Mermaids & Frisbees

TYKE

Fay cheated.

At first, she ran down the hill, her feet kicking the dewy grass. Thousands of fireflies whizzed out in a swarm of yellow and orange. And when the scamp felt my fingers brush against her skin, she took off, taunting me with a trill.

The fae and their birdsongs...

If it were a different world, I would say their most attractive characteristic would be this, easily. However, it's not a different world, and it's hard to acknowledge how wonderful it is to hear, especially when used as a military tactic to lure...

Fay's song is that of a skylark, and I'd kill to hear more of it. But she's shy, and most of the time, her songs flow out of impulsiveness.

Tonight, though, she gifted me her voice made of wings, and somewhat, a glimpse of freedom...

And so I forget myself, my legs and their speed as they rush me down the hill, mostly blissing out, disappearing into oblivion because, for once, everything feels right.

My mind's wandering like a dream. No matter what I'm looking at, whether it's the purple city glowing in the distance, the breeze carrying the distinct musky scent of Fay, or a fairy flying into a cloud made of fireflies, it all feels the same. Unreal.

My jog slows to a walk when I notice Fay has stopped by the lakeside.

As I get closer, I cock my head at the feminine voices growing in conversation. Mermaids...

A pressure builds at the base of my neck. Not just because I know a few through Deon, dreading that one particularly obsessed red-haired individual might start probing me with questions about him; it's the damn sign. "Neutral waters. No Faerhan jurisdiction applies. Swim at your own risk," it warns, a constant reminder that merfolk are an eccentric lot. They either take a shine to you and treat you like family, or they don't, and you become fish food.

"He's called Cerberios," Fay says timidly. "Can we enter your waters?"

Narrowing my eyes down Fay's feet, I exhale mid-panic, mid-relief upon recognizing Coralia and Nixie, two of Deon's unpredictable, unbridled, fickle lovers. How the fuck does he do it with females? I don't know. He's a mystery. Will never blame him for it, though. That's what saved my life... My first swim in the Golden Sands. Water at thigh level, I was winding a cord around my wrist, trawling a homemade net to the shore. Poaching, they call it, illegal, too. But I can't make the month with what I earn. And fish is fish...My ankle got snatched, and I was dragged in with nothing to grasp but water. I sunk, and deeply too. Two fiery orbs, which I later learned belonged to Coralia, suddenly opened, emanating a glow that stained the abyss red. As they pierced through me, they unveiled a menacing row of jagged teeth, each one sharp enough to rival the spikes of a tribal chief's mace. I balled my fists. It was a fifty-fifty kind of situation; I wasn't in my environment, and she didn't have the muscle. So, I readied myself for a fight as she swam forward with the speed of an adder. A rushing sound sliced through the water, splitting the space between us. Behind a cloud of red and silver bubbles, Deon. The fool enlaced her waist without a second thought and, in one powerful thrust of wings, pulled her out of the lake for the flight of her life.

Of course she fell in love. And just like that, I've become their go-between, the reason for this union that was never really one. But she doesn't know that, and I'm certainly not going to tell her.

"It's unexpected, but the setting calls for it," Fay adds.

They had to show up tonight... Beached, belly and elbows on the sand, chins resting on the top of their entwined hands, both dames grinning, a twinkle in the eye like they snagged the catch of the day.

"Sssure, come in, darling," Coralia hisses, lifting her crimson-scaled tail out of the water. I grit my teeth. Beside her, her purple-headed friend, Nixie, usually the third wheel with me, adds, "We love to meet new people."

My tense eyes flicker to my unforeseen skinny-dipping date, gripping her skirt's zipper at her back. I snatch her working wrist before it can draw anything down. "I didn't know swimming was part of the plan?"

Fay blinks at me with smug trap eyes, and my grip turns into goo. She flutters up to my level, bringing her unruly lips to my ear. "Sometimes the best moments are the unplanned ones."

Somewhat, I purr or hum at the touch of her voice or the sound of her lips. Whatever's happening to me, it's a pain in the fucking ass because there are witnesses.

