Glamour Bites

A/N: Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. It's been really hectic around here. My little brother got back from boot camp and wanted to spend time with me, I had to go out of town with him to see my grandmother which is like an 8 hour drive and he wanted to stay a week, and finally, I moved back into my college dorm room. So here's the next installment in the story. Enjoy!!



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I slid to a stop outside of Mike’s room and put my hand on the handle, afraid of what I was about to see. If Karma was bruised and hurt, what would Mike look like? He had been worse than she had been when I had last seen him, does that mean he was worse now? I took a deep breath, knowing that the answer lay behind that door.



I opened the door and felt the tears jump to my eyes at the sight of Mike looking so fragile in that bed. He turned his forest green eyes to me, and the tears threatened to grow worse at the sight of the red around his iris. “Lexi, so glad you came to see me before you left.”



His voice was low, weak, as if he didn’t have much life left in him. But I couldn’t think that. I had to be positive. He was merely weak from the numerous surgeries and treatments he had had over the last few days. There was nothing deeper to his voice than that, or so I prayed.



“Yes, Mike. They caught me was I was leaving Karma’s room and told me you were awake.”



He started to cough and I saw the blood on the tissue he had before he tucked it away. I was wrong. He was dying. “I was told that you have come out, in a way. Half vampyre, huh? Interesting.”



I moved to sit beside him on the bed, trying not to cry and nodded as I took his hand. “Yes. I would have told you sooner, but it’s kind of a touchy subject for everyone. Or it was. Everyone at work seems to find it the most thrilling thing in the world to know that I can’t hide anymore.”



“Yes, it is thrilling, Lexi.” He paused and sighed. “I have something to tell you myself.”



“Yes, your highness?”



His eyes grew wide as he looked up at me, finally seeing the forest green vine on my right hand. He smiled and shook his head. “I’m guessing Karma told you then. She always was one to flaunt our heritage. I am glad you are okay with it.”



He coughed again and I could feel a little of his presence slip away. “You’re dying, aren’t you, Mike?”



“Yes, little one, I’m afraid I am. It’s very rare for a fey to be killed but it can be done. I’m just glad I got to see you one last time. You have always been like a daughter to me, you know that?”



I felt the tears come to my eyes and shook my head. “No, I didn’t. Why would anyone want me as a child?”



“Because you are brilliant and overprotective of those you love. You remind me of my own daughter, gods rest her soul. She died when she was a little over fifty, so she looked about your age. Her mother was the purest of fey, only able to be human size twice a year.” He sighed, smiling slightly as he leaned back against the pillows, still holding my hand. “Alyriana was conceived the first time my wife was full size and born the second time. My wife was killed a few months later by rogue demons. It’s why I started to train Alyriana to be a hunter, like you.”



He stopped and I looked down where his hand held mine. “What did she look like? Your daughter?”



“Much like you, Alexia. Beautiful, vibrant red hair, though it was brighter than yours by far. And her mother’s emerald green eyes. I guess that’s one of the reasons I was so willing to train you when we first met. You were my second chance at getting fatherhood right. I fear that I have failed again.”



“You have failed at nothing. I am the best bounty hunter in the world as of last year. I may get injured a lot, but as the European hunters say, it’s because I enjoy it far too much. See, I admitted it!” She smiled as he let out a chuckle. “If anything, Mike, you’re the closest thing to a father I have ever had. I would be honored if you were my father.”



“Then you have made my next question all the easier on me. I need an heir. Karma does not want to rule. I need someone that can be part of my bloodline and yet not of my bloodline. Someone who can remain outside of the Faerie Mounds and rule. I want you, Alexia.”



I was stunned at what he was asking. Me? Rule the Fey? It was unthinkable! I mean, how was I going to be able to be part of his bloodline? “There’s a major problem with you asking me to do this, Mike.”



“I know, Lexi. You’re not part of my bloodline. I can make you. I have already declared to the fey that you are my daughter, so they cannot in any way harm you ever. I have a simple spell that would make it true. You have only to say yes.”



I didn’t know what to say. The man I had spent the last three years learning under was dying in front of me and asking me to be his heir, and I was stumped. What would Kingston and Andreas say? “What about my natural abilities? How would they work if I was to become your heir?” Get all the questions answered before deciding. Be smart about it.



“You would keep the abilities you were born with an only gain the fey abilities. It’s as simple as that. Nothing changes, you just have a new found control over nature and a great amount of glamour magick, as our family heritage is known for.”



He was serious. I had asked thinking that he would change his mind when he found that I didn’t want to be anything other than what I was, but he hadn’t changed his mind. I stood quickly and started toward the door. “Um, I’ll be right back. I need to make a quick phone call before deciding.”



