Nocte Yin: Anti-Villain, Anti-Hero and Anti-Everything Else

Chapter Sixteen

She was a pretty little thing. Two inches tall, skin a pink glow and clothes made of red petals; she seemed dreamy in the moonlight, cast from the open window with a floral scent wafting in — something from a fairytale. And she was just that. A fairy. Bright yellow eyes and white, sparkly butterfly wings, she was also in possession of sharp nails, knife-like teeth and cunning ingenuity. The way she fluttered in an elusive pattern, the way she seemed to tap, most teasingly, on Chantée’s nose, and the way she smiled that sweet smile of hers screamed “predator” to Nocte even from behind the bedroom door.

Nocte was crouched down close to the ground, looking in through the small sliver of space between the door and the wall, breathing quietly and eyes sharp and not impressed. Someone had rid of the salt from the bedroom windowsill, thus explaining the damn fairy’s presence. And evidently, Alex’s charms had proved useless hanging from the walls, otherwise the girl wouldn’t be sitting up on her bed with that dazed expression on her face, those blank dark eyes of hers staring directly into the fairy’s, hypnotized. The fairy had found a way to bypass Alex’s high security, but obviously not Nocte’s. She had felt the fairy fly in a looong time ago. If only the damn thing had landed on the roof.

The cwn annwn growled silently from beside Nocte, eyes flashing ferociously in the dark. She placed a patient hand on its head and it eased back, its stomach touching the hardwood floors. Any time now and Nocte was going to release the beast, just as soon as Alex got out of the bathroom because, of course, he just had to be in the bathroom when one of the Fae came. Nocte supposed that the fairy had waited for Alex to leave the bedroom before hypnotizing the girl. What wicked creatures fairies were.

The toilet flushed from the bathroom and the cwn annwn’s ears perked at the sound. Nocte didn’t bother with getting excited, too focused on the fairy. Alex or no, Nocte was going have to launch herself into the bedroom if she thought the fairy was going to fly Chantée away. She chuckled, nevertheless, when Alex came out and jumped, startled for he had not expected to find her before him after coming out of the bathroom, and certainly not crouched on the ground in the middle of the night.

“Took you long enough,” Nocte scoffed, eyes still locked onto the pink fairy in the other room.

Alex didn’t reply, nor did he move closer to see what she was up to. Perplexed, she chanced a glance at him and saw that his joints were locked, his bulbous stare on the ghostly dog beside her. He was pale and thoroughly frightened, and he made to reach for something behind him, but Nocte was quick to cut his actions short.

“The dog’s with me,” Nocte quipped, turning back to the bedroom. “And you should really come and see this.”

Hesitant, Alex slid to her side, sticking close to the wall while eyeing the cwn annwn cautiously. With Nocte behind the door and Alex at the wall, they both leaned in from two different directions to look through the crack of the door. Alex hadn’t stuck close to the ground, opting to stand instead, and Nocte was totally not impressed that the fairy hadn’t noticed. The pretty pink thing hadn’t even noticed Nocte either, and Nocte had been watching her and Chantée for a good fifteen minutes. Earthling fairies were quite untrained from Nocte’s perspectives.

“Fuck,” Alex cursed, finally understanding the situation and hit to the ground at once.

“Yeah, and you were about to miss a good show too,” Nocte commented, unperturbed by the panic fleeting through Alex’s body.

“We have to-” He broke off, sliding across the floor to reach under the couch.

Nocte could only watch, bemused, as he came back with a wand, a rowan wand — the same one he had poked her with on the first night of their meeting.