Shadowglass

(Appolonnia – POV)
Stolen diamond bracelets glittered on my wrists in colored nightclub lights, and I laughed, my wings swelling damp in the warm crush of bodies. Midnight at Unseelie Court, dark and fragrant with smoke and sweat. Music ripped my ears like sweet razors, so loud, the air thudded in my lungs and my hair shook to the beat. Strobe lights sliced me, snapshots in time as I danced – here, there, gone. Ashley wrapped his long tattooed arm around my waist, spilling flames on my shoulder from soft crimson tinted hair. I grinned and wiggled closer, his hot firefae flesh a delicious glory on my skin. Dancing, drinking, Diamonds I don’t own. Doesn’t get any sweeter than this.

The floor’s packed tonight, a mash of bright fairy wings and rainbow limbs and slick vampire smiles, the air steamy with breath and lust and chemical euphoria. Humans here, too, a few sly ones who can see, but mostly shimmer-eyed and drunk on poison glamour, here for the oblivion. A heady bubble of unreality, this club – no thought, no consequences. Kiss, embrace, dance, love, drown your cares in glorious sensory nectar. A fairy kind of place, no rules, no guilt, the air so glassy with glamour, it might shatter.

Even the name is a fairy joke: Unseelie Court. We fae have no court, no queen or princess or justice. We leave that to demons, gangsters, people who matter.

The smell also warmed my insides. Im waterfae, which makes me attuned to moisture, and the wet scent of all that pleasure pressed the sweet ache deep inside me. I shimmied on the crowned dance floor, my silky skirt sticking to my thighs, and lifted my arms in the candy white smoke. My new diamonds sparkled all over my wrists, painted blue and green and scarlet by flashing lights. We’d filched them tonight from a glossy apartment in London, along with a pile of cash and other trinkets.

My skin glowed blue with desire. Shiny things get me all warm and wriggly. I wont get to keep them. We owe Cruz gang too much protection money. But just for tonight, they’re mine. And what harm ever came from something shiny?

Behind me, Ashley rubbed his cheek against my wing, sparks drifting from his pretty tinted hair. Ooh, tingles, all down my side like sugar. I flexed my shoulders, fluttering golden dust that danced in manic spotlights and rippled in the brittle static of glamour. Ash is my best friend, a dazzling firefae boy with cute muscles and a cheeky sharp-toothed smile, and his glamour is good. I mean, it’s really good. Humans won’t see the fine crimson wings like a dragonfly’s, the flame dripping from his fingers, his narrow fae-muscled body. They just see a cute semi redhead with wicked black eyes.

Me? Well, I do my best, but glamour isn’t my forte. My nose looks a bit less pointy, my hair more blonde than orange, my garish yellow skin fades to human tones. That’s about it. Glamour or not, im still the same geeky old me.

Ashley slid his arm over my shoulder to offer his fingertip, slick and adorned with a shimmering purple pill. Naughty boy. I giggled, licked the pill off, and swallowed. It stung bitter, but his finger tasted of sherbet, sparkly and nice.He rubbed his sharp nose to my hair, and I laughed, my Blood hot and urgent, my head awhirl with fizzy-sweet vodka and the thrill of our nights work. Forget the Cruz’s. Forget the world. Just me and my diamonds, jumping, twirling, dancing until I dropped. Yes.

Next to me a blue-haired vampire kid in leather and his girl kissed, bloody spit trickling on her chin as she swayed to the music, his fingers sliding beneath her shirt. A pair of shirtless trolls scoped for girls, sweat glistening on bulging on bulging green muscles and bell-pieced nipples. One winked at me, flicking ragged black hair from his eyes, and I pretended not to seen him.
“Spice for Ice!” Ashley yelled, sparks showering, He’s allowed to make fun of my unfortunate name, well nick name. He sizzled my pointed ear with his tongue. Shivers. Mmm. More tongue, slower and wetter than strictly necessary. Bet he’s got a hard-on.

I arched my butt backwards and giggled again. Oh, yeah. He’s wearing suction-tight leather pants – how he gets those on, I’ll never know – and they don’t leave much to the imagination.
I grinned, magical warmth already growing in my guts. Ash feels as good as he looks, and when he’s sparkled to the eyeballs and high from housebreaking and too much broken glass, he always tries something. Be we’re just friends. We’ve got rules, and they don’t include dragging each other out the back for a dirty hot shag.