Still, it won't remove the bead of sweat trickling down my temple. Coralia's got the sharpest set of teeth I've ever seen, and I'll never forget the day she effortlessly sliced through a branch with a single, resounding crunch... By Gruumsh, I felt it in my fingers.

I keep my eyes on Coralia, watch her swishing her blood-like hair over one shoulder as she feigns no interest in Fay's thighs, even though she keeps bouncing her attention on them every three seconds. Fay's not helping my... our... her case. The hem of her skirt keeps flirting with her upper legs as she turns and staggers, visibly struggling to unzip it. Coralia feels the heat of my gaze because her sapphire eyes, the size of tennis balls, veer toward me. She covers up her "caught in the bag" moment with a forced smile and a wink. "Hi, Tyke."

Glancing for Fay and the progress of her undressing, stiffness crackles my lips as I ask, "How's the water?"

"Too warm these days," Coralia says with a languid, bored voice as she rolls onto her back, her head bent backward, maintaining a hostile focus on my fairy. I leap behind Fay and belt her with my arms, instantly tuning out, imagining how I'd descale Coralia on the spot, removing her scales one by one until her tail became a raw piece of fatty meat. But I'm on my best behavior, and she seems to be as well. "Found a sweet butterfly, I see."

"You shouldn't be here. The city's in a stir." My grumble catches me off guard, but Fayra removing my hand around her gnaws at the thing beating in my chest.

"Came to see if I could get some leftovers," Coralia titters, licking her sparkly cheeks with an obscenely long, forked tongue.

She then rises on her hands with a predatory intent, incessantly glaring at Fay engineering a way to zip open her caught zipper. Fay seems unperturbed; on the contrary, she occasionally glances down and giggles at Coralia like she's the most beautiful creature she's ever seen.

"You know each other?" Fay simpers, turning to me.

I clear my throat. "This is where we used to spend evenings with my colleague."

"Where's your wingman, by the way?" Coralia cuts.

"Anywhere but here."

"Damn." She pouts, her glittery scales flashing a sudden bioluminescence racing from her forehead down her dorsal fins to her tail. Gravity collapsed her gills—five slits lining either side of her throat—and now they are swelling from insufficient oxygen.

"Give me a sec." Breathless, Coralia dives back into the water.

As she does, Fay's skirt and panties drop to her ankles, undeterred. Part of me feels lucky about it, the other not so much. I want her to stay in one piece, or maybe I know the water's freezing... "One of your exes?" she asks, not even bothered to look my way, swiftly tugging down her sneakers with the tip of her feet.

Submitting to the fact that I will soon be greeted by an ice-cold lake, I pull off my T-shirt. "No," I admit. Wish I had this male attitude, heard it makes one more desired. But no. While I may have a double bed, the empty pillow beside mine was always for Fay. "My partner's."

Coralia heads back to where she was, sliding her belly on the sand, again joined by her purple-haired friend, Nixie. She's a big lady with a soft smile. She could've been a stunner, but the steady flow of blood oozing from a corner of her lip is always off-putting—she's constantly chewing on some perch. And no matter how I tried to convince myself she is a bombshell, I just couldn't come to terms with hugging slimy-skinned girls that smelled like clams.

That's Deon's thing.

"I haven't seen you in a while," I tell Nixie, inwardly cursing as I glimpse Fay, ditching her top on the ground, all too ready to swim.

Nixie lifts her fan-like tail out of the water, thorns punctuating the crests. Scales lift as her head follows Fay's steps on the shifting pebbles toward the water's edge. "Arrived last week. West Coast is burning. It's crazy," she says.

I nearly rip my jeans' buttons as I undress. "Burning?"

"Haven't you heard? Stories about a resistance with a big R are laying bombs in the fae and witch areas of Sirenton."

"No." I watch Fay, who has stopped moving, now clutching her chest. "It's not on the news."

Fay steals a glance. "You're coming, Tyke?" I know she heard what Nixie said, yet she chooses not to tap into the subject. Instead, she dips a foot in the water and immediately stalls, joined by a muffled hiss.

