How could I leave a fairy bite? I wondered. I'm human, I don't have fairy teeth... do I?
I slipped into Quinn's mind for a moment to see how I looked, worried about what I might find. Sure enough, I had sharp, pointed little fairy teeth, still dripping with his blood. Ew, thought the human part of me, but the fairy part thought, Yum. Even more disturbingly, I was also glowing. Maybe only one-tenth as brightly as Niall did, but still enough to light the whole kitchen.
"Your true form," Quinn murmured admiringly, stroking my face while he thought how beautiful I was.
I studied what he saw, and quickly realized that I didn't look entirely like a fairy - my ears weren't pointed and I was roughly the same size and shape as always. I was something in between, a human with the fine, luminous skin and pointed teeth of a fairy, plus the shiniest hair I had ever seen. It was only a shade paler than usual, but it shone like diamonds. Altogether, it wasn't an unpleasant-looking transformation, despite the scary teeth... and the damage I'd just done to his neck with them.
I glanced up at Quinn and finally noticed he didn't look fully human right now, either. His jaw had distorted to accommodate long tiger fangs, and he had bright amber cat's eyes instead of pansy purple human eyes. I stared at him for a moment, amazed that he could change so much, but somehow look exactly the same to me. Seeing him like this had alarmed me once, but now it just felt normal and right.
"My true form," he grumbled, swishing his tiger tail behind him like an angry cat. He thought he looked hideous; monstrous even.
I laughed that he could think that, my mirth tinkling around the room like pealing bells, then leaned in and kissed him. It took me a few seconds to navigate my way around his fangs - they were three or four inches long, and differently shaped to a vampire's - but I soon discovered that if I pressed my jaw firmly against them, I could move my lips and tongue freely without getting scratched by the sharp, pointed tips. I kissed him long and deep, feeling him tremble beneath me at the unexpected pleasure.
When I finally pulled back, he was looking at me like I was a saint. To him, my greedy kiss was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him, and he was too moved to put his thanks into words. Still, I had to talk to him about what I'd just done - and I was pretty sure that by then end of it, he wouldn't be pleased with me at all.
I traced the new scar on his neck with my fingertips. "Um, I left a mark," I confessed. "A scar, actually. A very noticeable one."
"Really?" he asked excitedly, before I could get to apologizing.
He picked us both up out of the chair, quickly carrying me into my bedroom with my legs wrapped around him. He stopped in front of my dressing table, setting me down on it gently so he could study his neck in the mirror.
I glanced over my shoulder to see my reflection, checking out my fairy form briefly. I wasn't quite as gorgeous as he thought I was, but I still wasn't a bad looking fairy, I decided, then turned my attention back to him.
I expected him to be furious with me, or at least upset, but he wasn't. He grinned at his reflection, tracing the teeth marks with his fingertips, happily thinking oh boy, oh boy, over and over. Looking more closely at them, they didn't look like regular scars; they were lit from within like my skin, albeit very faintly, and they sparkled a little, like my hair did. They were actually almost pretty, if you ignored the way they got there.
The air around him shimmered and he shifted back to being fully human, watching the scars as he did. They stayed exactly the same, not changing a bit even as his body did. As he shifted, I felt the magic that rippled around him pull at me. I felt my body wanting to shift, and in fairy form, I could feel exactly how the magic he used to shift worked. I wove some more of it around me and shifted back to human form smoothly. Whether the legends about shifters being descended from fairies were true or not, we used exactly the same transformational magic to change forms, and it was very different to the type witches like Amelia used. I was glad my shift back happened so easily; interesting as my fairy form was, I was happy to look like me again, too.
"I bet they stay the same even when I shift completely," he thought aloud, still staring at the new marks on his neck. "I won't have fur there any more."
"You're not upset?" I squeaked. "That scar looks like it'll take a really long time to fade."
He shook his head, still smiling. "It won't ever fade. When a fairy marks someone like this, it's permanent."
"Oh." I took that in. "I'm really sor-"
He clapped his hand over my mouth before I could finish apologizing, and I glared at him, briefly wishing I still had fairy teeth.
"You just did me a really great honor. Are you sure you want to apologize and take it back?" He removed his hand and stared me down, hoping I didn't regret what I'd just done, because he was so happy about it. I couldn't understand why.
"How on earth is it an honor for me to lose control and turn into a fairy and bite you and leave you with a permanent scar?" I sputtered.
"Has anyone else seen your true form?" he asked.
I shook my head. Even I'd never seen my true form before; in fact, he saw it for the first time before I did.
"Well, that's a big honor for a start. But the mark... this means a fairy chose me as their mate. It's the biggest honor you can bestow on someone, much bigger than the amulet you gave Amelia, even. Fairies only ever claim a mate for love, so having this on my neck tells the whole world I'm dear to you. Any Supe who sees one of these knows that if they harm me, they'll have a pissed-off fairy to deal with, and not many will risk that. You've just granted me your protection, among other things."
I wasn't sure what good my protection would ever do him, but at least he wasn't upset about this. "So this doesn't mean anything bad?"
"No, it means something really good," he smiled, taking my face in his hands. "It means I'm yours."
He kissed me softly, and I could feel that he was giving himself over to me, offering me everything he had as my own. It was powerful, and wonderful, and completely beyond my comprehension why he would want this. I pulled away, not yet ready to take his gift.
"And you're OK with that?" I couldn't wrap my head around this; it made no sense that he'd want to be owned by another person.
"More than OK with it," he whispered, leaning in close to me. "I'm thrilled. For a shifter in love with a fairy, this is the best thing that could possibly happen. Even if you were a regular halfling, you'd be way out of my league... but you're important enough that fairy royalty guard you, and still, you chose me. For you to claim me like this... I was already yours, this just means you've accepted me as your own."
