Tess did not wait for the outcome of what looked to be a major pissing contest, but gathered Nathaniel into her arms. “Shamus, I leave you in charge. If you need me it had better be a matter of life and death…well, you know what to do.” With that, she disappeared from the room.
~Chapter 19~
“…again I will not be responsible for how badly I will hurt you. You told me that two days ago and then again yesterday and, if I’m not mistaken, you told me again this morning. If he does not wake soon I will have to fill in my time waiting for him to do so by peeling your fingernails off from your hands one at a time. I would suggest that you…”
“Tess, don’t hurt the man, please? I think there has been enough bloodshed this week, don’t you?” Nathaniel felt the bed shift then, suddenly, she was sitting next to him. He did not hurt, not really, but he was weak. He could barely lift his arm to touch her and left it lay when it proved too much.
“You scared the hell out of me, you arrogant ass. You were not supposed to change yet. But not you! Oh no, you just had to do it right then, didn’t you? Then, to top it all off, you had to be out of it for six days to boot. Well, I certainly hope you got enough rest because you will not see this bed for a very long…for a very long…I hate you, you bastard. I thought you were dying on me. Please don’t do that again.” When he laid her body next to his he wrapped his arm around her waist.
He reached up, surprised at how much stronger he felt, brushed away her tears and pulled her tighter to his chest. He kissed her head as the others moved out of the room.
Six days? He had been out of it for six day? And she had said changed. He had been
changed into what? he wondered. He thought about the pain he had felt and the blood, and his body covered in a sheen of sweat.
“It’s over now, Nathaniel. I’ve got you. You’re safe now.” Tess was cooing at him as she rubbed his chest.
“You said I changed. Changed what?” He could remember his blood and lifted his arm up to look at it.
Bands of markings covered his arm from his wrist up to where his shirt covered the rest of his arm. The colors were dark and rich—reds, blues, and golds. Some of the writing was in hieroglyphics, others in designs, and still more in words he could understand. They told a story, a long tale of warriors and their service to the queen. He stiffened when he realized he could read all the languages as well at the glyphs.
“It’s our lineage. Your markings were so painful because there were centuries of
information to imprint on your skin. From now on it won’t hurt as bad and it will be quicker too.” She sat up again, pulled the blanket down his chest, and ran her hand over him. Sitting up on his elbows he looked down at his torso.
The marks were all along his left side and down to his navel. When he touched his hand to one grouping, it felt both cool and hot. “Every time we go to battle or something happens, it will be noted on our skin.”
“Vampires can’t tat, Tess. We heal too quickly and the ink is rejected. I’ve tried before to get one. The tat that I have from before I changed to vamp is still there, but no new ones will stay. How did you manage it?”
He watched her face and saw confusion there. He looked at her arm and noticed she too was marked – identical to his.
“You’re not a vampire anymore. In order for us to bar…”
“What? What do you mean I’m not a vamp anymore? What the fuck did you do to me?” He
got off the bed and backed away from it and her.
“There wasn’t any time for me to explain. Our queen was…”
“She isn’t my queen. What. Did. You. Do? And how the hell can you change me back?
Whatever you’ve done, you’ll undo it right fucking now. I want my vampirism back today.”
When she reached for him, he jumped back away from her again.
He watched as she got up off the bed and picked up her boots. When he thought she was not going to help him she started talking again as she pulled them on. “I’ll send Shamus by and he can help you with things until I get back. The queen is the only one who can…repair what you feel I’ve done to you. You can eat now, by the way, and there is food in the kitchen. That bowl of stone by the bed are fairies and if you need me, send one of them to find me.” She stood now and his heart constricted. Something had happened here and he was not sure what he had done.
“Tess, I…”
“If you just give me a couple of days I’m sure I can get things straightened out to your satisfaction.” And then she was gone.
She could not have been gone for more than a few seconds when someone knocked on the
front door. Nathaniel walked through the house and opened it to slam it shut again on Shamus.
Nathaniel jumped back from the sunlight filling the room. He heard the fae on the other side of the door chuckle and Nathaniel realized too late that the sun would not harm him anymore.
