The Virgin and the Fae

A/N: Hi! So so sorry this has taken so long to update! I have not lost interest in this story, but I unfortunately didn't have any time to write for a while. I'm hoping that things have settled down and I'll have more time to write. Thank you to everyone who has rated and/or reviewed. The reviews have been a huge encouragement so keep them coming :)


Understandably, Charlotte was not happy when she awoke. Her entire backside ached and her neck hurt from the strain of sleeping on her stomach.

The bastard had spanked her. He had actually had the gall to spank her.

Charlotte wished that she could kill him, take a blunt object and smash in his smug face.

Her violence surprised her, but she didn’t worry. Truthfully, she didn’t wish to kill him. She was enraged, that was clear, but the fantasy to kill him lacked a visceral quality necessary to uphold the actual action. Somehow the knowledge that she couldn’t kill another person was extraordinarily reassuring to her. At least she hadn’t lost her humanity yet. But then he wasn’t quite a person….

Still lying unmoving on her stomach in bed, Charlotte contemplated whether or not his non-human status made it marginally more ethically correct if she were to kill Garrick. Was it like killing an ant? Or was it more like killing a chimpanzee? Did the degree of similarity between the killer and the victim render the act more reprehensible?

Even in the circumstances Charlotte inwardly smiled at the thought of asking Garrick how phylogenetically different a human and a Fae were. And imagined her sternly sober expression when she matter-of-factly informed him that if Fae were more than 4 branches (or what have you) away from humans then he should be prepared to be killed.

God, what was wrong with her? She was imprisoned in, what could be loosely termed, another universe and yet she was still more consistently amused than she’d been in….well, forever possibly.

The thought of the unicorn energized and excited her; merely remembering the clearing caused adrenaline to course through her. But not the kind she was used to, not the exam adrenaline. This was different. Although the exactness in Charlotte’s nature compelled her to acknowledge that they were obviously both manifestations of the fight-or-flight reaction and both were mediated through adrenaline. Still, this was somehow different. Her heart began to race, her hands and feet tingled and she felt warm. And yet it was not a warmth like whatever it had been that Garrick gave her caused. This was not an arousal, but rather an exhilaration. She just wanted to run. Run as fast as she could; it didn’t matter where.

She lifted her head at last and looked around. It was the room she’d been taken to when she’d first arrived. Garrick must have moved her in the night. She’d still been awake when he’d laid her in his bed, but that was the last of her memory of the night.

The room was attractive, she grudgingly admitted. The blue room she named it—and it was. Light streamed in through the window, illuminating the draperies and murals, all of varied blue hues. The bedcovering shimmered in the light, the color and sheen reminding her of the blue-purple neck of a peacock.

“Ouch,” she groaned as she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She was on her feet a half second after putting weight on her butt. The skin smarted rather painfully and again the word “bastard” flashed across her mind. So early and already vulgar, she thought, Mark would be pleased.

Charlotte saw clear plastic bottle lying near the table leg. She bent gingerly to pick it up. Vitamins. One-A-Day Women’s. These were hers. Vaguely Charlotte remembered when they’d fallen from the table. That seemed like a lifetime ago and yet it was only…what…three days ago? A month ago? Which was right?

She set them carefully on the table so that they would not fall off again next to the Tylenol. Tylenol. That sounded like a good idea, she thought thinking of her soreness. An anti-inflammatory ought to do her quite a bit of good. She swallowed two and then a third pill, just for good measure.

The carpet was so soft, she thought, scrunching her toes in it as she padded towards the armoire. No matter how long it was that she’d been here, Charlotte had the unpleasant sensation that she had spent virtually the whole her time naked.

In the armoire, that had been the last time she had looked in full of clothes, hung only 3 items: a white long-sleeved t-shirt, a black puffy down jacket and a pair of jeans. After a moment of stupefaction, Charlotte realized that she knew these clothes. These were her clothes; they’d hung in her dorm closest. What were they doing here?

“You’ll find undergarments in the dresser,” Garrick’s cool voice cut through her thoughts.

Charlotte wished she were the kind of person who yelled, “Fuck!” at particular intervals, occasionally angry, other times frightened. It had such force from its crudeness that it seemed impossible to miss the vehemence of the speaker’s meaning.

Instead Charlotte just let out of a high-pitched shriek of surprise, much like one would make at the discovery of a mouse in the bathroom or kitchen.

Garrick ignored her surprise and continued.

