by KT Strange
“Oh my god, oh my god,” she was hyperventilating as she brought her camera up, trembling. “Can I… can we… selfie? Can…”
“Yeah sure, we can take a selfie,” I said, “What’s your name sweetheart.”
“Thea,” she breathed, her eyelashes fluttering as she gazed up at me with pure adoration. I could smell how turned on she was as she pressed into my personal space, but the scent of it, womanly and thick, just made me want to shudder away. Her arm snuck around me, and I froze when I felt her palm run over my ass.
“Uh,” I said.
Her case of nerves seemed to melt away as she clung to me. She brought her phone up right into my face. The flash went off, her fingers digging into the curve of my ass where it met my thigh. Every instinct in me was screaming to shove her away, shove her to the ground. She was not my mate and I wanted nothing to do with her.
“Call me,” she whispered, and I felt the crinkle of something being shoved into my back pocket. Her hand patted me and she slipped away into the crowd, winking at me as she went.
Another girl stepped up. My senses felt dulled, almost heavy. I wanted to move out of the way as she reached for me.
Eli was there in a second though, stepping into her path, grinning down at her like he wasn’t giving me a space to breathe. Eli always knew how I was feeling, and I, him. It sort of made me feel bad, with him being locked up in the tour van while I made our girl feel amazing in the back. The bond between us meant he’d be feeling pretty heated up the entire time. But now that bond, not quite telepathic, but more empathic, was saving me from backhanding some girl from feeling me up in the middle of a meet-and-greet.
“Hey there, sweetheart,” he said. “I saw you rocking out in the crowd and I wanted to give you this…” He plucked a rolled t-shirt from a pile of the march, and she flushed, stammering out a thank you. There was a snap of her phone and after one selfie she was off again. Eli turned to me, eyes serious.
“You need a break?” he asked. I shook my head.
“I’m good.”
“Bullshit,” he countered. I shrugged. I wasn’t good, I did need a break but that wasn’t an option for me just right then. The show had to go on, even if I felt like I was missing a part of my soul and couldn’t stand to have other girls around me, let alone cling to me.
It’d been different when Darcy had been with us. It hadn’t felt so wrong, because her presence was soothing and always at the edge of my awareness. She knew everything that was happening, and understood it was a part of being in the business, to be, in some ways, available to the fans. Plus, I got to take her back to the van afterwards and make her shiver in my arms.
But now? Now everything felt hollow.
“Go take a time out in the green room,” Eli ordered. I narrowed my eyes at him, but the thought of being pawed over by another eager fan… made me feel ill. I nodded, once. “And get your shit together,” he added. I bared my teeth at him in a silent snarl. If we’d been in our wolf form, I would have lunged at him, grabbed him by the throat and made him submit to me for such a smartass comment. My shit was together.
I slunk back to the green room and took five to myself, pulling out my phone. I hadn’t had the heart to take her off my lock screen wallpaper. I ran a finger down the line of her face; it was a photo of us together, squished, laying down on the floor of the van.
She wouldn’t answer, but I called her anyway. I held the phone away from my ear and held my breath.
It rang once… twice… and…
“Hey you’ve reached Darce. I’m on the road with Phoenixcry right now, so if this is about band business please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible!”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and hurled my phone across the room. It hit the wall with a loud thunk and crashed to the floor, the screen shattering. I sank down on the couch, unable to move.
Four
Darcy
The first thing I thought, irreverent and shallow, was that my father’s hair was peppered through with silver, more than when I’d left. Somehow that visible sign of his mortality, although he was just as likely as any witch to live a damn long time, gave me strength as I stood in front of him.
