Chapter Three
Felicity POV
“What?” Merc and I both say at the same time.
I stare at the remarkably beautiful and seemingly young woman before me. A wide grin pulls on her face, showing her brilliant white teeth that contrast her dark black hair.
“You really didn’t know?” Madam Daeval asks me and then looks to Merc.
Merc steps over and places a hand on my shoulder. “No, there haven’t been Fae on either plane in…two hundred years, not since they created their own plane to get away from the persecution they faced.”
I take in that information, or try to anyway. It’s difficult. I’m still stuck on one thing.
“Wait…I’m Fae. Like a fairy?” I ask Madam Daeval.
“Yes, well…half anyway,” she replies with a wave of her hand. “I’m quite surprised as well, but…there must still be some lingering on this plane if she was born.” She rubs my hand slowly, and it feels so nice, almost like a lulling.
I can’t help but smile. “All this time…I thought there was something wrong with me, but I’m just…a freaking fairy!” I wiggle my toes on the hard floor and look to Merc.
He looks a bit taken aback but he’s nodding. “This must explain why your blood is so…potent to me.”
“It could,” Daeval agrees. “One of the reasons the Fae fled was because of people desiring their blood.”
Madam Daeval starts to admire my hand more closely. Looking at the veins of my forearm and running her fingers along them.
“Oh, your blood could make my spells so much more powerful,” she mumbles. “I’ve always wanted to try—”
“Absolutely not!” Merc growls and grabs Daeval’s hand, pulling it away from mine.
I step back quickly, startled.
“You will not touch her again,” he says as he wraps his arm around my back.
My knees go weak underneath me and I swear every inch of me is flushed at the sound of his voice.
“You really care for her,” Daeval says slowly. She steps closer to him. “You ought to be careful about that.”
Does she really know this? Does Merc really care for me, already? Even though we’ve just met, it feels like I’m supposed to be here. Not here as in, Daeval’s place, but beside Mercurius.
I’m a fairy, apparently, and he’s a demon. I have no idea what the means in regards to my life. The only thing I know, is that I finally know something about myself that makes sense.
“Or what?” Merc says as he pulls me closer to him.
Daeval lifts her hand which contains several drops of my blood on her fingers and Merc’s entire body stiffens.
“You can barely handle the scent of her,” Madam Daeval insists. “It distracts you so easily.”
“Distracts from what?” I ask, looking at Merc, whose pupils look dilated. Though his expression is still one of protection.
The next thing I know, there’s something pressed against the back of my neck, and Merc’s arm is being pulled away from me. No, I’m being pulled away from his arm.
“What is this?” he growls.
The small room is now occupied by a dozen, maybe more, humans? No, they have to be more than that. Their eyes glow in various shades of blue, yellow, red, purple… their expressions are all of anger and cockiness.
“Told you we’d find a weak spot.” One of them says as he suddenly slams Merc against a wall.
“Merc!” I gasp, but it’s too late. They’re everywhere.
Their hands are all over me, all over him. Madam Daeval is no where to be found, and I can only assume that she was the one who set this up. How? How could she have set it up so quickly? She didn’t even know about me until I was here…until…
“She was working with them all along,” I huff. “Mercurius!”
Hands pin my arms behind my back.
Merc shoves the man off himself and grabs him by the head, and I watch as he rips it clean off his body, sending a fountain of blood all over the room.
His eyes are red hot with anger.
“That bitch!” he roars.
I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do. Every instinct to pull and run away has left me, the man holding me is too strong, and I’m struck with anxiety. I feel frozen to the floor.
“W-What do you want?” I ask breathlessly.
“We know what Mercurius cares about now…and oh, your blood will be oh so helpful too,” the man behind me croons into my ear.
I feel him pulling me backwards, toward the door.
“No, no…” I finally start to wriggle in his hold, but it hurts. His hands feel like clamps on my arms.
“Shut the fuck up,” another voice from the side of me, and a gag is tossed over my head and tightened at my mouth.
Merc is fighting off five or six others as I’m pulled into the alleyway.
The fight quickly moves into the darkness of the night. All I can do is plant my feet to the ground and refuse to be pulled any further.
The light of the moon is strong above us, and I feel it tingle on my skin.
There has to be something I can do, doesn’t there?
“Fuck!” Merc growls as he’s brought to the ground by a bolt of lightning, then another, and another. All four men that remain fighting him are constantly attacking him with…magic? I can only assume.
Merc manages to take one of them out by the legs, and I watch him rip open his throat and chest with his teeth, but before he can do anything else, transparent daggers ripple out from the hands of one of my captors and surrounds him.