He nodded, seeming to know that I had others I was forced to rely on now. I stepped into the hall and pulled my cell phone out, getting a weird questioning look from Erin. I shrugged and dialed my home number.



Kingston answered on the third ring and I sobbed before I could stop myself. “Alexia? What’s wrong, baby? Are Karma and Mike okay?”



I shook my head, realized he couldn’t see me, and answered. “Karma’s fine. She’s having a baby. I’m gonna be the godmother.”



“Then why are you crying, Lexi? What about Mike?”



“He’s …” I choked back a sob, leaning against the wall. “He’s dying. And he asked me a question of great importance that he needs an answer to but I need your opinion before I decide.”



There was silence from Kingston’s end as he seemed to be telling Ian what was going on. He came back to the phone, seriousness in his voice. “Tell me what he asked.”



I told him about how I had gone to see Karma and found out about their heritage. I told him how as soon as I had left Karma’s room Erin had caught me and told me about Mike being wake. But most importantly, I told him that Mike had asked me to be his heir, his daughter.



He was silent, thinking about what I had just told him. Kingston, more than anyone else, knew how I had always wanted someone to love me like a father was supposed to. Someone who would leave things to me upon his passing, instead of pretending I didn’t exist, as my father had. After a few moments, he finally spoke. “Do it.”



“What?” I was shocked at the simple answer he gave me. He normally told me that he was up to me, or I had to search through myself and go over the pros and cons. In all the years I had been taking advice from him, he had never been so straightforward.



“I don’t know a lot about Fey policies or anything, Alexia, but I know that it’s similar to that of the demons. If he doesn’t have an heir before he dies, chaos will break throughout the Mounds and you’ll lose half your team at work. That and I know how much you look up to him. You would love to go around telling everyone that he was your father. Do it.”



I sighed and leaned my head back against the wall. He had a point. I would love to call Mike my father. I would also love to keep my team safe.



I took a deep breath and stood. “I’ll see you in a while, Kingston.”



I hung up without realizing it and knew that I would have to explain about phone policy involving bounty hunters. We never said goodbye over the phone. Oh well. He would learn soon enough.



‘You’re stalling, Alexia.’ The voice in the back of my head screamed that I was just thinking about my phone habits to not have to go into that room and tell Mike that I would be his heir, his daughter. I never let that little voice win.



I opened the door and walked into the room. It still pained my heat to see Mike laying in that bed. Hopefully,my decision would make what little time he had in that bed happy.



“So you’re come back? I was beginning to think that you had just left.” His eyes held sorrow at the thought and I knew I had made the right decision.



“I wouldn’t just leave you hanging like that, and you know it. I just had to make a phone call.” I walked to the chair beside his bed, but said nothing as I sat down.



He broke the silence within minutes and I smiled, having known he would. “Did your phone call help you to think about what I asked?”



I shrugged nonchalantly and waited to see if he would say more. He seemed to know what I was doing though and said nothing, so I was forced to answer. “My phone did indeed help me decide, though not in the way I was actually hoping for.” I paused and moved back to sitting beside him on the bed, taking his head, and feeling the tears come to my eyes. “I would be honored to be your daughter, Mike.”



His smile was like the sun after a never-ending rain storm. It held a hope that I never knew he had in me. Hope for what, I didn’t know, but it was there nonetheless. Hope and love. It was a little weird that someone would look at me like that and not want into my pants, but I knew that all he wanted was a child to love.



“You have no idea how happy this makes me, Lexi.”



“I have a good idea, Mike.” I looked down at my hands and took a deep breath. Would it be too soon to do what I was thinking about? Would he want me to so close to his eminent death? “Um, if you’re supposedly my father now, what do I call you?”



“What do you want to call me?” His voice was soft as he reached his small hands up to lift my chin so I could meet his eyes. “I am your father, you are my daughter, call me whatever you want. Though honestly I would prefer Daddy.”



I laughed lightly, though it ended in a soft sob, and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “What is involved in making me your blood heir … Daddy?”



It felt weird to call him that, but at the same time, nothing had seemed more right in all the years I had been alive. From the smile on his face, he was enjoying hearing it as much as I enjoyed saying it.



“Simple. We exchange blood.”



“Whoa. Hold on. We can’t do that. I’m half vampyre. We could end up bound together.”



“I know, Lexi, but I’m about to die anyway. It’s not like it’s really going to make much of a difference to me, is it?”



I frowned and shook my head. “Do you understand when I say we are going to be bound? Your pain, your death, I will feel it all.”



He sighed and pulled his hand from mine. “I know, Lexi, but I also know that you are strong enough to handle the pain of my death. Please.”



He had said the please so soft that I barely heard him. I sighed and took his hand, kissing his knuckles gently. I couldn’t believe what I was doing, though I felt my lips move up his hand, turning it over to reveal his wrist, pulse visible just under the surface.



