"Breakfast," he groaned, his chin was on her shoulder now, and she felt the tickle of his breath on her neck. He let out a mellifluous giggle, and it erupted out of him in a sweet coo. "And I'll sleep on top of you, my beautiful Alpha."
"Fuck no," she yelled back but her heart was launching at his sudden praise, at how the words spilt from his tongue in a whimper. "The lightning did a number on you. You're either drugged or you've lost all your brain cells. Shit," she groaned, slapping a hand to her forehead as she swerved. "I took advantage of you, didn't I? Tell me, will you kill me when you wake?"
"No, Alpha," he murmured, shaking his head, and feigning adorable innocence. But his smile was so big, he seemed genuinely crazed. He cuddled into her back and wrapped his feathers tighter around her frame. "Only if you let me in your pants."
"I'm not an Alpha," she told him, her eyes darting back to the road. "And I'm not risking my entire life on this shit. Currently, you're just my pet project, and I'm dropping you off where they'll look for you." She considered where she could leave him. "In town, at the transportation zone like some lost dog."
"I'm not lost," there was a seriousness in his voice now, as if he'd grown sober just from her words. "I'm free." His voice deepened, grew darker with each word more dangerous. She glanced back and noted a scowl, her gaze darted to the hardness in his eyes. Within him was a serpent, venom dripping from his lips. "I'm finally alive."
"Not out here," she laughed, trying to dispel the quiet alarm that grew in her chest. "Not in the wasteland." There was a rush of blood in her ears, her mind trying to pick apart at his words at what it meant for the story, for the reasons why he was here. "Not where the Lonely are."
"And that's where I belong," his voice was unusually soft, but it perked up quickly, "with you." He beamed, brazen and she felt her heart skip a beat. She choked out a laugh, felt the shift in his mood. But she didn't question the change of topic.
She took a turn towards a lake that spanned long and far towards the horizon. It was murky, flooding with briny vapour and filled with the remains of rotting organic waste from its history. Once, it must have been a place of clear waters and teeming fish, but now the lake was an unidentifiable sludge that oozed with chemicals in iridescent hues. In the past its smell had wrung out vomit straight from her stomach, stinging her throat, but now she had grown used to the horrible stench.
Nothing out here was pretty and dainty, meant for a person like Helios. And she knew that when he curled into her body, nose darting to bump against her neck searching for relief from the stench. She prayed to god he wouldn't puke on her clothes.
"Sorry, my home's around here," she said, pointing to the trees. "The lake's good security, plenty of hidden traps and holes."
"For the monsters?"
"Kind of," she answered, "they don't like the smell. But it's to protect me from people, the ones that kill and raid. There's plenty of good folk, of course. But it's a selfish world out here." Her expression grew pinched, and she glanced back at her passenger, reconsidering her choice to throw him out into town at dawn. "I'll stick around for a while tomorrow until you're safe. Give you a dagger and then a stun gun."
"Whatever," he snorted, "I'm much stronger than you think, don't need your weapons." And the haughty Helios was back within the strange openness of his new personality borne from the electricity. Quinn didn't believe that he'd be just as friendly once his brain was fixed. She turned her gaze back towards home.
"You know, maybe I should cover your eyes," she hummed, "I don't want you knocking on my door weeks later."
"That's fucking pointless," he answered, rubbing his cheek on her back, "I can smell you from hundreds of miles away." The fact made her raise a brow, and she felt his shrug against her back. "I was halfway across the world. Could find you even in a storm."
"You seemed aimless."
"I searched for you," he answered back, voice displeased, "for a whole week." His answer disturbed her, and her brows furrowed, hoping to god that it was all bullshit. But he seemed pretty damn insulted by her incredulity, so she decided to pretend that she bought his crap.
"So, you sniffed me out?" she continued with her small talk. "You've got a good nose then, but with this environment, it sounds like a pain. You'll be smelling the gunk and the blood. "
"It was, couldn't stop feeling everything," he agreed, his voice slurring a little, "until you arrived. Flooded my world with your peach juice, and then the noise grew quiet. So quiet, it was heaven. Knew then that I had to find you. It was you or blood and insanity." She laughed at his words, not believing him in the slightest. He was a crazy fairy, and she was sure that at this point he was as high as a kite.