“I’ve let you sleep as long as possible, so we are in a bit of a rush now. I trust you can dress yourself?” he asked, motioning at her bottom.

Charlotte flushed and responded indignantly, “of course I can.” Angry that he would even presume that she couldn’t clothe herself.

Pulling on the underwear she found was simple enough. The bra went on first and then with mild discomfort she shimmied the panties up her legs and up to her hips. The jeans were more difficult. These were her “skinny jeans” as she’d affectionately called them. The jeans that she could only really fit into if she hadn’t had anything for dinner the night before. Luckily, since she had, in fact, not had much of anything to eat yesterday, much less any dinner, she didn’t have the additional indignity of telling Garrick that she couldn’t fit into the pants he’d brought her. The difficulty that it caused her to pull the pants on was humiliating enough. Each bend caused a twang of pain and the fabric scraped over her sensitive skin uncomfortably. As far as she was concerned, the Tylenol couldn’t kick in soon enough.

The jeans finally buttoned, and their tightness caused a vaguely comfortable feeling of compression. The white shirt pulled on next.

Charlotte looked up at Garrick expectantly.

“What now?”

“Shoes and then we go.”

“What shoes? Oh, I see them,” Charlotte responded, answering her own question. From the bottom of the armoire she drew a pair of Ugg boots. Again these were hers. She recognized the hardened patches where the salted snow had crusted over the suede during the winter. She slipped them on. Less pain this time she noted; perhaps the Tylenol was working.

She took the black coat down as well.

“You’ll want to put it on.”

“Why?” Charlotte asked, somewhat obstinately.

“Because we are going somewhere cold.”

“Where?”

“Do you have to ask so many questions?”

“All I want to know is where you are taking me. Then I will want to know why you are taking me there and if you answer my questions satisfactorily and if I do not object for some reason to the wheres and the whys, then I will go with you without argument.”

She had the vague air of sarcasm about her, but nevertheless she reminded him of a conquered queen still unprepared to relinquish control. Fine, Garrick thought, she could have that if it helped her.

“We are going to the North to the kingdom of Lord Cronus as he has requested your presence.”

Charlotte cocked her head.

“You don’t think I’m dressed a little…casual for an audience for a king?” Her wryness amused him. It seemed she already sensed his plan to render her unappealing to Cronus. She couldn’t possibly understand the full extent of his worries, and yet she certainly knew that for whatever reason he wanted her casual, casual boarding on offensive. Fine. She would play along.

“You have been more casual before a king,” he retorted pointedly. She colored slightly as she thought back on her nakedness.

She ignored him and persisted with “why does he want to see me?”

“Because you are a bit of an oddity.”

“Why?”

“Must you be so aggravating?” Garrick asked, appearing annoyed, but secretly he was quite amused. It was as if he could see her thinking—grabbing pieces, trying to fit them together and rejecting the mismatches in favor of another puzzle piece.

“Yes. Why am I an oddity?”

“Because you can’t be controlled by magic. It’s happened before, but it is nevertheless quite rare. Now unfortunately we have to leave.”

“No, I still have more—“

But Garrick had grabbed her hand and they were gone. There was no real sensation this time. Just a bit of breathlessness and that was it. One second you were one place and then…another.

They were not outside. And yet the air was bitingly cold.

It appeared to be a throne room like Garricks, though this was considerably more opulent. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and chairs and tables were scattered over the sparklingly floor. At first Charlotte thought that they were diamonds, but after a second of breathlessness, she realized that it was ice. She was looking at an ice palace.

“Garrick, how good of you to come.” A man’s voice—deep and cold—reverberated through the throne room. Charlotte turned to see an older man, pale and white and as seemingly icy as the palace. She turned just in time to catch the contradictory reactions as they passed over his face. One was of clear appreciation, his eyes lingering over her face then her body, while the other was of simultaneous disgust. She knew instantly that Garrick had guessed right—whatever his motivations aside—this outfit was clearly displeasing to this man.

“My Lord Cronus,” he bowed shallowly.

The man, Cronus, bowed shallowly in return.

Charlotte had the overwhelming sense that she too was supposed to bow or curtsey. Obstinately, she decided against it. If Garrick wanted her to appear uncultured, then she would happily play along. It was a queer sensation that came over her in that moment. For the first time since she had arrived there, it felt as if she and Garrick were on the same side. Odd. How very very odd to think of him as an ally.

She felt her knees give as if someone had kicked her from behind on the soft tissue between calf and thigh. But it was a weak kick, more of a tap that caught her by surprise than actually having any force.