"It's cold?" I lance.

"No."

Liar.

Yet a liar I trust. She told me to keep faith, that things will get better, and by Arfa D'In, I believe her. A person's contribution to making this cold world beautiful can never be wrong.

Nixie's fingers squish on my skin as they loop around my ankle. "Anyway, your darling's got a name? It's rude not to introduce her to us..."

Her touch has me mentally wincing. "I was about to." Fuck, I hate this. I softly lift my foot from her slippery hand and walk to Fay before she leaps into the water.

"You've been slipping out of my grasp all night," I whisper in her ear, enlacing the raised skin of her waist. "Stay with me, I want you to meet them." Polite or not, it might be a good idea to up our chances of swimming safely...

With my arms bracing her, a hand over her sex for cover, I pivot us to face my merfriend. It's not that we're shy, but these hungering mermaids, whether out of intrigue or plain hunger, stimulate my possessiveness.

"Fayra, this is Coralia. She's, uh, what I call a land whisperer."

Coralia waves her fingers. "We've met."

"A land whisperer?" Fay's curiosity perks up, her New Orc accent bubbling with intrigue, and I smile. To then shut my eyes at my own cheesiness.

"He means a journalist." She grins mockingly. "I report for Triton's kingdom, spread whatever news I hear and that wherever seas or shores I go. Call me a professional gossip."

They both chuckle, and I smirk at my own stupid jitteriness. It won't be a problem to take a skinny dip with Coralia. It's Fay. She has me on edge for some reason; it could've started on how she hovered over the park's dangerous spiked gate right down to the car door about to flap back on her right wing before that. But no, this anxiousness has been there since the beginning of everything Fay.

"This is Nixie, from the Gulf of Wonders. She comes here during the summer," I continue, bouncing my chin at Nixie.

"How uncommon..." Nixie twists her head, her oversized white cataract-like eyes racing over her wings. "Peacemaker. You must have the Evariss power."

Evariss!?

Fay sucks in her stomach. "No. Only the Heartsbleed chemical. Just bland pixie dust."

"Oy, girl, make it glitter!"

Fay turns her head away, her cheek against my torso. I catch a little murmur, "Can't even control that..."

Coralia's teeth stay clenched as her lips part, almost hissing at her friend, "You idiot," while Nixie's frown deepens. "Did I say something wrong?" she asks worriedly.

My arms clench around Fay. "We're a little tired. Came here to unwind." And maybe it wasn't a good idea after all. I dip my chin in the hollow of Fay's neck, whispering, "We should go home."

"Why?" Fay looks up at me with a half-smile. "Are you scared of deep water?"

Coralia hears it. "Come on. I know you're not!"

"Thanks... but it'll be a pass. Plus, I still remember how you greeted me the first time."

"I won't eat her, Tyke. We might enjoy monsters as different dishes, starters, and main courses, but we also enjoy them as friends, too." And giggling, Coralia flicks her hand in an inviting gesture. "Loosen up. Let the fae breathe."

Then, seeing my reluctance, she grabs a frisbee from Cerberios, who was busy splashing in and out of the water, and tosses it into the lake, preferring to ensnare my dog instead. "I won't bite, I promise."

My humming comes out lengthy and stops at Cerberios jumping in, and I can already smell a swampy aroma inside my Cadillac. Upon the dog treading around them, Coralia turns her head around and slyly winks at me. There's a satisfied glint in her eyes; she knew perfectly well what she was doing with this frisbee, luring in a small prey to attract a much bigger one. Fay.

And her tactics work.

"I'm going in." Fay removes my arm and goes for it. I watch her hips wave as they disappear in the dark liquid, barely illuminated by the city's reflection.

Drawing in a breath, I remove my jeans and yank my underwear down.

There is silence, and it's stifling.

The sea girls look away.

Perhaps it's out of respect for Fay gazing me down with a curious smile.

"By the gohd brheederrr..." Fay mocks, taking my Orcish accent.

