The Otherside

Word Count: 32,269....

It still has a long ways to go, Lilith:Released isn't doing much better. But I figure I can share a bit of what I've been working on. The Otherside is sketchy. I go back and forth between what will and won't be happening. So even as I share this there is always a chance it will be cut from the final product.

I watched the orange tendril of fire stretch higher and crack. It was alive, curling around its prey in a gentle caress before it struck with an infinite snap. The bonfire was mesmerizing, far more interesting than the drinking going on around me.

I looked up at the Othersiders sitting in a circle of fallen logs. Their faces were angled away from the eye stinging smoke and on each other. No one noticed my discomfort. The bottles of alcohol kept being drank, and the girls kept getting up to retrieve more.

They sat at one man’s feet, their chins turned up in wait for his next command. I was still waiting for the buckets of soapy water to break out and the girls to commence scrubbing his feet with their hair. They hadn’t yet…surprisingly.

I despised their devotion.

I despised the naked adoration that sat unabashedly on their skin. Real women didn’t act like that. Human women didn’t at least. But the females kneeling across from me weren’t really human. Only a fraction of their bodies pumped with regular unmagical blood, but even if they didn’t shift they were not of this world. They were Cwn Annwn, or something else Othersider I’d never even heard of.

I should probably clarify that not all of the females attending the bonfire were sitting at his feet. A few females like Pillar, and Kendall sat alongside the other men staring with just as much disgust as I did at the transfixed females. A few that I didn’t know stood on the outskirts with the same pained expression I could feel on my skin.

I hissed when the all too familiar silver eyed man held out his empty bottle and a submissive female sprung forward to retrieve it. My lip curled as she hurried off to get him one more. If Duncan expected me to sit at his feet and fetch his beer he had another thing coming. I was no one’s adoring female. I never would be. I’d be more likely to stab him in the forehead than sit at his feet.

Sutter’s laughter broke my trance and I looked over at his easy grin.

“If you could see your face.” His yellow eyes were hazy from so much beer.

I rolled my own.

“I told you it’d be like this. This ridiculousness---,” he slurred and smiled. He tried to say it again and it came out even worst. A short chuckle erupted in my chest.

“This shit is just the Cwn Annwn females…wait that’s not a bad idea really. Feel like getting on your knees Lorelei?”

I ignored his innuendo and focused on his use of my full name. I hated when he called me Lorelei and he knew it.

“Fuck you.”

Sutter howled with another burst of laughter. “Even better.”

I socked him hard in the shoulder.

“What did you expect?” Sutter said pointing out at the crowd. “He’s a king to them now.”

He swallowed more beer and pouted the moment he realized his bottle was empty. A female Cwn Annwn jumped forward to grab it from his hand but he slapped her away.

“I can get my own God damned beer.” Sutter jumped to his feet, and swayed a little before righting himself.

I failed to bite back a smile and tried not to stare at his ass, which was something I’d been failing to do lately. No one could really blame me either. He was hot and actually capable of getting his own beer, not relying on his fan-girls to do it for him.

I glared at Duncan who continued to drink and laugh, completely unaware of my murderous gaze. He didn’t know that I was dying inside. He didn’t know that I was barely holding it together. Part of me wanted to scream obscenities at him for not noticing. While the other part was glad I didn't have to tell him about Lyle.