Hazel
His strong hands on my body made me feel a hundred times more alive than I ever imagined I could feel. The hole in my chest that had been there as long as I could remember was hardly even a memory. My blood sang in my veins as his scent invaded every part of my being like the proximity to him strengthened me.
No amount of reading could have prepared me for the intensity of the desire coursing through me. He called me his mate when our eyes met. I didn't think nymphs could have fated mates, but the way our souls seemed to twine together made it seem believable. There had to be a reason his face drifted back to me time and time again.
He was more boyish when I saved him, now he was undeniably a man. His hands were large enough to wrap around my waist. The tightness he held me with made me feel delicate and possessed. I never felt like I wanted to be owned before, but I wanted it badly now. I would happily be his, forever.
His heat soaked through the thin fabric clinging to my overheated skin. His tongue invaded my mouth and my senses, taking me to some unknown place. For a few moments, every thought other than him left my mind and the blissfulness of it nearly consumed me. I never stopped thinking, my mind always had something to turn over, but not while he engulfed me.
His smell, his taste, the warmth coming off of him, were all that was left of the world. Everything inside me screamed to get closer to him, to submit to anything and everything he wanted of me. I would surrender anything to this man, all he had to do was ask. I moaned outright, and the sound of my voice shocked me out of my daze. What on earth was happening?
The potion would be wearing off any minute. This wolf knew what I was, but that didn't change the fact I was in the middle of the human town with no way out. I looked overhead and saw Gera circling angrily. Her white wings beat against the blue sky, occasionally blending in with the puffy white clouds overhead. She did not care that she was supposedly nocturnal.
The wolf set to work on my neck kissing and sucking the tender flesh there. It was almost enough to make me forget myself again, but Gera's judging eyes kept me grounded. I rolled my eyes at her before I pushed with both hands against the wolf's chest to put some distance between us. He backed up, looking at me with hurt in his eyes. His pain twisted like a knife in my chest, real visceral pain.
"I'm so sorry, I have to go," I told him, as I placed one swift kiss on his soft lips. It took all of my self-control to tear myself away and run past him out of the alley.
“Please, what’s your name?” He called after me, with such pain in his voice it pulled me to a brief stop before I forced my legs to keep moving. He followed me to the end of the alley but did not pursue me. It would upset the humans if they thought he was chasing me down the street like he was a predator and I was his prey.
“Hazel” I yelled back. “Meet me in the forest later tonight. I’ll wait for you where I healed you.” I didn’t look back to see his face or hear his response, but with the connection thrumming between us, I believed he would come.
I dashed through the town, my feet slamming against the pavement. It was easier to run in the forest where the ground was not so hard. The air burned in my lungs as I pushed myself harder than I ever had. People stared as I passed, but it was nothing compared to how they would look at me if my wings came back in the middle of a sunny afternoon. Those wings would shine and glitter like giant beacons that said ‘look at the freak, magic is real, the sky is falling”.
I made it back into the tree line just in the nick of time. I dropped to the ground and leaned my back against one of the trees trying to catch my breath. Gera landed in front of me with her long wings flapping in alarm. She hooted angrily and clicked her beak, willing me to pull my head out of the sand and see what was happening. When did she learn about sand?
Her eyes were bigger and rounder than usual, something I wouldn't have believed was possible before this moment. I finally acquiesced to her demands and looked over my shoulder. With a start, I noticed my wings had not yet returned. "Don't worry Gera, I'm probably just a little early." Doubt laced my words. She shook her head in disagreement. I spent more time with my wolf than I thought, I was late.
I wasn’t ready to adopt her fear and anger. This was just a misunderstanding. I knew that Carmen lived in the human town, she would need to cross back this way to get to her grandmother’s house. She was probably on her way back from meeting her friend right now. It would be a simple matter to catch her on her way and ask her to set me right. She didn’t have malicious intentions when she met me, all she wanted was a favor.