Imp... "Feel free to say that more often." I sit-climb a small protruding rock, twirling on my ass as I flip my legs from dry to wetland, and of course, the bug is not finished with me...

"Something big is shrinking fast," she adds.

"It ain't warm, girl."

Fay swims to me and lifts at bust level, grabs my cock, and pulls on it so much that I have to follow.

"Dae'mon... the cold is excruciating." Never too short on some drama if it means extra strokes. It might be chilly, but I'm dying to fuck Fay.

"Nixie, follow me." Coralia gestures to her friend with a come-over-here flick of the hand. "The one who tosses the frisbee the farthest gets to offer a trout to the winner," she says, swinging her glance back at me.

"Deal!" Nixie squeals before diving into the water, farther away from us.

And I exhale. At least these two know when to make themselves scarce.

I pull Fay close, place her arms around my neck, and with a determined stride, I lead us behind a curtain of reeds.

"Where are you taking us?" Her words are hot on my skin—another branding, another mark, another spell of hers...

"To a place no one will see us."

She cups my face. "Nor harm us."

I place my hand over hers, leaning into her touch, and whisper, "Not even find us."

Her forehead presses against mine, our lashes forking into each other's, the heat between us roaring louder with each breath we take. I'm about to kiss her when she turns her back to me. Breaching our intimate distance, Fay gently paddles away before stilling at the lake stretching before us. "I love watching the city's reflection in the water."

On sand that gives away, yet never really, I squat in the waters––not so cold after all––and immerse myself at shoulder level. "Bug. Why are you so fleeting since we happened upon the mermaids?"

"I'm not. You're the one who's grabby."

I'm grabby... "First time I hear you complain about it."

"I'm sorry. It's not you," she says, turning slightly toward me, a hint of apology in her eyes. "It's about weakness."

"What about it?"

"Orcs aren't too fond of it, right?"

I nod, a dry hum escaping me. That word again. She's hellbent on it for a reason. And every damn conversation that's come from the topic has never been good. It's never been bad, either. Just... never good.

"I love how the lake mirrors the city. You know, like New Orc's own twin," she says.

I draw in a deep breath, namely to the ongoing frantic threads of her mind, clutching firmly at them at every bend they take.

It feels like taking a leap of faith when I say, "Like a liquid twin."

She turns the whole of herself, her expression beaming at me. "A liquid twin, exactly. You can't quite grasp it as if something's amiss."

I squint at her, taking in the cascade of hair dipping into the water, and the sparse twinkle of her wings giving off with each breath. Cocking my head like a curious mutt, I feel dumb for wanting to know what exactly she implies by 'amiss,' besides what we already know about this city––a shithole. "What do you mean by 'amiss'?"

"The city. It's all sharp edges and glaring lights. But its reflection? It's like it's hiding something as it sways with the currents." She swishes her hand over the surface, blurring the reflection. "It's like it's breaking down, revealing a different story beneath all the glitz."

I look down at my reflection, thinking about the meaning of water. "My ancestors used to say water is the mirror of our essence, moving like the currents of our consciousness."

"Yes..." Her eyes flicker, wide and sparkling. "That's precisely it, like a portal, showing a reality perhaps more authentic than what we perceive. And the hues..." Then throws her attention back at the lake, groaning softly.

"What's troubling you, bug?"

She says nothing.

And I wait, counting the seconds between us.

Not for long. My hunger to be by her side takes hold, and I move in closer, my feet searching the sand for her. A simper flows from her lips when she senses my toes bumping into her heels. The sand below, gritty, rough, and catching, reminding me why we're still grounded in this city. We're sinking in its moving murk. Yet, my grip on her waist, perhaps uncontrolled, is as firm as the knowledge that someday, we'll be treading in the pure, untainted waters of an Orcana river... all this becoming a distant memory.

Her wings rub gently against my stomach, then stop to rub again reluctantly, as if she didn't want them to move, maybe because they keep speaking for her whether she wants it or not. "Tyke, I need to tell you something." The word 'something' dies in on her tongue as if catching it too late. "Forget it."

