Chapter Two: Nathan

Dreadmor Academy stuck out like an aberration against the horizon, an incredible, mesmerizing presence, and Nathan couldn't help but recall some of his fondest memories while he was there: his friends, the wild nights at the bars in the various villages that surrounded Dreadmor. He'd had more than a few brief infatuations there as well, enjoying the thrill of the chase of being wanted and desired by another.

He didn't remember the faces of those he had actually bedded or fucked – he just recalled the rush of emotions, the pleasure, the conclusion of the hunt. True, he had a slight advantage compared to other people. The same advantage that had led him to his job – which led him back here just over a year after graduation.

Nathan inhaled deeply, drinking in the sight of the imposing academy, the steep spikes of the towers, and the balcony where those with the ability to fly, like professors Umber and Valgrur, came and went.

Now, he was being called back to the place that had made him, that had given a head start for what promised to be an adventurous, fulfilling career where he'd get to travel the world. It meant meeting people from all over, discovering new aspects of all those different cultures, and then testing the limits of his peculiar brand of magic, which he'd inherited from his fae ancestors.

But first things first. He was there today to greet his cousin, who'd arranged to meet him during her lunchtime.

"Nice to see you back at the school again," Harriet said, giving him a traditional bear hug. "Didn't you mention something about teaching here at some point?"

Nathan shook his head. "If I do end up teaching here, it'll be when I'm much older and can't travel anymore. How's the potion work going?"

"Badly. I'm a little better with enchanting metals. It's a shame I didn't end up with your powers, though. Imagine what an absolute sex goddess I could be."

"That's not what these powers are for," he replied, though he had taken advantage of that aspect of them. For too long, really. It was hard to know at times if the connections he made were actually genuine or just a result of the charm.

"You don't spend your career going around and boinking people, then?"

"No!" he exclaimed. "What do you take me for?"

"You know perfectly well what we take you for," Harriet replied with an impish grin. "It's all the family talks about. How you picked up the fae charm, how you can just smile and people jump into bed with you. What I wouldn't give for magic like that!"

Nathan smiled, though he'd heard those words before from many others. They envied the power. They didn't really consider how exhausting it could be to have people start gaping and stalking you out of nowhere just because the power was impossible to turn off. Sure, they offered scent blockers and perfumes that supposedly dampened the effect. Even now, as he stood there, women and men were glancing at him curiously. One blonde-haired woman stopped dead in her tracks, staring intently. If she stared any harder, her eyes might just pop out of their sockets.

Even the pheromone blockers he was wearing didn't appear to have any effect. Great.

"And it's happening again," Harriet observed. "Jesus, what I wouldn't give… anyway, why are you here again?"

"Business. I was invited here by Professor Umber," Nathan replied. "The school's considering hiring me for something. They haven't shared many details yet, though."

"Let me know how it goes. Been a while since we've talked! By the way, a bunch of my friends and I are going to the Gorserow bar tonight. At least two of them have said they want to get to know you better… it would be good for me if I could get you to come."

"Not for me." He tucked his hands in his pockets. "I've been trying to avoid all of that lately."

"Really!" Harriet threw her hands in the air. "First Eva, now you? Why is everyone choosing to abstain from having fun these days? Life's boring – you're born, you work, you get old, and you die. Why not enjoy life while you can?"

"I've already enjoyed it quite a bit. Taking breaks is good." He smiled at his cousin before heading into the school, trying not to notice the heads turning his way. Two years ago, the attention would've thrilled him.

Now, it left him with a distinct feeling of being other, as if he wasn't really a member of his clan or a shapeshifter able to turn into a bear – but an actual other-worldly fae, as alien as they came.

Somehow, he'd inherited the fae preternatural charm in spades. Still, it allowed him to get a good job, so he didn't complain too much.

Another person stopped and stared at him. He allowed a side glance and spotted a flash of red hair and deep amber eyes.

