• “I thought you said that you didn’t care. I thought you said that I should go die in a dumpster, full of trash and half-babies. I thought you said that I was just as bad as the rats I slept with.”

    “I changed my mind.”


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    “You never said you couldn’t go in pieces.”

    Krea took half a second to close her eyes and breathe—allowed her self to scotch-tape the pieces into place and cut off the limbs of those who wouldn’t fit.

    The street felt rainy under her bear fingertips—like if she dashed them too hard, the skin would slip off and she’d be some cursed thing of muscles and blood and pain, who’d go around at night stealing the skins from twenty-dollar lovers.

    Something like that.

    Glass wheezed from under its dusty choke hold—hinting at fragmented brilliance.

    His hands were still around her neck, an odd, frozen metal coldness vibrating from the marrow of his bones and into her skin.

    “You’re warm,” D'Roy breathed shakily, and pulled her closer. He wanted that heat inside him—wanted to swallow her down and have her always close, always warm. Black eyes smoothed over for a second, and Krea moved.

    Her skin ripped along the ugly green slivers, beads of scarlet blooming and sliding down her fingertips. Jaggedly cut hair brushed against his face when she lunged for his hand, managing to just barely touch his wrist with her pointer finger before he got a foot to her stomach and sent her snapping back into the aerosol painted walls, one hand digging into the earth for cleansing earth—

    But it was there—a smear of metallic-smelling life, frying his skin. Krea had hit her head when she had flown into the wall—her crazy blinking was enough evidence for that. But she was already speaking.

    “I bind you to me as a partner of this realm and the next, to share a shadow until the end of our days and infinity. I charge you to protect me, and take whatever means necessary to—”

    Krea broke off, one hand clamped over her stomach, eyes swimming with pain. Shakily, her index finger slid a shallow red smear across the her wrist, staining the edges of her gloves and sleeves as she did so.

    D'Roy watched her with wide, disbelieving eyes, an animal snarl pulling his lips back further than any human’s could go.

    “Don’t try to trap me!” He roared, spirit throwing itself against the fragile barriers she was molding. They were weaker than they would have been—she was only a human.

    “—to preserve my life. From this blood I have given you, you are charged to repay a thousand fold, as only fitting for the lifespan you shall have—”

    “You will die,” D'Roy laughed cruelly, expression monstrous and he writhed on the ground, throwing everything into the barriers, “You will die and everything will have been for nothing—nothing. None of us will remember you. You will only be a stupid, stupid human girl who—”

    Krea’s jaw tightened, her eyes locking with his own, challenging his power. For a second, something stirred there—something born from dragons and lightning pirates—before it again laid itself to sleep, and then it was only a human girl sealing his doom, “—and so we are bound, until the end of time.”

    Somewhere, he thought he could hear a lock snap into place.


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    D'Roy cursed her in every language he knew, promised to hurt every person she had ever dared to love, cursed her a bit more, and then sat beside her against the alley wall, nestled among the broken glass and faded graffiti.
    It hurt to be far away from her, now. She was in pain, and the magic chains she had cast around him pulled him to her side.

    Krea breathed shallowly, legs splayed out in front of her, scuffed shoes and torn leggings and hiked up skirt painting a picture of jaded exhaustion.

    After a second, he put a hand to the back of her head and pushed some of his own energy into the almost-cracked skull and burst blood vessels. Carefully, he stitched her into place, noting the tiny, almost unnoticeable sparks of her own energy accelerating the process. That would be the fairy magic she had inherited, then—just enough to accelerate her own healing a bit.

    But not fast enough for him.

    “Ami,” he pulled a his hand a way, rubbing the fresh crimson coating off against his theigh, “You are seriously ******** up.”

    Krea flinched, vermilion eyes flicking up to his face. Her lip jutted out stubbornly. “You were going to kill me.”

    “Yes.” D'Roy replied immediately. It was a truth he intended on carrying out.

    Krea rubbed her arm reflexively, expression tight. She looked like she was about to start crying. “I didn’t want to, you know.”

    “What,” laughed bitterly, “Were you planning on getting married? Were you going to live out your days popping out kids by the dozens—going fast enough to forget about all the ones you loose?”

    “Shut up,” Krea hissed, eyes dry but heart beating out a tempo for murder. “Just shut up and die.”

    She needed his help to stand, and didn’t seem to mind when one of her rings burned his hand.

    “I don’t really care about the sex-pit you’ve got back there.” She said suddenly, indicating the dark labyrinth. “I can smell it, you know. That’s where all the fairies take their lovers. They take them there and have sex and kill them.” Her head knocked to the side, bird wings fluttering a pulse. D'Roy’s hands fisted at his side, pupils dilating and irises glowing magma. It was a shame he couldn’t hurt her—she was so easy to break.

    “Was that what you were going to do to me?” Krea asked suddenly, voice quavering, and he was brought back to the present.

    “Probably,” D'Roy allowed, bangs brushing her cheeks when he leaned close, eyes red and hands around her neck again, smiling like the devil. “You’re warm.”

    Street girl to the core, she didn’t flinch. “Alright.” Her lower lip thrust forwards in a warning, ring coming close to his mouth, “But I’m not interested. You were lying, weren’t you? There’s another place. The one you’re all hiding at.”

    D'Roy didn’t back away. Share a shadow indeed. “You want to go there, Ami?” He took her by the wrist, hands going up her arms and sides, long fingers pulling smooth, cool trails over her feverish skin.

    She’d always been above the designated temperature a healthy human body should be at. It seemed convenient. “I do.”

    “I wasn’t lying, it’s back there,” D'Roy took several steps back, hands in his large pockets, features turned back to smooth, “But further back than where I might’ve taken you. If you made it that far at all.” He shrugged, unapologetic, and Krea had to stifle a shiver. She had come this far—she wasn’t turning back anymore.

    “Take me,” she ordered, quietly, “Take me to your home.”

    The moon’s shadow-glow set D'Roy’s already pale face to bone. He raked her up and down with his eyes, “You can’t get there by walking,” he said at last, and then lifted his face up, silver streaking through his features.

    “Flying?” Krea guessed, eyeing the black, tightly folded wings. D'Roy rolled his eyes.

    “I can’t carry you that far. But—” he frowned at the rusty blood smear still on his wrist, licked two fingers and scrubbed it off idly. “But Vinewing can.”


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    Glossary:

    Lightning Pirates: When the Earth ran out of coal, people began going up into the skies during storms and catching lightening as a power source. These people were known as lightening pirates. The government had very strict policies on who got to fly in the skies—namely, themselves. The pirates decided to just go and just the energy for themselves, rather than pay for it.

    Dragons: Actually gigantic hybrids that escaped from research facilities. Humans attempted to re-create the fantasy-dragons, succeeded, but then the dragons became smarter than the scientists who were developing them and they escaped to the fairies. The fairies worked to breed and hide them. Dragons typically have fairy partners, though there have been instances of extremely talented humans being paired with dragons.

    Ami: A term for fairy-human partners that underwent the ritual Krea forced upon D'Roy. It was used a very long time ago, before the giant war broke out between the two races. Of course, it was typically for fairy kings and the human girls they captured, and they were a bit more chivalrous than D'Roy is.