- FIFTEEN #3
In that moment, I knew something. I knew that all the shit we had gone through: the worry about Jade, the snips at each other, the exhaustion, hunger, thirst, filth, pain, and confusion...
it was all worth the exquisite feeling of him inside me, of him giving me pleasure and me returning the favor, in finally, finally giving into what had been between us almost since we met.
It was all worth it.
And on the eve of a day that could so easily be the last for one or both of us, that was possibly the most heartbreaking thing I had ever had to come to terms with.
Against my shoulder, Jasper let out a small sound that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.
"It's not funny, you jerk," I snapped, hitting his shoulder.
"Can I get out of you before you start planning what you're going to dress me in for my funeral pyre?"
Too annoyed to fully put it in words, not trusting my tongue to be eloquent enough to get my point across, I gathered all the emotions I was feeling: the happiness, the fear, the worry, the post-orgasm amazingness, and the feeling of time lost to our own foolish prides, I projected them all at Jasper at once.
His head snapped up, his lips parting slightly as he watched me.
"I know," he said, shaking his head a little sadly. "Believe me, I know. But let's not ruin something good with all the coulda-beens and the might-bes, okay?"
He had a point. "Okay," I agreed.
His hand slid to the side of my neck, pulling my face to his. His lips were soft on mine, comforting, reassuring, promising. And it was so freaking sweet that the tears stung at the backs of my eyes.
"Come on," he said, hand sinking into my hip and pulling upward. "We need to get some clothes back on before Onyx or Doyle show up."
With that, he slowly slid out of me and I fumbled a little awkwardly for my dress, struggling it on before snatching my panties and sliding them on under.
Jasper adjusted his pants and stood much more slowly, confidently.
He tied off the condom and moved a few yards away to dig a hole.
At my unspoken question, he shrugged. "We're not talking Styrofoam here.
Latex will break down in less than a decade.
It's not like I'm leaving an entire condom factory in the fucking ground," he said, moving back toward me and reaching for his shirt.
"I should have asked Baba Yaga for some kind of talismen or stone to protect my mind from being read instead of a stone that showed me to the human realm," I grumbled as he moved to sit down beside me, our bodies touching from feet to shoulder.
"I'll get you a black moonstone the next time I run across a gnome," he said casually, as if he said he would grab me a coffee with my morning bagel.
"It won't work quite as well as that shield you put over your thoughts, but it will make things harder for me to read if you wear it.
My abilities will only keep getting stronger the longer we are here. "
"What about back home?"
"Back home, feelings come to me in lower frequencies. None of the images, emotion manipulation, or the mind-reading, just glimpses of feelings."
"Like an empath."
"Yeah, something like that."
"What about Jade? What can she do in our world and what would that mean for her here?"
When I looked over at his silence, his face was dark. "Jade attracts love. In the human realm, that just means that she is a good matchmaker. Here, it likely means she will attract a lot of unwanted attention from men and that women will sense that she can help them in their troubles."
I nodded, exhaling. "And Doyle has his nymph thing. What about Amy? What is amethyst for?"
"It's a healing stone. Ironic, really, considering the shit she is growing up around.
I have no idea how strong her powers would be.
I know my father is pretty powerful, but it seems like I might be stronger.
My real mother... we didn't get the chance to discuss that.
But with a name like Alex, I imagine she was named for Alexandrite which is another love stone.
That makes a lot more sense now that we know Opal isn't our real mother.
There isn't a loving bone in her entire bitter, evil body.
" He was quiet for a long time, then, "Then there is you. "
"What do you mean?"
"You have to know by now that you're an anomaly, right?
" He asked and, well, I had no way of knowing that.
"I can overlook the fact that you lived in that human realm wearing fabrics that should have given you rashes and around iron that should have, at the very least, given you a wicked headache to be around.
But, you come in here, not even a hunch at being fae, not feeling drawn to the woods at all, but repelled by them and suddenly you have some kind of fucking power I have never seen before.
Like I told you, most of us have our hints of power.
I have my somewhat reckless bravery and my ability to heal and feel things.
They're practically parlor tricks. Doyle is a charming slut.
Jade has hunches about good matches. Hell, even my grandparents just have vague traces of powers that used to be more impressive.
We, as the generations have passed, are becoming weaker as a species.
Our powers are mere facsimiles of what they were once.
Every generation is getting less and less in the way of power.
Then here you are with more power in your hand than most of our great grandparents had in their entire bodies. You make no sense."
"It's a weird power too, isn't it?" I asked, knowing my answer. I had seen it in the eyes of everyone who had seen it.
"Most of our powers are to protect. Fae usually need spells to cause the kind of harm you do by extending your hand. I've known a lot of fae and I had fae history pounded into me as a kid. I can't think of any lineage that would allow for you."
"Well that's comforting," I said, shaking my head as I moved to lie back on the ground. Jasper moved down too, but on his side, facing me. His hand grabbed my hip and rolled me to face him as well, his leg slipping in between mine, his thigh pressing intimately against my heat.
"My parents trying to poison you and shit wouldn't normally be a red flag either, but they saw something in you too."
"Is that bad?"