“Who the hell are you?” I snap, sitting up too fast. The room spins around me.
“My name is Kaelisar Trothfinn,” he explains, offering no further details about what I'm doing here.
I take in the surrounding space. It looks like a luxury penthouse, with floor-to-ceiling windows showing an impressive urban panorama. But there's something... strange. The edges of my vision seem to ripple, like I'm looking through water. Nothing here feels completely real.
“Did you drug me?” I ask, touching my temple as I try to remember.
“Not exactly,” the man responds, leaning forward slightly as if he finds me interesting. “Though I suppose the effects of this place on your dormant magic could be considered a type of... intoxication.”
“Magic?” I scoff. “I think you've got the wrong person. I'm just a girl from the neighborhood who wants to get on with her life. Listen, if the Harringtons sent you, I had nothing to do with that robbery,” I rush to clarify.
“You're much more than a girl from the neighborhood, Niletta Collins,” he murmurs, pronouncing my full name like it's an incantation. “You're Fae. At least, partly.”
I look around. This has to be one of those hidden camera shows or this guy is completely nuts. Discreetly, I feel my leather jacket and the diamonds are still there. They didn't kidnap me to rob me. For a brief moment, I consider attacking him, but something about this man tells me he's extremely dangerous, so I decide against it.
This Kaelisar stands and walks toward me. I try to back away, like a cornered animal. I try to stand, but my legs don't respond the way they should. He sits next to me, too close, and I don't like the expression on his face one bit.
“May I?” he asks as he extends his hand toward my cheek.
“Don't touch me,” I snarl, pulling away from him.
My whole body goes on alert.
“I don't intend to do anything to you. You just need to know the truth,” he insists, and this time his hand moves faster than I can dodge.
He touches my forehead. It's just a brush, but I freeze, paralyzed. In that instant, a strange sensation runs through me, like electricity, but something different... deeper, much more ancient. A warmth begins to spread from the point of contact, traveling down my spine and coursing through my entire body.
And then, without any window open, a gust of wind rises around me as if trying to protect me. Papers fly off the table, curtains whip violently. I feel how the air circulates around me, like it's responding to my presence. The heat increases, transforms into a fire that consumes me from within.
“Stop, damn it!” I scream, doubling over in pain. “Whatever you're doing, stop!”
But Kaelisar doesn't stop. The heat becomes unbearable, and with it the pain increases. It's like every cellin my body is waking from a slumber. I scream until my voice gives out while the wind howls around me, responding to my agony.
“Leave her alone!” a woman's voice shouts.
The door bursts open and three figures enter the room. I recognize my captors: the tall woman with well-defined muscles, the slender blonde with the braid on one side, and the shorter one with eyes like the sea.
“You promised you wouldn't hurt her!” the green-eyed one exclaims, her musical voice now tinged with anguish.
“Calm down, Sabina,” the man responds serenely, like he's talking to a baby. “She's just reconciling with her heritage.”
I bring my hands to my stomach and double over, gasping, about to vomit. The pain begins to subside, but it leaves behind a strange sensation, like my body no longer belongs to me entirely. I've always been able to feel the surrounding air somehow, but now it's sharpened.
“You said it wouldn't hurt her,” the tall, darker-skinned woman murmurs, Althea, if I remember her name correctly. I could swear tiny sparks dance on her fingers as she clenches her fists, but it must be my imagination.
“And it shouldn't if her mother's idiot self hadn't sealed her magic so deeply,” he replies, clicking his tongue with indifference. It's like making me suffer doesn't matterto him in the slightest. I'd even swear he's enjoying himself. “Lasara was always paranoid.”
“Lasara?” I hiss. “You knew my mother?”
Kaelisar pins me with his gaze and for a moment I see something in his eyes. Sadness? Nostalgia? Whatever it is, it vanishes as quickly as it came.
“Yes, I knew your mother,” he admits with a sigh. “Just as I know your father well. We were... connected. Before everything went to shit.”
Something about the way he says “connected” gives me chills. It doesn't sound like romance. Or I hope not, at least. That's all I need. I'd rather not know.
I straighten up, ignoring the pain that still lingers. Something about this man puts my whole body on alert.
“My father abandoned us when I was born; he's a bastard,” I respond coldly.