Something lurched deep within. He kept walking, quickly fixated his gaze ahead, and sped up a little.

Red hair. That was the one thing he remembered. One of his best sexual experiences had been with someone with that hair color. Ever since that first experience with a redhead, he'd had a few more, but they didn't really compare, and his interest in the hunt waned after those. If only he actually remembered more about the encounter. If he squeezed his memory, he recalled the way her hair fanned out onto the pillow beneath her. Amber eyes… did she have amber eyes? It was dark. The bar was dark, too. It muted the natural colors and threw everything into shadow.

What if…? He glanced behind him, but she was already gone.

He made his way to Professor Umber's office. He still remembered the way, having been there for four long years. As he walked, he wondered exactly what kind of job they had in mind for him.

It probably had to do with some grumpy police officer in the village who refused to cooperate in an investigation or something like that.

When he arrived, the office was empty since Umber was still teaching. Nathan studied the wall calendar hanging by a nail. His meeting was circled in red for 2:30. It was only 1 pm now.

With nothing better to do, he wandered around the office, then peeked outside into the hall, where he noticed a couple of students. If he went to the upper floors, there would be fewer students. Maybe he could waste some time exploring the lesser-known sections of the school, especially the heights.

Grinning, he left the office, winding his way up spiraling staircases lined with grim pictures of previous principals and prominent students until the stairs came to an end. He faced four locked doors.

How mysterious, he thought.

Perhaps they led to the tower heights or the battlements outside. Something seemed to tug at him. It was a wild urge, a primal pull, which felt somewhat like when his inner bear wanted to push against his skin and make him transform. He tried each door. Only one opened, and it did so with an ominous creak, sounding as if the hinges that held it in place had come apart.

A mystery! How exciting.

Ahead of him was a narrow, shadowed corridor, only wide enough for one person to walk abreast in. It lured him forward. The primal pull strengthened, and Nathan became vaguely aware that the pull might not be natural.

The long, dark passageway led to a stairwell, a narrow, steep one that, when he climbed it, made the muscles in the backs of his strong legs burn.

Interesting. When he was a student here, they'd explored the academy at night and discovered some of its more intriguing places. Once, he'd even broken into one of the artifact rooms, but everything valuable was locked away so that no artifact could fall into the hands of someone with ill intent.

However, he didn't remember this corridor. He glanced behind him and saw nothing but blackness. It was not the normal kind of blackness but the kind that seemed thick as tar and had a touch of the supernatural draped over it.

His senses tingled. Something fae about this place, he thought.

It didn't quite fit in.

At the top of the stairwell, there was a massive, circular room with red and gold carpeting and a wall of bookshelves filled with a chaotic array of books and scrolls. There was also a desk and a chair, and a bed tucked in the corner…

Just then, something materialized from behind the desk.

"You're not Z'Hana," the figure said. It had a low, rasping voice, light purple skin, stark white hair, and huge gleaming eyes that were black at the edges.

Every sense in Nathan's body went haywire.

This is no ordinary fae.

"No."

The figure cocked its head and examined him. "You smell like one of us, but you don't look like it. You must be another one of those little hybrid courtbloods running around."

Nathan had no idea what a courtblood was and was already regretting his little adventure. "I don't mean to have any quarrel with you, fae," he said. "I followed a path out of curiosity – I didn't think it would lead here."

"Curious," the figure said, squinting at him and smiling, showing its sharp teeth. "You have the Gift in your voice, along with the smell. You have been richly granted. You could almost belong with us. What is your name?"

Generally, giving a fae your full name isn't a good idea, but something in the figure's tone gave Nathan no choice but to answer. "Nathan Artur Griever," he said.

"Griever…" The fae sighed. "No, you've long since lost the components of the court your ancestry hails from. It is not my court; I know this much. You're not Seelie, either. One of the seasonal courts, most likely."

Oh no. Nathan's hackles stood on end.

