(This is taking place during Elle's first day on Arthur's Island. Around chapter 10 from Elle's POV)

Arthur's POV

After I shot down the unthinkable idea of using Elle as bait to draw out the demon, the meeting ended.

We made our way to lunch in the backyard. Jesse lingered behind with Elle.

"What?" Elle snapped.

"You're weird."

"If you don't like my smell, you're welcome to keep your distance."

My lips twitched up. She had such a mouth on her.

"Nah, it's not that. You smell fine. In fact, you smell more than fine."

Jesse was being particularly hostile towards her. Although his statement about her scent was far from wrong. She did smell delectable.

We made it to the backyard without spilled blood.

Jesse sat beside Elle. I gave him a look, and he just smiled innocently. He was no longer the lanky boy I'd rescued decades ago, but he, Charles and Kat would always hold a soft spot in my heart. They grew up around me, and no matter how old they became, I would always see them as young. Maybe that was why I let them get away with things other people wouldn't dream of doing around me.

Thomas stood near the set up table, straight-backed and wary, as he always was. His past made him distrust people on instinct, perhaps even dislike. He was also an extremely magic-sensitive witch.

What do you think about Elle? Magic-wise?

I sent the question to his mind. He wasn't able to send back, so he leaned down and whispered in my ear. "Very dull, my lord. If what you're suspecting is true, then whoever cast the spell was very powerful and skilled."

I nodded, and he straightened up.

You may join us, if you wish.

Thomas bowed his head and retreated to the house. He never joined us. Perhaps one day, he would break out of the hold his past had on him.

The females around the table broke into a fit of giggles. It appeared Amanda would have more female companions to share her time with.

Thomas was a great cook. But many of my favorite dishes over the centuries have lost their appeal, especially after losing Toby. Not just food. A great many things have lost their appeal. I was aware of the danger that posed. Boredom was extremely dangerous for someone of my power.

Today, however, I found myself enjoying the meal. Perhaps it had to do with the spark of intrigue that little blonde had awakened in me. Or the way she stole glances at my plate of food and goblet of blood.

How had she survived and kept her secrets with such a readable face?

"Yes. It's blood. And yes, I do need food as much as you do."

Her glare was expected yet delightful.

"Stop that," she said.

"What?" I asked, taking a sip of my blood.

"Don't read my mind."

"I don't need to, your face is enough."

"Stupid vampire lords," she grumbled under her breath.

There was a beat of silence before Amanda asked, "So, Elle, who trained you? You move in a beautiful way when you fight."

Elle swallowed, the green of her irises darkening. "I trained here and there."

Jesse perked up. "I took a look at your profile. The humans don't have any records of you before the age of sixteen. They assume you've been homeless, living with someone not registered in the system."

Elle hummed, focused on her food.

"So? How true is that? For someone to fight the way you do, they must be trained from childhood. And that scar on your arm is quite old."

Admittedly, I was curious as well. The first sixteen years of her life on paper had been a blank. Even Harvey hadn't got any information, and Harvey could get his hands on anything if he put his mind to it.

At sixteen, she would still be quite young in immortal terms. And if she had, indeed, been raised as an immortal, then living with humans at that age must've been quite a drastic change of environment.

"So? You're not going to answer?" Jesse said.

"You haven't asked a question for me to answer."

Her deflection irritated Jesse. His lips twitched in a telltale of a snarl. "Where did you live before the age of sixteen?"

Elle finally looked at him and smiled. A bloodthirsty smile. "None of your business."

Jesse's chest shook with a subvocal growl. He scoffed. "Whoever raised you must've had hell. No wonder they ditched you at sixteen."

I stifled a sigh. I guess I should have a word with Jesse, after all.

The look on Elle's face shifted.

The Darkness in me raised its head, sensing a kindred shadow in Elle. An unexpected thing for a woman who looked woven out of sunlight itself.

I'd been alive long enough to sense the threat of violence. Whoever the person who'd trained Elle was, he was very important to her.

Slowly, she put her cutlery down and rose. "Excuse me."

She left the house. The silence around the table was heavy. Amanda sighed, the simple breath loud with accusation. Jesse frowned, a stubborn expression on his face.

I didn't want to warn him off Elle. That would just feed into the hostility he had for her. However, he wouldn't stop until he got it out of his system. And I wouldn't allow any outward hostility toward her. Already, people on the island were wary of her. And Jesse was one of my seconds. If the soldiers beneath him witnessed Jesse's open hostility, they might decide to emulate him.

And, being honest with myself, I did not appreciate the thought of Elle being hurt. It made my magic and the Darkness tug at the reins of my control.

"Jesse," I said, swirling my glass of red. Jesse glanced at me.

Whatever he saw in my face had him frowning and looking away. "Yes, Sire."