I looked up into his face as my fangs elongated and sank home, seeing a brief flick of pain cross his face. I drank a couple of mouthfuls, enough to make a solid, lasting bound, and then pulled away, licking the wound to seal it.



Sighing, I bit my own wrist with my fangs and held it out to him. “If you really want this, take it. If not, I can leave now.”



He took my wrist before I could even make to leave and wrapped his mouth around the wound, starting to gently drink down the vampyre blood in my veins. I had never known a faerie to survive drinking vampyre blood, but as he had said, he was about to die anyway, right?



He pulled back and whispered a few words that I didn’t recognize. I felt pain shoot through my entire body, causing a gasp to come to my lips, and I fell from the bed, convulsing on the floor.



I could see his face above mine, apology and sorrow on his face. He had not just made me his daughter, he had made me the Queen of the Faeries. I felt his power, his memories, his teachings, languages, everything he had been taught as a boy, everything passed from bloodline to bloodline passed through my mind, and I knew everything about the faeries and their homes.



I stopped convulsing and just felt an overwhelming ache throughout my entire body. I managed to catch my breath before crawling into the bed beside him, laying my head on his shoulder. “You bastard. You didn’t tell me if fucking hurt like that.”



“Now, darling, is that anyway to treat your father?”



I was so random that I couldn’t help but giggle. He laid a kiss on my forehead and wrapped his arms around me, holding me to him. “Does it hurt with everyone, Mi … Daddy?”



“Yes. When we reach twenty-one, your age, we are given the blood of our forefathers. Husbands give it to their wives if the male is ruler and vise versa if the female rules, so that should one die, the other would have the knowledge to pass onto their children. My mother gave it to me and Karma, and I gave it to Alyriana. With her death, I was still leader so I had to find someone else to give it to. I am glad that it was you.”



“Me too.” I don’t know why, but I felt honored to hold the memories, abilities, teachings, and heritage of the faerie that I held in my body. I was one of the first in history outside of the fey world to ever know this much about them.



In that moment, I realized that it was because I was one of them. With Mike’s blood coursing through my veins, I was fey. I would always be fey. He had made sure with his magick and his words that I would never be able to get rid of the fey within me.



I heard his heart slow and sat up, moving from the bed. I felt a sharp pain through my body and bit my lip as he started to cough up blood, knowing that I was feeling his pain. He looked at me, letting me know that it was okay. I nodded and pushed the call nurse button, just as his heart stopped.



Chaos arose in the room after that. I stood against the back wall, gasping in pain every time they shocked him. I ended up with my back against the wall, knees up to my chest, crying at the pain of feeling his death as well as the pain of losing him.



Erin was the one who noticed I was still there. She wrapped her arms around me and just let me cry into her shoulders. I don’t think she really understood why I was crying, but she was trying.



Dr. Gordon, on the other hand, wanted to know why I was in the room when his patient died. “You were the only one in the room with him, Ms. Mooren. What happened?”



“His heart just stopped.” I was in too much shock to give him some smartass remark and I think he noticed that.



“What was your relationship to Carmichael Douglas, Ms. Mooren?”



I looked into the good doctor’s face and back at the sheet covered body of Mike. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and looked at Dr. Gordon with surety on my face. “He was my father.”



There was a moment of unbelieving on his face and he shook his head. “I want a DNA test done on Ms. Mooren right now, Nurse Hatchet. And I mean NOW!”



Erin nodded and raised an eyebrow at me as she took blood under the watchful eye of Dr. Gordon. She took samples of Mike’s blood and then went to the lab to get a rush on it. Seeing as this hospital had the best lab in the state, they would have the results within the hour.



“When did you get those tattoos, Ms. Mooren?”



I frowned and looked down at my hands where he was pointing. The mark Karma had given me was gone, replaced by a vine the dark green of Mike’s eyes. It wound its way around my hand and into the sleeve of my jacket. I knew without looking that the vine wound its way up both arms, along my shoulders, my collarbone, up the back of my neck, becoming a tree in bloom on my back, a tree wrapped in the ivy vine.



“Their magick tattoos, Dr. Gordon, and I’ve only had them a few minutes.” I shook my head and turned down the hall. “I’ll be in Karma’s room if you need me.”



“You mean your aunt Karma, right?” His remark was condescending, like he was a hundred percent sure I was lying about Mike being my dad.



Truth be told, I had forgotten about Karma being my aunt now, but it would be nice. “Yes, my aunt Karma.”



I walked away from him, not wanting to think about the fact that I now had fey DNA in me or that the man that had raised me the last three years was about to be sent to the morgue. Or the fact that I was about to tell his sister that he had passed. Maybe I could get out of it. It was the cowardly thing to do, but a possibility. Right?