I’d lost track of night and day. The sun never seemed to set; the thick curtains were the only barrier against the light. Like Matt had said I’d found my room when I wanted it, and where it was? Well, it just appeared! Like something out of Harry Potter, but quieter and subtly, almost like it’s had always been there.
And when I left my room, hungry for food, I happened to be right outside a kitchen.
Matt had showed me a huge room yesterday, where I was instantly immersed. The walls shifted colour, from blue’s to purples, red to yellow. It had been beautiful, but most interestingly had been the flowers, which happened to be paint as well. They were less exotic as the rose, more like a poppy, and when the paintbrush touched it you could paint endless lines. The colour never ran out, and there were a million shadows of flowers.
I’d painted on an easel for a white, until I moved to the wall, painting elaborate lines, and finally had resulted into throwing the flowers at the wall and watching them explode in a burst of vibrant colour.
Best part about them? If you didn’t like it, you could rub it out, like pencil!
And they grew back, so I never ran out of colour, no matter how many times I hauled them at the wall.
“So, what can I do today?” I ask Matt. Some time while painting I’d decided to push my luck with him, annoy him, get him angry and possibly drive him insane.
He glares at me, but thinking’s for a minute. “Wanna see the horses?” he asks.
I frown. Horses? Come on, out of everything here, there has to be better things than horses. My dad brought me horse for Christmas when I was 8. I think I rode it all of 10 times before I got bored. These horses would need to have wings or something to entertain me.
“I don’t know…” I trail off, glaring at Matt. Was he trying to bore me to death?
“Come on” He shakes his head and slides off the seat. He downs the golden liquid he’d been drinking and sets it back down. When I don’t move and keep eyeing him he raises an eyebrow. “Not like normal horses, okay. Besides, if you behave I might let you see Karou” he grumbles, the idea unappealing to him.
“What, or who is Karou?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see, now come on. You humans are so slow” he huffs, shoving the door open.
I jump up to bolt after him. “I’m not slow, you’re just impatient” I snap.
“Are you PMSing, or are you always this cranky?” he complains.
“Always this cranky, so you better learn to love it” I grunt, displeased by his PMSing comment. Rude, or what? Besides, now I couldn’t wait til I was PMSing, then he’d suffer. Oh I can’t wait to see the destruction I make when he pisses me off. Maybe then the creepy smile he always had will be wiped clear.
Matt suddenly stops and I jump back in my haste to not slam into his back, which I predicted was going to be hard, like a brick wall. All bone I think hostilely, but I knew it wasn’t ‘bone’ I’d run into. But muscle. Pure, hard muscle that a normal guy would kill a baby for…okay, not every male, but close enough. I startle as a savage hiss comes from behind me and turn just in time to see a creamy blue bolting down the hall.
Silly cat.
“Iraz” Matt says in a clipped voice.
I lean around his arm; looking at this ’Iraz’ he clearly wasn’t happy to see. Instantly I glare at the guy, he wasn’t strikingly beautiful like Emma, and nowhere near as dangerous looking. But he reminded me of a snake. Dark shifty eyes, black hair falling over his them and skin almost as pale as Emma’s. He might have been attractive if his skin wasn’t pulled so tight over his bones, checks sunken; his bones protruding through flesh, clear even under his shirt. It appeared as if he hadn’t eaten food for weeks, slowly letting himself be eaten away from the inside.
“So that’s the human you picked” he says in a cold, drowsy kind of voice.
Matt nods curtly, but doesn’t move otherwise. He doesn’t push me behind him, or step aside for Iraz to see me better.
“Almost a pretty as the last…” he drawls. Unlike his lazy, slurred voice, his eyes were intense, dark holes as if he could see through my clothes. It was a polar opposite to his tone, even his posture. He was slumped; head hang as if it’s too heavy to keep up.
Matt stays mute.
“What’s your name, girl?” he asks, head tilting to the side til his cheek nearly touched his bony shoulder.
“Alera” I say smoothly. I run my eyes over him, wondering how he was a Fae, yet looked nothing like the one’s I’d seen. They’d been lethal grace, predatory and dangerous, enough to make my heart try to crawl out of my chest.
But this guy…he may as well have been a fly for all the harm he seemed to be able to do. Matt easily had 3 times more muscle then this Iraz, and he seemed even skinnier then Emma, who happened to be supermodel thin. It’s like the laws of being a Fae didn’t apply to him, like he didn’t need to look dangerous.
“Alera” he repeats, swaying on his feet.
“Why are you here?” Matt cuts in, eyes dark and animal.
I step out from behind him, absently looking at the small flower that hangs from a garland just out of reach. The flowers were deep purple, with black on the inside and streaking out. It was leafless, but small thorns covered the flowers steam.
Again I was tempted to lift my hand and feel it.
