5. Oria

Mariah Carey's "Daydream" played in the background of the workshop while I finished packing my last box of the order. I triple and quadruple checked the order and I almost wished I could take a picture so that I had proof that everything was here.

Loki rubbed up against my calf as I picked up my mess, meowing incessantly like he was starving and hadn't been fed in years instead of just hours.

"Why are you such a pain in my ass?" I scratched the back of his ear before he bit me on my hand meowing like he was talking back to me.

I rolled my eyes at this cat who had way too much attitude.

"Keep that up, Loki, and I'm going to leave you outside so you know how good you have it inside," I snapped at him. "Maybe I'll let Mother take you out."

He hissed at me before walking away. I laughed knowing Mother wouldn't take him, but nonetheless it was funny to let him think she would take him.

I followed Loki to my bedroom to change. Working outside left my clothes smudged with dirt and I quickly changed looking out the large window in my room. The sun was setting as I opened it up, enjoying the last rays of light. My throat tightened with emotion as I wished for a moment outside of this tower and these mountains.

My heart couldn't take the ache anymore as I made my way to the kitchen to get started on dinner thinking it was a tomato soup kind of night. I grabbed the ingredients I needed and Loki's food because that asshole would cry incessantly until I fed him.

"Oria!" Mother yelled from below me.

"Yes?" I yelled.

"The men are on their way to pick up the order." She stepped into the wide living space. "Is it ready?"

"Yes," I said, chopping some vegetables.

She walked up to the island watching me.

"After the men leave, I will be departing as well," she stated.

"Ok," I said, putting the vegetables on a tray. "I wish you safe travels."

Her lingering presence was uncomfortable, like there were words left unspoken on her end. My mind wandered back to the conversation I had overheard. Where was she going and with who?

"I shall return within two weeks, well before the next shipment is to be picked up," she said with that bite of authority. "I expect you to continue with your chores. The men will bring enough supplies to last you that long and with the garden, you should be fine."

"Ok, sounds perfect," I said, expecting our conversation to be over.

"I'm strengthening the wards, and I won't forget to bring what you asked for on your birthday," she said, with an underlying tenderness I wasn't expecting to hear. "I'm sorry I'll miss your birthday."

"It's fine," I said, searching for something nice to say, but deciding against it.

Mother was acting strange and there was a part of her that felt on edge, like something big was about to happen. My brain scoured the memory of her conversation trying to dissect it. By the time I had finished dinner, I had a headache from overthinking the two-minute conversation from the other night and only being able to hear half of it. I only heard her side of it, but I was dying to know who that other person was.

I laid out two bowls waiting a moment for Mother before digging in. My earlier infusion of the moon water with my power left me starving. The sound of loud boots traveled up the stairs as I finished my bowl of soup.

"Ria!"

Tay's loud voice traveled up, eliciting a hiss from Loki, who did not like Tay at all. My face split into a grin as I got up, running down the stairs to jump into his arms. He caught me easily being a huge man. His long wheat colored hair was pulled back by braids on the side of his head and a large one on top. He looked like a Viking straight from one of the books I had read, but he was actually a pirate, who came on land for supplies and to purchase Oria.

"It's been too long," he said, squeezing me before setting me on my feet.

Loki hissed at Tay again from the top of the stairs as Tay looked up to glare at him.

"You're the one who skipped out coming last time," I smirked looking back at Loki before walking into the workshop with Tay.

"You know my partner Merrick needed my help again with some treasure he found," he said, walking to the boxes.

"Uh, huh," I laughed. "Can't resist some treasure in the form of women."

"Arrrgh, of course not!" He laughed and so did I.

"That was awful," I grinned.

"Anything to make you laugh, Ria." He grew serious. "How's it been?"

"I need to know something," I said, hoping I wasn't making a mistake. "Last shipment we were missing some items and our buyer insisted it was our mistake. I always double check my count and maybe I'll be off by one or two, but to be missing a big amount of the vials didn't sound plausible. Do you think one of the guys could have stolen them and then blamed us?"

My heart thundered in my ears, hoping I wasn't wrong about Tay. For all I knew he or his men were the ones who had been stealing, but my gut told me I could trust him.

"How much was missing?" He furrowed his brows. "I hadn't heard anything about that."

I pursed my lips looking for any sign of dishonesty on his face.

"More than half of the usual shipment," I said, only seeing the truth in his eyes.

"I want to immediately say no, but honestly, I don't know." He looked pensive. "I'll keep an eye out tonight to see how things go."

"Thank you," I said, feeling a little bit of tension leaving me.

"She didn't punish you, did she?" he snapped.

"No, but next time I'm sure she won't hesitate," I said, leaving out her threat.

He took a deep breath as he looked at my face. It was his turn to search for the honesty in my words and while we never really talked about my situation, I was pretty sure he knew more than he led on.

"Fine, but you didn't answer my question. How are you doing?"

Tay was the only person in years that had talked to me and gave me a sense of normalcy. He was also the man I lost my virginity to after those men who broke into our old home said my virgin body was worth a lot of money.

There was no way in hell I was going to let them take anything from me. So as soon as we were settled here, Tay started showing up and well, let's just say I was a little more calculated than I should have been. While Tay appreciated my lack of clothing when he came for the boxes one day, he told me to think about it and if I really wanted it the next time, he would help me out with my dilemma.

I didn't think I'd ever considered my virginity a dilemma, but my innocence could always be used against me and I couldn't be that weak again.

