A heavy weight on top of me wakes me up. I groan and swat at the braids currently tickling my face.

Lonnie snickers. "Bored already, homeboy?"

I snort. "Its exasperating as hell."

He laughs. "Wanna crash here for the night?"

I sigh. "I can’t. Promised I wouldn’t without proper warning."

He rolls his eyes. "Can I see the hills?"

I grin at him. "Are you going to be able to get back on your own?"

"Yeah, Holmes."

I smack him gently.

"Shush." Then we’re in the demonic realm and quickly powering through. Demons don’t like angels. Me and Lonnie have had issues before.

We end up on the floor of my room, Lonnie still half on top of me.

He laughs and kisses me before standing. "Come on, I want to see this place."

I groan. "I still don’t know my way arooooooouuuund though," I whine.

"I do."

We both do little startled jumps and glance over. I wave at Jalkyn, relaxing. "Hi! This is Lonnie."

Lonnie grins at him and offers a hand. I start to tell him no, but Jalkyn actually takes it. His handshake looks a little unsure, but he took it… He really has spent time among humans.

Lonnie’s hand lingers a little too long on Jalkyn’s. He’s smiling at him too, but that’s pretty normal for Lonnie. Wow, is he interested in Jalkyn? I should definitely give him a head’s up about the whole ainmhain faerie thing if he is.

Jalkyn beats me too it. "Hello, I’m Jalkyn and I’m an ainmhain."

"Hi Jalkyn," drawls Lonnie.

I giggle a tiny bit. That did sort of sound like an introduction at an alcoholics anonymous meeting.

Jalkyn flushes a little.

Lonnie turns and grins at me. "He’s cute. Can I keep him?"

I laugh outright as Jalkyn’s blush darkens.

Jalkyn scowls and a moment later Lonnie’s breath hitches. Jalkyn pulls his hand away and Lonnie makes a small sound of loss.

I sigh. "No, you can’t keep him." I stand and try to make proper introductions. "Jalkyn, this is Silanos. He’s one of my best friends from back home. Lonnie, this is Jalkyn. My, uh, step brother. And that little thing he just did to you is a specialty of his."

Lonnie lets out a gasp. "I can see that."

I nod and turn to Jalkyn. "Can you please not use your powers on him?"

Jalkyn snorts and rolls his eyes, putting his hands on his hips. "Faerie lesson number four-"

I elbow him. "Shut up. Just don‘t use your powers on him."

He smacks my arm and lust rolls over me.

"Or me," I squeak.

"Faerie lesson number four: Nothing’s that easy. Ask and you will probably not receive."

"What do-"

He rolls his eyes. "Feed me once a day when I ask if possible and if it doesn’t exhaust you as long as we are both residing in this house and I will not use my powers on you or your friends from Border Town when we’re in this house or the surrounding grounds as long as I don’t feel my immediate safety is threatened."

Lonnie snickers and I’m tempted to as well. "Specific," I drawl.

He scowls at me and I quickly repeat the offer. It’s a good one. Sex is seriously not a chore, especially with Jalkyn. He fucks like a professional.

He does as well and that’s it.

Lonnie sniggers and shakes his head at us before he turns to Jalkyn. "So you said you know your way around?"

He nods, looking a little wary.

I grin up at Jalkyn. "Ooh, ooh, can I get a tour too?"

He snorts and I smile up at him. "Whatchya in here for anyway?"

He shrugs and doesn’t answer, but there’s a hint of a blush on his cheeks.

I grin and drape my arms around him. "Ah, were you here for some more loving?"

He turns bright red and Lonnie snickers. "Oh god, hot. Can I watch or do I get banished to the closet?"

I glance down at Jalkyn who is bright red. He catches my gaze. "Don’t look at me!" Quieter still, "I don’t care."

I snigger. "Careful Lonnie, he might actually let you watch."

Lonnie opens his mouth to say something, looks at Jalkyn and me, turns red, and closes it.

I grin and tousle Jalkyn’s hair, pulling a few strands from his ponytail. "This may be the only time you see Lonnie speechless," I whisper conspiratorially.

Jalkyn brushes me off his shoulders. "Do you two really want a tour?"

We both nod.

He sighs. "Fine. Come on."

Jalkyn, despite his annoyance, is a surprisingly good tour guide. And he manages to avoid everyone too, which is cool. I’m not positive that Lonnie is not allowed here, but he probably isn’t.