“Sorry. Come in. Old habits,” Nathaniel said as he opened the door again.
“No worries, Lord Knight. That’s what I’m here for, to help you learn the ropes.”
Nathaniel started for the kitchen. His stomach was rumbling for the first time in centuries.
He spoke over his shoulder as he went. “So, I take her name now rather than the other way around?” He noticed the other man raise his brow and flushed when he realized how chauvinistic he sounded.
“No, sire, that is your title. Knight or Warrior, both apply to you and many will call you one or the other. Is there something wrong?”
“And what do they call her?” He decided to ignore the question, at least for the moment.
“Some call her just Tess, others Lady Tess. Depends, I suppose. During work or a need, she is always Master, as you will be. What would you like to be called, sire?”
Nathaniel was opening cabinets and closing them without removing anything. When he
opened the large refrigerator he was shocked to find the shelves full. He turned to Shamus. “I haven’t a clue how to cook any of this stuff. She got her panties in a serious twist and left without explaining to me how she plans to turn me back to a vampire. She then tells me you’re coming to explain things and, oh by the way, there’s a bowl of fairies and to send one to get her if I need her. It’s a bowl of rocks. Pretty rocks, but still, it’s just rocks.”
Without saying a word, Shamus left the room. Great, Nathaniel thought, I’ve managed to piss off another one and I still can’t eat. When Shamus returned with the bowl in question and set it on the table, Nathaniel was beyond grateful. But he did not say anything. He planned to be gone before much longer anyway and he did not need any more friends.
Shamus shoved him into a chair. Moving to the cabinets, he pulled down a large box with some cartoon characters on it and, in another cabinet, he pulled out a large bowl.
“Pick up a rock, Lord Knight. It doesn’t matter which one for now, just pick one.”
Blindly reaching into the bowl of stones Nathaniel pulled out a yellow one and held it out to Shamus. Nathaniel watched as the fae poured some of the contents from the box into the bowl and filled it. His “breathe on it” was slightly muffled when he bent over into the fridge and pulled out the milk. He sat down across from Nathaniel and set the bowl in front of him.
Whatever it was, it was bright and smelled very sweet. He watched as Shamus poured milk into it and was startled when he pressed a spoon at him.
“Just breathe on it, the stone,” he said again.
“What’s supposed to happen, a genie pops out and rips out my throat?” Nathaniel flushed again. He was not sure what was wrong with him, but he felt that having his life taken from him could justify some of it.
“No, sire. That one you’re holding is a yellow fairy. She is the stone, breathe.”
Nathaniel heard the tone, but again decided to ignore it for now. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth, warm surface and dipped his spoon into the bowl of food at the same time. He puffed a breath across the brightly-colored stone and began to eat. He was just putting the spoon into his mouth when the stone began to change.
Wings began to separate from the smoothness. Tiny and bright, they began to extend up and out from his palm. Her face was next, eyes formed, a nose began to take shape, then lips and her chin appeared. When the column of her neck started to emerge, he saw her wings flutter and legs begin to mold and tiny feet move. Her toes began to wiggle and she looked over at him and smiled. When she leaned back he saw breast and waist as she seemed to rest across is fingers.
Nathaniel looked at Shamus and saw him lean back in his chair as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening right in the palm of Nathaniel’s hand.
Soon she was standing, her wings moving back and forth as the sunlight reflected off them.
While her wings looked like whatever one thought a fairy would look like, that was where the similarities ended.
She was about six inches tall and her hair was a bright daffodil color that was short and streaked with bright green. Her tiny shirt was a t-shirt from a band that Nathaniel had never heard of and her jeans were worn and full of holes. And she had on flip-flops. Her tiny toes were painted black, as were her fingernails. She was also sporting a nasty, pissed off look on her face.
“If you woke me up just to gawk, then I’m going to give you a horrible belly ache.” Her voice, while small, was not soft at the moment.
“Daniy, this is the Master Tess’s mate, Lord Nathaniel. Nathaniel, meet Daniy, a daffodil fairy. She wakes the bulbs in the spring.”
