Malik arrived several hours later, and she looked up at him, idly chewing on her nail and humming to herself as she enjoyed the buzz of the meal.
"What did he do?" Malik demanded.
Tilting her head, she watched him curiously.
"What does it matter?" she asked calmly, looking down at her nail and frowning at the gore that was still under it.
"You said he attacked you first. What did he do?"
"Will it make a difference to you?"
"Yes, tell me."
"When I woke up, he had tied me to the bed, was trying to take off my pants and when I wouldn't shut up, he decided to try and shut me up. So, I ate him."
He was staring hard at her, but she had turned her attention to trying to pry the blood out from under her nails.
"Will King Alaric be looking for you?" he asked.
She looked up at him again, a little confused by the change of subject. "I don't know, Epharis will be. Why?"
"Deciding if I should throw you overboard, and pretend I've never met you…" he said dryly.
"And then when I'm back, I tell them you took me, you tried to abuse me, and I jumped off. Who do you think they're going to believe?" she countered.
"I thought you were a Fae?"
"I am."
"How can you lie?"
"Many of us can, the older ones and certain species."
"You can…?" he said, and she nodded.
"So, when you said you would behave?"
"I was being honest, though I don't feel that self-defence is really misbehaving. I've been raped enough times without adding a human to the mix."
Flicking the blood off the tip of her finger, she heard him choking, and she looked up, her face calm.
"How can you be so calm about that?" he demanded, outraged.
"You get used to it, Malik. My husband does what he wants, the Gods do what they want, and my friends do what they want. Everyone just takes what they want."
"Why are so many after you?" he asked.
"I'm a Creator," she said, not sure why she was telling him, but it didn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.
"What's that?" he asked curiously.
"The beings who created this world. It wasn't one of the Gods, but a group of men trying to expand Faerie, but this world does not have the magic Faerie has. Along comes me, the only female creator and capable of producing the perfect world… So long as there is a man involved."
"What do you mean? How is that possible?"
Shrugging, she rested her head against the wall and rolled it to the side to look at him.
"How is anything possible, Malik? It simply is."
"So you have to… you know… to create a world? Just like this world?"
"Yes, before Sobek came along, I could have created one on my own, though I didn't know how to. Zeus decided it was a good idea to test a theory, they bound me, and the magic was squished down into the place where my creation comes from. I'm sure you know the difference between boys and girls enough to figure out where creation comes from."
"Why would he do that?" Malik was blushing furiously, and she found it rather endearing.
"Because it made it easier for him to get what he wanted. He had me for two days, and when my friends got to me…" she shrugged, movement catching her attention and she was horrified, watching a bug crawling across the floor. "My friends made me a tonic so whatever develops is destroyed."
Malik was silent, his eyes boring into the side of her face, but she didn't meet his hard gaze, instead she watched what she thought was possibly a beetle, though she didn't know bugs all that well. They tended to make her skin crawl if they got too close.
"So when he tried to…"
"I have no tonic, so had he been successful there was nothing I could have done to stop it."
"I didn't know he was like that," he sounded angry, but she only smiled faintly and pulled her feet up from the floor so the bug couldn't get to her.
"He probably wasn't, it is my magic that turns men into monsters."
She was certain the bug was hunting her, and she leant forward, watching it crawling under the bed and up the wall.
"What do you mean?" he asked, trying to see what had her attention.
"When I am not bound, I am part siren, my magic calls to men. It draws them in and allows me to get close so I can kill them. I was bred by Eros, his little pet monster…"
She leaned over the edge of the bed and her hair piled on the floor as she looked at the underside of the bed and found the disgusting thing looking right back at her.
Her skin began to itch, and she climbed off the bed, grabbing her shirt and dancing back across the room to hide from the thing.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"There's a bug…"
"What?" Indignation.
"A bug… there's a bug on the bed."
