Mated Enemies

My heart raced when I felt his eyes on me, my skin tingled strangely, as if the blood was coming alive in my veins and my womanly body came awake. I felt the pull and fought it even as my nymph raised her head. I endured a strange mix of fear and intrigue as I resisted his lure.

I wanted to pretend that this was somehow a joke, a misunderstanding that will be cleared up soon. Something I could brush off and me and my sisters would later laugh at as we sit around our kitchen table. But deep down I’m afraid I already know the truth.

It was all starting to make sense, the weird sensations that started about a month or so ago, my body’s strange reaction when I ran from the woods this morning, all of it was because of him. I’ve never been so scared in my life and my kind is not known to fear much of anything. Except his kind!

My sisters leaned in to whisper to me and I could see the nervousness and unease in them. All things considered we are indeed rather young and it was our first time that I can remember being this close to the predators, at least without an elder or someone more equipped there to protect us.

“Stay calm, stay calm, maybe they’re not here to bother us.” I couldn’t help the lie and only then wished I’d told them the truth from the beginning. I wasn’t expecting the lie to work for long thought. Why else would they be here? There are nothing but humans for miles and miles around except us of course.

I knew they didn’t believe me, but what else could we do? In the off chance that it wasn’t us or rather me, that they were after, were we supposed to leave them here alone with the humans we’d come to know and call friends? To what end?

Even as I ignored him I felt him tugging at me, the sensation that of someone playfully tugging at my hair. I wish it was easy to just brush him off but he didn’t seem the type to give up easily. I grew tense with anticipation as he touched me from across the room…

“Natalia what…what’s the matter with you…are you…?” I looked pleadingly at Annalise who’s the more worldly of the three, begging her with my eyes not to say anything that would alert the others, but I had a feeling it was too late.

I could feel with the wild erratic beating of my heart that everything was changing, that things were slipping out of my control. The way my skin came alive as the blood strummed through my veins, the way that secret place between my thighs seemed to awaken all boded ill for me.

Why did this have to happen now, right when I’m about to go through that womanly change that has been wreaking havoc with my hormones for the last few months? Had it been any other time I would’ve been more able to handle this, maybe.

But what little control I have over my nymph was slipping even now as my fairy self fought to stay in control. Suddenly I felt him knocking at my mind and tried in vain to ignore him. I looked to my sisters as if they could somehow hide me, but the thought that if they came between him and I it might lead to them being harmed made me lower my head instead.

My eyes locked on his for a fleeting moment and just that quickly my body went up in flames. Something deep inside me unfurled and came awake for the first time. Like a lotus on the warm waters of an Asian spring. The implications were too strong to ignore.

‘No!’ I said the word in my head somehow knowing and dreading that he would hear it. Dreading it because if he did that could only mean one thing. There’s only one person in the world that he would be able to hear me like this. The word was barely above a whisper even in my mind but I knew he heard me from the way he reacted.

When I received his answer so soon after my show of refusal, his voice in my head it felt as if I’d touched a live wire. It’s a wonder that sparks didn’t dance along my skin. ‘Yes!’ I folded my fists hard and hid the cry of surprise behind my teeth.

Then he ordered me to look at him and because I’d stupidly let him in for that fleeting moment I couldn’t disobey. If he’d imprinted on me, as it was becoming more and more obvious that he had, though I still have the power to resist, if any part of me wants him in anyway that power is halved.