The little being in his hand dropped to her knees and her head bounced off his finger. “I’m truly sorry, Master Nathaniel. I wasn’t aware she had finally…that Lady Tess had been…fuck a duck.”
“Perhaps now would be a good time to shut up, Daniy. Master Nathaniel requires a cook, someone to fill his belly and clean up afterwards. Could you go and find one for him post haste?”
“Yes, sire. ‘Twill be my pleasure.” And then she was gone.
~~~
Several hours later he was walking around trying to find Tess. He could not reach her
through their bond as he kept hitting a wall. And the thought of waking another rock to go find her frankly gave him the willies. He did not mind the awakening, what Shamus had called it. It was the terror he felt from them when they realized who he was.
Shamus had told him that he had never known Tess to use a fairy stone so maybe Daniy’s previous owner had not been so kind.
He had been walking for about an hour when he saw what he thought was a dragon. The
closer he got, the bigger it got until he was a mere dot in the scheme of things.
“You must be the new master. I am Lord Draco Enneahedral. Come and sit for awhile and
converse with an old man. It’s been ages since a warrior fae male has graced these lands. You must tell me how you are enjoying them,” the giant being said to him.
“I’m a vampire, not fae. Well, as soon as she gets me back to being myself, I guess. I’m Nathaniel Tremont.”
“Change you back, you say? Why would you want to do that? You’re not happy with your
mate?” Lord Draco asked, shock in his voice.
“It’s not that. She did it without asking me and I liked being a vamp. What am I suppose to do all day as a giant fairy?”
“You can fly with me if you’ve a mind too. I love to soar through the skies. Makes me feel young again to feel the wind across my wings. How does it feel for you?”
“I can’t fly; it’s a myth among humans that vampires can fly. We can move really fast, but not fly.”
“But as a fae you can. Your wings are a little weak since you’ve just gotten them, but I bet you can go far. Let me show you.” He watched as the huge beast began to move toward him.
“No! I can’t fly, I tell you. I’m a vampire. Not a fae” He felt stupid and embarrassed as soon as he realized how he sounded. He started to apologize, but the dragon went on as though nothing had happened.
“Humm, without asking, you say… that doesn’t sound like my Tessa. I wonder what she had been thinking.”
“She hadn’t. She needed to change and brought me over with her, Shamus said. Then when I tell her to change me back, she disappears. I was trying to find her when I happened upon you.”
“If Tess doesn’t want to be found, then you won’t find her.” The dragon chuckled at that as he laid his head down and closed his eyes, a slight smile still on his lips.
It was then that Nathaniel realized he had been speaking to him through his mind. He had never been able to do that before, only with Tess. But as his mate, they would. He started to ask Draco about it when Draco raised his head up again.
“I don’t know when her punishment is, do you? I’ve been asking about it, but no one seems to know just yet. Tess has only just told the queen her choice of punishment. I thought the queen had said it would be one week after you woke, but with you wanting to leave, I wonder if it will be sooner than that.”
“Punishment? For what? And I never said I was leaving. I just want to have my life back the way it was.”
“I don’t know all the details, but something to do with allowing a demon lord into the throne room. I heard she had agreed to the lash. Those are harsh, especially for a woman. The whips come around and dig deep into the tender flesh of their breasts. This time is more than the last time Tess had been beaten for disobeying the queen. The first time, Lord Sherman had given them to her himself. I wonder who they’ll get to do it this time.”
“Why would she be in trouble for something that saved the queen’s life? And why would
she agree to something as barbaric as a whip?”
The dragon laid his head back down and seemed to be thinking, his brow furrowed deep
with lines.
Whipping. Tess was going to be beaten and she had not told him a single thing. Of course he had not given her a chance to tell him anything, flying off the handle the way he had. But he thought that Shamus should have. Then realized he probably had either been told not to tell him, or assumed that Nathaniel would know.
“It’s actually a cat-o-nine tails they’ll use on her. The last beating was horrific and had only been a hundred lashes. This time will double that at least. Almost two thousand strokes across her tender back. Shame that, poor girl.”