The living room was the same as ever, the giant fireplace in the far wall crackling away with flames that did nothing to warm the air. The white quartz rocks which made up the front of the fireplace stretched from the floor to the ceiling, sixteen feet above. A chandelier hovered over the sitting area, throwing off light and making the quartz stone of the fireplace glisten. Expensive rugs, that would have been a delight to bare feet if I’d ever been allowed in here in such a state of undress, were casually cast about the floors, protecting the deeply polished dark wood floors. Velvet couches, low with rolled arms let down into delicately carved wooden clawed feet, gilded and glinting. The windows had the great curtains pulled across, but if they’d been open I would have seen the expanse of clover-green lawns, immaculately kept.
All of it, the fireplace that didn’t warm me, the rugs that I would never be able to feel against my soles, the sparkling chandelier… It was all for show, because that’s all my family was: a show, entertainment to be consume by the lesser creatures they allowed into their sphere. In the hierarchy of witches, my family was at the top, along with the other council families. The fact that I was even being received in the living room, instead of more private quarters further back in the house told me exactly how my father saw me: a lower being whose insignificance needed to be impressed upon her.
I shivered despite myself. Kenton had delivered me to my father’s tender mercies, although a maid had divested me of my bags as soon as I’d arrived, whisking them away despite my protests. I was certain my things would be pawed over, anything of interest to be delivered to my mother for inspection, and the rest to be laundered, folded neatly, and put away in my old room. Not that any of my mundane clothes would be acceptable to my mother…
“Darcy Evangeline,” my father drawled from his massive wing-back chair. He had not stood to greet me. No, he would never. I was to go to him, curtsey low despite the fact I wasn’t wearing a dress and keep my eyes downcast in the presence of his greatness.
He couldn’t have been more of a classic fantasy-book bad guy if he’d tried. My years away had done nothing to dull the weight of his presence and the effect it had on me. I tried to swallow away the lump in my throat, unsuccessfully.
“Father,” I responded after the silence between us grew even more uncomfortable. His eyebrows were more pointed than I remembered, drawing back toward his temples. I tried to focus on them and not the way his eyes bored into me.
I had his hair, I realized. His had grown long in my absence and was pulled back in a low pony-tail. He even had a velvet ribbon tying it off as it curled around one shoulder, the deep chestnut shot through with silver strands. How had I never seen how much I looked like him, before? Maybe I didn’t pay attention, too focused on my contraband rock CDs and smuggled comic books.
He steepled his fingers in front of him and I wondered what version of The Talk I would receive.
“You may go to your room,” he said after another moment, turning my idea of how our first meeting would go on its head.
“Wh-what?”
“You may go to your room,” he repeated, lifting one hand to gesture to the doorway, (“Never point, a Llewellyn does not do something so common as point, Darcy Evangeline,” my mother’s voice echoed in my head).
Didn’t he want to yell at me? I couldn’t even see the crackle of his power, hot and bright along his skin. I couldn’t even feel it in the room, surprised by the lack of static charge around us. I hesitated and he raised an eyebrow.
“Did you not understand?” he asked dryly. “Have your years away from us rendered your ears useless?” There it was; the cutting tone I was used to. I set my jaw.
“Just surprised you don’t want to take the opportunity I’m presenting to you. Here I am, Dad, prodigal daughter,
returning at last. So, go ahead, hit me with your best shot,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. It was a defensive posture and I was giving him everything, letting him know exactly how uncomfortable I was. But I couldn’t help it. His lack of reaction to my disappearance and reappearance was… fucking unsettling.
“Opportunity?” he asked, sitting back with a sigh. “Ah. You think that I should be angry at you. Curse you for your insolence and ingratitude all those years ago, perhaps?” His lips quirked, and my heart hiccupped. “I hardly think that would be the fitting behavior of a father after his daughter returns to him. You are a gift, Darcy Evangeline, and your safe return is one I herald with only gladness in my heart.”
I took a deep breath.
No. This wasn’t right.
“You’re not…”
He chuckled as the words died in my mouth.