"Whatever you say."
They approached the edge of a city and stopped at a set of sinking buildings that were being dragged down slowly into the lake. A bog swept across the streets, flooded with stringy beds of vegetation. In a couple of years, the structure would disappear, but by then Quinn would be long gone and hopefully rich enough to purchase a decent home in town.
She stopped at a small hut, parking her bike beside an automated machine gun that whirled into action spinning towards any movement that seemed like a monster. She didn't wait for Helios to get down, instead her arms wrapped around his middle, lifting his frame easily.
"What the fuck—" the surprise was sharp in his voice, and she noted pleased by the sweetness of his pink cheeks. There was a shyness in the curve of his eyes when he was pressed against her chest, and he twisted his fingers through her hair. His arms curled around her neck as he looked down at her. "Baby, my wings are heavy." Between them, something warm began to ebb and flow.
Her breath caught in her throat at his nickname for her, and she hoisted his ass up higher on her arm. He was a fairy of decent weight, but she could manage a couple of steps now that she wasn't caught off guard by the density of his muscles.
"Alpha—"
"I don't want your pretty bare feet getting a rash from the radioactive slop," she explained, bit down the heavy rush of air that threatened to escape her lungs from the exertion. She pushed through, trudging towards a door with a hundred locks. They opened easily with her presence, sensing her identity and Float's arrival. "It'll be a pain trying to fix you up."
"Or do you want a feel of my ass?" he giggled. She let out a low snort.
"Whatever you tell yourself to feel better."
"You just want me in your arms," he continued, "you want my scent in your hair."
"I'm only doing this once, Helios."
"It's like we're just married," were the first words out of his mouth as they entered her home, moving through invisible lasers that were meant for intruders. The heavy steel door swung automatically behind them, locking it in place. "And you're carrying me to our bed for our honeymoon," he sighed, "I'd kiss you now if you let me."
"What a hopeless romantic you are when you're drunk," she answered dryly, kicking off her shoes. From Euodia's memory, Helios was never such an open flirt, his words were always meticulously calculated and specifically tailored for his client. "Stop flirting, it'll get you nowhere."
"Really?" his voice was lilting, edged with a tease. "You can't lie to me, darling," he whispered, tightening his hold around her neck. "I'm having a snack from all the emotions you're giving out." His eyes glittered, dilating further. "And it tastes like peaches and cream." She felt her neck grow warm at his words. Fuck. She forgot he was just like an incubus.
"Then you must be full, and not interested in dinner," she retorted.
He blinked. "I need real food too."
"But of course, your highness," she squeezed his hips, setting him down on the couch. "Whatever you want."
She stood, stretching, then wondered if it was a good idea to let him see her home in its glorious technologically advanced state.
It was mostly salvaged furniture: an old sofa, a chair and a dining table, a couple of twinkling monitors and even a robot that hissed along the ceiling sucking up mould and slop. But the very new-looking stove and refrigerator would raise a couple of brows with the traces of fairy magic powering its core.
She prayed he'd be too fucked up in the head to care, but she found him perched against the hand rest, squinting at the cleaning bot.
"You have a robot," he gasped, "you have technology," he marvelled at her equipment. Guess the new kingdom just wasn't quite as advanced. "From the wastelands?" He turned to her, and his eyes were so round they were adorable. "I thought they were all destroyed by the electromagnetic pulse."
"I fixed them," she tapped the fridge, pulling out a loaf. "And some of them are new," she answered mysteriously, clearing her throat. "You fix things when you have a lot of time. You'd want to raise your quality of life."
"You don't understand. You live like a noble in the kingdom," he gasped, eyes flickering over everything, he was growing lucid. "You have things from before the war. Things that were lost. We don't have any of those anymore. We don't have the tools to build them. We don't even know how."
"That's what a world war and an apocalypse does to everyone," she told him, quietly buttering the leftover bread, "fucks up decades of economic progress. Relegates a couple of people that could have helped in development. Takes five times the effort just to restart everything. Destroys environments, wrecks homes."
"But we had to," he told her, there was a crinkle in his brow. He turned to stare at her, voice growing cold. "Alphas are fucked up people that don't understand basic fucking courtesy. Omegas were treated worse than dogs. We were toys."