- ELEVEN #3
But the nymphs had nothing else to give us as they all seemed to start toying with themselves and one another. It was a freaking nymph orgy and we were in the center of it all.
"It's more than we had when we started," I mused and ignored the fact that Willow placed a kiss underneath my ear as she braided.
A darkness was down over Doyle's face then though. It was so out of character that I felt a pit settle into my belly. "We are going to have to cross over into Dark territory."
"So?" I asked, shrugging. I'd go into hell to find Jade.
"So Jasper is technically Light. I am Light. You are unaligned. There are rules."
"Um, fuck the rules," I said, brows scrunching up at his hesitance.
"They're not rules. They're laws," Jasper chimed in.
"I don't have any laws. I mean... no one even knows who or what I am at this point. It can't be breaking laws for me to go. Besides, didn't they break laws by taking Jade?"
"You're talking like these are rational beings," Jasper said, tone condescending. "They're not. If we get caught, we get persecuted, regardless of if it was their crimes that drew us in in the first place."
"And the Dark realm is just as massive as the Light..." Doyle said, sounding suddenly hopeless, disgustedly wrenching away from the nymph beside him who had her hand between her legs, two fingers inside herself as she writhed and moaned.
"But, I mean, this hasn't seem that massi..."
"Oh, for fuck's sake. Stop being so naive," Jasper snapped, standing. "What you have seen of the Light so far is the equivalent of one inch of asphalt in a New York City street. You have no idea what you are talking about."
"Well it's lucky for me that I have such kind and patient teachers," I seethed, standing and moving out of the circle, Elm and Willow following behind me like a shadow and I suddenly wasn't annoyed by their presence.
At least they weren't treating me like an idiot, like a pain in the ass little sister they didn't want tagging along.
I shouldn't have felt so deflated, so chastened. But I did and I could feel the tears building too fast to blink away and they trailed down my face hot and unrelenting. I bent slightly forward, hands over my face, trying to pull it together.
"Here. My beautiful. My goddess. Here, please...
" Elm's voice cut in, sounding distraught as if my sadness hurt him in turn.
When I opened my eyes, he pressed a small wooden bracelet into my hands.
"I want you to have this. It is elm," he said, unnecessarily.
They were tiny elm beads with elm leaves carved into them.
I looked up at him, a few stray tears still running down my cheeks. "That is really, really kind of you."
"Does it make you happy?" he asked, sounding like his life depended on my acquiescence.
"Yes," I said, despite the hollow feeling in my chest.
"I will make you five more," he declared grandly. "No, no. I will make you ten more!" he announced, running off to, I assumed, do just that.
"And it was very kind of you to do my hair too," I said, reaching up to touch it, feeling small petals and leaves sticking out of what seemed like an intricate plaiting. "It is very beautiful."
"You are very beautiful," she corrected. "I will follow you everywhere. I will please you. I will worship the ground you step upon. I will..."
"Get lost," Jasper snapped, walking up.
"Jasp," Doyle said, stepping up beside him. "Be nice. You know she can't help it."
"Fine. Please get lost. She doesn't like girls anyway."
"Jasper!" I hissed as Willow's face fell and she ran away on a quiet wail. "They might be fickle and superficial, but they have feelings too. You don't have a free pass to be an asshole to anyone you want."
"In my experience, they always take it and come back for more," he said with a nasty smile and I got the distinct impression that he didn't mean the nymphs. He meant women. In particular, he meant me.
Yeah, well, fuck that.
But before I could snap back, Jasper turned and stormed away, leaving us to scramble behind.
We walked in stony, strained silence for a couple hours before Jasper declared he was going to find some food, giving Doyle a hard look like he was relaying something, before storming off.
"He doesn't mean it, you know," Doyle said when he was gone.
"Mean what?"
"To be such an asshole. It's a defense mechanism."
"I don't care what it is, it's unacceptable," I said, rubbing a hand over my grumbling belly.
"When I get out of here," I said, emphasizing the 'when' though it seemed less and less likely we were ever getting out of there, "I am going to stuff myself so full that I blow up like a Thanksgiving Macy's float.
What?" I asked, noticing him eying me oddly.
"Fae don't usually eat much. We just needs some fruit, some nuts, maybe a mushroom or some nectar here or there and we are set. We don't usually get so ravenous."
"Yeah, well, we've kind of established that I'm a freak."
