!
That’s what I used to convince myself I couldn’t give him any more than sex. It’s what was safest… for my heart… and for his life.
I’d keep him as distant as the bond would allow… even if that might hurt him, it was better than him being killed, right?
Right.
Then why did I still feel horrible?