Senan was wrecked. He knew that he had overdone his magic usage on the Friday night event. Somehow he’d managed to maintain his magical glamour for more than twelve hours without a break, and that was without the scent suppression magic he’d been using while he was at the second event.
He had been working during that time as well, which had its own physical toll. And then, with the confrontation with the wolf shifter at the end of the night, he expected to at least feel tired over the weekend.
But it was now Monday afternoon, and Senan couldn’t muster up the energy to produce enough glamour to even get him into work, let alone act like his life was normal.
For the first time in his two years employment, Senan called in sick.
He hated lying to anyone – his wearing a glamor every day was enough of a lie in itself - but his voice as he made the call sounded croaky and out of sorts even for him.
Betty, who had taken the message for Jeffrey, assured him that no, he was doing the right thing in staying home and that there were plenty of colds and flus going around.
“You’ve been working a lot lately, so you were bound to come into contact with germs.”
She recommended that he have hot lemon and honey drinks, and to make sure he got plenty of sleep. Senan had tears in his eyes as he thanked her and got off the phone. That simple act of kindness reminded Senan how lucky he was with the non-paras in his life.
If only I did have the flu or a cold. Paranormals didn’t get sick in the same way non-paras did, and Senan knew he was suffering from more than just a virus.
One could hope that a flu or virus might eventually pass through the body, but Senan was starting to think he might be permanently afflicted with whatever it was that was making him feel so exhausted.
His brain wasn’t doing him any favors either.
Senan didn’t understand why he couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious wolf shifter from Friday night.
The man admitted he was a twin to the man who had wrecked his face and chest and, more than the physical act, had wrecked his life.
That first wolf shifter had no thought, caring, or respect for him, who he was, or his right to exist in his own space.
No, on that fateful night, that first wolf shifter had just decided that, for some reason, Senan didn’t have the right to say no, didn’t have the right to just enjoy a quiet drink on his own, didn’t have the right to just be alone in a public space.
Gods, Senan missed those days when he genuinely enjoyed listening in on the conversations around him in a random bar, feeling as though he was being sociable without being part of a conversation.
He learned so much about life from the snippets of chat he heard around him, and for Senan that was fascinating.
Until a wolf shifter with delusions about his own sense of self-importance, wrecked everything for him in the space of less than thirty minutes.
After the shock of being arrested, not even being allowed to talk, and then being let go after being slammed with conditions that totally changed his life, Senan believed he had done a really good job of keeping himself together.
He put the wolf out of his mind as best he could and turned his whole life around.
For one thing, he didn’t let anyone know he was a fae, or even paranormal.
He wore a glamour every time he left the house.
Part of that was pride. Yes, Senan hated the way his skin puckered and pulled around his scars down his face and across the left side of his chest. But it wasn’t as though he went out topless.
He could’ve used makeup to lessen the impact of the scars he had in his natural form, although it would be impossible to cover them completely.
But for Senan the glamour was also protection.
He doubted any of his human friends would’ve cared if he’d met them au-natural so to speak.
They might have been shocked, and perhaps asked him why he’d felt the need to lie about who he was, but paranormals were another issue entirely.
They didn’t see scars the same way as non-paras did, and personally, Senan saved himself a lot of questions and grief, just by wearing his glamour every time he went outside.
Aside from that, Senan used his magic as little as possible, mostly because he only had so much supply and most of that went into maintaining the glamour he used.
There was a common public misconception people seemed to have about magic users, that they could just draw on the energies from the earth and sky and have an unlimited tap of power at their disposal.
But that wasn’t the case for fae. Fae had a finite store of magic, and it needed to recharge like a battery. Thanks to the culmination of events that happened on Friday night, Senan’s battery hadn’t just run out of juice, it was as though it had completely exploded.
He didn’t dare leave the house. He called in an order for groceries, just a few bits and pieces, so he could at least survive, but he didn’t even greet the delivery driver at the door like he normally did.
Senan waited until the man had been and gone, and then checked the small street where he lived, peeking out the door to make sure nobody could see him as he quickly whipped his bags and boxes inside.
Just doing that wore him out and it took more than an hour to put his small haul away.
Senan was drained - completely and absolutely drained.
And while he knew his magic was rejuvenating in its own way, it was more that he felt as if his soul was missing something.
Senan couldn’t think of any way to describe the incredible sadness that had him crying over a commercial for puppy food.
Or the complete lack of motivation to do anything beyond remembering to shower and change his underwear and sweatpants.
As Saturday morphed into Sunday, the soul ache increased.
For some reason Senan’s magic seemed to think he needed to find the wolf shifter he saw for a brief five minutes on Friday night.
Senan was totally confused by that. Why on earth would his magic be so supportive or encouraging - and indeed it was the only thing his magic had any motivation for - in finding that damn man.
Finding another wolf shifter who’d pushed himself into Senan’s space and refused to listen to him.
In the meantime, snippets of the night he’d gotten his scars kept infecting his dreams. Random memories such as how he recoiled at the smell of his own blood which was all he’d been able to smell for three whole days because his prison guards wouldn’t let him wash.
How he’d clung to the tatters of his torn shirt, as if trying to cling onto any shred of decency left in a world that didn’t have any, frustration and despair increasing in equal measures as the council guards talked over him, never letting him explain any of his side at all.
And the pain battling with the sheer horror of how badly his life had changed with just one encounter.
But Senan survived, he put his life back together, working hard and keeping a low profile. Until wolf number two came along and showed him how fragile that illusion of normality was.
He felt as if he was being attacked all over again in his sleep.
He couldn’t go to bed because if he did, his wings kept getting in the way and Senan didn’t have the energy to pull them back in.
His wings clearly felt that they were necessary as some kind of attraction tool, working with his magic, pushing Senan to find the missing wolf shifter.
Senan was so tired he just sprawled out on his couch, lying on his front so his wings could flutter all they liked, idly watching rubbish on the television screen with no idea of what was on or what he was seeing.
His mind just kept going back to two wolf shifter infested nights.
If he wasn’t thinking about one of the damn wolves, he was thinking about the other one.
Neither one of them are doing me any favors, he thought as he reached for the television remote.
I really need to be able to put all this behind me, and yet it was as though that part of his brain was completely fucked.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the night his life was ruined, and if he wasn’t thinking about that, Senan was thinking about the wolf shifter who had intruded on him at the event.
It was quite strange in a way, because if the first event hadn’t happened, then Senan might have found the second wolf shifter attractive.
Yes, the two men looked very similar, but their attitudes were totally different.
Senan liked somebody with a bit of brawn.
He appreciated men who had that look of someone who could handle themselves in a fight.
The man spoke with a hint of humor as well. “You can call me Felix the Cat,” like he was sharing a joke with Senan in some way. And yet Senan’s life wasn’t a joke. It was a fucking travesty.
Laying on the couch on Monday afternoon, Senan stroked over his scar. He had wondered, the way he had a million times before in the previous four years, if he did glamour away the scar completely, would anybody notice or care? Did the Fae Court keep a check on things like that?
Gods, Senan didn’t want to think about them, either.
Nobody had come to his defense four years before.
Nobody had suggested that Senan must have had a reason for what he’d done.
No, no, they had bowed down to the Shifter Council and distanced themselves from him.
And Senan knew why - he knew why they didn’t rush to his defense or help him in any way.
It was because the assault had happened on Earth. Fae preferred their own realm, a realm that Senan had now been banished from. They saw the attack on Senan as a reason why they should stay on their own realm.