Ashley is my lucky charm. Other guys will laugh at me or hit me or play tricks on my just to watch me cry. Fairy girls get that. It’s a harsh fae-taunting world out there. Every week you hear about a new fairy-slasher, a sadist, a murderer on the loose. Fairies aren’t people, see. We’re whispers, shadows, irrelevancies sheathed in desperate glamour so we don’t stand out or offend anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable. We’re just flotsam, bobbling on the surface of real people’s lives. We just hang out and party. It’s what we’re here for. No one cares if we die or hurt or bleed.

But I know im safe with Ashley, even if her is a horny little rat. The hunky troll bumped my hip, his beady glaze slithering down over my ass, and Ashley snarled wet sparks at him as he spun me away.

I snickered, and wriggle to face him, static shifting. He tossed bloodred and black hair and threw me that dazzling Ashley smile again. He leaves his hair long, so wildly long at the front so he can shake it back like that and skewer you with his dirty black, come-taste-me stare.
But I know he doesn’t mean it, not with me. He is just having fun. I tickled his pointy teeth with my claw, “Go rub that thing on someone else, ya dirty whore.”

He slid bony fingers over my hip, keeping me just an inch or two away. His scent zinged my nose, fresh like a newly struck match. Rakish golden rings in his pointed ears, and his studded black velvet jacket was cropped at his smooth hip with nothing underneath. He flicked his smouldering gaze to the bar for a second, ruby sparks jumping from his lips. “I can taste green, Char is watching us. Wanna tease her a bit?”

Charlotte is our best friend, as pretty and awesome as Ashley. I looked. She was watching us, with that glinting glaze over her eyes that meant trouble. “Your cruel.”
“You’re scared.” He edged closer, sweat-slick skin sliding on my bare midriff. My breasts pressed against his chest, burning.
Already the purple pill flowered deep and hot inside me. It couldn’t be desire. I was too far sensible to want Ashley. Indignation lifted my eyebrows. “Am not. Im sensible.”
“To hell with sensible. Let’s be reckless. Im good at reckless.” He wetted his plum-red lips, and the smell of that moisture tripped warm dizzy waves in my skull. Hot fae boy. Lips. Diamonds.
I couldn’t keep the giggles in any longer, and I shoved him in the chest, tipping him backwards. “What you are is a naughty boy with a hard-on. Get a girlfriend.” And I turned and pushed my way through the fragrant crowd, laughter floating from me like starlight on the swelling currents of my high.

Colors tumbled and prismed. My diamonds dazzled me, and I stumbled over my own a ankles a few times as I approached the blue neon bar. Charlotte pointed at me and laughed, pearlescent wings jittering as she swayed on her stool. She wore jagged-hemmed white dress that left her back bare, and she’d piled her green hair above her head in a wild nest of knots and stolen pearls, a pair of broken chopsticks and a cocktail fork sticking out.

My purple-drugged heart swelled with love and awe. Char’s the pretty one. Her glamour shows some weirdly beautiful supermodel, tall and willowy with wide-spread almost almond eyes. Her real appearance is the same, only with shimmering oval wings, and her skin is a dozen perfect shades of pale air-sprite blue.

Whereas my hair looks kinda like mango peel, half green and half mouldy orange, and my wings are burnt yellow, ragged and droopy like a sick butterfly’s. Some girls have all the luck.

Charlotte poked my chin with a sharp claw, her soft breeze playing with my hair. Char is airfae, attuned to the air and the atmosphere. “You’re drunk, diamond girl.” “Not true, I’m high. You’re the one who’s drunk.” I jumped up and down, unsteady on my heels, until the bar boy noticed me, and he served me two pink vodka lemonades without me asking. Maybe I was drunker than I thought. Still plenty of stolen cash left, though. I tossed him a crumpled twenty, waving my diamond wrist grandly. “Keep it peaches. Stop looking at him like that.”
Charlotte said nothing, and I lurched onto a stool and tickled her slender ribs. “I said stop staring at him.”
“Who?” She tossed her pretty blue head, her wings aflutter, and concentrated on stirring her drink.
“Oh, I dunno, the woolly mammoth in the corner? Who’d ya think?"
She thumped her chin into her hand and her elbow onto the bar, sea-green moisture staining her eyes. “But he’s so pretty.”
“Yeah, I know. But its an orchid farm in here, okay? Look around. There’s other pretty ones.” “Not like him.” She hiccupped and burst into proper tears, her wings flooding verdant.

