Page 2 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Her second climax eddies away and suddenly she really wants to tear that fucking washbasin from the wall just to let off some steam. But then the man grabs her waist with two hands, squashing her impulse as he goes over the edge.

Right, he deserves it.

As soon as he is done, Blair steps out of his embrace, rolling down the hem of that ridiculous idea of a dress, and reaches for the toilet door. Not waiting for him, she stumbles back into the club full of twitching humans. The music’s pounding hard against her bones and over mirrored pillars, melting with her blood.

With her soul,if she has one.

She takes a moment to drink it all in, soak in it. The dancing, the giggling, the music. The music especially.The Abyss,how much she loves music—no, not loves,needs it. It glitters through her veins like a thousand twinkling stars, makes her blood hum, makes her very soul sing with...joy. A feeling she hadn’t known until she arrived in the human realm a year ago and a melody caught her ear.

Music...

A thing long banned in the witch territories by Blair’s cruel aunt, the witch queen Gatilla herself. Just another attempt to suck any joy from the witch lands. Anything worth living for. If you could call it living in the first place.

Since Blair got her hands on a smartphone and some headphones she’s gone nowhere without them, music in her ears from the moment she gets up to the moment she closes her eyes to sleep. Most of the time moving her body to it as if she’d been born to dance. As if her very core is a song and only rhythms and notes can express what shetruly feels. All those emotions she hadn’t known she was capable of having. What lies beyond all that darkness and cruelty and emptiness in her.

For the first time in her whole life, she feels likemore. More than the cruel witch she’s been raised to become. More than the ruthless warrior. And more than… well, the ghost she’s turned into since Caryan left her side.

She’s been nothing but a shell since the night her aunt died. Since Caryan and she broke up, she fell apart. It doesn’t matter that it happened more than fucking twenty years ago. It tore her in half, a cut so deep that, on some days, only her rage and darkness and pain keep her going, keep her together. She knows it makes her pathetic. Weak.

But she’s become mortal enough to cry.

Maybe this is why she’s feeling that kind of belonging. Those songs the humans write, so full of pain and heartbreak, she knows they understand what she’s feeling inside.

Nothing a fae would ever comprehend. But listening to music, to voices out there sharing her kind of torment… it doesn’t heal her wounds but at least it soothes them. Makes even the darkest hours bearable so that, in those moments when she so much as thinks Caryan’s name, she can at least keep breathing.

Like now, she focuses back on the music. On the notes and rhythms.

It helps. It makes her feel something else. Something other than the emptiness and crack in her heart.

On some days, she even catches herself smiling. On others, a shy part of her dares to imagine what she could be, could one day become, if she was to ever leave her past and the fae world behind.

If.

It is a dream, nothing else. Because she has to return to the fae world.Soon.

But it’s a nice dream, nonetheless. And music’s brought all that to the surface. Music and the sweet little human world.

Blair has no idea how she’s going to live without music onceshe’s back in the fae realms. Oh hells, it will be bad. She’s not sure she would be able to charge a mobile phone with her magic, but she will sure as death try. Even if a dark part of her knows it won’t work.

Well, she’s not sure she will survive without music anyway, so it won’t matter.

She swallows hard. Usually, she manages pretty well to block out the fact that she has to go back at some point. But there are moments where it is especially hard. Moments like this, when she’s surrounded by people who just party their heads off because, fuck it, why not?

In moments like these, she wishes nothing more than to be a human. To shed her immortal skin. To just walk onto that dance floor, slide amid those sweat-slicked, delicate bodies of adorable humans with glitter in their hair and glow sticks around their wrists, and reduce herself to the beats. Just knock back some drinks and dance, dance, dance until her legs give out and be back at it the next night.

For a heartbeat, her sight turns blurry before she swallows the hint of emotion. Smothers it. Locks it into the endless, black void inside her, reminding herself why she’s here in the first place. She’s got work to do.

With a last, longing glance towards the dancing throng—people writhing as if to worship a forgotten king—she pushes her way through the crowd that flocks the bars. Wild, colorful lights flicker over her, confusing her witch senses. That’s probably why she only notices the man when he grabs her wrist.

She keeps telling herself that it’s not her despair that sometimes makes her lame. Distracted. Negligent.

She swivels around, briefly caught off guard, suppressing the sheer reflex to pull free and send him flying across the room. And wreak havoc on that club. She clenches her teeth, just in time, reining in her violent instincts—a painful reminder of just how different she is to them.

Abyss, she almost killed him with a flip of her wrist.

Humans—so delicate. So breakable. So… ridiculously weak, but sweet.

She also suppresses the instinct to snap her long, sharp, silver canines right in his face as a warning. Well, a good thing those teeth are currently hidden by the magic coming from an enchanted bracelet that camouflages her pointed ears, silver claws and teeth. The latter the trademark of the witches.

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