by Gwen Rivers
“Underhill. And not people, the fey.”
“So, you’re telling me, what. That you’re a fairy from a magical kingdom?”
“Technically it’s a queendom.” He shakes his head. “That’s not where I was born, only where I lived for a time. My circumstances were …unusual.”
From his tone, I deduce his words are an understatement. I don’t believe him, though my rational mind has yet to offer any sort of explanation to the night’s events. Aiden had promised not to lie to me, but is it a lie if he believes the nonsense he spews? “And how did you come to live with the fairies?”
He shakes his head, a shaggy lock of hair falling over his eyes. “It’s a long story and we have been here too long. You need to go home and stay there.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I yank off my socks and stuff them in my boots and then head into the stream. The water is icy on my bare feet, the rocks sharp. “I came out tonight for a purpose and I mean to see it through.”
Aiden remains on the bank but raises his voice loud enough so that I can hear him over the splashing. “I’m sorry about Sarah.”
My boots fall from my nerveless fingers and hit the water with a splash.
I am frozen, the water washing over my feet and ankles. There is a sucking sensation, as though I am being slowly devoured by the stream, just another rock for it to dull down over time.
Aiden rises to his full height. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“You know nothing about Sarah.” I shake my head. “Or me.”
“You couldn’t have done anything,” he insists.
I won’t talk to Aiden about this. I refuse to, but again, something deeper within me overrides my will. “I could have killed him.”
“He wasn’t for you to kill.”
I shake my head. “You sound like Addy. I knew what was happening to her. I should have stopped it before...while it could have helped her.”
“He wasn’t one of yours,” he repeats the sentiment, speaks the words as though he understands.
He can’t. But the way he’s looking at me—is that pity in his gaze? “What’s it to you? I saw you rip a guy’s throat out with your teeth not even an hour ago.”
Aiden doesn’t flinch at the reminder. A stone-cold killer, no remorse, just like me. “Why risk exposure? So he doesn’t hurt anyone else? Or to punish him for hurting you?”
I turn back around, determined to tackle the stream and get away from him. “He can’t hurt me.”
“Sarah is dead, Nic. Taking her stepfather out won’t bring her back.”
The words hit me with the impact of bullets. I lose my footing and fall to my hands and knees in the water. He’s right, I know he’s right. Nothing will bring her back, nothing I do or don’t do will fix what has been broken.
Behind me, there is splashing and then a hand reaches out for me. “Come with me.”
I look at the proffered hand while my own slowly freeze. The urge takes me to just lie down in the stream, let the frigid water numb me back to where I was yesterday before I saw him.
Before Sarah died.
“Nic, please.”
I glare up at him, all the bitterness twisting my insides finding an exterior target. “Why do you care, huh?”
His expression is soft. “Because I hate to see you in pain.”
Pain. That’s what I’ve been feeling since the aunts told me what happened. Not physical pain, like a burn or a cut, but emotional anguish, mental torment.
Sarah is gone. Gone. Never coming back. The tightness in my chest constricts my lungs until I can barely breathe.
“Let me help you,” Aiden whispers. “Please.”
I take his hand. That flash of heat rushes through me. Awareness of him, of myself and that I’ve just agreed to something more than a hand out of the water.
Connection, burrowing deep, filling a small part of the echoing cavern inside me.
Aiden helps me out of the stream, then goes back for my forgotten boots. I lay back on the ground, lacking the energy to get up, to go find Joe and make him pay. To dry myself. My jeans are soaked to mid-thigh, my hands and feet freezing.
My black heart, broken.
Not a clean break either, not something to be set like a fractured bone. How strange that I’d never thought I possessed a heart until it shattered into a million pieces.
“You can walk, or I can carry you.” His tone has changed again, making it clear that there isn’t a third option.
“I’ll walk.”
My boots hit the ground with a thunk about a foot away from my head. “I’d recommend you put them on.”
“They’re soaked through.”
His gaze doesn’t waver, his voice solid as steel. “Better than walking barefoot back to the lot and getting your feet torn up. You can take them off as soon as you’re in the truck.”
I stare at him for a minute. He stares right back. Ignoring the saturated socks, I pull on the boots.
The playfulness is gone, as is the formality. He’s a man with a purpose now and I get the feeling this is the true Aiden.
A survivor on a mission.
Again, he helps me up, this time, not releasing my hand. Each step is accompanied by an unpleasant squish, but Aiden cuts a clear course and we are back at my truck in under fifteen minutes.
“Keys?” he holds out a hand.
I balk at handing them over. I’ve gotten this far, I can drive home. “I’ll take it from here.”
He studies me a moment, then nods and steps back. “I need to clean up the mess, but I’ll be right behind you. If you want company, leave your bedroom window open.”
I blink, a little shocked that he would just throw it out there. “I don’t... that is, I’m not....”
A grin steals over his face. “I don’t mean for sex, Nic. I was talking about answers. I’m sure you have questions after tonight.”
“Good, that’s uh, good. Because sex isn’t on the table. Like ever. I’m asexual.”
I’ve never told anyone that before. Explaining that I don’t experience physical attraction to others is complicated and making such a claim leads to questions, or even worse, comes across as a challenge.
