Hard Truths

Hazel

His strong hands on my body made me feel a hundred times more alive than I ever imagined I could feel. The hole in my chest that had been there as long as I could remember was hardly even a memory. My blood sang in my veins as his scent invaded every part of my being like the proximity to him strengthened me.

No amount of reading could have prepared me for the intensity of the desire coursing through me. He called me his mate when our eyes met. I didn't think nymphs could have fated mates, but the way our souls seemed to twine together made it seem believable. There had to be a reason his face drifted back to me time and time again.

He was more boyish when I saved him, now he was undeniably a man. His hands were large enough to wrap around my waist. The tightness he held me with made me feel delicate and possessed. I never felt like I wanted to be owned before, but I wanted it badly now. I would happily be his, forever.

His heat soaked through the thin fabric clinging to my overheated skin. His tongue invaded my mouth and my senses, taking me to some unknown place. For a few moments, every thought other than him left my mind and the blissfulness of it nearly consumed me. I never stopped thinking, my mind always had something to turn over, but not while he engulfed me.

His smell, his taste, the warmth coming off of him, were all that was left of the world. Everything inside me screamed to get closer to him, to submit to anything and everything he wanted of me. I would surrender anything to this man, all he had to do was ask. I moaned outright, and the sound of my voice shocked me out of my daze. What on earth was happening?

The potion would be wearing off any minute. This wolf knew what I was, but that didn't change the fact I was in the middle of the human town with no way out. I looked overhead and saw Gera circling angrily. Her white wings beat against the blue sky, occasionally blending in with the puffy white clouds overhead. She did not care that she was supposedly nocturnal.

The wolf set to work on my neck kissing and sucking the tender flesh there. It was almost enough to make me forget myself again, but Gera's judging eyes kept me grounded. I rolled my eyes at her before I pushed with both hands against the wolf's chest to put some distance between us. He backed up, looking at me with hurt in his eyes. His pain twisted like a knife in my chest, real visceral pain.

"I'm so sorry, I have to go," I told him, as I placed one swift kiss on his soft lips. It took all of my self-control to tear myself away and run past him out of the alley.

“Please, what’s your name?” He called after me, with such pain in his voice it pulled me to a brief stop before I forced my legs to keep moving. He followed me to the end of the alley but did not pursue me. It would upset the humans if they thought he was chasing me down the street like he was a predator and I was his prey.

“Hazel” I yelled back. “Meet me in the forest later tonight. I’ll wait for you where I healed you.” I didn’t look back to see his face or hear his response, but with the connection thrumming between us, I believed he would come.

I dashed through the town, my feet slamming against the pavement. It was easier to run in the forest where the ground was not so hard. The air burned in my lungs as I pushed myself harder than I ever had. People stared as I passed, but it was nothing compared to how they would look at me if my wings came back in the middle of a sunny afternoon. Those wings would shine and glitter like giant beacons that said ‘look at the freak, magic is real, the sky is falling”.

I made it back into the tree line just in the nick of time. I dropped to the ground and leaned my back against one of the trees trying to catch my breath. Gera landed in front of me with her long wings flapping in alarm. She hooted angrily and clicked her beak, willing me to pull my head out of the sand and see what was happening. When did she learn about sand?

Her eyes were bigger and rounder than usual, something I wouldn't have believed was possible before this moment. I finally acquiesced to her demands and looked over my shoulder. With a start, I noticed my wings had not yet returned. "Don't worry Gera, I'm probably just a little early." Doubt laced my words. She shook her head in disagreement. I spent more time with my wolf than I thought, I was late.

I wasn’t ready to adopt her fear and anger. This was just a misunderstanding. I knew that Carmen lived in the human town, she would need to cross back this way to get to her grandmother’s house. She was probably on her way back from meeting her friend right now. It would be a simple matter to catch her on her way and ask her to set me right. She didn’t have malicious intentions when she met me, all she wanted was a favor.

I walked toward the small clearing where we met earlier. I trailed my hands along the trees she ran by as she disappeared. I grew colder with every step I took. By the time I stood in the place she’d given me the potion, a crushing emptiness overwhelmed me. I snapped my fingers trying to perform a simple spell, growing a vine. It was something I could do with no effort at all and yet, nothing happened. My magic felt like a dying fire inside of me, growing smaller by the second. What had I allowed to happen?

I crumpled in on myself landing on my knees, the hollow inside me the wolf filled, was larger and more barren than ever. I lay there while the sun set in the west, watching its inevitable journey. Gera laid on top of me covering me in her wings. Her soft soothing hoots sounded for a while, at some point she gave up on trying to comfort and settled on trying to protect me.

After the moon rose in the sky and the air was truly freezing, I got to my feet to return to my tree. There was nothing else I could do for now, and spending the night here only left me open to more awful things. I got to my feet and started walking through the forest. The air felt colder than it should this time of year, and the stillness was ominous.

I heard a soft sobbing in the distance. A crazy part of me wondered if it was Carmen, lamenting that she could not find me to fix whatever had gone awry. I followed the sound to a beautiful girl lying on the ground. Her face was sallow and pale even accounting for the bleaching effect of the moonlight.

Her brown hair fanned around her like she simply dropped in this spot. I fell to my knees beside her beyond the point of caring if it hurt. “Are you okay? What happened?” I begged as I ran my hands over her skin trying to see if there was something I could do to help her. I had some healing ability normally, but my hands felt cold and empty.

“The witch” she coughed, her voice came out barely above a whisper. “She took my wings, my magic is gone. I’m dying.”

This couldn’t be, I couldn’t let this happen to her. “I’ll take you home, the place your life is tethered to. You will be okay, you can draw strength from it. Where do we need to go? What kind of fae are you?”

Her eyes wheeled toward the sky, then closed. I patted my hands against her cheeks a bit harder than necessary. Her eyes trained on me as she struggled to form the words. "I'm a river nymph, but it's too late." I watched in horror as the light faded from her deep blue eyes, the watery depths replaced by a still and unremarkable blue. Not only did her body die, so did her magic. This was far worse than I imagined.