"Don't start anything with Elle."

"Sire, she's-"

"That was an order," I said in a low voice.

He pursed his lips but nodded. "Yes, Sire."

*** **** ***

Dinner with residents of the island was a ritual I attempted to keep on a regular basis. Being part of a community helped keep my control over my magic sharp. And with so many people around, people who depended on me and looked up to me for protection and leadership, the Darkness within kept its claws sheathed. A blissful brief reprieve of its hold.

It was clear, however, that Elle's presence on the island was cause of concern for many of its inhabitants. No one brought up the issue in my hearing, but the undercurrents and the whispers and looks could not be ignored.

Understandable. She was a supposed human. An outsider. A subject of suspicion and distrust.

And Elle, apparently, felt the hostility aimed at her. She left dinner early. And there was an odd... aloneness to her back as she walked away from the hall full of immortals.

I realized, then, that she and I might be more alike than I thought.

Dinner done, I left. A few junior soldiers waited by the door of the hall. The sounds of the woods at night swallowed their whispers. But they all stopped when I emerged. They'd been waiting for me. I raised my brow when one of them pushed Corbin forward. The young shapeshifter's eyes widened when they landed on me. "Uh- sire. We were just wondering if she could train us," he blurted out.

"Who?" I asked.

He blinked. "Who? Oh! I mean, Elle, the human. If she's going to train us. She's going to talk to you and- if she does- would you- um- convince her? Or maybe tell her to train us?" He squeaked.

In the background, one of the vampires- Vanessa, if I recalled correctly- slapped her hand over her eyes.

"I'll see what I can do," I told Corbin.

"Yes, Sire!" Corbin said, straightening up. "Thank you, Sire!"

He all but escaped, followed by his friends.

"I guess you're not the only one taken by Elle," Amanda said, coming to stand next to me. I gave her a look. People walked out of the hall and into the dark woods. Amanda and I took a less traveled path.

"You're making assumptions," I told her after a few steps.

She laughed. "Am I, now?"

"Yes. Elle is not interested in me. She'd made that clear." Unfortunately.

"Maybe she'll change her mind in the future."

"Is that so?" I asked. "You sound quite optimistic."

"Mhm. I have a very strong feeling that you two will be quite an issue."

I glanced at her. Her smile was enigmatic. Contrary to what others may think, Amanda did not have her head up in the clouds. Many in the immortals world thought she was part of my inner circle through her bond to Harvey. That was a mistake. Amanda's magic was quite rare. Very few people knew about it.

But it wasn't simply her magic. It was her perception and her instinct when it came to people that made her most invaluable to me.

Her thoughts on Elle were quite clear. She was very fond of the other woman.

*** **** ***

Sleep was a luxury not many immortals could claim to enjoy.

However, immortals needed less rest as they aged, and their brains simply did not shut down.

The sweet oblivion of sleep only lasted an hour before something woke me up.

I sat up in bed, my eyes immediately finding the door. There was something...

Stretching my senses and my magic to scan the house, I found the reason for my wake up call in a room on the ground floor. Elle's room.

There was a trace of magic there.

Fae magic.

Hmm. So I was right. She was fae. What did not make sense was the reason she would use her magic when she was trying to hide her identity.

I stood up and walked to the window. A few minutes later, she walked out the front door, Wes by her side. She had a way of subjugating my people, and now my dog, not even hours after meeting them. Her shoulders were haunched and her bearing stiff. Something had happened.

Now where was she going?

As tempting as it was to follow her, I had a feeling cornering her right now was a bad idea. I had promised her not to dig into her matters, so I would give her time.

Changing into black Gi pants, I made my way downstairs to the backyard. The crisp ocean air tasted like salt. The water stretched before me, slowly changing colors as the horizon birthed the sun.

The sound of the waves and the distant voices as the island and the city beyond it woke up accompanied my deliberately slow movements. The routine was one that helped me think.

Elle's mystery was at the forefront of my mind.

A fae. Why would a fae wish hide her existence? The fae were extremely reclusive. Even for the Five, knowing what happened behind their closed doors was quite challenging as they allowed very few immortal outsiders into their land.

However, there was no doubt about it; Elle was fae.

Which brought me to the second issue. Elle was set upon guarding her true nature a secret. Why, then, would she use her magic here?

Unless she didn't use it on purpose. A loss of control, then?

As the sun rose, the wind carried her scent. Minutes later, she sat on the steps of the back porch and simply watched me, my dog by her side.

My magic hummed and stretched. The Darkness wanted to touch her, to see if she burned as bright and hot as her spirit.

I held it back. Surprisingly, it was easier to do than I expected. I dropped my arms and focused within. My magic lay in a placid ocean. Calm. Even.

At peace.