“Was that magic? Did you just try to make me kneel?” She asked Garrick with anger.

“Charlotte,” he said warningly.

“She is horrifically ill-mannered, Garrick. But you were right, she is not susceptible to magic. She can sense it however it seems—“

“That was you?” Charlotte asked, with even more anger. “God, you’re just as bad as he is—“ she gestured at Garrick “—neither of you can simply make a request it, can you?" She paused, noting the two men's increasingly thundrous expressions. Perhaps a compliment was in order? "Although, you have a lovely palace, much nicer than Garrick’s.” She finished in a mix of flippancy and seriousness. It was true. It was a lovely palace.

Cronus’ response was unanticipated both by Charlotte and Garrick. Rather than becoming more disgusted, he smiled an uncomfortably toothy grin.

“She has good taste, I see.” Charlotte would have liked to ask him to speak to her rather than act as if she couldn’t understand him, but decided not to press her luck further.

“My son would very much like to meet her. He has been looking forward to this visit all day. I’ll rejoin you in a moment, Garrick.” And with that he was gone again. The tell-tale shimmer lingering momentarily in the air.

“Charlotte—“

“Listen, if you are going to tell me to hold my tongue, I won’t do it. I won’t. I am so sick of how you try to bully me into doing what I’m told and not asking questions and not—“

“Charlotte,” Garrick interrupted, “I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort.”

“Oh.” Was all she knew to say in response. That was rather surprising, but on reflection she should have known. For whatever reason, he did not want her to be liked by this man. Well, if he was suddenly fine with questions….

“Why am I really here? Why do you want me to…not behave,” she finished with hesitation. Behave wasn’t quite the verb she wanted, particularly because she felt it placed her firmly in pet status, but still it was the first that came to mind. And it fit her meaning well enough.

Garrick seemed poised to answer but the air around them warmed slightly and vibrated. It was faint, but Charlotte recognized it. It was like a precursor, a harbinger, a warning of magic. She knew that Cronus would appear soon. And he did. About two seconds after she noticed the change. So the transposing wasn’t instaneous; not quite anyways. That seemed like important information and Charlotte filed it away, along with the many other things she had taken note of—Locke’s dislike of silences, Garrick’s temper, and that Fae—Averill was his name, she believed—with his wild eyes. The last Fae, he scared her more than any of the others.

It was not Cronus that appeared before Charlotte and Garrick. Or rather, it was not just Cronus. A young male—clearly another Fae—was at his side. He looked a good deal like the King. Pure white in coloring with the palest of blond hair, so light that it too was almost white. His skin was almost translucent, and running alongside the smooth column of his neck she could make out blue veins.

Charlotte had considered being a doctor. It was a potential career path that she had never been particularly invested in. However, she knew enough from her various biology classes to know that the veins—if that was even what they could be called—did not follow the directions that they should. These curled around one another forming patterns, sometimes even seeming to knot along his neck and temples. That was not, without any question, that was not how human veins worked.

She let out a rapid exhale and saw her breath in the frigid air before her.

“My son, Jove,” Cronus announced. Then turning to Jove, he motioned towards Charlotte. “This is Garrick’s human. She is indeed what he said. It seems she can resist magics. I believe I told you about how she caused a great deal of talk by escaping from a claiming ceremony.”

Jove only nodded, not taking his eyes off of Charlotte. She returned his gaze, more searchingly perhaps. He, unlike the other Fae, was unreadable. There was something in his expression, something familiar, but it was not desire. No, nothing so fiery as that.

“Well, what do you think, son? She is very beautiful—“

“She isn’t for sale,” Garrick coolly interrupted.

“For sale?” Charlotte whispered but it was lost over Cronus’ resounding:

“Garrick, Garrick, I have not even made you an offer yet. Let us go, you and I, and discuss matters and we will leave Jove with your human.” Cronus smiled, though to Charlotte it looked more like a grimace.

Garrick grimaced as well, and it was such that Charlotte doubted he’d even tried to feign a smile. He was reluctant to leave her here, that much was clear.

She almost wanted to whisper, “I’ll be alright.” But the idea that she was, even potentially, up for sale was so offensive that she decided against providing reassurance. Let the bastard suffer.

And yet the feeling that they were somehow allies in this. She unwilling to be sold and he unwilling to sell her.

And yet they were not allies. To Garrick they must seem as master and slave, a Fae and his human. In his mind, she belonged to him. She must not forget that.

