Realm of Wings

Jade, on the couch in the hotel room:

I had to stifle a smile because for a moment Kallan had thought to have won a round. But besides me being actually curious about his wings, I wanted to see how he would react to my touches too. It’s no secret, should anyone ask me, that I find him extremely good looking. So, hiding my true intentions behind my curiosity of his fluttering appendices, I was able to arouse him while touching them. Which in turn, turned me on as well.

But I could see that he was hesitant, not sure about my appearance or being. I don’t know what I had done that would make him think like that, as I had been straightforward from the beginning, but even so, his hesitancy makes me believe that he isn’t telling me everything. And that is what’s keeping me weary towards his being too.

A knock on the door interrupted the silence that the four of us sat in. Neil walked over to the door and let the food be brought in by the hotel’s room-service department and tipped the lady richly. We all took a bowl of food and while eating it with our chopsticks, I got irritated by the silence and just had to start a conversation.

“So, we still haven’t heard from your guards. Are they capable of sending a message with a smartphone? I mean, you aren’t from Earth, are you?” I asked Kallan.

“Yes, they are over two hundred years old and have enough experience with otherworldly devices.” He replied while slurping on some cooked vegetables.

It never occurred to me that Earth was considered otherworldly, even though I knew I was the odd pea in the pod on this world. But hearing him say that they were capable of handling our technology, made me curious even more.

“How is that? Have Fae travelled to Earth before?” I asked him. Kallan looked towards Trixie, urging her to answer my question while he was trying to eat more food.

“Yes, we sent out several groups a year, to gather resources to replenish ours. In fact, Kallen and I have visited several times, over the course of a century, and he loves some good Italian pizza so now we have a small diner called Belladonna’s, who bakes them.” Trixie explained with a smile. She stood up from the chair she sat on, to get some more food, while I was chewing on mine, eager to ask more questions.

“Why are you taking our resources? Don’t you think that we humans are destroying our world as it is already?” Neil suddenly asked, almost accusing them of stealing, even though he acknowledged that humans indeed destroy everything that their eyes see. I hadn’t thought about something like this though, but now hearing Neil ask about it, it made me curious what the answer would be. My head snapped towards Kallan as he snorted right after Neil finished his sentence.

“Yes, you are destructive on your own enough. But we don’t take your oil, food, water or whatever you might think of. We gather magical objects, things that would look normal to you, and not worth a dime towards any power-hungry man on Earth.” He chuckled, immediately shutting down Neil’s scowl on the matter, using a kind of attitude that I do not appreciate towards my companion.

“Wow.” I said while crossing my arms.

“What? I’m just telling it as it is. Your human leaders are all arrogant men, thinking that they can take whatever they want.” Kallan replied to my comment.

“Yes, I’m not arguing about anything that you have just said, as I completely agree. It’s just that your arrogance about the matter makes you a hypocrite to it as well. Weren’t you the one that wanted to take me with you? Aren’t Fae taking things from Earth, just because they want to?” I said while putting the bowl of unfinished food on the side table next to the couch, and turning my gaze back to Kallan.

Trixie chuckled on her chair, eating her food as if it is popcorn while watching us bicker about politics. If I weren’t annoyed by Kallan’s behaviour now, I would have actually appreciated her glee, maybe even seeing her as a friend too. But I kept staring towards Kallan, waiting for a reply on his turn.

He opened his mouth to say something, but then got interrupted by the smartphone’s pings. I quickly stood up, took the phone from the desk and read the message. “Apparently, those mercenaries that blew up the police station this morning, wanted to get rid of any loose ends.” I said.

“What do you mean? Where are they now?” Kallan asked.

“They just entered the lobby.” I said while putting the phone down on the desk, and the others started cursing. “Neil?” I called for his name, not needing to elaborate about my needs any further, while I went over to my bag of clothes and took a Kevlar chest piece out from the bottom. I tossed my shirt aside, tied the thin black leather, protective suit, around my waist and boobs and didn’t bother to throw anything over it.

I tied my hair together with an elastic band and once I turned myself around, my dearly beloved, shiny companions, were thrown my way. I caught them easily, one in each hand and bolted towards the door of the room.

