Unnatural Conduct

Chapter 6

Xavier hadn't said anything as I cried myself to sleep. He had held me close the entire time, as if he was trying to take some of the pain away from me and have himself deal with it instead. So it wasn't a surprise that, after feeling oh-so-comfortable in his arms, I'd drifted off into my first peaceful sleep in a few days.

When I awoke, I found myself on the left side of the bed with my mate's arm securely wrapped around me. He was snoring softly, his breathing even as he inhaled and exhaled.

I closed my eyes once more, not wanting to ruin this peaceful moment, and thought the past week's events.

I was trying to think of something, anything, that could give me a clue as of what to do next; and the only way to do that was to sort out what I knew.

The old man, Rux I think his name was, had been at the clothing store with Callista. As far as I could tell, they were both human. I assumed he had worked there, seeing as he had a nametag and everything. The two had looked a little bit similar, so I would be willing to bet they were related; he was probably her grandparent, judging from their large age difference.

He'd been in the bar the night I'd been drinking with Xavier, and his warning echoed through my mind: Find Fae realm... invisible beasts... look to the stars.

I knew of the Fae realms he was referring too; they were the ones that had been created as protection from the Astro family, or so the myths claimed. I had no clue as to how to find them, so I moved onto the next part of his message: invisible beasts.

What did he mean by invisible beasts? I doubted they were Fae; I'd never heard anything that could suggest any type of Fae power could turn something invisible. Even the beasts that I thought might be able to practice suspension magic and speak the old language weren't known to be able to turn themselves invisible. I then remembered two other events that had occurred, which I'd found strange at the time.

The first was that the man had always seemed to be staring off into space, and had frowned as if he was communicating with something not visible to the rest of us. The next was the warning Xavier had given me when we'd first arrived at this hotel: "It's not the things you can see that I worry about."

I hadn't known what he was talking about at the time, and I'd just dismissed it as a coincidence, but now... I was beginning to get a feeling that Xavier knew more than he was letting on, not just about these invisible creatures but about the village itself.

Everyone's reactions around him were strange, and then there was the fact that his last name was Astro. If he was truly a descendant of the once-great family, what could that mean for me?

Trying my best to push those thoughts aside, I focused on the last part of the man's riddle: look to the stars. The writing in his blood had been similar, it had said follow the stars. I had no doubt that it had to more than a coincidence.

But I still couldn't piece it together. Follow the stars? What did it mean? Were the Fae realms located in the vast space surrounding this world? Or was I to randomly stare at stars until I found one that... well, I don't even know what I would look for.

I snuggled closer to Xavier as I thought about last night's events. I was indeed happy he'd marked me; some strange, primal part of me had wanted that all along, and my rational side was fine with it, for now at least.

The mark itself no longer hurt, and I was surprised that I didn't feel like I'd just been gouged by an animal. I'd have to take a look at it in the mirror later and see if I needed cosmetics to cover it up; surely it looked atrocious.