“He is not to touch her, is that clear?” Jove looked just as offended as Charlotte felt to be talked of as if not present.

“Of course.” Cronus reminded Charlotte of a used car salesman, oily but still earnest.

Garrick nodded his acquiescence.

“My private quarters then? We still must discuss your unicorn problems.”

Another nod and then they were both gone.

Slowly, Charlotte drew her eyes across the room to once again meet the blue-ice eyes of Jove.

For a few moments there was only silence. Finally, the young Fae spoke.

“Are you cold?”

“I’m fine.” Charlotte noted that there was more sadness in that question than should be expected. It had pained him to ask her that, though why she was not entirely sure. She struggled to remember the conversation between Garrick and Locke the night before, cursing herself for intentionally ignoring it at the time. There must have been information contained in it that might be useful now.

Think.

A human had died. That she had heard. Was that why she was here?

“Am I supposed to replace the human that died? There was a human that died, wasn’t there?” It was as if she had physically struck Jove, and he staggered back a few paces.

“No one could replace her,” he said breathily on a rush of exhaled air.

“You cared about her?” Charlotte asked, already knowing the answer. His pain, now so apparent on his face, was answer enough.

“Yes, I do. I planned to marry her.” She thought of everything she’d learned of humans’ status in the Fae world. The brutality, the sense of superiority…the selling.

“Is that legal?” The word, in this context, felt forced, but still Charlotte was rapidly finding that her vocabulary was not equipped for this world.

“Not exactly. But it is certainly not allowed for a human to become queen. I planned to abdicate the throne. We were going to live in your world. She was from the south of the country you call France. I was making the necessary arrangements for us to return there when--” He stopped, seemingly unwilling to finish his sentence.

Charlotte was stunned. “Fae can live in the human world?”

“No,” he said ruefully. “That’s why we had to wait so long. In principle, the Fae can visit your world, but we cannot stay for long. Your world is much stronger than ours. The magics that govern your world are such that we cannot survive long in it. Our existence is such that it is directly contradictory to the laws which structure your world and as contradictions we are weakened and either forced back through the divide into our world or killed. I planned to render myself mortal so that we could live out finite lives together.”

Charlotte’s mind floundered in questions.

“Magic? My world has magic?”

“Of a sort, you have your physics and chemicals, your laws of matter and energy. They all act as fatal constraints on the Fae. Your world is governed by iron--your world is iron, your universe is iron. Your elements converge on iron, the stablest of all things. And iron is fatal to the Fae." Charlotte remembered vaguely her chemistry classes. Iron-56. The stablest and must abundant of all the elements. She thought of the earth's liquid iron core, dripping iron drops down to the center of the earth, releasing heat energy to the surface. She thought of stars' supernovae and how they resulted from the star's implosion after it tried to generate energy by converting iron into cobalt, the following element, only to implode as a result of how unstable the star became. Iron. She thought of iron in her blood, in the buildings, in the earth. Her mind reeled.

"Did you not wonder after seeing this world how it was that yours had not been conquered like that of the elves?”

Charlotte shook her head, mildly ashamed that she had not even thought that the elves were a conquered people.

“We tried, many many years ago and several times. Each time was unsuccessful, and more disastrous than the last. The final one a full force attack of the three kingdoms on your world, but so many humans and Fae alike perished from the fight between the magics. The taint of the two magics was extraordinarily fatal. With their numbers depleted, the Fae retreated, but not before the humans sent their one of their only weapons after us: the unicorns—“

“Unicorns? But—“

“They do exist, I promise, though I understand your surprise. It took several tries to convince Florence that they—“

“But I know they do,” Charlotte cut in. “I have seen one.”

Color rose on Jove’s face, a light pink flush of shock.

“How is that possible? You have never been outside of Garrick’s castle.”

“I have, when I escaped I made it out of the tunnels into the forest. I saw one, or rather, I think it saw me. I think it was watching me for sometime before it reveled itself.

“But how…”

“The Fae of Garrick’s kingdom seem to be afraid that I am still…oh god, this is embarrassing at this point. I’m still, well, I’m still a virgin. I'm almost certain it is tied to the unicorns, but I don't know how that could be possible.”

Jove began to laugh manically and Charlotte suddenly wondered why she had trusted this Fae. He clearly wasn’t fully right. Had she said too much?

With the beginning twinges of fear, Charlotte took a step backwards, hoping to place more distance between herself and Jove.

“How perfect,” he said after a moment, still chuckling. “How absolutely perfect.”