The fairy went utterly still.
Champagne bottles caught her frozen starlight and threw it back in crimson refractions across the mirrored ceiling, turning her into a living prism of shock.
"You
knew
?"
"Eira Umbraice Voidra."
He said the full name without looking at her—voice low, steady, lips barely moving beneath the throb of music.
"I’m not completely clueless. And now I’m sure—the Consort and her master have been watching all along. Thanks to you, I know how to keep my head down. How to move without triggering their attention. That’s worth more than you know."
Eira hovered upright—cross-legged now, floating directly above a bottle of Cristal. Her expression had softened. The spoiled fury, the calculated seduction—both stripped away in an instant, leaving something younger underneath.
Something almost
vulnerable
.
She nodded once. Small. Acknowledging.
The vulnerability lasted exactly 1.3 seconds.
Then her lips curled—slow, wicked, delighted.
"How about a kiss on the cheek?" she purred. "As a
thank-you
gift."
"No."
"Just a
little
one! Right here!" She turned her face, presenting the smooth void-black crystal of her cheek, tapping it with one tiny finger. Wings fluttered hopefully, scattering black-diamond motes that fizzled into the champagne. "A peck! A graze! The
barest contact
of your lips to—"
"No. Aren’t you supposed to be
a cold Void-Ice fairy
?" He swirled his Coke, eyes still on the bubbles, refusing to give her the satisfaction of his gaze. "Why do you act like a
lustful succubus
instead?"
She huffed—the huff of an ancient creature who found the question equally tiresome.
"I’ll have you know I’m a
FAIRY
, Master. We’re mostly
cheerful
no matter what
element we wield
. It’s in our nature." She held up two tiny fingers like she was presenting a menu. "I can switch, you know—the cheerful me and the ice-cold me. Two modes. Pick your favourite."
The fingers dropped. Her voice went sly, dripping.
"Also?"
She drifted closer, chin resting on the rim of a champagne flute, void-black eyes peering up at him through frozen-starlight lashes. "You should blame
yourself
. Your sexual abilities are affecting me too. Even more than other women. I’m directly connected to you. Your power runs through me like—"
"You’re just
lustful,"
Phei said flatly. "What you’re describing would make you
immune
to my abilities, not more
susceptible.
That’s how direct connections work. NO?"
She hummed—soft, long, the sound of someone caught in a half-truth and deciding whether to double down or retreat with style.
"What does
Master
know, even..." She drifted lower, chin now resting on the cold rim of his Coke glass, peering up at him with those wicked, glittering eyes. "And who wouldn’t be lustful with the memory and a sight of your naked body and that
co
—"
"Eira."
"—
ck
." She finished the word with a defiant little pop of her lips. No shame. Zero. Negative shame. She’d somehow achieved a level of
shamelessness
that violated the laws of thermodynamics. "Anyways. Give me my kiss."
"No."
"If you don’t, I won’t help you for three days straight."
Phei finally looked at her.
She looked back.
Wings still. Body still arched in that obscene, deliberate curve—breasts heaving slightly with each breath, veil clinging wetly to every curve and peak.
Her glacial eyes sparkled with dark, gleeful challenge.
Phei swirled his Coke once more.
Took a slow sip.
And said—quiet, calm, utterly deadpan:
"Three days without your whining might be the best vacation I’ve had in years."
Eira’s mouth dropped open.
Then snapped shut.
Then opened again.
The fairy
screamed
—a soundless, furious, delighted shriek that only he could hear—and launched herself at his face in a blur of void-ice wings and outraged starlight.
She didn’t actually make contact.
She never did unless he allowed it.
But she hovered an inch from his nose, tiny fists pounding harmlessly against the air between them, wings buzzing like an angry vibrator on max, scattering black diamonds across his Coke like obscene glitter.
"You—
you
—
insolent
—
dragon-brat
—
I will
—
I swear by the frozen hearts of dead stars I will
—"
Phei leaned back slightly.
Took another sip.
Smiled—just the tiniest curl of lips.