My nose wrinkles. Deon always said there are two things to watch out for with female monsters: 'I'm fine' and 'We need to talk.' And while 'I need to tell you something' doesn't sound exactly the same, it's close enough.

She swipes her hand across the water with more force this time.

"Fay, what's going on?"

"Nothing. It's not important," she mutters.

There's a knot forming in my stomach as I remove a leaf from her shoulder. To find Fay hesitant to open up to me feels like a punch in the guts. "Not important? Even this leaf, here, stuck on your shoulder, is important from the moment it fell on your skin."

Her ribs expand under my hands, and somewhat, I pull them back as if the ribcage itself is wary, afraid I'm the one stifling her words, now just hovering them around it.

"Tyke." Finally, sound comes out of her. "I want to tell you a few things, but I'm unsure how you're going to take it, that's all."

I spin her to face me. "Bug, whatever it is, you're safe with me."

"It's about weakness." Her expression turns to guilt, as if she's about to confess a crime, eyes a tangent to the brow as they meet mine.

I frown. "Define weakness."

Her head dips, and now her gaze is drowning in the water. "Fear."

My chest collapses. Why does she keep thinking that? "We all fear. Weakness, I told you, is the rot that gives birth to the horrors of this world. Murder. Treacherous behavior, gracious torture..."

She marks a pause, her stare parked somewhere in her mind, teeth showing a little, playing with her tongue as they trap it repeatedly.

I cup her chin, raising her focus back on me. "Don't hold your words from me."

"I'm not always feeling..." Fay seems reluctant to confront me, and pulling away, shows her back to me once more, "quite right."

Sound drops to a breath. There is no motion aside from the swelling of our breathing bodies and the water rippling from it. There might be barks, there might be laughter, but nothing registers except for the beats of our hearts and the whispers of her shaky lungs.

I grit my teeth. The girl's spacing out.

Tightening my embrace, I flush her back against my chest and snug, anything that makes her feel safe and close to me.

She's opening up for the first time—an honor, if not for what I already know. Her secret garden drips too little to be seen. She hardly leaks anything...

All this suffering, the denial... These engulf Fay like two competing currents, clashing into a wave of tears, sometimes a sea of cries.

I can always tell when it hits. Its tide rises into her eyes before it reaches a standstill. And when that happens, she withdraws into silence. Always.

This silence is here, so I drop my chin in the crook of her neck and bury my voice under her hair. "Tell me what you're thinking." I don't expect much since she holds her worries in a hermetically sealed compartment with her 'rules are rules.'

Only there's a catch: her rules no longer apply. The casual friendship excuse has gone out the window. And she won't see it back anytime soon because I've put a lock on it.

With my hand clasping her upper arm, Fay's wraps around my wrist, fitting me with a cuff made of glittering skin, the closest I'll ever be to wearing precious stones. "I'm working on it. My thoughts are being mean to me."

Her words fail to convince me as we stare at a floodlight of skyscrapers. My problem with how she's handling herself is that it's like she's holding on to a falling tree. It's pointless, knowing the base has been sawn off.

Donna's been slipping hint after hint with her late-night texts.

Give her a call. She hasn't slept in days.

Is she sleeping at your place this weekend? It would do her good.

She's had another nightmare.

Nightmares, I know all too well. The first night I spent with her was during the winter, so after she fell asleep, I got up, closed the windows, and drew the curtains shut. Hours later, she woke up in terror and raced to them, banging her head against the glass hard enough that it shattered. There was a scuffling noise that immediately followed as the curtain rod fell. Fay was terrified, pulling, scraping at what she could.

No orc is prepared for that. I was in a frosted state, nerves on edge, as I couldn't grasp the moment.

I immediately went for my holster, which I had placed next to the nightstand, pulled out my M-gun, and cocked it.

Aiming at the bloody dark, I ran to her moon-lit silhouette. Drowning in cries, my girl was battling with the windows, fingers scurrying against the sharpness of the shattered glass.

I dropped my weapon and fell to my knees, holding her tightly as she wailed, warm liquid slowly dripping down my back as she clung to me. Her nails were hinged into my skin as she gasped between tears, "Open the window..."

