Page 28 of By the Fae

“Mate,” was all I managed to say.

“Do you ever think you’d want it? Love, I mean.” He still wore his smile, but it was a different kind now. I was sure Dima, man of extremely limited movement, had over a thousand smiles. His eyes were closed.

“I . . .” I began, not sure where to go with my sentence.

I wasn’t lonely, that much I was sure of. I’d had too many lovers to be lonely. And why would I want anything more than a hook-up? If I found the person disagreeable — which I always did because bleurgh, people — I could discard them and move onto the next one. No harm done. No feelings involved. Everyone knew what they were getting. Nobody expected more.

Get under me, or get away from me, was the general message.

But people. I just didn’t do people. Dima, Mal, Taur, Sugar Paste. They were the only friends I had. Would let in to see the real me. I’d never even felt at home in the Kingdom of the Fae. How could I, with over forty siblings?

Did I want more? Did I want what my flatmate had? Did I want love?

. . .

I looked at Dima. “Are they fucking?”

He paused before nodding.

“Hey, Mal said no fucking in the communal living spaces!” I yelled.

“Mal’s not here,” said a breathless Sugar Paste, as Taur called out, “Go to hell!”

“You just need to get laid,” I said to Dima, changing the subject. “Three decades is hellava long time to go without.”

He shrugged. “If I could switch their mind off for an evening, I would.” He manoeuvred himself into a seated position, though still hovering a good four inches from the couch, and fixed his burgundy eyes on me. “Do you think she could be that for you? Holly?”

My heart smashed itself against my stomach, flipping its contents dangerously. I hadn’t told Dima her name. “No,” I said, a little too quickly, but feeling relieved I could actually deny it. That my stupid fae mouth would let me. “I can hardly bear her. It’s a mutual agreement. We’re helping each other out.”

Though, come to think of it, I was definitely getting the better end of the stick here. She’d help me get tenure, and all I needed to do in return was what I always did. Then at the end of our agreement, she’d get her own office down the hall from mine, and I’d see her as often as I saw Seth, or one of the other guys.

That’s all it was. A few weeks of sex. Nothing more.

Absolutely nothing more.

It would be easy for Dima. If he fell in love with a human, he could just bite them and turn them into a vampire, and they’d never die.

But if I . . .

I couldn’t even bring myself to think it. I’d have to watch them grow old and . . .

“That’s not true,” said Dima, apparently unable to stay out of my mind. “You can’t just turn someone into a vampire. It takes years. You’ve got to have all the right paperwork. Pay the fees, which are extortionate, by the way. It needs to be done in an official, sterile facility. The new vampire will be issued their Undeath Certificate. It’s not as simple as biting someone and getting them to drink my blood. Besides, once a person is turned, they lose their previous identity, and all their non-vampire memories are wiped out. So really, if I fell in love with a human, and I turned them, once I turned them, they would no longer be them. You know?”

“Mate,” I said, those feather-like cracks yawning open a little wider.

“So, I guess you and I are stuck in perpetual loneliness,” he said.

“I’m not lo—” I faltered. Not for the first time tonight the words I’d intended to say wouldn’t come out.

Well, fuck.

Dima opened his mouth to speak and closed it. If he could breathe, I’m sure he would have sighed. The look that came next was pure bewilderment. “I think . . . You know, I think . . . my legs are turning into baguettes.” And then he dissolved into the giggles again.

Chapter 10.

Holly

There he was. Seth, or rather the Faecyclopaedia’s illustration of a summer fae. Like the artist had used him for the drawing’s inspiration. I thumbed over the picture in my textbook.

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