Twilight Siege

Part 1 OceanofPDF.com 1 “I told you, if you ran from me, I’d catch you.” Lochlan held my arms snuggly above my head in one of his strong hands, my chest arching toward him, hungry for his touch. He towered over me, his commanding blue eyes bore into me as my own eyes strayed down his rippling chest. “I didn’t run, I just didn’t tell you where I was going. You don’t own me.” My words ended up too breathy to be as firm as I had intended. “Maybe we should fix that.” He ducked his head and kissed down the column of my neck, continuing down my chest and nipping at my breast. His free hand yanked down my shirt and bra to expose my peaked n****e and I inhaled in anticipation. Diving down, his rough tongue was heaven as it worked tirelessly at my sensitive peak and I arched into his mouth. “Yes, God that feels so good. No, don’t stop!” When I looked to see why the delicious torture had ceased, it was no longer Lochlan above me. “Ronan! Get off me.” I wrestled and wriggled in an attempt to free myself but he held me down firmly, leering down at me while I struggled. The demented grin that spread across his face brought out his twin dimples, and I had a compelling urge to spit in his face. “What’s wrong, Rebecca? I thought you were enjoying this,” he cooed mockingly. I thrashed in his arms and began to scream. Jolting up in my bed, I slashed at the invisible demons that haunted my nightmares—that was all it had been, a nightmare. More appropriately, a night terror derived from the events of the night before, which had been all too real. My messy room was dark and quiet, everything looked the same as it had since the attack hours earlier. I fell back onto my pillow on an exhale. f*****g Faeries. Too bad I was becoming one of them. When I had come home the night before, I found Lochlan waiting for me inside my apartment. Weeks of explosive chemistry sizzling between us finally ignited in tangling limbs and frenzied kisses. Only after I lay sated in my bed did Ronan drop the glamor he wore and unveil that it had been him the whole time. The whole mess started for me back when I was only three years old and a Fae man by the name of Merlin gifted me a necklace imbued with powers. I had only uncovered its powers a few weeks before Ronan’s attack, and after all I had learned in that short time, I became overwhelmed. In a moment of fear and desperation, I took off my necklace and unknowingly rendered myself vulnerable. I had hoped I could reverse my transition to becoming Fae and all its associated implications—I could find my way back to being Rebecca Peterson. Back to focusing on friends and hobbies instead of learning magic and fighting for my life. Turned out there was no running from Fate when she’s got her mind made up. She’s like a cheetah, that b***h Fate. She’s fast and sneaky, and just when you think you’re home free, she comes at you from your blindspot and takes your ass down. Ronan took advantage of my vulnerability without the powers of my necklace to help me. A tiny Faery called a brownie, whom I had befriended in the days before the attack, had brought me my necklace. As soon as I took hold of it, power surged inside me and I was able to intimidate Ronan into leaving. I hated knowing that he was still out there somewhere, but I swore to myself that next time we crossed paths, I would be ready for him. Not wanting to dwell on what had happened any further, I forced myself from the warm cocoon of my bed and noted a dull ache between my legs. What should have been a delicious reminder of a night with Lochlan, instead served as fuel for my burning rage at Ronan. Scrubbing myself until my skin was red and raw, I couldn’t rid my mind of what had happened, but I did my best to cleanse his touch from my skin. I channeled my hatred into a single-minded determination while I showered and readied for the day. Pulling my hair back into a sleek, no-nonsense ponytail, I dressed in a black blouse and pencil skirt. When I paused to examine my reflection, I realized that the girl who had taken selfies in a purple gown just days earlier felt foreign to me. What had I been thinking watching movies and going to pubs, as if the world was sunshine and rainbows? Scared. That girl had been scared and had clung to her old life, refusing to face the reality that deadly Fae walked the streets. Not only walked the streets but were threatening a massive invasion that would alter life as we knew it on Earth. The Unseelie were violent and thrived on chaos and there was the potential that thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, would be set free on Earth to kill and destroy everything around them. We didn’t know why someone was helping these creatures over from Faery, but we needed to figure it out and stop them before it was too late. I had moved to Ireland thinking I was there to take on my dream job working in a museum. Little did I know that I had been magically compelled to move to Ireland and every day since had been a fight for my life. I had been given an experimental combination of powers, and what had frightened me the most was the dark magic that loomed in my veins. Now, I realized that the malevolent power inside of me was also the power that kept me safe. I wasn’t scared of the darkness any longer. I would embrace it, own it, control it. Black eyes, black necklace, black clothes, black heart —black may have been just a color, but what it represented was my power. My power to take control of my circumstances and to deny fear the chance to rule over me. Lochlan had said not to fear the transition to being Fae, and I wouldn’t. I would wrap myself in the change, revel in my metamorphosis, and emerge stronger and more ferocious than ever. “I need you to come over this evening and ward my house against intruders. Can you do that?” I asked my co-worker and friend, Cat, upon entering the museum where we both worked. Her eyebrows shot up and she looked around the room for the presence of others. “I’m not supposed to share our knowledge, Rebecca, you know that. My mum would skin me alive if she found out,” she responded in a harsh whisper, hand anxiously twisting at one of her red curls. “I know how important secrecy is to you and your family, trust me. I’m not asking you to tell me how you see the Fae or why you all are so deathly afraid of them. But this is my life we’re talking about here—someone got in my apartment last night and I was attacked. Please, Cat, will you help me?” Her lips pursed and she let out a grunt. “I’m so dead if they figure out I agreed to this, but if the spells aren’t used to help people, then what’s the point? When do you want me to come by?”