He was grinning at me and radiating pure joy, genuinely delighted that I'd claimed him. I didn't understand it, but it was still sweet.
"But you didn't want to mark me," I puzzled, trying to figure this out. "You made it sound like something bad."
"It means something completely different when when a shifter marks their mate, than when a fairy does," he admitted. "The placement of the mark pretty much says it all. This is pretty typical for a fairy," he caressed the scar lovingly, "it's right where your mouth lands when you've been kissing someone and you nibble your way down to their neck." He smiled softly at me. "I know it must seem pretty brutal to you, but I was brought up with shifter customs and this is so sweet and tender by comparison, marking the one you love in private, to accept them when they willingly offer themselves to you as your mate. That's not how shifters do it."
"What do shifters do? You said the placement of the mark is important?"
"Yeah," he agreed hesitantly. "It's one of those shifter customs I hate, and I promise I'll never do this to you. When shifters take a mate, only the woman is marked, and the mark usually goes on the back of her neck, not the side. The mark's not supposed to be neat and even like this, either, it's considered better if it's messier, because it shows she put up a fight. It's done publicly, too. He holds the back of her neck so she can't get away while he mates her in front of his pack."
"You mean..." I trailed off, not sure I wanted to say it.
"I know humans would use a different word for what happens, but packs are all about the dominant asserting their will over everyone else. Most packs still believe that men are naturally dominant over women because we're bigger and stronger, so a woman has no right to say no to her mate. It's almost a prerequisite to be allowed to mate, that a man come up with a set of circumstances that his usually-willing partner will object to, then make her do it anyway." His voice was utterly flat and emotionless, as though he simply couldn't allow himself to feel anything about that.
I sat in silence for a while, letting it sink in. I'd seen enough pack rituals to know women had to be sexually available whenever it was required of them, so I wasn't surprised by what he said, but the image still horrified me. I couldn't quite shake the feeling that because fairies were considered more powerful than shifters, I'd just taken the dominant part of that equation, permanently marking his neck without asking if I could. That felt really wrong to me.
"I'm not sorry you're my mate," I said softly, "but I'm sorry I didn't ask before I marked you. I should have gotten your permission, and it's wrong that I didn't. I don't care if fairies are more powerful, I don't want to take away your free will. I shouldn't dominate you sexually, either; you should have control over what's done to you. I won't do it again, I promise. I'm really sorry."
He blinked at me in disbelief, wondering how I could get everything so wrong.
"You didn't do this to me without my consent," he insisted. "When I called you my mate and offered you my neck, I gave you permission to mark me; that's how it works. I only asked what your instincts told you because I could feel you holding back, and I wanted this. You told me your instincts said to bite me and I agreed to it. I knew you might mark me permanently, and I said yes. You didn't do this against my will."
I breathed a huge sigh of relief then, glad I wasn't quite as bad a person as I thought. He picked me up from where I sat on my dressing table and set me down on the edge of my bed, so he could sit right next to me and look me in the eye.
"Couldn't you feel how much I wanted this?" he asked, his eyes drilling into me. "Couldn't you feel that I loved it when you bit me?"
"Yes," I agreed weakly, "but you like it when I just make use of you sexually, too. I feel like I'm taking your will away from you."
He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "You've never taken anything without my permission. Everything we've ever done together, I've wanted. Please don't go regretting any of it, because you're talking about the absolute best sex of my life, and I was hoping there'd be plenty more just like it, bossiness and all," he grinned cheekily at me.
"So... you like that I don't ask you what you want, and just take what I want instead?" I didn't understand how that could ever be OK.
"Hey, I've been getting exactly what I want. I want to make love with you, and I want it to be as great for you as it is for me. All the rest is just details, and if you're the one who works out the details most of the time, so what?" he shrugged. "It works great for me, lying back and letting you do all the hard work. You should try it some time." His voice was low and husky, and he was giving me a look that promised all manner of pleasures. Exotic, unusual pleasures.
"What do you mean?" I asked, a shiver running up my spine as he stared at me.
"Let me be in control," he whispered. "Just once, let me show you what it's like to lie back and enjoy. I don't know how to explain this to you with words, but I need you to understand. The things you do to me are so amazing, I don't want you to stop because you don't know how great it is to give up control and let someone else do all the work. Trust me, please?"
"I... um..." I squeaked inarticulately. Did I want this? My rapidly moistening body said yes, but my jittery mind said to run, right now.
"This morning was good, wasn't it?" he rasped in my ear, his hands caressing me all over. "I bent you over the kitchen bench and fucked you while your roommate was just outside, and I'm pretty sure you liked that. You even came when I asked you to, like you know exactly how to let go and enjoy the ride when you can relax enough to do it. I think, before so many bad things happened to you, you liked a man who can take control and pleasure you senseless sometimes. I think, if you could trust me just this once, you could like that again."
"I... I don't know." Well, my body wanted to; I just didn't know if I could do this without panicking.
"Don't be afraid," he reassured me. "I won't hurt you, I promise. Please, let me show you what you've been doing for me? Let me return the favor, just this once?"
"I... I want to... but if you mean you want to tie me up or something, I can't," I trembled, close to tears. "I just can't. Sorry."
He leaned over and kissed me then, so sweet and tender that my heart rate started slowing down immediately.
"I know," he said as he broke the kiss. "The nerves in your wrists are still too damaged for that, and I saw how frightened you got in training when I had to tie you up to teach you how to escape that. But you can magic your way out of any kind of restraints anyone might use on you now, so anything like that would be symbolic anyway. Steel chains can't hold you any better than this can."
He moved towards me, and for the first time ever, I wondered if I should be scared of him.