Kallan, looking just a teeny tiny bit shocked:

“I like her.” Trixie said with a big smile on her face while following Jade and creating an illusion to get into the hallway.

I just stood there, perplexed by the fact that she once again stripped herself from her clothes while giving two shits, put on a leather armour and while fetching the shiny, long daggers, fearlessly faced the incoming threat.

“Aren’t you going?” Neil suddenly asked me while he had taken a set of guns and was checking the magazines for bullets. “You have magic, right? Or do you need a gun?” He continued while offering me the grip and rear of one of his guns, for me to take, should I want to.

Hearing shots being fired in the hallway snapped me out of my trance at which I shook my head towards the old man and made my way over to where the girls had gone off to.

What I saw there, was widening my eyes even further as I could never have thought of using Fae magic in the way that Jade was using it. I know that she is a stubborn woman, not easy to be killed and certainly not easy to be manipulated into doing something that she didn’t want to do. But even so, the way that she was expertly slicing her blades through air and flesh, while igniting them with the energy from her core, burning its way through almost any object, instead of turning it into a ball, was a marvellous sight to see.

I quickly got into the fight as well, as several other men were coming around the corner, trying to kill or capture us. One of them rose their gun towards Jade while she was with her back towards him. Instantly I shifted my skin, forming it into the obsidian black that my wings would provide me with, and blocked the bullet with my chest.

“I had him!” I heard Jade yell towards me, not appreciating for me to have rescued her, at which I rolled my eyes.

I knocked the shooter unconscious and saw another gun being pointed towards her, at which I blocked the bullet as well. “You had him too?” I asked her in return, knowing that she would have never been able to have avoided this second bullet. I grinned as she growled towards me, shit she is beautiful when angered!

“I think our other mission has reached its end, don’t you think?” Trixie cryptically commented, while letting her illusion do all the work for her. My grin disappeared at her implication of Jade becoming my wife, as I still don’t trust her.

We have only met this morning and there was still a lot to figure out about her. But I couldn’t deny the fact that even though we were fighting alongside each other and her to keep me on edge all this time already, her beauty and determination was setting off something deep inside me.

The two guards that had been following these men, came around the corner now, fighting the men that were in the back, cornering them all in a tight position until there were only a few left. “Keep them alive.” I said to everyone after we had disarmed them. “We need to find out where they kept the other Fae.”

Luckily none of the other guests that stayed in one of the other rooms in this hallway had come out of their rooms, and I hadn’t detected any cameras either, so no one knew what exactly had happened here.

Trixie nodded and together with my two guards, we took the three remaining men into Jade’s hotel room.

The men looked angry and defeated, spitting towards us as if we were the monsters in this room. Their clothes and actions from earlier, clearly indicated that they were here to get rid of any other lifeform, besides humans. They had protective gear on, weren’t fazed by the fact that magic was an opportunity that they would have to act upon, their faces didn’t show fear, only disgust and don’t get me started on their thoughts…

“Where is the other Fae?” I simply asked them, as soon as we had them bound in tie-reps.

Even though they didn’t want to reply to my question out loud, their thoughts would betray them immediately, should they even think about an answer. Trixie knew this too, so she was focused on their thoughts as well.

I grinned as soon as one of the idiots had revealed their hideout’s location. “I guess we are going to the mountains, not far from here.” I stated and Neil’s facial expression showed me nothing but confusion. But there where Neil was confused, Jade was only showing a clear, straight face.

Without any hesitation, she grabbed the hair of one of the men, lifted his head and slit his throat. “Miss Jade!” Neil tried to stop her, but she just gazed with an angered expression towards me and slit the other two throats just as easily. “Why would you- Neil tried again but got interrupted by Jade, who was now walking in my direction, pointing her bloody blade towards my throat.

“So, when were you going to tell me that you can read minds?” She stated smartly.

“It was just a guess, to see if they would react to it.” I referred to my statement about the mountains.

“The hell it was! If that was true, you would have stopped me from slicing their throats!” She angrily pointed her other blade towards the three bleeding men now. “We are going to pack our bags, get in the car and drive towards wherever we ought to be going. And you are going to tell me everything, and I mean everything, about what Fae can do in the meantime. Is that clear?!” She yelled at me angrily and I just decided to give in. She was one of us anyway, so she at least deserved to know more.