"Maybe it's a good thing. It could help figure out what you are."
"She's a changeling like the rest," Jasper said, startling me as he dropped a ton of food down on a rag on the ground. "Eat. I'll go grab water."
I was beyond telling him to take it easy, that he had just been through hell, that he should be more gentle with himself. If he wanted to get another infection fever, that was his bull-headed decision.
I sat to eat, doing so a little self-consciously as Doyle popped a few berries and seemed satisfied. "Should I worry that Onyx isn't back yet?"
"He'll be back," Doyle said, almost like a promise. "He needs to protect the pretty damsel from us evil men."
"Yeah, you evil men who make me walk on a sore ankle for hours," I said, shaking my head, sort-of getting spoiled for having Onyx to ride on, missing the comfort of that.
"I noticed the hobbling."
"It's nothing. It's nothing like what..."
"What Jasp has going on," Doyle finished for me. "But you can't compare yourself to him. He's a machine."
A machine. That sounded like something good to me. Mechanical. Cold. Unfeeling. Rational. Less emotional. Yeah, I wanted to go full-on robot right about then.
"I could fix you up a nice healing tea," Doyle suggested, eyes wicked.
I felt myself laugh, the sound carrying, before I felt something push up against my leg and I leapt into Doyle's lap on a screech.
"Aw, baby, if you wanted to..." he started, his head burrowing into my neck, his voice sexy.
"Shut up," I demanded. "What the hell is that?" I asked, pointing to the spot where I had been sitting where something was pushing its way up out of the dirt. It was just a red point at first, then a bit of hair, then a tiny face.
"Oh, that's a gnome," Doyle said casually.
"A gnome?" I asked, scooting further onto his lap as the little man pulled his torso out of the ground. "Like the garden decorations? They live in the ground?"
"Yes and no. They move through the dirt like a bird does the air. But they live by rocks and tree stumps. Relax, he doesn't want to eat your toes," Doyle laughed as I tried to tuck my feet under his leg.
The gnome's face twisted up at Doyle's comment for a second as he dusted off his clothes.
"I saw your barguest. Lovely creature. Haven't seen one in one, no, two lifetimes.
Oh, you," he said, suddenly looking at me.
His eyes went round as he started searching into the brown satchel hanging from his waist. "Oh, oh, oh," he mumbled.
He pulled out a few gemstones, inspecting them with a scrunched nose before discarding them back into the satchel and producing more.
"Here," he declared, smiling. "This is for you.
" He held out an oblong tumbled stone in a shade of deep red with swirling browns, tans, and gold.
I reached for it, folding it into my palm tightly. "That is most kind of you."
"No, no," he said, waving my words away. "It is in honor to the Light. That is your personal protection stone. Never lose it," he said, sounding earnest.
"I wish I had something..." I said, searching around for something I could give him. I reached up into my hair and produced a flower. "Here, this is nothing," I said a little shyly. "Please take it as a token of my..." Not gratitude. Gratitude was akin to thanks. "Appreciation."
He scrambled forward fast, taking it from my hands and putting it to his nose.
"Oh, this is such an honor. Such an honor.
Wait until I tell my family. They will be so...
grateful," he stopped abruptly, head raising as if listening to something.
"Do you hear that? It is a lark with a broken wing.
" He informed us, tucking the flower gently into his pocket.
"I must go. But it was an honor, truly an honor," he said, throwing himself back into the dirt.
"Can I... keep one of those?" I laughed, charmed.
"They're not dolls, sweetheart," Doyle reminded me, reaching out and unfolding my hand from around the gemstone so he could look at it.
"What kind of gemstone is it?"
"It's jasper," Jasper broke in out of nowhere, tone cold and dismissive.
"Yeah," Doyle said, his tone suddenly suggestive. "A gnome just popped out of the ground and gave it to her. He told her that it's her personal protection stone."
"He was mistaken," Jasper insisted, handing us each a gourd canteen as I moved off Doyle's lap.
"Yeah," I agreed, taking a sip, trying to keep my tone dry. "He must have been. Jasper can't possibly have any positive elements," I said, tucking it out of sight as if it meant nothing.
But when their backs were turned and a shield was over my mind, I snatched it up and slipped it into a rip between the layers of fabric in my dress. It hung there, heavy against my breast right over my heart. And I tried like hell to pretend that it meant nothing.
But I knew better.