I walked toward the small clearing where we met earlier. I trailed my hands along the trees she ran by as she disappeared. I grew colder with every step I took. By the time I stood in the place she’d given me the potion, a crushing emptiness overwhelmed me. I snapped my fingers trying to perform a simple spell, growing a vine. It was something I could do with no effort at all and yet, nothing happened. My magic felt like a dying fire inside of me, growing smaller by the second. What had I allowed to happen?
I crumpled in on myself landing on my knees, the hollow inside me the wolf filled, was larger and more barren than ever. I lay there while the sun set in the west, watching its inevitable journey. Gera laid on top of me covering me in her wings. Her soft soothing hoots sounded for a while, at some point she gave up on trying to comfort and settled on trying to protect me.
After the moon rose in the sky and the air was truly freezing, I got to my feet to return to my tree. There was nothing else I could do for now, and spending the night here only left me open to more awful things. I got to my feet and started walking through the forest. The air felt colder than it should this time of year, and the stillness was ominous.
I heard a soft sobbing in the distance. A crazy part of me wondered if it was Carmen, lamenting that she could not find me to fix whatever had gone awry. I followed the sound to a beautiful girl lying on the ground. Her face was sallow and pale even accounting for the bleaching effect of the moonlight.
Her brown hair fanned around her like she simply dropped in this spot. I fell to my knees beside her beyond the point of caring if it hurt. “Are you okay? What happened?” I begged as I ran my hands over her skin trying to see if there was something I could do to help her. I had some healing ability normally, but my hands felt cold and empty.
“The witch” she coughed, her voice came out barely above a whisper. “She took my wings, my magic is gone. I’m dying.”
This couldn’t be, I couldn’t let this happen to her. “I’ll take you home, the place your life is tethered to. You will be okay, you can draw strength from it. Where do we need to go? What kind of fae are you?”
Her eyes wheeled toward the sky, then closed. I patted my hands against her cheeks a bit harder than necessary. Her eyes trained on me as she struggled to form the words. "I'm a river nymph, but it's too late." I watched in horror as the light faded from her deep blue eyes, the watery depths replaced by a still and unremarkable blue. Not only did her body die, so did her magic. This was far worse than I imagined.
Hazel My hands shook as I walked the familiar path back to my tree. The cold wind whipped against me, and I was certain it was never this painful before. It reached inside me, chilling down to my bones. The image of the river nymph I left lying dead in the forest, and the awfulness of that act dug out my insides until I was hollow. There was nothing else I could do, I repeated to myself as I moved my listless feet across the forest floor. I had no friends, no loved ones, not even a community to reach out to in a time of crisis. My magic was fading fast and the strength to bring her back to her home was beyond a fantasy at this point. I thought of the gorgeous wolf who stole my heart the moment our eyes met, would he be waiting for me? For all I knew I imagined him and his golden eyes, there was nothing in my life that good. I couldn't tell if Gera was still beside me, the link that always existed between us see
We arrived at the packhouse, leaving the owl outside where she belonged. I pushed the door open with my foot and tried to carry her smoothly up the stairs. She winced slightly as the light hit her eyes and I turned her body to protect her from the discomfort. My beta Jackson watched me from the landing above us with a concerned look in his eyes. "Is that?" "Sh, she's sleeping," I answered more calmly than I had in weeks. He smiled ever so slightly but the doubt in his eyes didn't leave. I brought Hazel into my room and laid her on the bed. I watched in awe as my mate slept. Her tangled hair was crusted with bits of the forest and her face was stained with mud and her tears. All I wanted to do was clean her, wash her body, comb her hair, and care for her. I had other base desires of course but seeing her now caring for her was all that I truly wanted. I laid down beside her, pulling the length of her soft perfection against me, shuddering at the feeling her ne
Hazel Garreth lifted me into his strong arms, I stared slack-jawed at the rippling of his muscles as I laid my head against his sculpted chest. His warmth invaded me, soothing away the worst of the pain. He was more delectable than I could have imagined even with the help of my books. He'd filled out well in the years we spent apart. I'd read that women felt nervous and ashamed of their nakedness the first time a man saw them undressed. I didn't know how I might feel in someone else's arms, but with him, I felt nothing but secure, like I was exactly where I belonged. From the way his eyes ran over me, desired more than anything else. He kept one hand on my back and the other beneath my knees as he gently placed me in the tub. I was used to bathing in rivers, and the steamy hot water was a surprise. I gasped as it touched my skin. “Are you alright? Is it too hot?” He asked, preparing to pull me back out. The ala
