by Holly Gunn
Heavy didn’t seem to be biased earlier, but his question shows he’s not rock and roll. He’s a follow the crowd type.
I want to magic my way through this, to show him how controlled I can be.
I won’t give him the satisfaction.
I do stalk toward the couch he’s sitting on, however. Just short of him, I pick up my sticks and shove them in my back pocket.
“Life motto: If you don’t like it, leave it,” is all I share, then I book it toward the door.
Only Grizz and Snake both bar my exit.
“It’s not cool to stand in the way of an unstable Dabbler chick,” I advise passive-aggressively. Which I hate. I don’t like being passive-aggressive. I’d rather just bang out a beat on the drums to let off some steam.
Both men turn to each other, smirk, then they turn those smirks to me.
I don’t like their looks.
They’re calculating like the kids I work with.
I’ve just recovered from a week of my nerves being stomped on, and I actually like my kids. I don’t need grown men testing me. And no way they’re as cute as my kids. Okay, they’re cute. Just not my type. More like brothers, or cousins, who you can appreciate are good looking but mostly just think—ew.
“You’re already in, Vibe,” Snake declares.
My eyebrows shoot up.
“Yeah, Iz, you’re in,” Grizz grunts. “Heavy’s not usually the dickhead, we are. He’ll be your best friend. You already like us.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Snake tsks. “You know it’s true.”
My lips thin.
Then, my mouth quirks.
But I smooth it out and turn back to Heavy, who’s standing and appears cautious.
“I’m about to school you, my man,” I start since I’m apparently not allowed to leave. “As future king, you should maybe be aware of all the cultures you’re going to come in contact with, but I figure life’s been a little easy on you in some respects. It comes with being a future king, I guess.” He makes no comment, but I wonder at his fleeting reaction, the one where there’s a moment of pain in his eyes. I also quickly change course at that look. “Dabblers are just like any other witch. Would you ever question a Fire or Sea witch’s control?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he shakes his head.
“No, you wouldn’t. Dabblers, for your information, aren’t any different in terms of controlling their magic. The Fire witches teach witches from a young age, and sadly, if a child is found to not be able to control their gift, their magic is suppressed. What sucks about this is that they haven’t changed their training in thousands of years.” I see Heavy’s eyes widen at that and there’s anger in his eyes now. “Exactly. Suppressing kids’ magic, that’s just wrong. Shifters don’t put down a kid who struggles with his anger even though his animal might cause destruction. They teach him to reappropriate the kid’s anger.” Good goddess, I sound like Ryn. “Fire witches don’t do that. Even Sea witches and Judges have a history of suppressing volatile magic. There’s a reason certain witch families are seen as ‘better’. And it’s not because they are. It’s because they take control to a point of strangulation in many cases. Not all within the families agree with the practice, but it happens. Dabblers don’t have that stance. We’re free to use all the magics—yes, because we’re Dabblers, but we’re still free. And that makes our experience growing up much different. We’re artists and dreamers, and it shows. But we’re still logical. We still learn control. We still have the same wants and desires as any tribe or family, and we learn early to redirect the magic we have into a talent.”
“Like drumming?” Grizz asks roughly from behind me.
I don’t turn toward Grizz.
I want Heavy to see me as the person I am, and not the bias he’s created.
“Like drumming,” I reply, holding the man’s deep blue gaze.
Heavy’s smile is slow. I don’t know what he’s smiling about. I only know the movement is slow and a little scary.
He lifts his chin toward Grizz.
“Grizz doesn’t like change.” There’s a grunt at that. “But he told us there was a woman who could ‘play a beat like it was born in her, a part of her soul coming to life right in front of you’. Just like that. Grizz doesn’t get flowery, but that’s exactly what he said.”
I feel slightly uncomfortable at the praise.
I turn toward Grizz, who isn’t speaking. He’s staring intently at me.
I smile with gratitude and say, “Thank you.”
