A/N: I had a review in the previous chapter that mirrored what I felt:
"First let me tel you I am a bit shocked that you dont have a lot reviews. Your talented and have well written excellent sories. I dont get it you should have hunderds of reviews..."
Thank you Eli122. Truth is, I honestly believe that I deserve a shit ton more reviews than I get, especially with the amount of people that follow me and this story. Reviews, especially those that hold constructive criticism, are invaluable to writers. Alas it is easier to hit the 'Next button'. It is disappointing but what I've learned is that I have to write the Fic I want; one that's just for me. I share it and hope that someone out there in this great big world feels the same and chooses to let me know.
Chapter 8
I don't know why. Well, maybe I did, but I didn't want to acknowledge the reasons. Colman's words cut me on some level. It wasn't that I'd forgotten what I was raised to be or what my capabilities were. In the past few months I'd found that there was more to me than that, even more than me being a genius. What hurt most of all was the way Caspian looked at me. I had begun to view him as a friend.
I nodded my head like the Princess my father had raised, "Call Niall. I wish to renegotiate our terms. Do not come back without him."
Caspian had his mouth open but I waved him away. "Leave."
"I didn't…"
We had things in common such as a love of scooting through the lab on the wheels of our office chairs. On many occasions we'd walked past the Math majors offering rude gestures behind their backs. I was inherently good at it but I hated math. It was the only science that could not be manipulated. One plus one will always equal two, no matter your methods.
Caspian and I had that in common. He had taken me out when he presumed my vampire was asleep to show me around. He didn't care that I didn't want him. He didn't care that I was feared by his people and mine. Even with all that, I never forgot for one second that he would stab me in the back to save his people. He never denied that and I respected that. No, I shouldn't have confused us for friends; we were merely acquaintances with a common goal.
I let the animosity roll off me in waves, "Now."
Sensing that the situation would only deteriorate, they left. Colman was pulling Caspian with him.
"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," He said on his way out.
"They'll tell you that had you succeeded in hurting me in any capacity, you'd be much worse for wear."
I turned my back as the glass doors swung shut behind the pair. I sat in front of my breakfast, not having even gotten through half of it. I pulled my phone out. I wanted to call Eric but he was dead for the day. I called him anyway just to hear his voice.
"This is Eric. I am unavailable. A single message is sufficient."
I remembered winning the argument that got him to personalize his voicemail. I'd argued that if I lost my memory again and all I remembered was his phone number and our address, I would think I was mistaken.
That deep sexy look took over. "Twice in one lifetime is impossible even for you, wife," He'd said. "But knowing you, I will remedy it just in case…unless you have warmed up to the handcuffing idea?"
The memory made me smile. Our homes, both of them, were full of pictures of us and his portraits. I'd thought showing Eric the sun would change his muse but it didn't. The pictures he painted were just was gripping only the coloring had changed. Instead of nights with multitudes of blues, blacks, and grays, I had a few of his paintings with burning oranges and reds of the rising sun. I could lose my mind but if I walked into the house in Shreveport, I would know how much I loved him and how much I was loved by him.
I spent the day the way I wanted. I worked and my emotions still ran high but I ignored them. It was harder than I ever thought possible. How could that be? I was trained to convey only what I wanted seen.
I'd been amongst my own family, all the people who knew me best while hiding that I didn't want to be there. During those long, lonely days in a home that had felt as if it was my prison, I'd been able to push thoughts of my husband from my mind. Now, a work buddy had looked at me funny, and my feelings were hurt. Disgusting.
"Knock, knock."
The words and the action weren't what alerted me to the fact that Caspian had come back to further grate on my nerves or make me feel like the boogeyman. I caught his scent and that of the late lunch he had brought with him. He was a vegetarian and a French fry addict, so the burger was for me. The scent made me realize I was hungry, but for one spiteful moment I thought about biting him.
"The last faery who thought to force something on me regretted it," I said turning to face him with a mask of coolness. He was alone which meant he was either not afraid or stupid.
He paused. "You would really hurt me, over that?" he asked, looking…wounded. As if he had any right to be!
"Yes," I replied firmly, although I wasn't sure I would be as quick about it as I might want to be.
At the door he hesitated, hiding his body behind it with his head inside he scrutinized me, "You've never fought with a friend?"
Of course I had! I had no idea what he was playing at but his assumption was wrong. Since I was five, Amelia had been my best friend and a talented witch. During my time as an amnesiac in Bon Temps, she had taken the form of a cat and stayed to keep me safe. We were like sisters. I couldn't imagine having grown up without her. That was over twenty years of friendship, of course we'd fought. Yet, I couldn't recall a single encounter where we'd so much as disagreed.