Merc screams in a high-pitched hiss as the daggers stab him over and over again.
“Felicity!” he groans as he falls to the ground.
I have to do something. I’m a freaking fairy for Pete’s sake! Maybe only half. But there has to be something…anything…
I focus as hard as I kind. Squeezing my eyes closed, tears running down my cheeks and finding my mouth. Salty and warm.
The moon above me feels like fuel. It feels like…a smooth warmth that surrounds my entire body.
Not just that, anger. Pure fury.
I open my eyes to see Merc bleeding on the ground and nothing else matters.
A scream escapes me, like a high-pitched bell with only one note. The gag evaporates from my mouth, gone just like that.
“Let go of me!” I turn around with more strength than I’ve ever felt in my life and shove the man behind me away with one hand on his face.
My hand burns into his skin and he goes stumbling back in pain.
“Get away from him!” I have no idea what I’m doing, but I spread my hands out, and light begins to form from my palms. It’s like I’m another person entirely. Every move I make is instinctual.
Light surrounds me, the light of the moon taking form in me. A person. No, a Fae.
Several of Mercurius’s attackers run, like cowards, but the ones that don’t…
They quickly discover why they should have.
When I put my hands forwards, the light engulfs every living thing, except Merc. And screams fill my ears. It only lasts a couple seconds, before it leaves me. Leaves me breathless and dizzy.
The attackers left are on the ground, mumbling to themselves and without half of the skin on their bodies. They’re alive, but most likely wish they weren’t.
“Oh my God…” I whisper. “I did this…”
I look around, bodies… Blood.
I shake my head. Who cares. Merc. Merc is hurting.
I rush over to him on wobbly legs and he’s trying to sit up from the ground.
“My God…woman…” he breathes out, his eyes glued to my face in astonishment.
“If all Fae can do that…it’s a wonder why they left.” He coughs.
“You’re hurt. We need to get back to your house,” I insist.
He tries to get up but he’s bleeding and weak. “I can’t. They got me good. We didn’t think…think they could do it.”
“Who? These people? They’re your enemies? Obviously…but,” I sigh. “It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have fought them alone.”
“I didn’t,” he reminds me with a smirk. “You helped.”
“I don’t know how…but, if anyone else comes back… who knows if I can do it again, please, Merc just make a portal.”
“I can’t. I’m not strong enough right now,” he mumbles. “If I was. I’d be going after Daeval, that…witch,” he spits. Then groans as he leans back to the ground. His shirt is ripped, and I see not only the bleeding wounds but scars already healed on his chest.
I think for a moment. There has to be something I can do.
Blood. He drinks blood, apparently. Maybe it will help him heal.
“Will my blood heal you?” I ask him.
He looks at me cautiously. “Yes,” he mumbles.
“Then drink it,” I insist. I offer him my wrist.
“This…isn’t how I wanted it to—”
“I don’t care! You’re hurt, and you did…what you promised to do. I know what I am now. So, drink.”
Mercurius grabs my wrist, and I watch as his mouth opens wider than any mouth should be able to, before he sinks his sharp teeth into my flesh.
I gasp at the pain, but that pain quickly turns into…something…hot and needy.
It crawls up my arm, down my spine, and to my toes.
I lean against him, with my hand on his stomach. I can feel his body healing underneath me at an alarming rate.
Merc moans as he sucks my blood down his throat. His tongue lashes at the wounds and I can’t help but tilt my head down and shiver in responses.
“Merc,” I whisper. “I think you’ve had enough.”
I’m starting to feel a little bit dizzier than I already was.
He groans and pulls me closer to him, but pulls his mouth off my wrist. I look down at his face, his lips all covered in my blood and his eyes all wide.
“You’re so fucking delicious, Fel.”
That’s it, I can’t stop myself. I lean down and kiss him. I kiss him!
My mouth presses to his firm and eager, and at first, he stiffens, but then he seems to melt underneath me.
He kisses me back warm and needy. It tastes like iron and…something slightly floral. Is that me? My blood? I’d never noticed that before. Maybe it’s the combination of his saliva and my blood mixed together.
It doesn’t matter right now that we’re on the ground together with half a dozen whining and whimpering bodies all around us.
Some of them have disappeared, somehow… but in my mind nothing exists but the two of us.
“I was so scared,” I whisper against his mouth.
“Me too, little fairy,” Merc growls low and quiet. “Your blood…it fills me now. I’ve never felt so strong.” His arms wind around me, and I feel him squeeze me tightly. Pressing into my plushness without hesitation.