I sighed. Last month she’d had the hots for some cute blonde vampire babe. This week it was Ashley. She’d get over it. But my heart still ached for her. Just because she falls quick doesnt mean that she doesn’t fall hard. And Ash is the Court’s biggest man whore. He’ll only end up breaking her heart.

I slipped my arm around her bony shoulder and pointed to the dance floor, where Ashley was trickling orange flame down some laughing banshee’s spine, singeing the ends of her long silver hair. “Look at him. See that girls he’s dancing with? In the silver dress? Oh, now he’s tongue-kissing her, he’s putting his hand up her… Yeah. You really want that to be you?”

Char just looked at me, indignant breeze dragging her hair ack. I flushed, vodka-tinted water began heating my muscles. Maybe I wasn’t quite making my point. “Okay, let’s not look at the anymore.” Firmly I spun her back around to the bar. She glared, wet-eyed. “You’re a real big help, Apples.”

I gulped my vodka, pink fizz shooting fireworks up my nose. “So he’s boy candy. Everyone knows that. You also know what a bitch he can be. Whaddaya want me to say?”
"Promise you'll never go with him."
I flushed again, and this time the water burned my cheeks. "What?"
"Butterflies in the sun. I've seen him flirt with you. Promise me you'll never."
"Never flirt with him?" Discomfort twisted, ruining my high. Why dissemble? We were best friends. That's all. Even if I'd wanted to, I didn't have the courage to pursue it further. Believe it or not, I'm not too smooth with the boys, and courage is not my middle name.
Charlotte swatted my shoulder. "You know what I mean."
"Hide and seek, catch-me-if-you-can. It's just games—"
"Promise, Appolonnia. I couldn't bear it."

She stared, so earnest and brimful with tears that I couldn't take it. "Okay, I promise. Call me a pincushion and shove safety pins up my nose if I'm wrong. It's the rules anyway, right?"
"Yeah, I guess." Charlotte gave a sad half smile.
I hugged her, my hand slipping beneath her delicate wings. "You'll get over him, Char."
She hugged me back, and I felt better. I had nothing to hide. She sniffed, wiping snot on my shoulder. "I wish I was like you, Apples. You're the sensible one."

I thought of Ashley's tongue in my ear and giggled. "Yeah, that's me: sense, dense, intense. Dripping out my ears, it is. Of course you wanna be me. Why wouldn't you? You're only the prettiest, cleverest girl in the whole world."
She kissed me, a sugary taste of sky-blue lips, and gamely wiped her tears away in green streaks. "You're nice. Let's get drunk and find some boys."
Meaning she'd get prettily tipsy, I'd get smashed, she'd find more boys than she had hands for, and I'd get the leftovers who were too plain to interest her and too shitfaced to care she was a hundred times more beautiful than me. But what are best friends for?
"Yes yes yes." I paid for two more drinks, and we clinked glasses and chugged. Sugar and alcohol burst into my brain like flares, and my nose fizzed.

Charlotte gasped. "Raspberries and ice cream. More."
"Careful, there's a fairyslasher on the loose."
She snorted. "S'always a fairyslasher. More."
I ordered more, and we chugged again. This time the froth did come out my nose, laced with plummy drug-charmed mirth. I laughed, splurting pink bubbles onto the guy next to me. "Whoa. Sorry, dude." I yanked up my skirt hem to wipe his arm clean, but the frills were too short. My heels skidded from under me, and I landed in his lap in a giggling, spluttering heap.

Oops. I craned my neck up to apologize, and my laughter strangled.
Not again.

Notes

Heyyy guys, first chapter is up for Shadowglass. This is only my second fanfiction and i actually have no idea what is going to happen throughout the story. Warning there will probably smut at least every two or three chapters ;) If you could please let your friends know about this story i would love to get some awesome reviews, comments, ratings and subscriptions!!!
-Stay weird baby bats.
Grimm ;)