My hand flashed to the latch and pulled the handle, making the panels bang against the walls.

She climbed out and flew off.

Fay sleeps naked.

I waited, fucking worried, at the windowsill, to be honest, minutes from calling Deon. I inhaled deeply at the thought. Gruumsh be blessed that never happened.

Five minutes later, she flew back into my arms, and we keeled over; the floor wasn't as rough as being hit by a fae.

And as my lungs still sat tight, she cried, "Tyke, don't close the windows ever again."

Fuck, I thought about removing them altogether.

"Please talk to me," I pleaded, stroking her hair in a mad, desperate manner. From that point, I was sure she'd never want to see me again. I had apparently done something wrong and was overly petting her like a possessed monster.

She said she just wanted the silence between my heartbeats. And those words alone weren't that bad. My exhalation came out controlled, slow, and low; I remember because I held my breath longer than I had ever kept it. We stayed on the floor, and I didn't push her for more.

This void of helplessness has always been inside me. But that night, Fay blew it up. It never occurred to me that she carried such a weight within, and it crushes me to death to know that detail. No matter how hard I try to remove it from her, it keeps growing, and so does my void.

I carried her into the bathroom and put bandaids on the cuts on her fingertips, thinking there was a wound far bigger inside her. The girl was mute, maybe embarrassed or angry at me, I didn't know.

And now, we sleep in the open air, and I'm okay with that.

I wet my lips. This silence has to be removed. "Fay, I need your thoughts. I want everything—the troubles, the worries, the fear."

I nudge her with my nose. "I need to know." Despair. A feeling that walks hand in hand with helplessness. These are so deeply felt when it comes to Fay. I see her wounds incapable of attending to her, incapable of identifying them, reaching them.

I bring my head down, twisting my neck above her shoulder, trying to grasp eye contact with her. Turning her head, she meets my gaze halfway, probably sensing my struggle. Her eyes are twinkling, if not as much as the waters.

"Quince would've loved this kind of night. Mermaids, the dog..."

My voice falls, my fingers at a loss to press on her even if I tried. "Bug?—"

"It's funny..." A minute ago, the Golden Sands felt like a snippet of heaven, but now, it looks closer to the Gurnam Swamps as sadness wracks up her throat. "You make me think of him."

She finally faces me, placing her head against my chest, and I listen. "He was always down for anything. By my side at all times. Made me feel good, you know. But when you're a kid, you don't realize how good you have it until you hit the rough patches of life."

I let her talk, stroking her soft skin and playing with her submerged hair, streaks of them waving like tentacles, soft and mute...

"His picture hangs above my bed... my little brother." We both shiver as she snuggles up.

"Where is he?"

"The Haresh' Ti took his life." Chills, like icy daggers, pierce through me as her voice slows to a painful crawl. Instinctively, I draw her even closer than she is, feeling the strain of her struggle to speak pressing against me. "The last time I saw him, I was still a child. Quince hung there, his head severed with his hair trapped in the grasp of a Haresh'Ti's fist. It wasn't until years later that I realized he was a Haresh'Ti because of the gray skin I saw that night. He remains etched in my mind, his silhouette enclosed by my bedroom window as my family fled the house hastily. Bold, a blue tattoo of a deer skull over his face, tribal burns dotting the frame of his yellow eyes, one of his tusks was broken. Not missing. Just broken. I see them all the time. At every windowsill, every night, Quince crying for my help."

I lay my chin gently on the crown of her head––a stark contrast to the flame of vengeance licking my soul, stiffness taking over, bunting every fiber of mine. To know Haresh'Ti march and crush on anyone. To know they hurt her. Fay. My fairy...

I could kill now.

Stroking her sobers my racing thoughts. There's a fae against me from the same kind that has us all in a bind. The thought of this triggers a disturbing, almost appreciative deduction. The Haresh'Ti probably got wiped out during the war. Or better, swallowed by the Gurnam swamps. Not out of a million chances could they have been inserted into Faerhan society, and if some have, I would have bloodily realized by now.