I took a deep breath, reveling in the unusual emotion. When was the last time I didn't have to keep a vigilant watch on my magic in order to keep it at bay? I couldn't remember.

Why was my magic reacting thus to this particular person?

The only instance in which an immortal could affect another's magic was... my breath froze.

Impossible.

And yet, that was the only explanation.

Ah. Now Amanda's words made sense. She had seen it even before I did.

Under the weight of my realization, I moved to sit next to her. Her hair was made of sunlight itself, her eyes pieces of the forest. Drawing her scent in every breath, the knowledge settled as the truth in my guts.

She was my mate.

A mate. The Five did not have mates. Our magic was simply too different, too unique in nature. We were five of a kind. Too vampiric to be considered demons, too demonic to be considered vampires.

We were called vampires because that was the closest thing to which we could identify in this world, but we were not truly vampires. We were simply other.

And for millennia, we have come to accept that our otherness meant being deprived of one of the immortals' most precious gifts. A mating bond.

And yet... here she was. This small, delicate spark of fae.

"I shouldn't stay here."

Her words stirred my magic, the Darkness roared and threatened to rise in the face of the emotions her words incited. The thought of her leaving incited an emotion I wasn't well acquainted with. It took me seconds to figure it out. Panic.

I did not panic. I never did. Not since Toby. Panic was for the helpless.

Yet she rendered me helpless with a few words.

"I thought we were past that," I said.

She turned to face me. The desperation in her eyes took me by surprise. It was more than just desperation. There was fear. More fear than when I pushed her yesterday. "You don't understand. I shouldn't stay here. I can't."

Interesting choice of words. "Why?"

She swallowed. "I just can't. I'm going to leave Portland, that way the demon won't be able to come after me. He needs to stay near his anchor, right?"

"Mhm. You still haven't answered my question."

She graced me with a fiery glare. "I'm offering to get out of your hair."

"What about Martin Malone?"

"I don't need it."

Interesting. Very interesting. What could possibly terrify her this much? My mind flashed to the flare of fae magic I felt earlier.

"I remember you saying you signed a contract yesterday."

"Why are you being difficult?"

"Answer my question. Why do you have to leave?"

"Because if I stay, I'm going to hurt someone!" She snapped.

So she did lose control of her magic. "Corbin spoke to me yesterday. You promised him you would talk to me about training them."

She dropped her face in her hands. Wisps of golden hair slid across the back of her neck, tracing the delicate skin. My fingers twitched. My hand was halfway toward her neck before I realized what I was doing. I fisted my hand and let it drop in my lap.

"Obviously, I can't train anyone if I'm not here."

Her need to hide seemed almost instinctive. "Do you think you can keep hiding for long?"

"Do you think I like it?! Do you think I like living like a lone gypsy, not belonging anywhere?! Not with humans and not with immortals! I'm hiding because that's the only way to stay alive and I'm sick of it!"

Fire sparked in her eyes. Pinpricks of blue flames roaring to life in her pupils. She shoved up to her feet and stalked to the edge of the cliff.

I did not imagine it this time.

I looked at her back. She looked so small and vulnerable against the infinite ocean before her. Breeze blew strands of her hair, they glimmered like spun gold under the rising sun.

My magic stretched out, wanting to surround her, to protect her. From the world. From herself.

Elle was always so assured and strong and proud. But beneath it all, her secrets were shredding her apart. Thread by thread, they would keep tearing away at the fabric of who she was until only a shadow remained. She needed to let them go. She needed to get rid of their hold on her.

And she would. I would make sure of it.

I joined her when her breathing no longer sounded like desperation. "There's an empty cabin in the woods. Isolated enough that no one will venture close by. You can stay there for now."

"Just let me leave. Why won't you just let me leave?" she mumbled, defeat coating her every word.

No. I would not let her go. For her sake. For mine. For the world's. Now that I found her, I would not let her go if it meant the world would come to an end.

Her skin glowed as the sun rose higher. The wound on her cheek left a mar. I raised my hand, and this time I did not let it drop. Elle pulled her head away. Wary. Distrustful.

Slowly, I let my finger graze her cheek. Cold. A touch, barely there and gone. Because I knew if I lingered, she would jump away. "It left a scar."

"I don't mind scars."

No. She certainly did not. Perhaps more than any other immortal I knew. "I see that. Take the cabin, Elle."

I stepped away and gave her space. She would need to come to terms with her stay here. I wouldn't let her go, but I could give her space. An illusion of freedom. Because if she knew the true nature of my interest, she would flutter her wings like a skittish bird, flying away at the first hint of the bond slowly taking shape between us.

*** ***** ***

Head over to my Instagram to give me suggestions for bonus chapter ideas! (Username: when_mia_writes)

Much love <3 <3 <3

M.B.