Jalkyn also answers all our questions. A couple times, he finally just snaps, “It’s a faerie thing,” when he can’t explain to our satisfaction.

Ooh, and I found out I can turn the lights off in any room by clapping! Ha! Epic. I was getting really tired of sleeping in rooms filled with light.

Finally, Jalkyn returns us to my room. He’s a little paler than when he began the tour.

I catch him around the waist and hold him as he makes some lame excuse and tries to leave.

“Sweetie,” I tell him with a grin. “If you need sex, stay. Lonnie understands, don’t you Lonnie?”

Lonnie smirks at us. “Dunno, I’m not really okay with getting banished to the closet.”

I glance down at Jalkyn. “I dunno. I kinda thought you could join us. Do you object, Jalkyn?”

Jalkyn stares at Lonnie for a long moment before shaking his head. “I don’t,” he says softly.

I grin and pinch his nipples. “Fabulous.”

He yelps and Lonnie laughs. “You two serious?”

I nod. Jalkyn’s very still against me but he lets out a long breath when Lonnie strips off his shirt.

I grin and reach forward to start stripping down the ainmhain faerie pressed again me.

Jalkyn slaps my hands away, snapping, “I can get naked faster than you can strip me. Wor-”

“Challenge accepted!” I shout.

He blinks. “What?” Then he’s naked. He blinks again and stares down at himself and then the shredded clothes in my hands.

“Challenge won,” he says dryly.

I grin at him. “Illusion?” I demand.

He glances at me, then Lonnie, and then shakes his head.

I snort. “Lonnie doesn’t care.”

He just shakes his head again stubbornly.

Lonnie’s interest is awoken; I can see that on his face. Then his third eye flares to life, the black lines turning into something more.

His eyes widen a moment later. He steps up to Jalkyn and traces a line across his neck.

Jakyn looks down. “It was an accident.”

Lonnie snorts.

“Drop the glamour Jalkyn,” I demand.

He glares at me. “No.”

I snort and reach a hand towards Lonnie, closing my eyes. He grasps it and his magic flows over me. When I open my eyes, the world is awash with color and light, soft glows emanating from everything. That’s a little different than home, but, hey, faeries use a ton of magic on everything.

There’s several overlays over everything, the ghost of people moving around, barely able to be seen. I get peeps from the corners of my eyes mostly. Those are the ghosts of the past, and the future. The walls are the same, only a little more solid, and I can see for miles, outside this palace too. And it is definitely a palace. Jalkyn didn’t show us even half of it. And there are so many people. I got a glimpse of that my first night but I haven’t seen like any of them since.

I can see the brownies in the kitchen and just the thought of my brownie makes the sight focus on him, the little creature becoming the only solid thing in my vision for a moment. And then I think of the West Wing and I see it for the first time. Shit. It’s rubble. There aren’t even ruins of buildings. It looks like there might be the beginning of a clean-up effort, but it hasn’t made much progress. Shit. It’s just wreckage. Nothing’s distinguishable from anything else. Only the stone of the walls is recognizable; it’s the only thing that isn’t completely blackened. But it’s been crushed, turned into pebbles and stones. Oh fuck.

“Sin!” Lonnie barks, snapping my attention back to this room.

He rolls his eyes at me. He’s a multicolored cluster of lights here. Blue, white, silver, green are the most predominant. It’s a result of his mixed blood; most species have a more unified magic. I don’t even bother to glance down at myself. I’m as out of control as he is, except my colors tend to a deep charcoal gray, purple-y blacks, pale pinks, and copper and I have the sort of spikey demonic aura. The spikes actually reach out of the bounds of my skin, unlike most peoples’ magic.

I turn to Jalkyn. He’s a pale green, a glow emanating from his form, same as everyone else I’ve seen. But, unlike everyone else, he has silver and red veins running over his form. Janie has that too, but hers are contained to the surface of her form, like most people’s magic and they‘re just silver. Jalkyn’s extend out, same as mine, but not spikey, the veins not just surface decoration. It looks like if I could touch his energy, it’d be electric, and his aura would be textured, bumpy.

I reach a hand towards him, curious if I could and some of those veins reach towards me, stretching for my hand.

Lonnie smacks my hand. “Don’t. That’s his ainmhain faerie power things. Janie sort of gets like that too when she’s been denying herself. But seriously, Sin, stop being so ADHD. Glamour, moron.”