. They took from us, too. I remember asking my father why we had to prepare for war after a hunt went awry, and he said, "A hunt consists of the hunter and the hunted. Sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted; as orcs will always be wolves for orcs, this is the Haresh' Ti way. Never trust them. Never."

"How old?" I whisper. The murder of women and children is nothing to them, much less having any honor at all.

"Four." Seconds pass. The damn dog is a chorus of incessant yaps. Hissing merfolk laughs a foil to the sorrow we're currently dipping into.

I won't let it stay. "Was Quince as handsome as me?" I ask in a desperate attempt to make her smile.

She chuckles. "He was definitely mischievous and cute like you."

"Keep talking; I need the sound of you."

She snivels. "I might scare you off."

"Nothing can scare me more than when you shut me out."

"Don't say that..." Her embrace grows stronger—I don't think she's ever squeezed me so hard. She's far from choking me, but if ever it came to that, she could choke my life out.

"I'm afraid of something dark inside me. It walks in my shadows, screeches in my ear... and sometimes, Tyke, it's just too much." I'm under a trillion stars, yet I only see one. And it's scared of its own radiance.

I clasp her head and pull her close to my mouth, water moving around us as I kiss her wet eyes. "There's a place full of sunrises and unnoticed places, where the days are endless and never turn to night. There, the darkness would never bother you again. Jor'kahal."

With her face still caged between my hands, Fay's eyes glisten with interest. Maybe I should tell her. "I could take you there."

Her eyes glitter under the moon, darker shades of blue circling their opal-colored rims. "You can?"

We're losing sleep. Wasting our youth in this country. "I will."

Fay seems to brighten at once, eyes wide, the shy curl of a smile growing into an unapologetic one. "I'll go where you go." And all my being becomes overruled with chills balking into me without control. She will?!

We all know reaching the wall separating Faerhan from Orcana is a forty-minute drive from New Orc. Border troops are posted every one hundred yards, with army guard towers scattered along the wall's interminable length. But while driving along the edge, I found an unguarded gap––completely unnoticed. There's a heavy curtain of ivy dangling down the stone, shielding it. Behind it is a small field, and beside it, a path once used for nomadic travel, but that's not the best part. The crack is wide enough for a Cadillac to travel through.

I wanted to keep it a surprise. Or maybe I feared rejection... but to hell with it.

"I often used work time on a project. I take the patrol car and leave the city, ensuring smooth driving through the checkpoints. You know, it's just easier for me to get closer to the Wal?—"

Velvet lips rush to mine. "You say the word and I'll be there, a bag in hand."

I release what should be a light-blow, but it's heavy, full of fucking relief. Her kind tries to fill Fay with their hate for orcs, but all she does is turn it into light.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot get her close enough, even as I hold her against me—never too lightly, always too tightly. I wish I had her wings. Fuck, I would've already taken her far above the skies where the stars don't take sides...

And yet, as of the upcoming week, I'm already failing to protect her because of this damn mission... "I've been keeping a gun under the trunk of the Cadillac, next to the spare tire mount. I'm going to give it to you."

"A gun?"

"A gun."

Last year, I confiscated a gun made of plastic during one heated arrest, another drunken brawl, another resistance fight. It's a black-market gun, most certainly 3D-printed. The weapon wasn't part of the chaos, so I forgot to bring it to the evidence storage room... Old school, bereft of magical properties, non-registered, it works with any type of bullets—to put it simply, perfect for when things go wrong.

I've been thinking about giving it to Fay––a month now, scratching my head many times, hesitating if I should give it to her or not. Donna had spilled a little of her past before Fay even had a chance to tell me herself, about the sleeping pills and the overdose. The thought of a self-inflicted wound to the temple had given me nausea. But with the fairy murders... If Fay had to endure an ounce of the torture these girls went through... And then there's Vym. No, trust is a two-way street, and I have hers now, so why can't she have mine?

"Why?" she asks.