Aiden’s eyebrows lift. “You’re not attracted to me?”
I stand there in my soggy boots and shake my head. “No.”
“Or anyone else? Ever?”
“I only use sexual attraction as a weapon to entice others, but I don’t experience it myself.”
He smiles then. “Good.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s good that you’ve made yourself so clear. You aren’t interested in me sexually. It’s good to know where I stand. Be sure to let me know if that changes.”
I eye him suspiciously. “It won’t. So, don’t think you can convert me or whatever.”
“I have no intention of converting you or whatever.” He opens the truck door. “Time to go.”
What the hell does that mean? That he’s not attracted to me? Why does the thought fill me with disappointment? And why am I worrying about such stupid shit?
I climb in the truck and reach out to shut the door. Where naked Aiden stood a moment before there is now only the large black wolf.
He stares at me with hungry green eyes.
I shiver and slam the door shut with him safely on the other side.
Addy and Chloe are waiting on the porch when I drive up. Chloe is parked in her Hampton Bay wicker chaise with a scruffy looking marmalade cat on her lap. Addy stands at the railing, knuckles turning white. Even from several yards away I can tell she is so angry she is practically vibrating with rage.
“Where the hell have you been?” She asks the second I have one wet foot on the ground.
“Out. I needed to get out.” Normally I would be a bit careful with Addy being in such a lather, but the nonstop emotion and unearthly events have taken a toll.
“Out? You think that works as an explanation?” Addy’s eyes narrow on my wet clothes. “Did you kill
him and dump his body in a river?”
For a moment, I have no idea who she means. Then it snaps back, the whole point of my outing. “No.”
“Tell me the truth,” she gets right in my face.
“Addy, back off,” Chloe rises from her chair, still holding the cat, her expression worried.
“She deliberately disobeyed us,” Addy snaps, not taking her eyes from me. “Went out on her own after a target that we said—”
“I know what she’s done,” Chloe interrupts. “But we need to be calm and decide how best to handle this.”
My heart sinks. They don’t believe me. Don’t believe I didn’t kill Joe.
“Were you seen?” Addy rests her hands on my shoulders as though preparing to shake me.
I shove her. “Aren’t you supposed to be goddesses of Fate? Don’t you know whether someone is alive or dead?”
“It’s not like we have supernatural lo-jack.” Chloe’s tone is dry. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Well, how the hell would I know? You never tell me anything!” My voice rises to a shout. I’ve never actually shouted before, let alone at them.
Addy keeps her distance, but her tone is no less volatile. “This is not the time for some sort of temper tantrum. Did you or did you not go after that man?”
“I did.”
Both sisters flinch. “Where is he?” Addy demands.
Something inside my chest withers. I thought that they were on my side, that our odd little family unit fit together because we were all well off-center. The Fates and their adopted serial killer. But looking at the two of them as they stare me down, it dawns on me that it’s never been the three of us against the world. It’s the two of them keeping most of the world safe from me.
“Nic?” Chloe sets the cat down and it scurries off the porch.
“Probably passed out in some public restroom. I repeat I didn’t kill him. Why don’t you believe me?”
“Birds need to fly. Fish need to swim. You need to kill. It’s Mother Nature at her most basic.” Addy utters each sentence matter-of-factly.
“Are you saying that I’m an addict? Is this some sort of fucked up intervention?” And only yesterday she was arguing that I wasn’t a serial killer.
“Let’s forgo the drama,” Addy growls. “Did you not have the opportunity to take him out?”
“I was interrupted.”
“And you expect us to believe that would dissuade you? Gods, Nic! I swear, sometimes you are more trouble than you’re worth.”
My hands ball into fists. Every muscle shakes. Words come out a low warble that grows louder on each syllable. “I have had plenty of opportunities. Dozens, maybe hundreds. I should have taken him out months ago. But I didn’t, because of you, your paranoia and fretting. If you think I’m so much trouble, then maybe I should be locked away where I can’t hurt anyone else!”
“Nic,” Chloe tries, but I ignore her, ignore both of them and storm into the house, slamming the screen door behind me.
I wait until I’m in the shower—where I know they won’t follow—to let the tears fall.
Chapter 7
Those Who Lie Down with Wolves
Another sleepless night awaits me. Though bone-weary, I lie on my side and stare at the window and have a debate on whether to open it. Aiden promised me answers. More than the aunts have ever done. He also seemed relieved when I told him I wasn’t attracted to him and he vowed not to try anything. If I trust him and he goes back on his word, I can always smooch him.
Except he knew what I intended to do to Joe. Somehow, he was aware I staked out the Shitty BanG to commit murder. I knew he had been watching me, but had he seen everything I’d done? And, even more disturbing, did he have some sort of defense against my Goodnight Kiss?
That thought causes my lungs to constrict. Imagine, locking lips with someone and not seeing him or her die immediately afterward. Kissing someone because I want to, not to kill, but to demonstrate affection. I’ve never thought it possible, that someone somewhere would be immune to me. Picturing it makes me shiver.
