I stare at the remarkably beautiful and seemingly young woman before me. A wide grin pulls on her face, showing her brilliant white teeth that contrast her dark black hair.
“You really didn’t know?” Madam Daeval asks me and then looks to Merc.
Merc steps over and places a hand on my shoulder. “No, there haven’t been Fae on either plane in…two hundred years, not since they created their own plane to get away from the persecution they faced.”
I take in that information, or try to anyway. It’s difficult. I’m still stuck on one thing.
“Wait…I’m Fae. Like a fairy?” I ask Madam Daeval.
“Yes, well…half anyway,” she replies with a wave of her hand. “I’m quite surprised as well, but…there must still be some lingering on this plane if she was born.” She rubs my hand slowly, and it feels so nice, almost like a lulling.
I can’t help but smile. “All this time…I thought there was something wrong with me, but I’m just…a freaking fairy!” I wiggle my toes on the hard floor and look to Merc.
He looks a bit taken aback but he’s nodding. “This must explain why your blood is so…potent to me.”
“It could,” Daeval agrees. “One of the reasons the Fae fled was because of people desiring their blood.”
Madam Daeval starts to admire my hand more closely. Looking at the veins of my forearm and running her fingers along them.
“Oh, your blood could make my spells so much more powerful,” she mumbles. “I’ve always wanted to try?—”
“Absolutely not!” Merc growls and grabs Daeval’s hand, pulling it away from mine.
I step back quickly, startled.
“You will not touch her again,” he says as he wraps his arm around my back.
My knees go weak underneath me and I swear every inch of me is flushed at the sound of his voice.
“You really care for her,” Daeval says slowly. She steps closer to him. “You ought to be careful about that.”
Does she really know this? Does Merc really care for me, already? Even though we’ve just met, it feels like I’m supposed to be here. Not here as in, Daeval’s place, but beside Mercurius.
I’m a fairy, apparently, and he’s a demon. I have no idea what the means in regards to my life. The only thing I know, is that I finally know something about myself that makes sense.
“Or what?” Merc says as he pulls me closer to him.
Daeval lifts her hand which contains several drops of my blood on her fingers and Merc’s entire body stiffens.
“You can barely handle the scent of her,” Madam Daeval insists. “It distracts you so easily.”
“Distracts from what?” I ask, looking at Merc, whose pupils look dilated. Though his expression is still one of protection.
The next thing I know, there’s something pressed against the back of my neck, and Merc’s arm is being pulled away from me. No, I’m being pulled away from his arm.
“What is this?” he growls.
The small room is now occupied by a dozen, maybe more, humans? No, they have to be more than that. Their eyes glow in various shades of blue, yellow, red, purple… their expressions are all of anger and cockiness.
“Told you we’d find a weak spot.” One of them says as he suddenly slams Merc against a wall.
“Merc!” I gasp, but it’s too late. They’re everywhere.
Their hands are all over me, all over him. Madam Daeval is no where to be found, and I can only assume that she was the one who set this up. How? How could she have set it up so quickly? She didn’t even know about me until I was here…until…
“She was working with them all along,” I huff. “Mercurius!”
Hands pin my arms behind my back.