I wracked my brain over and over but came up with no single encounter. The truth was that in one way or another, my family had controlled Amelia's. She either never thought of nor resented it and neither did I. We just wanted to be together but...we never fought. That couldn't be normal for two little girls the same age. Amelia had always given me lead. I was just so glad to have her in my life, that I was always certain to make sure she was happy. God, that sounded pathetic…
Caspian was right in his assumption. Friends didn't come to blows or even threats over something like this.
"That has nothing to do with you. We are not friends," I replied.
"We were friends when you walked in the door this morning," He insisted. "It would have been my concern then."
He waited for me to deny it and I couldn't. I said nothing. It wasn't that I didn't want to lie; I couldn't because part of not being able to tell direct lies meant that the Fae could smell them. "Friends fight, they say and do things they don't mean inadvertently. They don't kill each other over them," His tone was wry. "They apologize and use food as bribe."
My scowl deepened. I knew that. I knew it applied to human friendships at least. When it came to Supernatural creatures the rules were entirely different, at least they should be. They didn't seem to be with Caspian. Then again they weren't that way with the vampires of Louisiana and Arkansas. Without a regime or politics to fight for power over, many were mainstreamed so easily that it was baffling. Why couldn't the same be true for this Lab-Rat faery?
"I wasn't going to kill you," I admitted. "Not really."
Yet he'd looked at me as if I would. That was what hurt.
"May I come in?" He asked. "Having my sexy backside out here is like begging for a grope."
I wanted to smile but didn't. I did nod for him to enter. He set up lunch and for a while we ate in silence. I felt awkward; he seemed calm albeit lacking his usual flare. "I'm sorry if I made you feel as though I was agreeing with Colman before. I wasn't."
"Why not? He's Fae. I'm vampire."
I knew he'd heard the stories. He should believe what he heard if he was smart and his intelligence wasn't one I'd questioned, yet he couldn't like me so I was confused.
"Colman has been watching over me before I was even born," he admitted. "He has kept me alive for three hundred years. My reflex is to adhere to his warning."
"Why do you have guards anyway?" I asked.
He wasn't of Fae royal blood. He was doing great work to help his people but still, nothing explained why he had guards that Niall himself used. Not to mention that one of those guards, Colman, was a royal Prince by way of marriage to Claudine.
His tone was dark, haunted and pained as he replied. It was like nothing I'd heard from him.
"I'm the one that got away."
I waited for him to explain and without prodding he did. "If I tell you this you will no longer be angry with me," He qualified.
I nodded. "I'm not mad at you," I admitted. He was right and looking up at him I knew I didn't have to admit it. He understood. "I'd still like to know…about the guards though."
"Do you know of Breandan?"
Again, I nodded. Breandan was Purist 'numero uno' and the self-appointed Water Fae Prince. At a close second and third were his pair of sycophants psycho water fae lieutenants, Neave and Lochlan. Their sadistic feats were such that many vampires were leery of them, if you can imagine such a thing. They were the Water Prince's favorite instruments of death and torture.
"He is my grandfather and I am half-human."
"Ah…shit," I hissed. "I'm so sorry."
I couldn't imagine it got worse than that. It was like being a mouse born into a house full of viciously bigoted cats but worse.
Caspian shrugged but he couldn't quite make it look nonchalant. "Yeah. Breandan's only son, Rogan, had a thing for torturing human women. It was all knife work but from what Niall could gather it excited him enough to arouse him sexually. If his victims could hold out long enough he would force himself on them. It never mattered because they died soon after he was through, but my mother refused death by his hands."
The one that got away, indeed. Before I could insult him by looking at him with pity, I dropped my eyes. Caspian's very existence was living, breathing proof that laying with and sympathizing with humans wasn't a disease of those of the Sky alone. The Water would want to kill him, so hard. Niall had probably offered him protection for just that very reason. Caspian was a walking Ace in the hole.
A traumatized human woman wouldn't have gotten far. How did Niall know to be there? Maybe the rumors of the Sky Prince being a soothsayer were true.
"It is good to see such bright young minds at work for their people." I heard the words before he became solid.
Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear. I looked to the corner of the room and there stood the Sky Prince. He was in a three-piece suit much like the first one he'd worn when I'd encountered him. I wondered if he knew just how little it did to hide his otherworldliness. Were he in tights and tunic, it would make more sense. Passersby's would chalk him up as an extra for another 'Lord of The Rings' sequel. That wasn't to say he didn't look regal in it, he did. I just knew what to look for.