He doesn’t take back his words or try to save his cred by denying what Heavy’s said. He just jerks his chin up.
I then face Heavy.
He’s the one who asks, “We good?”
I shrug a shoulder, all cool now, and say, “Eh.” I then ask another question, “Do you get me?”
He takes a step forward, right in my space. “Yeah, Izzy, I get you.” His eyes intent, “I get you a lot more now.”
I bet he does.
“Well,” I speak abruptly, done with the emotion for now, “when’s the first practice?”
Heavy chuckles.
Grizz grunts.
Snake smirks.
I feel like I’m in a zoo, and the only unknown is Heavy. Grizz is a grizzly, no doubt. I know bears. Snake’s name is self-explanatory. Heavy being an unknown, worries me a bit. I claim I’m a go-with-the-flow girl, but when it comes down to it, I have a schedule like clockwork. My kids give me a run for my money, but even they are predictable—if you pay attention. I like consistency in my routine.
Even with the unknown, Heavy’s chuckle is comforting.
“Tuesday night,” Snake says.
“Cool,” I reply.
Then I turn back to Snake and Grizz. “Are you going to let me out now?”
“Are you going to be here on Tuesday?” Grizz counters.
I put my fist forward. He bumps it.
“Sure thing.”
Snake walks forward to ruffle my hair. “See you Tuesday, Vibe.”
I nod slowly, wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. I also wonder what we’re going to play given that we’ve got a drummer, a lead singer, and a bassist, and that’s all. I’ll still be here. These guys intrigue me. I might like routine, but I am a Dabbler. I like a little of everything, including a little bit of intrigue.
“What’s the band’s name, by the way?”
Heavy takes his turn to say goodbye by pulling on one of my dreads again. “Shyfter.”
I crack up. “No shit?”
Heavy chuckles.
Grizz grunts.
Snake smirks.
The door creaks and I turn toward it.
My laughter stutters, and my breath catches.
“You …” I say, totally uncool.
I can feel their eyes come to me, but I don’t care. A beat has started inside me, and I have the sudden urge to reappropriate my gift from drumming into something else entirely.
Stuffed-shirt guy, the one from the night before who looks like some Roman god, is standing in the doorway, his suit the same navy blue, his eyes focused on me. He’s stopped right in the doorway, but after a beat, he fixes his jacket and enters the office.
I can see in the set of his shoulders and by his presence that he’s a Have-not. He’s rich, and top to toe, he’s got the look of money.
I also know by that one look that the office we’ve been in isn’t Heavy’s as I thought it might be, but his.
“You two know each other?” Snake asks.
Before I can answer, suit guy shakes his head, and firmly states, “No.”
Ouch.
Everyone’s quiet. I don’t understand the tenseness that’s coming from him. I also don’t care. There’s this burning in the pit of my stomach. I’ve never felt this before, at least not since I was a teen and had a crush on a boy who didn’t like me.
The man walks past us, his gait steady almost graceful, but it’s a man’s grace. Practiced. Co
ntrolled. I shiver, and I can’t say whether the shiver is lust or due to the cold coming off him.
He stands behind his desk, looks to the single folder sitting there, and although he’s leaned over, he glances up at all of us.
I realize, my eyes and body have followed his movement from the door to the desk.
“I see you’ve chosen your drummer.”
“Izzy’s got the talent, Grizz says, and she fits in,” Heavy tells the man, casually, as though he’s not a hard man who looks like he lives to make money—and thinks of nothing else but filling his coffers. Heavy even moves toward the suit. “Snake’s decided she’s got a good vibe—”
“Good,” he replies, cutting Heavy off.
My back goes straight.
Heavy’s brow furrows. Oddly, he looks to me as though I’m the reason for the man’s change.
“I’m just …” My voice trails. “I’m just gonna go,” I finish.
I turn to make my way to the door and hear Heavy shout, “Tuesday, Izzy-babe. Bring the sticks and the attitude. Leave the education.”
