elionwyr | no idea where this is going

Red

The smile left no room for doubt of her predatory nature.

"Hi, Red."

"Pot calling Kettle," I retorted.

Her smile grew brighter, never quite touching her eyes. "A little far from home, aren't you?"

"None of your damn business."

Head cocked, she leaned in closer, sniffed along my jaw. "Baby," she purred, "it's all my business. Sooner you figure that out, the better."

I pushed her away, brushing bits of auburn hair off my shirt. "I'm not impressed."

The smile became an almost-snarl. "Parts of you are," she snapped. One sharp finger stretched out to trace a long, light line down the length of my crotch. And before I could react, she was dancing out of bitch-slapping distance.

"Be seeing you, Red. Better stay on the path."

~~~

I've been seeing them all my life.

I'm not bragging. I understand lots of people would give their left nipple to see a faerie. And sure, in a Disney world, I'd be feeling a whole lot differently about things.

But it's not.

And these bastards aren't Tinker Bell.

They fuck with you. For no other reason than that they can.

I've seen it, over and over again. Sure, the Seelie get great press. With enough money, I could be sainted by the media, too. None of it erases what's been done. What's been witnessed.

I was just a kid when I saw what happened to Ariene. I wasn't as convinced then. Jealous, sure. I will never have a woman react to me as strongly as she did to him - even at 16, I knew it. An original golden boy - Tylweth Tag, through and through.

The streetlight spotlighted her seduction. She entered its glow, and suddenly he was there, too, moving too fast to be heard, smiling too perfectly to be terrifying. He leaned in with a kiss, murmured into her ear something that sounded like a promise of more to come, and then - with a mocking glance at my stare, was gone.

That fast. That's all it took. They had her, and eight months later, her son. They left Ariene behind, of course, and she never really got over it. The betrayal. The loss. The shame.

They had me, too. One look - one fucking look that I didn't have the sense to avoid. Like the Eskimo's Innuat, they'd noticed me, and they were curious.

They've been playing with me ever since.

~~~

"You're much too hard on her, you know."

I shrugged a response, trying not to show I hadn't heard Huw approach.

“And you take it all much too seriously.”

Another shrug. “Let’s just say I don’t find her very amusing.”

He stepped into my field of vision and added one more admiring look at her vanishing form. “She can’t help what she is. Just as you can’t help your reaction to her. If you could, she wouldn’t be nearly as interested in getting you to stray.”

“Would it surprise you at all to hear that you’re not actually helping? So she’s a bitch in heat. She can just go wave her tail somewhere else.”

The phouka grinned, showing much too much teeth. “Careful. Wishes have power, Red.”

“Stop calling me that. My name’s Paul.”

“Oh. Right. My mistake.”

~~~

I don’t really know what they want from me.

I certainly don’t have time for these stupid fucking games.

But they’re casting me in some psychotic little fairy tale, and I don’t want to play along.

So the next time she sidles up to me, wriggling out her temptation, I’m rewriting the story.

Heaven help the wolf. Red’s got teeth, too.