He stared at her for a moment and then opened the door, stalking in and grabbing the edge of the bed, lifting it up and looking at the thing. It was only slightly larger than her thumb nail, but it had eight legs and feelers and it was creeping her out.
"You're this big bad monster… and you don't like bugs…" he demanded.
"They're gross…" she whined, revolted when he picked the thing up on his finger and left the room with it.
"Come on," he growled.
She followed, clutching her shirt to her chest as though it would protect her.
He set the bug down on a bale of straw and she slid past him, bolting for the stairs and waiting for him at the top, looking down at him as he followed after her.
"You're such a bizarre creature," he said.
"Go wash your hands."
"No, I like having bug slime on me."
"Go wash your hands!"
He reached for her and she shrieked, jumping back from him. When he followed her, she bolted and scaled the central mast in a matter of seconds.
Perched on it, she glared down at him while he laughed.
"Go wash your hands, you disgusting man!" she yelled, furious and wanting to jump in a fire to burn all the invisible bugs off her.
"I will if you come down," he called back.
"Go do it first, then I'll maybe come down."
Shrugging, he turned away, and she watched him go, shaking out her shirt just in case, and then pulling it on. Looking down at her hair, she whimpered and prayed there weren't any in there.
When he returned, he held up his hands with his sleeves rolled up. She eyed him warily, unsure of his honesty but she decided to trust him and she climbed down quickly, dropping to thump onto the deck before him.
He was smirking, and she looked at his hands, finding them clean and still damp.
"Better?" he asked, and she nodded though she was still wary of him. "If I knew you didn't like bugs I wouldn't have let you sleep in my bed," he said.
"What?" she demanded, horrified.
"Bedbugs," he said. "Probably in your hair," he added.
She very nearly passed out as she touched her hair and the breeze made it move, immediately making her think there was something in it.
"Cut it off!"
"I was kidding, relax," he laughed and then he was yelling as she slammed her boot into his shin.
"That's not funny!"
"It was pretty funny," he said, rubbing his shin.
"You're horrible," she whimpered, running her fingers through her hair but she found nothing in it.
"We'll be in Istralis in a matter of hours, you can have a bath then," he said, cringing in pain at his shin.
"Get better boots," she snapped. Everyone near her knew that to be near her meant they needed shin guards; this man was no exception.
***
They arrived at Istralis just before sunset and she studied the sprawling city with fascination. It was twice the size of Ayathian and was packed with people, mostly travellers and sailors but also those who lived there. Everything was made out of white stone with red stones on top and the colour was incredibly odd. Ayathian looked dingy and dirty in comparison to the smooth, clean whiteness and deep red.
"Welcome to Istralis, Princess," Malik said, leaning on the railing next to her.
"You were born here?" she asked, looking from him to the city and back again.
"I was. My family has been here for generations, back to when there were only chieftains."
"Long family history," she said.
"What did you mean by being bred?" he asked.
"Eros very carefully cultivated my entire family tree back fifty generations. Each time he made sure to get a new species until me. Or us, rather. My sister is back in Ayathian."
"Why would he do that?" he asked.
"A prophecy or something like that. They all tried to breed one like me, but only he lasted to get this far. He's probably tearing the world apart trying to find me. Doesn't want to lose track of me again."
"So, you won't be staying?" Malik asked, and she glanced at him.
"The longer I stay still the easier it will be for them to find me. As it is, Vincent will likely have a lock on me."
"Just stay for a week and then you can leave. I promise you will at least enjoy yourself, you can meet the people, my family, hopefully not eat any of them…"
She laughed at that last and looked at him considering. It was very tempting, and so long as she didn't stay long, there was no reason why she couldn't know the strange human and his friends.
Yet he was a human and the thought of having a human friend was a foreign concept for her. Was it possible she could have one? She would have to find out.
"Alright… I'll stay for a few days, but only a few days," she said.
He grinned massively, throwing his arm over her shoulder and they looked out at the city of Istralis.