"You're Unseelie?"

"Morgryn, at your service."

Holy shit.

Nathan took a step back, preparing to transform. Members of the Unseelie Court were among the most malevolent fae that existed. Selfish, dangerous. Evil.

Just as he began to transform, the scenery around him turned crystalline and distorted. He couldn't make sense of it. What? What was –

But the vision shattered, and the room returned to normal. That's when he noticed Professor Z'Hana standing there, arms folded, glaring at him.

"What just –"

"He's not harmed, I assure you," Morgryn said to the professor. I put him in a brief stasis. It felt like a second to him, but a few hours have passed since he walked in here."

"Professor Umber was looking for you," Z'Hana said to Nathan. "He thought you'd forgotten your meeting. However, I see you did a little exploring, didn't you?"

"I –" Nathan spluttered. "I was put in stasis?"

"For about four hours, yes," Morgryn said with fiendish amusement. "I was just considering what else to do with you when Z'Hana arrived."

Z'Hana now focused her glare on Morgryn. "You didn't secure your meeting place too well, it seems."

"I hitched a part of the fae realm to your castle. It's not always so stable," he replied smoothly. "It seems to have lured him to it. He has stronger than anticipated fae ancestry. It must be someone very recent in his family."

"We think it's the grandfather," Z'hana said. "The grandmother had one child out of wedlock, father unknown. She had twins, but one of them died in infancy. The second one was his mother and produced him."

"Yes. Most likely, the firstborn was the one who inherited the Gift. The ones who come after aren't quite so lucky. But her firstborn, however…" Morgryn lifted one white eyebrow and addressed Nathan. "I wonder which of the courts can lay claim to you."

"Did you really have to share my personal history with him?" Nathan asked the professor.

"He was curious. And we'd asked you all these questions when you attended the academy."

"You're sharing my information with an Unseelie Court member. Do you not find that a complete breach of protocol, given what the hell they're doing in our world at the moment?"

"Nathan, it might surprise you, but he's not actually one of the bad guys." Z'Hana closed her eyes. "It doesn't mean he's not a bad guy – just not the bad guys we're currently dealing with. And it turns out he is willing to help."

"You realize he just stapled a part of the fae realm to this castle, right? That's not helping. That's making things worse."

"I am ensuring that I don't step foot fully into the mortal realm," Morgryn said in a bored tone as if done with people being idiotic. "I will unstaple this place once our business is conducted. Until then, here I stay."

This entire situation seemed utterly bizarre to Nathan. From what he'd heard, there'd been trouble brewing in the region recently, troubles that came in the form of Unseelie agents meddling more than they should in human affairs, making deals that went against the treaty they'd signed decades ago. They threatened the stability of the normal realm by flooding it with too much wild fae magic. He'd been sent to unravel enchantments and persuade any Unseelie he encountered to leave using his own brand of magic.

But that brand of magic wouldn't work on something as powerful as this creature. Nathan sensed it. Whatever this Morgryn was, he was high up.

No one trusted the higher-ups.

Z'Hana's dark eyes looked less than impressed. "You were supposed to meet with Umber before coming here," she told Nathan. "Instead, you skipped the tutorial, and now you aren't up to speed."

Nathan gawked at her. "Wait a minute. The reason I was meeting with Umber was so he'd tell me about the Unseelie Court member in the tower?"

The professors must be enchanted. It was the only thing that made sense. This Unseelie had slithered into the academy and sucked the professors into its nefarious plans. He didn't know if he could break such a strong enchantment, but he had to try.

"I can practically hear your thoughts shrieking," Morgryn said, now propping his head on one hand, elbow stuck between scrolls on the desk. "They are not enchanted. You can sense the truth in my words, right?"

Well… there was a ring of truth to his words. Nathan's fae magic had picked up that much.

"Are you usually this slow?" Morgryn asked.