“Go take your rest. Bathe, I am certain you will find all the things in your room to be as you left them, although Charise has seen to cleaning it out of dust and replaced your toiletries since we were advised of your return. I am sure that you need at least a day to sort yourself out, daughter.” He traced his finger over the arm of the chair, and his voice dropped low, “Although I would not find it amiss if you would join me in my study perhaps, later this evening, or tomorrow in the afternoon. I have missed the times when you used to play the piano for me, and without a daughter in the house since your sister married, it has been quite… lonesome.”
I swallowed hard at the look on his face. He looked… sad, almost deflated. This wasn’t something I’d expected. I’d come in, tense and ready for a fight, but here he was, about as close to saying ‘happy to see you, kiddo,’ as he could be.
“I… thanks,” I said. He lifted his head and sighed.
“I would not go to see your mother just yet. Clean up first.” His eyes glittered with something unpleasant as he regarded me. “I have heard you fell into bad company while away. That is to be forgotten and she has not been informed of it. It is better that she not be made aware of your… friends.”
My tongue was thick on my mouth as I tried to answer. I needed a drink of water so bad.
“Okay… sure,” I said, hesitating. He chuckled, a smile cracking across his face.
“Surely you have not forgotten which way your bedroom is,” he teased. I shook my head.
“N-no.”
“Good. Then go, take your leave to rest and restore yourself after the trials you have endured. I will see you later, perhaps, or in the morning. We still breakfast at nine, if you would join us.”
“I… Sounds good.” Except it didn’t sound good. My skin was crawling, and every instinct was telling me to boot my ass out of my bedroom window as soon as I walked in the door. He should have been furious. I’d embarrassed the family, and if there was one thing that my father never forgave, it was being embarrassed. But here we were and he was welcoming me as if he had actually missed me.
I walked to the door, clearly dismissed but feeling as if the rug would be yanked out from under my feet at the very last second. The spot between my shoulder blades itched as I went, expecting to hear the crackle of his lightning, and then feel the dull, painful impact as it hit me right in the back. Except it never came. When I looked back, peering at him before I left the room, he was staring into the fire. His fingers crawled over the arms of his chair and he looked deep in thought.
With a shaking breath, I got out of there. The staircase to my bedroom seemed longer to me, but the oak railing was polished just as it had been when I’d left. My footsteps were soft on the carpeted floors as I moved down the long hallway. I passed my sister’s room, the door pulled shut, and then saw my own room, the door ajar. I held my breath and pushed inside.
It looked… small wasn’t the right word, because it wasn’t small. It was sizable enough for the poster bed that dominated to have plenty of room around it for a window seat, a desk, and a generous armoire for my ‘every day’ things since the fancy-event clothing was in the walk-in closet off the ensuite bathroom.
But it felt small.
I’d sat under the stars, surrounded by the roaring wilderness as my boys sang tunes around a crackling campfire.
This room was small in comparison to the open road, rolling hills, and bleached-white deserts we’d seen.
I blinked away a tear when I realized I was still thinking of them as my boys. They weren’t my boys. Maybe they’d never been mine. I went to the window and pulled back the curtains. This had been the portal to my escape so many years ago…
That’s when I saw the small brass nails in the frame, and my belly went cold. They’d nailed the window shut. I ran my fingers down the wood, my skin catching on each tiny nail-head. There was seven of them, for good luck. Was that new? Had they done this because they knew I was coming home? Or had they done it after I’d left, sorta closing the barn door after the wild horse escaped?
Whatever the reason, my stomach felt sick over it. I went to my bedroom door and shut it firmly, throwing the latch. The maids had little magics, spells they carried on their person in the form of iron keys, and those would open the latch if they needed to get in, but at least it gave me the illusion of privacy. I went to the bathroom, and sure enough, the towels were freshly folded and fluffed, and a new toothbrush laid out with an unopened tube of toothpaste. They really had prepared for my arrival, right down to the coconut shampoo I had liked when I was at home.
