SIX
Drake
I felt two things at the same time.
The Green trying to pull me back.
And something deep within me trying to pull me back toward Amy.
It was a deep-rooted urge I actively had to fight when it pulled me to a stop every few feet.
There were no sex fae here, I reminded myself. No fae to feed off her desires.
There would be men, though.
Human men.
Ones who maybe meant her harm, sure, but ones who simply wanted her desire for pure reasons.
And that thought set my teeth on edge.
I had no claim on her, of course.
We'd kissed. That was it.
There could have been more.
If I hadn't stopped it.
But I had to stop it.
Because I knew it was going to be important to her.
And I maybe had a feeling it would be important to me. Because it had been so long. Because she had saved me. Because I already felt bonded to her.
Then throw in the fact that I knew we were parting ways, and I knew we couldn't go there.
Even if my body was begging for it.
My body had been begging for it since I felt her climb up onto my lap to get warm in the woods.
Her hand had moved innocently between my thighs, but had set my body on fire.
I sat awake for hours trying to get some control over my response, only seeming to manage to do so right before she woke up, realizing the predicament, and trying to disentangle herself slowly.
Spending another night with her wrapped up over me when we weren't freezing, when it wasn't life and death, that had almost undone me.
I hadn't been able to stop my fingers from seeking out the hair that I had seen so many times - catching the light, dancing in the breeze, looking softer than anything I had ever known in my hard life.
It turned out I was right.
The tremble that moved through her set my cock to steel in an instant. Her climbing over me then demanding a kiss had been like a lifetime of fantasies coming true. And somehow better than I could have imagined.
But no matter how much I wanted her, I had to stop it. Because I had this distinct feeling that once I got her, I would never let her go.
Maybe that was just simply my feelings of gratitude talking. Maybe it was just the freedom I owed to her.
But something within me said otherwise, said it was more, said I had wanted the sunflower in the tower since the day she became a woman, that I had cared for her long beyond that as anyone would when they had saved them more than once.
I shook my head, trying to break the thoughts free as I closed in on the car dealership we had seen coming out of The Green.
She was gone, taken by the giant steel headache headed for a place named after a fruit that - from the sound of things - didn't have a single fruit tree to boast about.
Maybe humans weren't the base, stupid creatures fae often accused them of being, but their naming of their cities could use some serious thought.
The pull of The Green beckoned me forward, reached for me like the embrace of loved ones, begging me to come home.
Home.
That was maybe the only thing that kept my feet moving forward instead of turning around and trying to chase down Amy's bus.
Home.
My land.
My kind.
I was still alive, so if they had not been massacred or afflicted in some way, everyone I had once known should still be living as well.
Hope was something I thought long buried, a seed dug too deep, too far away from the warmth of the sun ever to emerge.
But it sprouted then, a small, fragile thing at first that increased as the first day came to a close without someone catching up to me and dragging me back, it found its way to the surface, rooting deeper while spreading upward.
I settled down in a small cave in a cliff, reaching into the backpack Amy had picked out, looking for the almonds that should have been right there.
But they weren't.
They were buried.
Under a cap.
And gloves.
Different than the kind I would have found in The Green, thick, warm-looking.
I wasn't sure when she had slipped them past me, but as I put on the hat and gloves, feeling the warmth making a difference, taking the chill out of my bones, I felt something akin to longing within me.
Not just for sex.
Not for her touch, her kiss.
Just her company.
Just her warmth and kindness.
The way she beamed when something was new to me, when she could explain its function, when she could pull me into a world she clearly had a fondness for.
The smile of hers that lit her whole face.
The way every ounce of abundant tension slipped from her slight body as we stepped out of the veil.
I sat there for a long time eating almonds half-heartedly, taking a few of the blueberries I had found below them, assuring myself that I would feel the same way.
When I crossed into my land.
When I was reunited with loved ones who likely thought me long dead.
I would feel the relief then.
And I was on my way there.
So I slept.
And I dreamed about a field of sunflowers.
-
The next day, I traded some of my blueberries and almonds to a hungry-looking family on their way to the Light Court to carry Amy's note to her brother.
I hadn't been able to part with the ring.