Her wings were humming now—low and vibrating disappointment like a tuning fork struck directly against his cock. Arms crossed tight over her chest—which, given the transparency situation, only served to shove her breasts higher, together, fuller, the veil stretching so thin it was basically body paint to make sure he looked very well at what he was saying no to.
Her tempting nipples stabbed through like dark little accusations,
areolae
blooming wide and violet-black beneath the frost-gossamer, begging to be sucked, bitten, claimed.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
He considered it.
Actually,
considered
it.
Weighed the tactical value of a primordial fairy’s intelligence network—scouting, healing, warnings that had literally kept him breathing—against the social cost of a
seventeen-year-old
boy sitting in a packed VIP section suddenly
pressing his lips to thin air.
He scanned the booth.
Landon was mid-argument with David about whether the poster dunk or the air walk deserved MVP status ("I’m telling you, the dunk had
arc
, the air walk was just flexing—").
Brian nursed his drink in comfortable silence, content to let idiots be idiots. The Simps clustered in their own glittering conversations, occasionally shooting him those dreamy, worshipful glances that still made his chest do something complicated.
Emily was somewhere in the crowd, managing logistics with the cold efficiency of a field general.
Nobody was watching him
directly
.
But someone would.
Someone
always
was.
And the mental image—
the very
thought
—of Phei, the boy who’d walked on air, the rising dragon of Paradise, leaning forward in a crowded VIP booth and
puckering
up to
nothing
—
Lips aimed at empty space.
Kissing the void.
David would catch it. Of course, fucking David would catch it. The gossip king would have that clip uploaded before Phei’s mouth even made contact.
The boy who walked on air also kisses ghosts. More at eleven. Hashtag cursed. Hashtag haunted dick energy.
A real shiver crawled down his spine. The kind that starts at the base of your skull and doesn’t stop until it’s
colonized your balls.
"No."
Eira’s face went through six emotions in two heartbeats—hope, disbelief, outrage, calculation,
deeper
outrage, and finally a cold, ancient fury that reminded him this cute little thing was older than his entire bloodline and had personally starved suns for breakfast.
"
FINE
."
The word cracked like black ice under a sledgehammer.
Her wings stopped humming.
Body flickered—translucent glow dimming, glacial light in her veins fading to sullen embers, the lazy starlight refractions winking out across bottles and glasses one by one until the table looked suddenly ordinary, suddenly mortal.
"After today the next three days,
Master
.
THREE. DAYS.
No intel. No healing. No
frost-knitting
your stupid broken bones. No scouting. No warnings.
NOTHING
."
She rose from the table—veil swirling in agitated eddies, black diamonds scattering in furious bursts—and crossed her arms one final time. The look she gave him could’ve frozen the champagne solid in its bottles, turned the Cristal into inedible ice sculptures.
"And if you
die
because I wasn’t there to warn you about something? That’s on
YOU
."
Phei opened his mouth.
She
vanished
.
One frame: four feet of ancient, gorgeous, furious fairy hovering above a table of thousand-dollar bottles, nipples hard, pussy dripping starlit slick through the veil, eyes blazing with wounded pride.
Next frame: gone.
The temperature around him dropped half a degree—then stabilised. The only physical evidence she’d ever existed at all was the faint shimmer of frost left on the rim of his Coke glass, already melting.
He stared at the empty air.
Blinked.
Took a slow sip.
Three days
,
he thought with a scoff.
She’ll be back in three hours. Tops.
Probably.
Maybe.
He wasn’t entirely sure, actually. He’d read enough old stories to know that when an ancient feminine entity said "three days," she might mean three days, three hours, three centuries, or three geological epochs depending on how deeply her pride had been wounded.
And Eira’s pride was...
Yeah.
He might be
fucked
.
Phei leaned back into the leather, let the bass roll through his ribs like a second heartbeat, and decided that was a problem for future Phei.
Present Phei had a celebration to enjoy.
And somewhere out there in the crimson dark of the Crimson Eden Noire, his women were here but not coming to him yet.
He could
feel
it.
The dragon in his blood always knew when they were close—when the air changed, when the night grew teeth, when the promise of wet heat and soft cries and greedy little cunts waiting to be stretched and filled and ruined rolled toward him like thunder.