Deep in the Bavarian woods, where the faerie realm touches on the human world lies Schloss Mondschein. Owned by a corrupted human family, the castle is the playground of the Fae. The human staff are their toys.
Servant's daughter Andromeda Arendt h...
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North stopped following her into the bathroom after that. They agreed to give each other the space they needed. Unless she specifically asked for help, he would let her be.
She finally took the time for a decent wash-up and changed into a clean shirt. Over the next two days, she retreated to the comfort of the babbling brook a lot, staring at her reflection for hours, looking for pixie features. They were inconclusive at best. Her ears were very human, round, and plain. Her face and brown skin were her mother's, but did that mean she was a pixie? Hardly ...
She was tiny, but that didn't mean anything. And there had always been that pep in her step, but as it seemed, she had been walking on pixie dust for all these years, not her own, her mother's. Over and over, Andromeda twirled her hands, waved, and shook them. Nothing. No magical powder came from her hands. And blowing up easily? She had witnessed their parents' humiliation and torment for as long as she remembered in utter silence. If she had inherited anything pixie at all, it couldn't be much.
But ma ... a pixie, and pa the man she traded her whole life plus her magic for. Giving up her powers, she too had become easy prey to cruel faerie magic. Had she known it would be like that?
The memory of her mother crawling over the ballroom floor put daggers in her chest. Andromeda wished they had confided in her. That she had been somewhat prepared for this.
She sighed, drawing circles in the water with her fingertip so her round ears and abyss-between-planets eyes rippled to the far corners of the brook. She rolled those eyes when she recalled North's cheesy description, but at the same time, a fuzzy, warm feeling took root inside her, and she recognized it as the perfect antidote for the inner turmoil about her upbringing.
Sometimes, when she returned to the bedroom, a tray of fresh food would be waiting, and they sat down together for another quiet picnic, followed by a long, undisturbed nap, Andromeda in the four-poster bed and North's toned limbs splayed leisurely across the chair in the corner. The proper rest and nourishment strengthened Andromeda's body and spirits, so much so that after two days she became restless.
North keeping his word and keeping his distance somehow made him even more attractive. He hadn't used magic in two days, which made him almost human, only prettier. When it was his time to use the bathroom, Andromeda curled up in his chair and buried her nose in the cushions to inhale his scent. She needed more of that, and much closer.
That night when he returned from the bathroom, his hair still damp and tousled, shirtless, and his pajama bottoms slung low across his waist—oh yes, he knew exactly what he was doing, she rose from the chair and licked her bottom lip while giving that fine torso of his an appreciative glance because all Fae be damned, she knew it too.
If they were going to be in here for four more days, why shouldn't they have a little fun? It wouldn't be the first time she had casual sex and probably not the last, and as for him ... he already admitted to liking her, and Andromeda Arendt was adventurous enough to find out just how much.
