Curse And Craving

20

“GOD, it’s good to be out of the hospital. Irish food isn’t my normal palate, but Irish hospital food is plain torture.” Ashley eased herself onto the loveseat the following morning after I retrieved her from her sterile prison. “No hospital food. In fact, I picked up some scones yesterday. Cranberry. You want one?” I brought her a blanket and a glass of water. “You bet I do. A scone and some mindless movies sound perfect, but first, I want to know if you’ve learned anything else while I was gone.” “After I visited you yesterday, I went to the Huntsman to talk to Lochlan.” Ash's eyes got big, and she leaned forward. “And?” “Annnd, he and his associates are like a police force for the Fae.” “He confirmed that the creatures are Fae?” “He did, but what he didn’t tell me was that he and the others are Fae as well.” Her jaw dropped. “Get out,” she breathed. “I’m not one-hundred-percent certain, but I’m pretty darn sure that he and his men are actually The Wild Hunt.” She smacked her forehead with the palm of her good hand. “How did I not make the connection? Fae. The Huntsman. It’s so obvious! It’s like they didn’t even try to disguise themselves.” “Well, it clearly hasn’t been an issue.” “True. Okay, let’s see where this puts us. If we know we're dealing with Fae, I'm a veritable encyclopedia. I can give you a rundown of the basics. First, you can't eat or drink anything from Faery because it will mess you up.” She began to tick off all of her acquired knowledge of Fae lore on her fingers. “They can't lie, but they can be super tricky when you talk to them.” “Yeah, I got a taste of that one already,” I grumbled and received a raised brow in response before she continued. “There's the gentry—they are the sophisticated, more people-like Faeries, but there are loads of other kinds, too. The scary part about the gentry is they tend to be the ones who go after s*x. Some books say it’s because they're extremely s****l, and others because they feed off humans’ s****l energy.” “Lochlan mentioned something about feeding on s****l energy, but I'm not sure what that means.” “I’m not certain how it works, but it means they sometimes ensnare humans to feed from them. The Fae use their power to make you so turned on that you don’t know which way is up or down, and you basically become a s*x slave.” “Are you serious?” “Yeah, it's all you can think about. s*x becomes your world, and you lose yourself.” I thought back to the times I’d been near Lochlan and how I’d been so drawn to him. How hard it was to think around him and how my body responded to him. Embarrassment and shame blazed across my cheeks. Had he used his magic on me? Had he been toying with me from the beginning? I was horrified, which inevitably stoked my anger. How dare he manipulate me like that! How dare he abuse someone weaker than himself just because he can. A part of me wanted to go knee him in the crotch, but I’d just last night impressed upon myself how important it was to maintain the illusion of friendship with them. I’d have to bite back my anger. Lives were at stake, and I couldn’t afford to lose myself in emotion. Unaware of my internal revelations, Ashley continued. “Most books say there's a Seelie Court and an Unseelie Court, but sometimes they call them Day Court and Night Court, or Summer and Winter Courts. It seems like each book has the courts set up differently, so I'm not sure on that one. The Unseelie are nasty, but the Seelie aren't much better because they all like to screw with humans. One book that I read had some kind of water horse that dragged people into lakes and ate them, but I'm not sure if that was Seelie or Unseelie. Let’s see … they usually can’t use technology because of their Fae energy, or something like that.” “I think that one must not be true. When I got to Lochlan’s office, he was working on a laptop.” “Okay, we can take that off the list. Across the board, though, every book has some variation that the Fae cannot tolerate iron. That has to be true.” “How on earth do you remember all this?” My head was starting to spin at all the information and the rate she was throwing it at me. “You know fantasy is my thing. Most books follow the same general principles, depending upon the creatures involved. Read enough of them, and these fantasy worlds become familiar.” “I've always stuck to classics or mysteries,” I said with a bit of a frown, wishing I had branched out more in my reading selections. “No worries, that's what I'm here for. What else can I drudge up ... Hmm, some of the Fae can trace or fade or sift—whatever you want to call it—when they teleport from one place to another. Oh! And time spent in Faery is almost never the same as Earth time.” “What is Faery? Like a whole other planet?” “That's another one of those things that change based on what you read, so I'm not sure. Sometimes it's a whole other planet, and sometimes a whole different realm or dimension.” She paused, casting unseeing eyes at the ceiling. “Most of the Fae use glamour to hide what they are. I'm sure that's what that vampire girl was using, but I'm not sure how you were able to see past it. My understanding is that us normal humans shouldn't be able to see past a glamour.” “I'm telling you, it's the necklace. I think it's magical. The little green man seemed surprised I could see him. Maybe he had a glamour on too.” “Man, you’re so lucky. What I wouldn’t give to have a magic necklace.” My teeth ground together. “It’s not some joyride, Ash. Look at your arm. This damn necklace did that. I could be in a ton of danger, not to mention you, my parents, and anyone else I know—all because of this silly thing around my neck. All I want to do is get it off and go back to the way things were.” Ashley peered at me gently. “I know you like to keep things safe, but I’m not sure this is something you can just ignore, honey. There may not be any going back from here.”