Page 21 of Into The Green

"You don't want me in the water," I reminded him as I looked at the cold little stream as if it was the most luxurious soaking tub I had ever seen in my life.

"Oh, the water fae are harmless. Charming, really," Doyle chimed in with a big, boyish smile.

Jasper gave him a hard look that Doyle shrugged at then moved several purposeful steps away from me. "Fine, you stay with her then. I'll take a swim upstream." With that, he took off to do just that.

With him gone, I hobbled awkwardly toward the water and sat down and started carefully unwrapping my feet. "So he told you," Doyle said, dropping down beside me, smelling both clean and masculine.

"Yeah."

"Jade told me that she knew as soon as you called her. Which is weird. She doesn't usually take to changelings so easily."

"You make us sound like second class citizens," I grumbled. "Hey, what is Jade's skill or... whatever?" I asked, knowing Jasper didn't seem to like to talk about that kind of thing. I had been trying to rack my brain to figure it out for most of the day, but I couldn't place anything that had seemed supernatural or overly perceptive or anything about her.

"Jade is a gemstone for love mostly," he said, his voice almost a little guarded as he looked off.

"That makes perfect sense." I nodded. It did. She was so easy to love, so loving herself. As I watched Doyle's profile, I thought how incredibly sad it was that her skill didn't seem to work in her own love life.

"They look a lot better," Doyle said, gesturing toward my feet.

"Yeah, that yarrow is a miracle worker."

"So are you going in or what?" Doyle asked, looking like he might push me in if I didn't go willingly.

"That bad, huh?"

"Yep," he said, giving me a huge white-toothed smile.

I laughed, shoving my shoulder into his, then lowering myself down into the water. The cold was a welcome shock to my system, moving over my skin like pinpricks at first, then rinsing away the dirt and sweat in a way that made me sigh. I moved over to where the stream got deeper, moving onto my back to float so the water could rinse some of the grease out of my hair. I wished fleetingly for shampoo, but told myself not to get greedy.

A few silent moments later, I felt a weird tingling sensation on my head and reached up to dislodge what I thought was a twig or something. And then my hand was slapped away. Meaning, by another hand.

I shrieked, dropping down onto my butt and swinging to find two impossibly small female fae in the water looking mostly human except they were half my size with the delicate bone structure of birds and skin that was almost bluish in tone. Oh, and not to mention their hair which was a weird stringy texture and a vivid green.

"Doyle?" I called, my voice slightly hysterical, knowing Jasper warned me to especially steer clear of water fae.

"They're water sprites," he called casually from the bank.

"That's not exactly helpful," I said, inching backward as the held out their hands toward me.

"They want to wash your hair," he explained unexpectedly and I turned to look over at him, brow raised like he had lost his mind. "Seriously. They like your hair. It's not like theirs. They're harmless, I promise. Lie back and relax. It will make them happy and they'll use some shit in your hair that will clean it and make it smell amazing."

I looked back at the sprites, both trying to reach for my hair. One of them smiled a little encouragingly and I figured, what the hell. I floated onto my back and turned my head toward them, eyes open, half-paranoid that they might try to bash my head in with a rock. But they squealed delightedly and started running their long fingers into the strands, then slathering something on as well.

"Did they wash your hair too?" I asked as Doyle watched.

"Not those ones, but yeah."

An image of Jasper flashed into my mind, naked from the waist up, the pretty little creatures tending to his hair like they were tending to mine and a swirling, uncomfortable, unreasonable rush of jealousy moved through me at the idea. I squashed the feeling, and the reasons behind it, down and closed my eyes, sinking into the sensations as the sprites worked their magic.

It seemed to go on forever until I felt water being poured over my head. And then nothing. I opened my eyes and turned to find them looking at me, smiling. "Oh," I stumbled, not sure what to say. "That was really great. Than..."

"No," Jasper's voiced snapped, making me and both the sprites start.

"What?" I snapped back, a little surly. He was always so friggen rude.

"You can't thank a fae for anything, Cece," he said, sounding like an exasperated teacher talking to a particularly dense student. "They will think you owe them. And, trust me, you don't want to owe any fae, no matter how harmless they may look, anything. Just tell them it was most kind of them and get the fuck out of the water."

I sighed at him and turned back to the sprites, both watching me with wary eyes. I gave them a genuine smile and did what I was told. "That was most kind of you." With that, they smiled and turned away.