The waves of pleasure crashed through me. My limp body shook long after I landed from my jump off that impossibly high peak. The phantom of his fangs haunted me in the most amazing way, my neck throbbed with something between pain and pleasure. I felt Garreth in every part of me, not just because he laid so close and had touched me like no one ever had, but his being felt like one with my own. His emotions poured into me and I was overtaken by his lust and worry. The intensity made the breath catch in my throat. My mate felt things so deeply and that fact endeared him to me even more. I was sure that my life force was tethered to his, it no longer faded into nothingness but anchored to the only person left in this world that loved me. My strength still suffered, that would not be restored unless my wings were returned to me, but the bond served th
Garreth Indescribable joy filled me at finally being bonded with my mate after all the years I'd spent searching for her. What I didn't expect was the sickening feeling of sharing my magic through our bond. Werewolves aren't magic users, we just are magic. Our blood is gifted with the same magic that hangs the moon in the sky, our ability to shift tied to its ever-changing nature. We were right in assuming that completing the bond would strengthen her, but I never anticipated the sickening effect it would have on me. I didn't mind though, as long as she was alive, gifting me with her smiles and gentle touch. This bought us a little more time to figure out a way to save her, save us both. It was obvious from the way I felt that this was no permanent solution. The madness was cleansed from my mind, the only evidence that remained was a scar on my soul. We slept in each other's arms that night, too tired to even move to clean ourselves up. When the sun rose we t
Hazel Garreth left me alone in his room, even with the separation between us I could still feel his emotions through our bond. It would take me a long time to adjust to the sensation, but it was a comfort to always know if he was okay. Except that it didn’t feel like he was okay at the moment. I heard the door to the packhouse slam open and shouting. A woman was screaming her head off like someone was killing her. “Mama Grace, someone get Mama Grace now!” My mate called. I rushed out of the room, unable to help myself. His room was on the third floor, and since I was unconscious when I came here this was my first time seeing the place. Garreth stood in the entryway with a big blonde wolf, and in his arms was a very pregnant she-wolf. She was screaming and clutching her belly. I was a healer, at least I was when I still had magic. Before my parents died I had assisted in many nymph births. The process was mostly the same for all mammals and my desire to help h
Hazel After the baby was born, I went back to our bedroom, as Garreth called it. I opened the window for Gera. The cold night air poured in, and I could just make out her glowing yellow eyes perched in the tree nearest the packhouse. She watched me wave to her but remained outside eyeing the place with blatant distrust. Even with the weakened state of our connection, I could feel the displeasure rippling off her feathers. I wasn’t sure when she started watching and hovering, but I sincerely hoped it wasn’t while we mated. My cheeks burned at the thought of her seeing what we’d done. Even if she was only an owl she was still my familiar, and that wasn’t a side of myself I felt comfortable sharing with her. I cannot say the thought of her peeping was enough to keep me from him. The night passed with many
I stared at the creature who pretended to be my familiar, who laid with me when I slept, supported me while I mourned my parent's death, and endured the rejection of my people beside me. My safe harbor laid on the ground before me, leaving nothing truly safe left in my life. The wolf I loved, and bound my life and soul to, was fated to me, but still more or less a stranger. We didn't know anything about each other other than the impossible love between us. I had no doubt the connection of knowing each other well would come in time, but we didn't have it yet. I realized with a painful stab in my heart that the same was true for her. As much as I thought we were the best of friends, the closest two beings could be, I knew nothing about her. There was no one left in this world I truly knew. It made me wonder if I even knew my parents. Gera was certainly Fae, long-limbed, with pointed ears, and a touch of magic glowing in her, but it was darker than I was accusto