Enchanted Revenge by Theresa M. Jones

green.”
    He laughed again.
    “Ahhh,” he sighed as he splashed his face. “Oh. My. Gosh. It feels so good,” he sang to himself, just barely loud enough for me to hear.
    He dipped under the water again, and popped his head back up, again sighing.
    “Stop rubbing it in, Alec. You can enjoy the wonderful, cool water all you want, but you’re gonna be sad when a snake tries to eat you. Or better yet, there’s probably a Loch Ness Monster in there, just waiting to sink its teeth into you.”
    He laughed again, before going back under the water.
    From where I was, up on the cliff, I could see his lithe body move through the water. He was a strong swimmer, which surprised me for some reason. I mean, it makes sense that he could swim. I can, so why couldn’t he? I guess I just thought maybe he wouldn’t be able to or something because he was Sylph.
    He swam to the very edge of the cliff and just as his head emerged, so did the tips of his wings. He went back down, his almost transparent wings sliding through the water behind him, before coming up again. He jumped, and surfaced in a gust of air and water and beauty.
    His wings didn’t appear to flap at all as he flew up from the water and above my head. They fluttered a tiny bit before his feet landed just beside mine.
    “Holy Crap!” I shouted at him, and scooted far away. “You have… you have a leech on your face.”
    He didn’t, of course. Not like a bug of any kind wouldn’t want to suck on him a little, but I was playing it up. My face probably looked super disgusted and terrified, as I skittered away from him like he had leprosy.
    One of his eyebrows shot up in awesome Dwayne Johnson style. “No leeches in the Empyrean, sorry.”
    “Then what is that on your face?!” I demanded, not willing to give in yet.
    He rolled his eyes, but I saw his lips quirk. He was gonna laugh at me. My eyebrows came down as I gave up on my endeavor to somehow terrify him. He better not laugh at me. Laughing is good. I love laughing, and I want to. I love his laugh. But laugh with me, not at me.
    In the blink of an eye, he crossed the yard between us, and wrapped his arms around me. I barely got a chance to feel the cool wetness dripping off his arms and soaking into mine, the water that drenched his entire torso and adhered to mine as he pressed his body against me, the feel of all of him against all of me…
    Before my feet left the ground and somehow the ground wasn’t under me anymore. Nothing was. Except- there it was- water.
    I quickly sucked in a deep breath.
    Cool water surrounded me. From my kicking feet, up to the sweat behind my knees, to my butt, stomach… all of me. My head went under. Immediate relief.
    I came back up and gulped in the air. Water splashed my face as he jumped in beside me.
    “I can’t believe you threw me in.”
    He laughed. “You’re welcome.”
    “Really no leeches?”
    “Really.”
    “Alligators? Snakes or monsters?”
    He shook his head, “Nope.”
    “Why is it green?” I said, my anger completely replaced by a complete sense of awesome contentment and a general feeling of ease and relief as the sweat was removed from my skin, and I stopped emanating heat like an oven.
    “All the rain in Ardennes is green.”
    I laid back and let my arms drift up above my head, as I floated on my back.
    “It really does feel wonderful.”
    “Yeah,” he answered from somewhere off to my right.
    “This place is so weird. But…” I took a deep breath, inhaling the beauty and lively air around me, “I think I like it.”
    He chuckled. “Yeah, I do too.”
    Several hours later we climbed out and switched clothes while our wet ones dried. I really did feel better. My skin wasn’t so nasty, and I almost felt clean. Which was sad, considering I just swam in green water, and that made me feel clean. Lack of a good shower was some serious stuff and was totally messing with my definition of the word: clean.
    “We should just rest here. We can swim