"You did just put him in stasis," Z'Hana pointed out. "Anyway, Umber will be here soon with one of the students you asked for."

"Good. I hope they are among your more talented ones. Unlike this one, who just rides along with his Gift without fully understanding what it is."

"I know how to use it perfectly well, thanks," Nathan snapped. "If you're going to stand there and insult me, can you save it for later if you're actually here to help, that is, and not screwing us over like most amoral Unseelie do?"

Z'Hana gasped, but Morgryn smirked. "Ah, you have some bite, after all. As Z'Hana has regretfully informed me, we will need someone of your… power. It will be needed if you wish to end the deals once and for all."

Ah. Nathan straightened, his attention sharpening. If this was the reason Professor Umber wanted to meet with him, it made a lot more sense. But how did they think they'd be able to stop the chaos of the Unseelie Court when no one before had made a dent in their forces? For every Unseelie deal that Nathan unraveled, another two or three popped up to take its place and bring further corruption and misery to the region. He'd had to deal with restless spirits chasing after him and crazed monsters and trees transformed into flesh-eating horrors.

It was all in a day's work for him, really. He half expected his career to end with an Unseelie clubbing him over the head in a back alley somewhere.

"Okay, let me try to summarize for you, Nathan," Z'Hana said. "You know we have been experiencing realm bleeds. You know the Unseelie are making too many deals and are butchering the barrier between our world and their world in the process, right?"

Nathan nodded. "Yes, that's about thirty percent of my jobs with the Supernatural Division I'm in right now." He turned to Morgryn. "My boss is hella pissed at you lot."

"I'm sure," Morgryn replied with a mocking bow.

"Morgryn here is one of the former kings of the Unseelie Court," Z'Hana said. "He was actually the one who signed the treaty of separation in the first place. Then he got betrayed by the other Unseelie and was sealed away for around a decade, as I understand it. We released him, and now he's trying to pull some political strings in the Court, not get backstabbed again, and bring back all the members still trying to make deals. He wants to make a new binding treaty. We can apparently help."

Nathan blinked a few times. When he called his boss tonight, he was going to have a lot of shit to tell him. "Okay. And… you trust this Morgryn? You definitely don't think he's stringing you along because he has some ulterior motive that is probably not going to end well for any of us?"

"Oh, he has ulterior motives, for sure. The only thing I am utterly certain of is that he wants to stop the meddling as much as we do since it will destroy his realm, and he doesn't much like ours."

"Right," Nathan said. "I can't say I'm so willing to trust something like him, but I guess I'll wait to see what the full arrangement is."

"Indeed," Morgryn said. "I think that's the first sensible thing you've said since you got here. Maybe there is something between your ears after all."

Just before Nathan could retort sarcastically or angrily (or both), he heard footsteps echoing up the narrow stairwell behind them. The climbing seemed to last forever until two more figures emerged into the tower room.

It was Professor Umber, tall and broad and with his sweeping robes and a young person, undoubtedly a student. She was redheaded, and a shock of recognition hit Nathan as he examined her amber eyes.

I've seen those eyes before.

Those same eyes were locked onto his, and there was a faint flicker of recognition in them. It seemed like she was asking the same question he was. Have we met before?

He continued to stare at her as Professor Umber cleared his throat and said, "I've bought the student you asked for. She's more or less up to date. And… I see a certain person who didn't turn up to the 2:30 meeting is now here instead." Umber sounded annoyed, and Nathan had the distinct impression that the other three individuals in the room were also pissed off at him.

Whatever. He wanted to talk to the newcomer and ask if they'd met. She kept looking at him, too. Maybe she –

"Oh crap," she said. "We have met, haven't we?"

"Yeah?" he asked eagerly.

"Uh… later," she said. "Let's do what the professors want first."

He nodded, intrigued. Whatever it was, the professors wanted, he couldn't wait for it to be over so he could get that redhead in a corner by herself and find out why she seemed familiar.