I turn toward him and grin. “No way in hell, big man. You might need some more schoolin’.”
He shakes his head in humor but replies, “I’m a quick learner.”
I nod slowly, “I can see that, H.”
He smiles at my calling him ‘H’ but I think he also smiles because we’re starting to understand each other, and in a world that seems drenched in chaos, it’s nice to find common ground.
I walk past Grizz who grunts, “See ya’, Iz.”
“See ya’, Grizz.”
Snake does the ruffling to the top of the head thing and says, “Later, Vibe.”
I lift my chin and smile up at him. “Sure thing, Viking.”
Then I get the hell out of dodge.
I do this feeling almost … heartbroken. I don’t know why. He’s a suit. I knew this last night when he stopped to listen. I knew this when I touched myself at his memory.
I know suits. They’re the Have-nots who think they have it all.
But still, even knowing he’s a dick who only wants money and power, I still feel disappointed. I wasn’t even on his radar. Not at all.
That hurts. It hurts because I had a fantasy about him. The best one I’ve ever had. The best orgasm, too—alone or with someone.
And he looked right through me.
Something that I hold onto, perhaps too tightly and also pathetically, is that he knew I was the new drummer even though we didn’t tell him this fact.
He might not have wanted to admit it, but he remembered me.
4
Elizabeth
The first thing that happens as I step out of the limo onto the cobblestone drive, and gaze up at the mega-mansion in front of me, is my big mouth falls open.
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Ryn’s smiling indulgently at me in her gold dress that glides over the curve of her very voluptuous ass, her dark hair sweeps down her back, looking like J.Lo.
And I’m well, me.
I look down at my red dress, and I know red sets off my pale skin and my other darker features like my near-black eyes and the black of the dreadlocks I’m sporting. But … I’ve got dreadlocks. I’ve got a face my mama claims is ‘pretty but you ruin it with a nose ring’. I’ve got a figure that is boy on the top and all woman on the bottom.
I’ve never thought about these things. Or at least, I’ve never had them become so instantly and glaringly obvious. I’ve had a full life, good boyfriends, good friends, and a family who’s always called me beautiful—even though I know the truth.
I look back up at the mega-mansion, because that’s what it is. It’s got wings on its wings.
Ryn is here as the newest queen of the Dabbler witches. She’s not official. She just started her year and a day training, but when a queen turns 27, she starts that training and it’s intense, as in thrown into the wolf’s den type intense. Or, in this case, the Eagle tribe’s local convocation.
I do not feel like a go-with-the-flow girl tonight.
I do not feel confident.
I do not feel rock and roll.
I feel exactly like what I am … a Have going into the house of a Have-not, except for the first time in my life, the names seem to reverse themselves in my mind. I feel as though I’m the Have-not in a Have’s domain.
And I must say, that sucks.
I blow out a breath.
Ryn grabs my hand.
I take that last step out of the limo. It’s my first time in one, and that makes me feel even worse standing on these cobblestones. I feel like a fraud ... a frumpy, dread-headed, pale, boy-chested, thunder-thighed Have-not.
It’s on that thought that I get angry.
What right do these fancy-ass people have to make me feel like this?
Only, it’s not the fancy-ass people who are making me feel this way, it’s me.
“Iz, you okay, honey?”
Ryn’s gaze is worried as she tends to be. She’s six years younger than me, and yet, most times we’re together, I feel as though I’m the child.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t think I am.”
She squeezes my hand, and I turn to her.
“I think I’m underdressed,” I mutter. She’s about to say something comforting, but I shush her and quickly add, “It’s fine … I’ll be fine.”
She turns fully toward me and advises, “Trust me, your worry isn’t worth it. You’ll meet the king. He’s disdainful, arrogant, and heavy-handed. Being that you’re a better judge of character, you will see this right away and your views on rich people will be further validated.” She pauses for a second and smiles slyly. “Now, the future king … he’s something.”