“Lavin wants to know what the girls like”
“So she sent you” Matt shakes his head. A smile, unlike any I’d seen from him, creeps onto his lips. It wasn’t sadistic, it was just dark amusement.
Iraz hisses, his dark eyes narrowing. “Learn your place, Mattayis” Suddenly, Iraz, seemed to be less ‘drunk’ and weak. He straightened, head lowering til shadows covered his eyes. And yet he still wasn’t scary, he just looked…angry.
I look between the two men. Saying they disliked each other was an understatement. Iraz’s eyes flickered like the eyes of a caged lion, his mouth twitching in something like a sneer. But Matt seemed calm. The only thing that gave him away was the tensed muscles and the hatred darkening his eyes.
My blood runs cold, my skin like ice.
Iraz smiles then, blinking slowly. His face slackens and his shoulders fall, defeated. He sways, taking uneven steps towards me. “Let me look at you, girl”
I glare at him, not even caring to hide my loathing. I saw a snake in the grass, blending in with the background, coiled, ready to spring. He wasn’t a man, or a Fae, but a serpent.
At least with Matt I had the feeling that I knew what he would do. He told me, all the time. ‘I’ll kill you’ he’d tell me when I even looked at the strange foods or the weird drinks he had.
I didn’t know what Iraz would do though, and it make my nerves on edge and my muscles twitch.
I turn, tracking Iraz as he walks around me in a tight circle. He smells of burnt wood and spices. “Stop moving, I want to see all of you”
Of course you do, pervert I think smartly. I don’t stop turning. If he thought I was going to turn my back on him, he was wrong. You don’t take your eyes off your enemies. Not unless you wanted to get stabbed in the back. I jump back when he reaches for me, bony, long fingers reaching for me. It was like the Ivy at the rotunda, but this was worse. I felt sick looking at the meatless hands, seeing every knuckle, every bone.
“What lovely hair you have…” he catches a curl, holding the end of it towards him so the light gave it a blue shine. “Lovely….hair…”
I pull back, my hair sliding from between his twig like hands. “Thanks”
He tilts his head at me, obviously hearing my hostility.
“When’s the time?” Iraz asks Matt but doesn’t look away from me.
The question seemed to be wrong to me, but to Matt it seemed to make perfect sense. “Within four weeks” he says smoothly, earning a sliced look from Iraz.
“You didn’t ask? Huh-and Lavin thought you’d be good for this”
At the name, Matt seemed to shiver, his eyes darkening and hands flexing. “I haven’t had the time to ask her yet”
“Well you should hurry it up, the queens not patient. You of all people should know that” Iraz grins smoothly.
“I was doing fine til you waltzed in like you own the place” Matt snaps.
“I do own the place” Iraz laughs drunkenly, staggering back a few steps to sweep his arms around the massive hall. “It’s all mine! And you, my friend-“ he distastefully “-will soon be begging for forgiveness at our ladies feet, like the pitiful dog you are”
Matt again falls silent.
Iraz turns back around, grinning as he makes his way to me. “And you… you will be dead, slaughtered like a sheep. Bleeding out until your misery is ended”
I glare at him, unsure what to say. Saying I wasn’t in misery would only provoke him, not that I really cared how angry he got. He I didn’t wish for him to try and make my life miserable.
“Humans are like sheep…stupid and selfish, destroying their world with their stupidity” he grabs my face with skeletal fingers, pulling my face closer to his. He ignores my sound of annoyance and looks over my head, eyes lost. “Vein, rash, repulsive creatures with no sense of life…,” he turns his soulless eyes on me against, breathing onto my face in ragged breaths. “And you’re going to be the first one we-“
He hadn’t finished his sentence when a clipped voice called his name. He holds me for a minute longer, face twisted in a sneer. Slowly he drags his fingers down my cheeks, til they feel from my face and curled in front of him.
I step away from the crazy man as he turns to look at Emma who stood a few meters away, looking at him with a levelled gaze, clearly unimpressed. “What are you doing here?” She asks coolly, brushing hair over her shoulder.
“I was-“
“Just leaving” Matt cuts in, glaring at bony man.
“I was-“
“Emma, why don’t you escort our guest out” Matt again cuts Iraz off, smiling cruelly. He was finding please in this, no doubt.
Iraz on the other hand sneers, opening his mouth to object but Emma was there, taking hold of his arm. “Doors this way,” and with the tall girl drags the man behind her, leaving no room for him to argue.
Iraz turns back, dark eyes inhuman. “Not long now, Matt, and she’ll be dead, they’ll all be dead!” and then he was disappearing behind the corner, Emma still dragging him like a sack of bones. Which is what he is. Nothing more but bones.
Matt and I stand in silence for a while, looking at the area Iraz had disappeared. His face still lurked in my head, charcoal eyes gazing into mine. I still felt his thin, skeletal fingers on my cheeks, cold against my skin.
I turn to Matt, raising an eyebrow. “You were planning on showing me some horses?”