I haven’t been completely honest with Aiden because I don’t know if I am fully asexual. That label fits me better than any other. Except maybe for monster. Serial killers don’t have sexual feelings, though they do often sustain physical relationships as part of their cover. Mostly, they get their jollies from the kill. But for me, the hunt is about justice, not release. Though I’ve never experienced sexual lust for another person, not the way it’s portrayed on television or online or even at school—where the post-adolescent mating dance is a daily occurrence—I have a hypothesis that it’s in me to develop those sorts of feelings.
A hypothesis with no way to prove it. It would have to be someone I trust with the truth about myself. Someone who is also immune to the deadlier effects of my lips. And someone that wants me sexually, even though I wouldn’t reciprocate those feelings from the start and is willing to take the risk. An unlikely trifecta for the perfect test subject. Hard to believe potential dates will line up to test for immunity when I’ve had a hundred percent success rate.
One kiss equals one dead body on the ground.
With chances so slim, I’ve never seen a relationship as a possibility. Like a chemistry experiment, where the correct combination of elements yields a particular result, but change just one thing and it doesn’t work right. But maybe I ruled it out too soon. After all, I’ve cried twice in one day and came home without offing a target. Miracles do happen.
I wish I could talk to Sarah about this. About all of it. Why didn’t I trust her enough when I had the chance? A day ago, I might have tried talking to Chloe, or even to Addy. Not now. My support network is completely decimated.
I probably should know exactly how much Aiden knows about me before I decide anything. Maybe he doesn’t know that my kiss is deadly, only that I am a killer. It seems unlikely because he seems to know everything else about me. But there is a chance.
“Screw it,” I grumble. Shoving the blankets aside, I storm to the window and throw the thing up and then stand back to wait.
At first, there is nothing other than the occasional raindrop hitting the metal porch roof as the wind shakes moisture from the leaves. And then light appears at the tree line. Not electric lights but more like embers smoldering from a fire. Thousands of little sparks drift in through the holes in the screen, landing about five feet from me and begin to take shape.
A familiar shape.
Once the last particle joins with the whole there’s a white flash and Aiden stands before me, a man once more.
“What are you?” There is no accusation in my voice, only curiosity.
“Tired.” He sits wearily on my bed and rubs his eyes. “Pants?”
The ones I’d snagged for him the night before are draped over the seat of my desk chair. I reach for them and toss them to him, then offer my back. Even if he isn’t affected by nudity, the last thing I need is Addy walking in here to find him naked on my bed with me eye-humping him. One brawl with a Fate a day is plenty. My gaze drifts to the door to make sure the latch is secure, and I hunt for something benign to say. “When was the last time you slept?”
There is some rustling of fabric then he responds. “The first night you saw me.”
I frown. “That was three days ago.”
He places a hand on my shoulder. “Got anything to eat?”
I turn around and check to make sure he’s covered before moving to the nightstand. Somehow, I knew he was going to ask about food. The bottom drawer holds my secret chocolate stash. Boxes of cookies, cupcakes, Kit Kat, Hershey bars, both with and sans almonds. I try to eat healthy, but chocolate isn’t something I’m willing to do without.
“Whoa, the motherlode.” Aiden’s eyes go wide. “Is there a reason you have all this in here?”
“If I left it in the kitchen, Chloe would decimate it within minutes. She’s an unrepentant chocoholic with the nose of a bloodhound.” I snag a Kit Kat for myself
and gesture to the drawer. “Help yourself.”
Aiden studies me a moment, then shrugs and selects a package of cupcakes. “One of the Fates is a chocoholic. Learn something new every day.”
I sit in the chair across the room and nibble on the candy. He appears content to eat in silence, which allows me time to gather my thoughts. After the cupcakes, he devours half the chocolate bars, only the ones without almonds, and the entire box of cookies. He stuffs all the wrappers into the cookie box, crumples that into a passable ball shape and tosses it into the trash can on the far side of my desk in a perfect arc.
“Nice shot,” I comment. “I usually have to bank it off the wall.”
“One of my many talents.” He shuts the bottom drawer and then, without asking, opens the top drawer and begins to snoop. Finding nothing of interest, he heads to my bookshelf. I try to swallow my mouthful of chocolate, so I can protest, but he already has the diary out. It looks ridiculous in his big hands, all fluffy, pink and girly. He examines it with a frown. “Doesn’t seem like your style.”
The chocolate is stuck in my throat and it’s an effort not to tear the thing out of his hands before he tries to open it. Did I secure the lock? “Put it back.”
One eyebrow arches but he does as he’s told. “Can’t imagine what you’d write in there. Dear diary, today I daydreamed about kissing my math teacher and watching him twitch and die.”
So, he does know everything. I force a smile, unwilling to let my true terror show. Only Chloe and Addy have ever known so much about me. “He should have let up on the quadratic equation.”
As though sensing I need a minute to digest, Aiden continues to peruse my bookshelf. He’s a tactile explorer, not content to simply read the titles on display. One long finger grazes down the spine of each book in turn. He selects one on heathen traditions and mythos and opens it up. Flips a few pages, frowns and slams it shut. Replaces it carefully on the shelf before turning to face me.