If he hadn't been so sweet about it, I would have cornered him to just sleep with me, but I thought about it and the time only cemented my thoughts. I would not let a man use me. I had to take control of my life because I was the only one who could save myself. As much as Mother looked after me, the only one I could rely on was me.

It was an awful first time, no matter how much of it I had planned. Neither one of us ended up finishing, because we thought we heard Mother come up the stairs. Tay had his pants halfway down tripping, hitting his head on the table, while I tried not to die from laughter when I realized it was Loki who we had heard.

I smiled at the memory thinking there were worse men to lose my innocence to.

"I've been ok, my birthday is coming up," I said, feeling self-conscious about bringing up my birthday, but dammit, two hundred years old felt like a big milestone.

"You don't look a day over twenty-five," he chuckled, stepping towards me sliding an arm around my waist. "I got you something."

"Taylin," I said, smirking when he grimaced at his full name. "If you say your dick, I'm gonna be disappointed."

Tay laughed, shaking his head.

"That thought did pass through my head, but no, I might have gotten something better," he said, kissing my nose. I expected a kiss but he pulled away showing me a rectangular device that was the size of my palm.

"What is this?" I grabbed it while he still held onto it.

I turned it around until the screen glowed on the entire front end.

"It's a cell phone," he said, as I turned around leaning my back against his front so I could look at the device a little better. "It doesn't have service, but I downloaded about a thousand songs onto it as well as a few books and audiobooks from those W girls you like so much."

"Willow, Wander and Whitney," I said excitedly. "How am I supposed to read on this and what are audiobooks?"

Tay kissed my cheek before showing me how to open the device with a four-digit code. The screen changed to a lot of little squares on the screen, a lot more confusing than my little iPod that had five buttons.

"These buttons will take you to the different apps on the phone, like this one has the books I downloaded, and this is the music app," he said, pushing on the buttons.

This had to be expensive. I knew the human world made all different kinds of technology, but this was something that I had never seen before. My eyes welled with tears.

"Tay, this is too much," I said, turning around to give it to him, shaking my head.

"Ria, it's not enough," he said, pushing it back to me.

"Boss, you need help? The witch is getting antsy." Loud boots made us split apart.

He grabbed boxes as I hid the phone underneath my worktable, grabbing another box.

"I was making sure we had all the product," Tay said with a scowl my way.

This is how it had been since we met. Tay was soft, funny and easy with me. His crew knew him to be ruthless, fearless and cunning. He was two sides of a coin that always made my stomach churn when he flipped that switch. It always made me wary of him, but I knew the life he led wasn't an easy one. To be a leader among thieves you had to be feared more than your subjects" urge to steal. It also kept Mother from getting too suspicious about us.

"It was all there from last time," I snapped, going along with his charade.

"Take this." He handed several boxes to the guy.

The man chuckled like he thought Tay was going to do something to me. I glared at Tay like I wasn't scared, only made easier by not actually being scared of him.

He left the room as Tay flashed by the room grabbing me, slamming me against the wall, but using his hand to make the loud sound while he only pushed me against the wall.

"Listen here," he snarled, hearing the boots fading away.

"Fuck you!" I yelled.

The man's chuckle was faint as I wrapped my legs around Tay's.

"I hate that guy," he said, grabbing a handful of my ass. "As much as I want to stay and fuck you. Your mother was in a hurry to leave."

I pouted.

"Don't give me that look, Ria," he said, kissing my cheek before letting me down. "Here this also goes with your present."

He handed me a cord.

"Plug it in to keep it charged like your iPod." He kissed my cheek again. "Happy birthday," he said before he walked to the stairs. I grabbed his hand before he could go down.

"Thank you," I said, keeping the tears at bay. "You make life easier here for me and I can't thank you enough for that."

The sound of a growl from up the stairs made me roll my eyes.

A flash of something crossed his face before he gave me a small smile.

"I wish I could give you more," he said, before walking down the stairs.

I followed him, fixing a scowl on my face before we walked outside.

"We will see you next time," Tay said to Mother.

She gave him a sultry smile.

"Oh, I'll be right out," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

Jealousy blazed within me. She was always so touchy with him and it drove me insane. He looked back at her with a knowing look, before hardening into a scowl. The lapse was so short that I almost thought I saw it incorrectly. He then looked over at me with disinterest before he and the men left.

My heart started to race like I had found out a secret, but I didn't know what secret I had found.

"Oria!"

I flinched at Mother's loud yell.

"I'm sorry, what?"

She examined my face like she was trying to hear my thoughts.

"Why must you be so rude to our guest?" she snapped. "Tay puts a lot on the line to help us sell the vials, the least you could do was be nice."

"What do you mean he does a lot?" I asked, trying to remain calm. "All he does is pick it up."

"Everything we have is because of him. Who do you think distributes this for us? Takes the risk to sell it? Give us advances and makes sure we are comfortable here?"

I stared at Mother, feeling like I was missing something.

"The risk of selling it?" I didn't understand the risk.

"Your power is a commodity, selling isn't easy and he constantly puts himself in danger to help us sell it," she snapped at me. "He's also the only person we can trust with this, his men are under a blood oath and he's the only man who can keep our secret. If people knew he knew about you, he would probably be a dead man and where would we be able to live? Tay is the only man able to come in and out of this mountain range."

"I did not know," I said, wondering what else he did for us and why he would do it.

What was in it for him?

"Next time, be a little more grateful," she snapped. "I will be gone for two weeks and when I return, I expect you not to get lazy with your chores. I also expect a shipment to be ready."

They usually came every three weeks and now it looked like all I would be doing while she was gone was make more vials. Alone… all alone.