Oh. Right. I clear my throat, a little embarrassed and try to focus past the glow of his magic. It’s a little difficult, like catching a faint reflection in a window, but I manage and see exactly what Lonnie was talking about. Across Jalkyn’s throat is an angry red cut. It looks deep. Not deep enough to kill but… definitely a start.

“What happened?” I demand.

Jalkyn sighs gustily and finally allows the glamour to fall away. It’s interesting when looking at it through Lonnie’s second sight. The solid pale green that was his aura around the silver and red veins drops away and suddenly, he’s a pale silvery green and gold where the veins are not.

I glance over to find Lonnie grinning. “I like that better.”

I nod and Lonnie lets go. Suddenly, the world is back to normal. I grin at Jalkyn who’s looking disgruntled and confused. “You have a pretty aura.”

His eyebrows shoot up and he stares at Lonnie. I watch too as the third eye sinks back into his forehead, turning back into black lines, and then I look back at Jalkyn, studying him.

 

He looks uncomfortable; his hands are covering his groin and he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, but I don’t really notice. The cut looks bad, painful, and also like he did absolutely nothing for it but put in a half-hearted effort to wipe up the blood- there’s smears along the edges.

But, what I didn’t notice with the second sight, is that most of his other injuries are mostly healed, faded to nothing. There are still remnants of bruises along his neck and thighs and there’s a fresh set of fingerprints bruised into his hips, but the welts and scratches are faded to lines and the majority of bruises are faded to nothing.

"You healed yourself?"

He shrugs, clearly uncomfortable. "It happened this morning."

I try and think, but I don’t get it. We had lots of sex this morning. Maybe in magic lessons with Cayden?

He seems to notice my confusion and he actually blushes, his cheeks turning a bright pink. "I got so much energy from you that it just sort of flowed over."

"And you're already like this?" Lonnie demanded.

Jalkyn shrugged, obviously a little uncomfortable. "I tried to go longer than I should of."

I blink at him. "But you were like... power drunk this morning."

Lonnie snickered and held up his hand to high five me.

I slapped it, but am frowning. "How many times do you need to go a day to be comfortable?"

He shrugs, staring at the ceiling. "Um.... I can survive with three..."

I sigh gustily. "Yes, but to be comfortable? As in feeling like a normal person?"

He shrugs.

Lonnie sighs. "You might as well just tell him. Sin's like... a dog who smells a steak when he wants to know something."

Jalkyn sighs. "I don't know."

"Not an answer," I snap, crossing my arms.

He rakes some straggling strands of hair behind his ear. "I don't know," he repeats. "Truly. I never... really have gotten the chance to find out. I usually... don't get enough," he says finally. "I know that."

I frown. "So you never really feel, like, good?"

He shrugs. "I did this morning," he points out. "And it's happened before, it's just that I'm never... I've never... Um..." he trails off, one hand straightening his hair.

Lonnie sighs. "You've never been in a state where you haven't been half-starved before satisfying it, so you don't know what's necessary for a normal diet."

Jalkyn snaps and points at him. "Si, senor."

Lonnie stares at him. "You're a weird faerie."

Jalkyn just shrugs.

I frown at him. "You are really unfaeriesh. Where did-"

"No personal questions," he snaps at me.

I sigh. "Fine, fine. Come on, get naked. We'll see if me and Lonnie can't get you satisfied."

He looks up at me, flushing a tiny bit. "You need to tell me if you start to get tired. Well, unusually tired. Both of you."

Lonnie raises an eyebrow at him. "Do you feed off us or...?"

"The energy given off during sex," he said softly. "For the most part, but I'm not perfect and they're fairly entwined."

I raise an eyebrow. "You do realize most ainmhain faeries just feed off people, right? Well, at least the ones I've met have." And by that, I mean Janie, those two other half-breeds, and ones in books. So limited but...

Jalkyn shrugs. "Yeah, but most ainmhain faeries only have to have sex once a day. If you have at least two partners, you aren't going to kill either doing that."

I frown at him. "You could..."

He rolls his eyes. "Yes. If I fed off your energy- not even your essence by the way, which is totally possible too- but even if I just fed off your energy, I could drain you in a... a day or two if you were the only person. Well, that's true for most people," he amends. "You might last a whole week."

Lonnie sniggers. "I bet you I could outlast you, Sin. In fact, I bet I can tonight."

"Oh, it's on," I snap, yanking off my shirt. And then we're off. And let me tell you, I got a kick out of seeing Lonnie and Jalkyn together. It’s hot. Like super hot.