“Is he …?” I start to ask her, then trail off when she shakes her head.
“No, absolutely not.”
She’s so certain of everything. So firm. So commanding. I don’t have that. I go where the wind takes me. I’m thirty-three years old. I’ve spent the last fifteen years working at the House, what we call the Sarah Fitzwilliam House. I spend every Thursday night playing with the guys, but before a few years ago, I’d just go and bang my old bongos in the exact same spot. So, while I go where the wind takes me, I also tend to like my creature comforts and my routine.
This place is not comfortable.
We walk along the drive, our heels clicking on the stones, and reach the front stoop where a butler (an actual butler!) lets us into the large foyer with gleaming black and white tiles, announcing us based on the card that’s been presented.
I stare around at not only the immaculate surroundings of the large ceilings and the crystal chandeliers that probably cost more than I’ll make in a lifetime, but at all the people in attendance, and my estimation of myself plummets again. Maybe this is why rich people scare me. Perhaps I’ve spent all this time telling myself I’m a Have and they’re Have-nots, but in reality, I feel inferior.
Ugh, I think and shake off the melancholy, instead focusing on the warm feeling of my skin. My hands feel clammy. My feet already pinch in pain because of the heels.
In order to stay with this line of thought and focus on something other than my burgeoning inferiority complex, I glance down at my pained feet in their red high heels. The red against the shiny, waxed floor does not make me feel better.
I don’t need to hear the yelled, “Yo, Vibe” that comes from Snake or the rough, “Hey, Izzy-babe, I didn’t know you were gonna be here,” from Heavy or even the grunted, “Iz” from Grizz.
I feel a beat in my veins that I know very well, and my eyes shift to him.
I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from the man in the suit, even as he appears to look right through me again.
I hate that my eyes are only for him.
I hate that he makes my heart flutter like a damn school girl.
I hate that his face is like stone, impassive and yet it’s also somehow consuming, just as he is.
I hate that he r
epresents everything that is a Have-not, that tonight makes me feel less-than, rather than the usually confident woman I am.
I hate, too, that there’s a moment when he doesn’t look through me. His eyes brighten when our gazes stall on each other. I hate this more because I know mine do the same.
Further, I hate my reaction to the woman at his side. A woman with flowing blonde hair, porcelain skin, deep green eyes, and the most perfectly curved body a woman could have.
My reaction, most unnaturally, being that I want to instantly rip her hair out at the utter claiming she has on the man who I feel is mine.
In point of fact, I hate him—because even with how he treated me earlier in his office, he remembered me.
And, lastly, I hate the hope that sits deep in my gut most of all.
The hope that says maybe he’s not what I think he is, that maybe he’s not your typical Have-not.
His date smiles cattily for some unknown reason. No, that’s not right. The reason is she’s a Rich Bitch Have-not. They’re born catty.
He nods to me, arrogant as you please.
Then they both turn on their heel.
“What in the …?” Ryn’s voice trails as she watches the suit and his perfect arm-candy walk off.
I force my eyes to her. “What?” I ask.
She seems to shake off the moment.
“He’s the future king of the Eagle tribe ...” That hits me deeply, so deeply I turn my eyes their way again, but they’ve already turned a corner. “I had thought …” Again, her voice trails.
I tick my head to the side. “Thought what? You said he wasn’t yours.”
Ryn’s eyes go comically wide, something she never does in company. Wanting to be taken seriously, she tries to hide her expressions.
She turns to the guys who’ve remained quiet, shockingly, during our moment.
“Yours?” Heavy asks.
“She’s got a mark,” I reply.
She pinches my arm.
“Ouch … What is wrong with you?!” I exclaim. “You’re not yourself.”
“Says the woman who looks like her puppy just died and like she needs a shot of vodka when she’s only ever chill.”
I tug at my dress awkwardly and pull one of my feet out of a heel to set it on the black and white marble floor. “I’m a little out of my element in case you haven’t noticed.”