Page 21 of The White Stag
Estrella wouldn’t forbid it if something blossomedifit happened in her kingdom. The rest of the Unseelie would feel the same way. As it stood, the three of us were the only Unseelie Reagan knew. We were also the only decent men she’d been around since she stopped thinking boys had cooties.
Since we were decent men, even if we started returning those feelings, we wouldn’t act on it until she had a better pool of men around her and wasn’t just picking us because we’d saved her from Alastair.
Reagan
Istill felt terrible, but now that I wasn’t covered in sweat and vomit, I felt human again. Scratch that. Apparently, I wasn’t human, but I didn’t really know what being Fae felt like, either. I was pretty sure I didn’t have a single drop of magic in me right now, but even if I did, I didn’t know how that worked.
I was dressed, and Oisin was brushing my hair. It felt amazing, but my shoulder and between my breasts were itching like crazy. Oisin noticed me scratching.
“That’ll be your tattoos coming in. I can tell the one on your chest is a rose with thorns. That’s the royal mark of your family. I can’t tell what will come in on your shoulder, but it will give us an idea of your Fae side. Also, I’m pretty sure your hair will be blue like your dad’s.”
I noticed my blonde hair had a weird tint to it. But unfortunately, I’d been too busy scratching to look harder at my reflection. So I leaned forward, and sure enough, a faint black outline of a rose was rising from my cleavage. It was honestly a lot.
“If you’re eating, get your arses in here before it gets cold!” Finnan yelled.
I was feeling slightly better, so I tried to stand and didn’t make it again. Oisin scooped me up and carried me to the kitchen. I felt totally helpless that I couldn’t even walk on my own, but it was rather lovely to be utterly spoiled. He’d washed my hair and back, and it hadn’t felt weird at all.
I had been nervous as hell when I’d started stripping off my clothes to go swimming. I’d thought about leaving my underthings on, but then I’d thought about how much Alastair would hate it if I took them off, so I’d gone for it.
It hadn’t felt awkward. It had felt free. I’d wanted them to join me. I got what Oisin said about Cyrus still seeing me as a child, but I kind of didn’t want him to. I wanted them to see me as an adult. Alastair had always infantilized me when he’d spoken to me. When I’d started to become myself again and had tried to bring up what he was doing to me, he’d treat me like I was having a toddler tantrum.
I understood I was extremely young compared to most of the other Fae, and Alastair prevented me from having most of the life experiences I should have had at this age, but Ineverwanted to be talked to like that again.
Oisin set me down, and Finnan set a plate in front of me. Cyrus had disappeared again but finally came out of his room to join us.
“You scared the shite out of us last night. Are you feeling better?” Finnan asked.
“I’m achy, itchy, and, for some reason, my teeth really hurt.”
“Your wee Fae teeth are coming in,” Finnan said.
I didn’t want that at all. I used to have all these horrible nightmares of my teeth crumbling out of my mouth. I didn’t particularly want to live through that. I think they all saw the sheer horror on my face.
“This isn’t like when you were a kid, and your foster parents lied about the Tooth Fairy. The Tooth Fairy is a real Unseelie creature, but they aren’t interested in stealing teeth from under children’s pillows. Some of them are the dentists of the Fae world, and the others are in prison because they are so obsessed with teeth, they take them by force,” Cyrus said.
Finnan smacked Cyrus on the back of the head, and Cyrus growled at him.
“You could have just told her that her teeth wouldn’t fall out without bringing the Tooth Fairies into it. Unseelie generally have sharp teeth or fangs, Reagan. Our teeth aren’t like human teeth. They don’t need to fall out to morph into fangs or points.”
“How am I supposed to give a blowjob with pointy teeth?” I blurted out.
They all looked utterly shocked except Finnan, who seemed to find that amusing.
“And how exactly did you hear about the glory of oral sex while living with the prude bastard Alastair?” Finnan said.
“Remember my friend Carla from second grade? She told me. But I have questions. Doesn’t it make you gag? Are you supposed to hold your breath when you are doing it? Can you die from that? Why does anyone do that? I can’t imagine it would feel good for me. I don’t even like taking big bites of food. Can you get pregnant from a blowjob?”
Finnan looked absolutely giddy. Cyrus slapped his hand over Finnan’s mouth.
“Don’t you dare answer that like a fucking hobgoblin.”
“I thought all the potential scenarios Estrella threw at us in training were excessive, but she never prepared us for sex talks,” Oisin moaned.
I had just blurted that out, and I hadn’t meant to, but now that I could do and say what I wanted, why shouldn’t I? I had a ton of questions about everything that was stolen from me. Blowjobs sounded terrible, but clearly, there must be something to it I didn’t understand if Carla caught her sister doing it to her boyfriend, and she seemed to enjoy it. I hadn’t really had the chance to try it and see what it was all about. I’d never even kissed a boy before. I didn’t count the boys in kindergarten that would try to kiss me and run away.
“No, we can do this as long as Finnan behaves,” Cyrus said. “You can’t die from a blowjob, Reagan. You can breathe while doing it, but it can make you gag. And no, you can’t get pregnant.”
“If you don’t want Finnan explaining it, you could at least explain why women give them, you idiot,” Oisin said.
