Page 104 of By the Fae

In the morning, the orc, who told me to call him Rhomon, brought me a mug of coffee, perfectly sugared. When I gave him a questioning look, he shrugged and pointed to my ears.

Rhomon leaned against the hood of my car, staring out over the rolling hills. “What’s the deal with the whole, moody sleep-under-the-stars fae vibe?”

I said nothing, unsure whether my mouth would let me utter anything even slightly resembling my truth.

“Ah,” he grumbled. “A girl.” And then, when I didn’t refute it, he laughed, the resonance rumbling through the leather of my backrest. “I work with a lot of fae. Your lot sure love to pigeonhole every other species, but I’ll tell you what, I’m yet to meet a fae that isn’t a moody, brooding asshole.”

A minute passed under his self-satisfied grin.

“She’s human,” I said eventually.

“And you’re of the mind that loss is too big a risk for love?” He didn’t give me a chance to deny it. Not that I could have out loud. “My wife’s part human. Her family cut us off when we chose each other. Just pretended as though she never existed. My folks didn’t take too kindly to it either. They’re only just starting to come around now. Rhomson is ten. A decade it has taken for them to see our love is authentic, and that we weren’t abandoning orcish culture entirely. But you know, I would do it. Give up my roots. Everything. If that’s what my Leena wanted. I wouldn’t even think twice about it. Because, to me, there is no risk too great for love.”

He leaned forward and seized my nearly empty mug. Tossing the dregs into a nearby bush he said, “Have a safe rest of your journey. Whichever direction you’re travelling in.” And then walked back to his stupid homely RV, and his dressing-gown clad, smiling wife, like his little speech had any impact on me.

“Blankets!” said the fae princess, uncrossing her legs with a flair worthy of a drag queen. Technically, not a princess, more a self-appointed noblewoman. She gracefully rose from her throne — again not a real throne — and sauntered down the marble steps, her arms held wide. “My son!”

“Hi, Mum,” I said, burying my hands in my pockets.

She wore a gown made of the sheerest, most iridescent fabric. Hiding absolutely nothing. A typical Mum ensemble. She pulled me into a hug, kissed both my cheeks twice, then leaned back and slapped me across the face. Hard.

“What in the bloody hell do you call this?” she spat. “One hundred and fifty years since your last visit. One and a half centuries! You hardly call. You never write—”

“I call,” I countered.

“Pah!”

I did ring them. Once a year. Usually on the morning of Winter Fest if Dima reminded me.

“This is not how I expect my twenty-third son to behave. Your siblings have all but forgotten what you look like.”

I cast my eyes around the cavernous palace hall. A reception chamber hewn straight into the mountainside. Partly covered by the intricately carved marble walls and ceilings, and partly exposed to the elements. I gave a little wave to the battalion of gold-haired fae draped over every surface. Most of them naked. They could never forget what I looked like. I looked exactly the same as them.

“I’ve just been on the phone to your minotaur friend,” Mum said, seemingly already over the upset. “He’s worried about you. A love match, perhaps?”

“Not with Taurin,” I answered. I could feel my cheeks heating and a lead ball forming in my stomach. How is it possible that I didn’t see my mother in over a century, and she still managed to cut straight to the heart?

She grabbed my jaw with a solid, painful grip, her long fingernails digging into my days-old stubble, and gazed into my eyes. She brought her nose close to mine and breathed me in.

“You’re in love!” She sniffed again. “With a human! How romantic.”

“Yes, yes, I’m in love,” I said, pulling my face out of her grasp, and wondering if there would be any part of it that didn’t sting by the end of our encounter. “And yes, with a human. If it’s okay with you, I’ll be going to go to my room now.”

“Blankets, darling, that’s your brother’s room now. You’ll have to share it with him I’m afraid.” Mum patted my bicep, ignoring my confirmation that I was in love with Holly, because we all, as fae, knew that couldn’t end well. “And good luck to you, he’s been doing my head in. I’ll get Dad to dig out the old camping bed. How long are you planning on staying this time?”

I shuddered at the thought of spending the next twenty years sleeping on a camping bed, my back already aching in protest. No fuck that, my brother could sleep on the fold out cot, I would take my original four-poster.

“I was thinking however long it took for the human to get over me. Two decades minimum,” I said.It was the right decision. I made the right choice.“Which brother am I kicking out of my bed?”

Hay Bale. That was the brother. Almost two-hundred years old, and just about emerging the other side of puberty.

“What the hell are you wearing on your legs?” he’d said, not a minute after I reached my room—our room.

Another space carved straight into the bedrock. But instead of opening to the heavens like the main hall, the remaining walls and half of the ceiling were made from domed glass. Tall arched panes, covered by the sheerest, most ineffective gauzy curtains. My old four-poster bed in the centre. My armoire, my nightstands, my chest of drawers, all painted navy featuring elaborate mother of pearl inlays. My mirror and lamp, with their spiralling metalwork twisted around the frames and base. My rug. The tapestries. Everything so over-the-top fae.

“Is that human clothes?” I’d forced Hay Bale to don a forest green kilt of some variety because, of course, he’d been butt naked. I couldn’t bear to see his dick flapping about in my peripherals all night.

“My sweatpants?” I asked.

---