My reaction to him was controlled, as it always had to be. No one was a threat to me the way he was, especially now that I was going to take the gloves off and extort the hell out of him.
"I had you summoned hours ago, Niall." I said, without looking up. It was payback for his presumptuous entry comment.
Caspian looked between us and it was clear that he would give anything to be anywhere else right then. He said nothing. Good call. Stay out of this, though he looked at me with caution.
"I admire much about you, Princess," He said. "But mind your arrogance, lest you err for ill this day."
The Prince's words were punctuated with a sudden increased density in the air. It was as though he was a vacuum sucking all the air out while multiplying the gravity on me alone. My knees were quivering. I looked at him in reproach as if he were a child having a tantrum and I was the adult.
"I never learned to kneel." I taunted through my pain. "Breaking me is your only option and I fucking dare you."
I heard Caspian make a noise of horror just as Niall narrowed his eyes at me. I knew then that I'd gotten the best of The Prince. As he was choking the life out of me, it offered me an opening into a mind that was like nothing I'd ever imagined. I didn't take a chance to think on it. I couldn't. I pushed back, hard, utilizing the connection he'd established to give him the mental equivalent of a bitch slap.
I was gearing up for a fight but the Prince stopped, looking dazed, with a smile in full bloom. "That was interesting," He murmured running his hand over his chest. He waved a hand at Caspian who looked well on his way to heart attack. Then he faced me as if nothing had happened.
"Why do you think to propose new terms?"
"I now have an answer. I can save your people, repopulate them, but only if you give me the disease that they are most vulnerable to."
Niall looked at me as if I was crazy. Then he looked at Caspian who looked awe struck.
"You think to use a live virus to seed adhesion," He whispered.
"Nothing gets into the body easier."
We fell into a voluble that I was sure very few people could follow. It was full of technicalities of the proposed idea. It didn't surprise me that Caspian had thought of it but had no idea how to proceed with it. As we talked, Niall watched as if it were a tennis match.
"Can this be done if I give her what she asks?" Niall finally interrupted.
"In theory," Caspian said. "I understand what she intends to do but I cannot even begin to fathom how." He was staring at me like I was a genius which I kinda was.
Niall seemed to debate the matter. I'm not what helped him make his decision. It was probably the wicked grin on my face that told him that not only could I deliver. I would also fleece the hell out of him.
Niall turned to Caspian in question. Who nodded with his eyes still wide.
The Prince inclined his head to me in a show not of submission but respect. "Name your terms, Princess."
Considering all the things I could have asked for, my new terms were pretty simple. First, all of my blood would be forever safe from the Fae. Niall countered that it would cover blood but not the loss of life. I was okay with that. In the event I found a faery I needed to punch in the face at some point in my eternity, it was covered. Once I'd gotten the most important things out of the way, I proceeded to shake down the Prince of the Sky Fae. I negotiated a pay raise and an obnoxious bonus with the first birth and every one thereafter. When each child matured into adulthood, I got another bonus. Just for shits and giggles, I asked for a new work car. Okay, so maybe I hadn't made things that simple.
I had to enter a pact with Niall that forbade me from speaking of the weaknesses of his people. It prevented me from repeating it to another soul. I would drop dead before I got it all out. I did it for his peace of mind and because telling him he could trust me would be as effective as reminding him I had fangs.
The disease that the Fae were susceptible to was Streptococcal pharyngitis or as it is commonly known, strep throat. Go figure. When faeries contracted it, it allowed them to lie. It didn't seem like much of an ailment. For a species genetically incapable of telling lies, it was a death sentence because lies were seductive; forbidden fruit.
More often than not an infected faery gave into temptation, thus drowning their 'spark.' That was what they called the magic they carried within them. A faery's 'spark' was what made them what they were, but it was still more than that. It was their very soul and when they corroded, it wasn't only their body that died.
Getting live cultures wouldn't be hard. I also found it beyond fascinating that pathogens which didn't harm humans were fatal to their Supernatural counterparts. Nature always had a way to even the scales, I supposed.
Caspian tried to get me to share everything I knew, but I didn't even know it myself, though now that I had what I needed it wouldn't be long. I was excited when I returned to my room at the end of the day. Naturally there was one person I wanted to share it with. I called Eric's cell but he didn't answer. I called the house. The instant the call connected I knew it wasn't Eric on the other line.
"Eric is unavailable," Alexei said.
"Do you know where he is?" I asked calmly though I felt anything but.
"With The Master."
I stared into nothingness as a twisted mix of anger and fear rendered me speechless and immobile.