I'd passed a small market where I could have sold it. I could have gotten myself changes of clothing, more food, weapons to defend myself with should I need them.
I'd felt the ring, heavy in my closed fist.
And I just couldn't do it.
It was on my sixth day of traveling that I finally started to find familiar things.
A tree I had climbed in my youth, made more gnarled and rough with age, but still boasting the crude carving in the side of a Draca breathing fire.
Then there was a stream where my friends and I had flirted with sprites, letting them wash our hair, run their hands all over.
Close.
I was so close that I could feel the draw again. Like the veil, but more familiar, stronger.
If the draw was still there, the chances of my friends and family being there as well was much stronger.
"I wouldn't go that way if I were you," a voice called from above me, making me stiffen, head shooting upward, seeing what I had missed when I had looked up on the tree line as I approached.
A woman.
Easy to miss at first with her lean body clad in dark browns, making her blend in with the tree limb she was standing on, arms down at her sides.
Her hair, too, matched, blended in. Long and sleek, tied here and there into small braids adorned with little trinkets found along the forest - rust-colored autumnal leaves, berries, pieces of natural rope with small gemstones beaded through.
Her face was what you would expect of fae - all sharp cheekbones, and a slightly pointed chin. Her almond-shaped eyes were an almost unnatural orange-brown, much like that of the leaves in her hair.
Her hands were perhaps the only thing about her that made no real sense. The tops had strips of scars - some old and pink, some red and new. The palms looked rough and blistered. And her nails, her nails were filed to points.
My eyes trailed down, seeing things I had missed in my surprise. Like a bag wrapped around one of her thighs. Like a band wrapped around the other, various items sticking out the top.
Most of them, I would bet, were weapons of some form or another.
Everyone knew a woman on her own in The Green would be subject to more hardships than most.
You could become a victim, or you became a predator yourself.
It seemed the woman in the tree was the latter of the two.
"Who are you?"
"Smoky," she supplied easily, chin jutting out a bit in pride.
"As in tourmaline or quartz?"
"Quartz."
"Interesting," I decided, nodding. "Born or made?"
"Both," she told me, shrugging. "I grew up in The Green," she added. "But on my own."
"Someone had to have raised you." Or else she'd have fallen prey to the worst sort of experiments, the hideous types of torture we all liked to pretend didn't exist.
"I have vague memories of gnomes feeding me from folded leaves. But as soon as I could walk, I was on my own."
"Rough life," I decided, shaking my head.
"Mine," she countered. "Now that you know my life story, who are you?"
"Drake."
"Normal name," she concluded, brows drawing together.
"I guess. Anyway," I rushed on, wanting to steer the conversation away from my possible lineage. "Why shouldn't I go this way?" I asked, waving a hand that would look like it led to a swamp in a few thousand yards.
My land.
My home.
My stomach tensed at the idea that something might be wrong there.
"The Light guards are out," she informed me. "Not for nothing, but you look like trouble. They're looking for people who look like trouble."
"Any particular reason, or just on the prowl?"
"Fucked up thing," she said, shaking her head as she lowered herself down on the limb she'd been standing on, sitting on it, swinging her legs down, just barely out of my reach. I was sure that had been a calculated move on her part.
"What is?"
"A whole family of Light fae were slaughtered. Saw the bodies after myself. Mom, dad, two little girls, and a baby in a sling. All dead."
My stomach twisted painfully.
Mom.
Dad.
Two little girls.
And a - male - baby in a sling.
That sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
It sounded exactly like the family I had given the letter from Amy to carry to the Court.
"I passed them," I admitted, making her head jerk to the side slightly, making her hair slide from in front of her ear, listening more closely. "They said they were on their way to the Light court."
"They didn't even get close."
"Do they have any idea who did it?"
"They're pretty clueless. Thieves, hungry for whatever food they had. Which is a ridiculous conclusion."
"Why?"
"Because they were all skin hanging off bone. If they had food, don't you think they'd have fattened up their babes a bit for a journey in this weather? Besides, it reeked around them. Not just their blood. Not just the death. But something smokey, something arid."
"Dark," I concluded, having known the smell when I had been caught - before I'd been taken by the Winters family.