I clamp her shoulders. "It's loaded, light and easy to manipulate, the drawback friendly." My voice is as quiet as it can be: a rushed whisper of unease, sudden forensic photographs of dismembered fairies impairing my rational thinking.

"Tyke, you're scaring me."

I crane my head over hers as her eyes stay hankered on mine. It might seem like I'm getting too assertive, but she needs to pay heed. "Tuesday's coming fast. I don't want to leave you alone, but I have to. The Fae murders ain't to be taken lightly. Promise me you will keep the gun close to you at all times." I clear my throat straight after that, a growl that wasn't meant strained my entire tirade and by the look of her frown she's irked about it.

"Nothing will happen." She keeps yapping the same old line each time I harp on about the city being shaky.

So I'm just going to shoot back with my same old rhetoric. "Nothing's happened yet.'"

Like always, her eyes roll to this.

And like always, I don't care. "Repeat after me, 'I promise, bear.'"

There. That smile again. "I promise, bear."

Smile, nonetheless, that catapults me right back into a zone of anxiety... "I swear, Fay. The situation is killing me."

Even more as she takes in a trembling long breath to then, lips barely parted, shape a voiceless yet crushing, "Yeah..."

Closing on her, I refrain from nipping her earlobe and whisper, "If I don't contact you, know that every thought I have is for you. Every breath, every second, every beat in my chest." Fuck... I'm getting too soft, or maybe I just have sparks of lucidity every now and then and I've always been an endless drooling machine with her.

"Not even a text?" she asks, peeved.

"No."

"One!"

Fay...

I take a step back and clamp her cheeks. "I don't want anything linking us on this mission."

"Okay." Fayra simply nods, face slipping away, out of my clasp, spurring in me a feeling worse than if she had been nagging and I finally knuckled under.

Duhkal... "Don't okay me, bug."

My head ticks as I watch her lines of sadness ebb away in favor of a different expression; Fay's eyes darkening as her lips gap invitingly. The weathervane...

"Okay..." she repeats with a purr so wicked it's as though she decided to torment me. As though? Exactly what is happening here? Fay's fingers begin to dance at the base of my neck, not just twirling strands of hair, but also pulling my cock up like a puppet. "...Tyke." Her tongue whips, sweet fuck, cracking my name in the middle, making my groin roar.

Still, I'm paralyzed mid-way up, unable to talk, react, basically function. Blessed be this living hell, because this daemon runs her tongue over my tense lips, never breaching them, but scalding me from the inside out. If I had all my faculties, I'd be already buried inside her.

Still, I stutter a breath and my cock turns angry.

I push against her, teeth a nick at the hollow of her neck and jawline, and she lets out a cute gasp as I guide her behind a veil of foxtails. Waterweeds twin around our urgent ankles as pebbles shift beneath confronting toes. Here, nestled among the foliage, lies a flat rock, smoothed over the years. Many times I've dreamt of taking Fayra on this slab and my blood bangs against my veins to know it's about to get real. Upon her backside standing over the moderate incline, we still and my jaws begin to grind as I watch an inkling of provocation taking shape in the form of her unruly smirk.

Wings flutter in surprise, splashing water like a fish bucking its tail as I flip her over. "Tyke?" This time my name comes out in one singular hacked breath.

I belt an arm down her body as I lean on her, clenching her groin. "Brat."

"Why?" she murmurs rapidly as I follow her down her wake, carefully pushing her head down for her cheek to submit against the stone––utmost reigning in a primal urge to take her without mercy. My weight on her is restrained yet unescapable, my voice heavy with yearning as I hitch a knee between her thighs spreading them apart., "You show no respect to your orc."

"He makes my heart bleed."

Her breathless whisper is like iron in the throes of fusion, making my brain come before my cock can. My lips against her throat, I murmur, "Then let him soothe it."

The sky is watching, the moon casting shadows of pearls on our skin, blushing nacreous as Fay's fingers claw at the rock in anticipation. It can. This is our claim, and I want the world to see it. And as sharp, irregular sounds burst under nails catching on the stone, I meet Fay from within, allowing the universe to watch rawness taking shape.

The sum of us.