The Misplaced Prince[COMPLETE]

The Siphon

"Good God," Dick gasped, reaching forward to hold to bookshelf in front of him and letting out a deep groaning breath.

"What happened?" Kasey asked sharply, ripping her gaze away from the long retreating figure to look at her childhood friend in concern, who was grimacing. Dick shot her a look of disbelief.

"Didn't you feel—the anguish—coming off of that man?"

"Oh." Kasey said in surprise.

Her friend, Richard Robert Sanchez—Dick, to those who were close to him—was the son of a purely human warrior and a weakly magical prostitute, and his faint magical inheritance had resulted in him developing the ability to siphon strong emotions from people. Some people he was more sensitive to than others, especially those that were blood related to him, but with strangers, the emotion had to be particularly strong for him to detect it.

"I didn't feel anything." Kasey confessed, drawing Dick away from the shelf. Emotional magic wasn't her strong point, but anyone with a strong magical essence like hers was capable of doing a wide variety of things at varying proficiencies, as long as the desired ability wasn't completely absent from their magical recipe...and it was usually a rich, complex recipe, after centuries of blood mixing.

She lowered her voice, "Our magic is dimmed in this realm, I thought you weren't experiencing any here at all—?"

"I wasn't, but the emotion must have been coming off of the man in waves for me to pick it. And not having any other here—perhaps his emotions feel even more magnified—? I don't know. God...how depressing." He winced, wearily running his hands through his hair.

Kasey glanced towards the direction the man had taken again. He had had her riveted as well, but for completely different reasons from her friend, and she wondered how successful she had been in hiding her interest—and surprise.

The man was absolutely beautiful.

Moreover, he was beautiful and obviously aware of it.

He was tall, much taller than Dick who was well over six feet himself—that man had to be six and a half feet at least, she decided. His long frame was incredibly elegant and well-built, judging by the forbidding muscles that had tensed against his coat when he had aimed a blow at Dick. He had a face that was almost ridiculously good looking: strong masculine features that seemed sculpted from stone, with intense thickly lashed eyes a brown so light they shone with an almost golden hue, a bitter, ruinous emotion glittering in their depths that made it difficult to look away. The only soft thing on his face were those sinful lips and even they were given to a cruel, unamused edge when they smiled

Nature had been extremely indulgent while allotting him his portion of good looks. Even she, who had come from a land of magical beings where beauty was so arbitrary as to be untrustworthy, was caught in thrall of this man in a way she had trained herself never to be. She shuddered to imagine what he would look like if he really, truly smiled.

What had struck her the most as she had watched him, though, had been how he much reminded her of a lounging lion—beautiful but deadly. Everything about him screamed poise and grace, his speech impeccable, his stride proud...and yet, standing close to him, a part of her had shivered with the innate feeling that, given the circumstances, he could become lethal.

It was as if he was the confounding combination of the perfect gentleman and the darkest villain.

Anguish, Dick had said? She had seen something in eyes too, and would never had guessed it to be that. But with Dick's ability, she couldn't argue.

What had caused such a man, who wasn't just good looking but obviously rich as well, judging by his well-tailored, expensive clothes, to be so anguished? Weren't those two things the most important to people in this realm, and ensured a certain success to anyone who had them?