A True Fantasy
1646 Words
I don’t have any more premonitions about Jesse that night, though I’d be lying if I said he didn’t plague my dreams for a different reason. At eighteen years old and far from a virgin (okay, not that far; I’ve only ever been with the one, very unfortunate man), it’s not the first time a handsome man has gotten me hot and bothered at night. But this is… different. I’ve never felt anything remotely close to the way I feel when I think about him for even just an instant.
And yet, the effects of the way Hunter treated me linger around us like heavy air. I wish I hadn’t reacted that way when he reached out to silence me—falling on my face like a fool. He apologized, of course, because he’s a gentleman… but how did he really feel about it?
How could she be a fighter, I imagine him wondering, if she’s jumpy even around me?
Technically, I never claimed to be a fighter; I only said that I had trained as a fighter. But I question whether he’ll even buy that.
And this Faevara business? It can’t be true, can it? Maybe I have a handful more abilities than the average Fae, but I’m the farthest thing from a messiah. I couldn’t even deal with one abusive boyfriend back home; how could I possibly expected to rid the world of all evil?
When I wake up the next morning, I check both my eyes and my wardrobe in the little, handheld mirror I brought with me. I charm myself into a slightly less suffocating dress than yesterday’s, confirm that my eyes are back to the unfortunate brown I chose yesterday, and step outside.
Jesse is the only one out there yet. He’s cooking up some sort of morning stew by the fire.
“Did you sleep at all?” I ask him as I take a seat next to him. I extend my hand for the spoon, which he hands off to me. The least I can do is cook my saviors a meal or two.
“No,” he admits. “It makes me… very nervous, traveling with you. I’ll feel better once we’re at the HQ.”
I’m not sure which surprises me more—that he’s admitting how worried he is about me, or that he feels safer in the headquarters of the Fae-enslavers than he does here. “What’s so safe about the HQ?”
“Well, it’s a real town, at least. A place where our kind actually live and work. A place where we’re less likely to be taken unawares and attacked.”
“But a town that’s filled with Shifters,” I clarify. “Who want to enslave my kind.”
That dark look crosses over his face again. “They won’t find out. And anyway, you’re safer with Shifters than with Normalia.”
I’m not sure I buy it. This magic stuff is extremely new to me; I had no idea that my eyes were back to green when I met him outside last night. What other slip-ups will I make? How long will I last in a place that’s crawling with enemies? “If Lyons believes I’m from Bridgeport, won’t he try to send me back there?”
“I’ve been working on that one. Think we’re going to have to establish that your husband is dead.”
“Good luck with that,” says Briggs from behind us as he emerges from the tent. “You saw the way Lyons looked at her. If he knows there’s no husband…”
I try to ignore the shivers that come over me at the memory of the way Lyons not only looked at, but also touched, me.
Jesse glares daggers at Briggs. “He knows better than to toy with the Normalia widow of a reputable, Old Vitalian master.” But he sounds a little too much like he’s trying to convince himself.
“She’ll be safer sharing the HQ with him than sharing the wilderness with him,” says Symone as she, too, emerges from their tent. “He’s more likely to act decent around civilians. It was smart of us to get her away from him in the forest yesterday.”
“Best thing to do would be to remarry her, though,” says Briggs. “Can’t imagine it’d be hard to do. Crowley’s boy, maybe? Redbeard?”
I nearly throw the spoon at him at that. “Excuse me?”
Jesse looks amused by my reaction. “I don’t think they marry quite so young where she’s from,” he explains to Briggs. “You should have seen the look on her face when I told her to create the ring.”
“Yeah, well, we also don’t marry to protect ourselves from slimy men who can’t control their urges,” I grumble, crossing my arms. “And it’s not going to happen.”
“Have you tried going back?” Symone asks me, glancing up at Apollo—the one link I have between my world and theirs. “Perhaps, if you went to the same area on your mount, and tried to jump at the same angle…”
“The bridge is gone,” Jesse reminds her. There’s a bit of bite to his voice. “She can’t get back.”
Even if I could, I’m not sure I would. Faevara or not, I have incredible abilities here—ones that make me far stronger than I ever was at the home I ran away from.
And I’m pretty sure neither my father or Hunter can find me here.
Besides, I have… friends here. Sort of.
“People will talk,” Briggs warns me. “We’ll have to come up with something before too long. But, for now, I suppose we can take it one step at a time.”
- - - - -
“Why doesn’t Symone have to get married?” I ask Jesse about an hour later as we ride toward the HQ. “She’s older than me, isn’t she?”
He glances at Symone, who’s with the others just of earshot of us, and frowns. “It’s different for Shifters. Female Normalia can’t be drafted, but female Shifters can—and are. Symone is technically a soldier of the king, which makes her an undesirable wife… for most.”
I wonder what he means by for most. “What about Shifter men who have been drafted? Do they not marry other Shifter women in the same position?”
He shrugs. “It’s been known to happen, but most of us aren’t really the marrying kind. Doesn’t stop us from fornicating, mind you—lot of Shifter bastards out there. Myself included.”
I try not to blush at that. I don’t care that he’s a bastard, of course—it’s another thing that’s far more commonly accepted in my world than his—but I’m not sure I feel about his flippant doesn’t stop us from fornicating comment. He certainly didn’t strike me as the type for promiscuity. “Do you… have you…?” I can’t even manage to find the words for what I’m trying to ask.
His eyes widen when he realizes where my mind is going. “No—good God, no. Being a bastard is a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, let alone my own, future child.”
I relax slightly. “You want to get married one day, then.”
I catch a shimmer of something in his eyes—a sliver of hope, almost, followed by just the opposite. “It isn’t in the cards for me.”
I sigh, leaning back in my saddle and letting Apollo take his own reins. “It’s stupid, if you ask me. Where I’m from, no one would give two shits that you were a bastard. No one would give two shits that Symone was a soldier, either. And people get married because they love each other.”
He watches me intently for several seconds before speaking. “You’re quite the enigma to me, Echo.”
“You’re just saying that because I’m from another world. And possibly your all-powerful messiah.”
He laughs. “No—it’s more than that. The things you say about your world… They make it sound like a true fantasy—a place all of us here could only dream of going. And yet… the way you look when you talk about it… the way you react when…” He doesn’t finish that particular sentence, which I’m grateful for. “I don’t get the sense that you were happy there. I don’t get the sense that you want to go back.”
He’s incredibly perceptive—I’ll give him that. Just about spot-on.
But how do I even begin to respond to him?
“I… don’t,” I admit. “There are a lot of great things about my world, especially compared to yours. If I was offered a clean slate—a chance to start over as someone else entirely—I’d be much more inclined to go back. But I don’t want to be Echo Davis there. I left for a reason.”
I didn’t mean to say that last bit—it just sort of fell out of my lips. He straightens as soon as he clocks it. “You left?”
“Not like that,” I say quickly. “I didn’t consciously leave the world. I was just… sort of… running away from home. When it happened.”
He holds my gaze again, watching me in silence this time. I can tell there’s more he wants to ask, but thankfully, he seems to understand that there’s nothing more I'm ready to say.
Yet.
- Writer
