Page 45 of Taste of Fate

She handed me the utensil from her back pocket, and I used it to cut into the omelet. The blonde’s eyes went even wider as steam rose up from the cooked interior. Breakfast potatoes, mushrooms, and cheese spilled out, and I stabbed a generous forkful in my mouth, moaning as I chewed.

If she didn’t want it, fine. I was fucking hungry.

“The council are a bunch of assholes, but Maureen sure as hell knows her way around a kitchen.” I shoved more omelet into my mouth, thinking I should probably steal Amy and the head cook away to Blood ‘til Dawn’s compound.

“Who the hell are you?” Heather was almost visibly drooling as she watched me eat.

“I’m Octavia. I was actually sacrificed to the vampires by this lovely community about a month ago.”

“Ugh, again with the vampires,” she groaned. “I don’t know how they got you people so brainwashed, but it’s really concerning.”

I waved my fork at her, her eyes following the scrambled egg and potato speared on the tines. “Come out and eat, and we’ll talk. Whether or not you believe is up to you.”

“Obviously I don’t believe.” Heather came out from behind the desk slowly, her stomach growling as her gaze fixated on the food in my hands.

I set the container and fork on the floor in the middle of the room and backed away. “A vampire is coming tonight to take me back to their compound. You’ll be able to see one with your own eyes.”

“Sure.” That was all she said before she pounced on the omelet, inhaling ravenously. She’d forgone the fork entirely and picked the whole thing up to eat like an eggy burrito.

We gave her water and allowed her time to eat as Robin, Amy, and I settled into nearby chairs

“You must know, on some level, that you’re in another world,” Robin began gently when all the food was gone. “It feels different here, doesn’t it? The air pressure, atmosphere, whatever you want to call it. One thing I notice when I go to the human world is the distinct lack of magic in the air.”

Heather snorted dismissively before taking another gulp of water. “Sure, okay.”

“You felt something the moment you crossed the border into this world,” I said. “Everyone experiences it differently, but it’s a sensation passing over your skin. It could feel like spiderwebs or a cool mist.”

“Convenient,” Heather drawled, “that it feels like something you would totally expect to feel while on a hike out in the woods.”

“How would you explain that you can’t find your way back home?” Amy added. “You retraced your steps, went back the same way you came, and that sensation of passing through never happened again. You kept walking, but never found the trail familiar to you. How do you explain something like that without magic?”

Heather gave her a hard stare. “Are you kidding me? It’s called getting fucking lost.”

“You don’t have to be rude,” I snapped. Even with a frightened, hungry stranger, I’d always come to Amy’s defense. “This is hard to understand if you’re not from here, we get that. We’re trying to prepare you in the event that you never return home.”

“Why, because you’ll kill me?”

“No. Because if you didn’t grow up here, the borders between our worlds aren’t perceptible to you,” Robin said. “You haven’t lived in the magic, so how is the magic supposed to reveal another world to you? You’re more likely to wander around meeting all the supernatural species before finding your way back home.”

“Supernatural species, the fuck?” Heather muttered.

“Oh yeah,” I told her cheerfully. “It’s not just vampires. The werewolves have their own territory. As do dragon shifters and angels.”

She stared at me, blinked, and let out a scoff. “You cannot be serious.”

“We are,” Amy said. “And there are humans who live in the supernatural territories. Humans who have lived among the supernaturals their whole lives.”

“This is crazy. You’re all fucking crazy.” Heather rubbed her temples.

“You say that, and yet you know exactly what we’re talking about,” I pointed out. “You know what a vampire and a werewolf are. How is that possible?”

“Because they’re in scary stories and shit,” Heather cried out, exasperated. “They’re in books, movies, TV shows. They’re fucking Halloween costumes. Doesn’t mean they’re real.”

“How did they become stories?” I pressed. “How did those legends and folk tales originate? I’ve read that every major civilization in the human world has their own mythologies about dragons, or dragon-like creatures, despite those cultures never having been in contact with each other in ancient times. How do you think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know!” Heather’s brow furrowed in the silence that followed. She was starting to think about it, starting to see the possibility.

Robin grabbed a piece of chalk from an end table drawer and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Heather. It reminded me of when Amy and I were kids, and Robin would teach us math problems with chalk and colorful pebbles.

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