Now I couldn’t stand the smell of it. Hopefully it would fade quickly. I turned on the shower, the spray of hot water stinging my legs as I stepped into it and tried to wash away the day of travel and all my bad decisions.
I leaned my head against the cool tile and hoped that the dizzy, spinning feeling would abandon me. Nothing was like I thought it would be. The fact that my father had practically welcomed me with open arms had been… weird. So weird. I was trying to figure it out, piecing together his strange behavior as I soaped up the lengths of my hair and tried not to think of Finn. He’d promised me, his knuckles brushing along the curve of my bare breast, that as soon as we were able, he was going to get us a big hotel room, and back me into the shower and make love to me right there. Hot tears sluiced down the drain. I pulled away from the wall and rinsed my hair out.
That part of my life was done. We were done.
As I dried off, I stared at myself in the mirror, my fingers lifting to the side of my neck where he’d first bitten me. The mark had faded; he’d never broken the skin to begin with, but I still felt its presence, light and tender, as if he was right there, clamping his mouth down on the tender flesh.
It hurt, to remember, and to feel the ghost of his mouth on me. I let out a shuddering breath and walked into the bedroom.
The maids had been busy obviously, since my room looked exactly as it had done the night I left, except with all the mess tidied up, and not a speck of dust anywhere. It was like I hadn’t left at all.
It was early still, but I curled up in bed, and turned out the light. I reached under the pillow for my phone. I’d tucked it there before I had showered, for safe keeping. My searching fingers felt nothing but cool cotton. I yanked back my pillow, and frowning, turning on the light next to my bed. The space where my pillow had been, where the phone had been, was empty. I gulped down a lungful of air and slipped off the bed and checked underneath the pink linen bed ruffle. Under the bed was empty too; no sign of the phone. I looked at the door, but the latch was still shut. I hadn’t heard anyone come in but…
But I probably wouldn’t have, not over the shower. The unsettling memory of my father welcoming me back openly, without question, fell over me. The nails in the window. The missing phone. I crawled under the duvet and pulled a pillow against my chest for comfort.
Had I walked right into a trap? A dawning feeling of dread told me I had.
And you know what? I deserved it.
Five
Darcy
A dress was laid out for me on my bed in the afternoon
once I’d returned from sitting in the family library by myself for several hours. My family seemed content to leave me alone, at least for the time being. I’d hidden among the books after a solo breakfast and my morning shower. I’d missed the sheer luxury of daily showers while I was on the road with the boys (my boys, as I tried not to think of them), and I was making up for lost time.
The dress though, it brought bile up in the back of my throat. The high collar was going to make my curvy chest look… squished and uncomfortable. It was a dress meant for someone like my sister, who was all bony angles, and not someone who had ‘become a woman’ with the ass and boobs to prove it as soon as she hit thirteen. It was just the sort of dress my parents used to pick for me, and nothing at all like I preferred. A boat-neck would have given me room to breathe, and even though I’d never really done the super-short miniskirts, this one was down to my calves. Undergarments, lacy and silky and definitely brand new, were placed beside it, and I wondered when the hell my mother had the time to have clothing ordered in my size… and how she’d known my size to begin with. Maybe she’d just guessed.
There was a note, on a silver tray. Of course it was a silver tray. I rolled my eyes at my mother’s decadence. What did she think, that this was the Regency era still and we needed to present our calling cards on a tray when we arrived at a friend’s house? I slipped open the note.
My dearest Darcy,
My mother’s handwriting was elegant as always, the purple ink sprawling across the thick cream paper.
Your esteemed father has advised me to let you be for now but know that my heart flutters with the anticipation of our reunion.
A lump formed in my throat, making it hard to breathe, hard to swallow. I had been gone for years, and she was avoiding me because he’d told her too? It wasn’t hard to think that if it’d been my kid who’d fucked off and vanished, I would be tearing down walls to get to them. But that was my mother. Passive to the extreme, content to let the world wash by her as her husband ordered her around like she was a pretty little marionette.