Charlotte

by Mima

  The falcon woman kissed Ryder, slow and lingering. It was intense to watch two people kiss so close to her. The music crowded her head. Licking her own lips, she found her chin tipping to match them. They were the same height, just slightly taller than her, and she could see their tongues duel. Ryder didn’t seem to have vampire teeth like in the movies. The woman’s hands roved across his back to settle on his ass. He thrust against her, and Charlotte’s belly fluttered, breath catching.

  Ryder disengaged. The falcon woman pivoted, opening a narrow gap in invitation, and nodded at Charlotte.

  Ryder shouted at her, “Be polite.” He chucked her under the chin with a flick of his thumb and a crooked grin. “And make sure—”

  Just then the same pack of slim, fit blondes that had thrown him from the club earlier converged. Their hands skimmed over Ryder’s firm, taut skin greedily. Up close, she could see their yellow hair glimmered with the luster of real gold. Their shimmering sequined dresses poured over perfect breasts and bodies, ending at the top of their thighs.

  Ryder groaned, sounding almost in pain. The falcon woman closed an iron hand around Charlotte’s bicep. The blondes tugged, rolling him toward them. The guard pulled Charlotte toward the pink booth.

  The instincts that had howled with caution in the ballroom awoke again. Something was wrong. Ryder was in danger.

  “Wait!” Charlotte lifted her hand toward Ryder, and the closest blonde shoved her face within an inch of Charlotte’s and hissed like a cat.

  Her mouth was full of tiny, widely spaced needle teeth, like she’d swallowed a hedgehog. Charlotte recoiled. The falcon woman dragged her free of the press of the crowd.

  Ryder rolled his shoulders but didn’t dislodge the women. “I said no, ladies. Even a rabble of sylphs must respect the word ‘no’ on a singles’ cruise.”

  But several of them began to undulate against him, and his hips followed theirs. He looked perfect surrounded by them, masculine and dominant, while they gazed at him in adoration. Lust shivered over her skin, mixing with the traces of itchy moonlight.

  Charlotte wanted to follow them. She wanted to rip their hands off Ryder and grind against him herself. She wanted to be wrapped in his arms and kissed, to compare his taste to Ivor’s. A voracious, totally new sexuality lashed Charlotte, her lips throbbing. Both upper and lower. They had no right to touch him. She knew this. Knew it deeply.

  The falcon woman still dragged her toward the booth. Charlotte dug in her heels and used her weight to delay. Ten slender hands threaded through Ryder’s loose, thick hair, pulling his face down.

  The last of her fearful caution evaporated as two sumptuous mouths closed on his. She licked her lips. Ryder disappeared in their glittering circle, swallowed by their taut, hungry flesh. It wasn’t fair. He’d been her flirt. He’d wanted to have sex with her, Charlotte. She wanted to be the one fading into the crowd, writhing. She had always wanted this. The humid air misted her skin, the music hard against her ribs. Her brain seemed thick, her mouth hungry.

  The people jumping and swaying so close were warm, laughing, sultry-eyed. Yes, this was all very new, very weird. But the intense music felt like a protective mask, unlike the too-clear reality of the ballroom. Charlotte didn’t have to run away. She could dive into this sexual, strange world. She was finally in a nightclub. And she belonged here. She was one of them, part of the magic, too. The shame of Ivor’s disappointment mixed with the lust to rescue Ryder.

  The falcon woman shouted, “C’mon!” Her fingers bit into Charlotte’s softness.

  But she just didn’t know. Would Good Girl Charlotte approach the strange trio and get registered? That was logical, official, expected. Or would she fling her caution loose and surge away to join the dancers?

  She wanted the man, but the hunger inside her was stronger than the lust. Power and pride swirled around her. Why had she run from the magic? It was delicious. She wanted it all.

  Her legs wobbled, but she held her balance. If this was what being drunk was like, she’d master it, too. Shoving her slip off her hips, she kicked free of it and walked farther into the crowd of people still dancing.

  She no longer relied on that decadent word “fuck.” It was blunt and obvious. She played instead.

  “Suck,” she cooed to a trio of women.

  “Touch,” she sighed to a less-than-graceful couple.

  “Rub,” she offered to a pair already passionately kissing.

  She circled the room, hips swaying in a slow, deep walk, shoulders back, hands rubbing across her belly and up her arms. She began to glow. The white skin that could look sickly now looked pure.

  She dabbled her fingers over the back of a man with spikes down his spine. Did she even need words?

  Lick, she thought.

  He ripped the scrap of a shirt off the woman he was with and licked a long, thin tongue up her breastbone. She clasped her hands around his head, her enormous eyes dazed.

  The dance floor had only a few hardy souls still on their feet, and the core of sylphs stood out. Charlotte spun lightly among the bodies that smelled like earth and life and love. Landing with a breathless laugh against a mirrored wall, she leaned against the slick, smooth coolness and undid her braid.

  Across the room the Elder’s dark cape flapped with a gesture of command. The falcon-winged woman strode toward her in a straight line, shoving at people locked together. A pair of men trailed her, one muscled and one delicate. Charlotte laughed.

  Whispering “fuck” into her hand, she kissed her palm and blew across it, sending the command into the distance.

  The falcon woman’s head snapped back a moment later as if she’d taken a right hook. The delicate man ripped the pants down over her ass, shoving his hand deep between her legs while she ate ferocious kisses across the larger muscled man, slamming her own hand down his pants.

  In a moment, they slowed, then turned, limbs still entwined. They scowled at her. Moved like some monster toward her.

  Charlotte cocked her head. These people didn’t want to fuck. They weren’t like the others, weren’t part of the dancers, hadn’t sought out the mask of music and light and sex. She pouted. If she forced them, and she could, that wouldn’t be nice.

  Movement came again. The crow moving up to the edge of the crowd, her cloak like a black joyless pit. It all became clear.

  The crow had sent Charlotte to the dancers in order to control Charlotte, through her own lust. But Charlotte had turned her lust outward, had discovered her magic instead of being shackled by it. Charlotte was not supposed to be glowing.

  There had been many long nights playing chess with Gram. She knew the power of a pawn. Poor pawns.

  Snapping her fingers, she said, “Fuck. Now.”

  The woman’s wings snapped wide. Both men fell on each other, kissing, groping. The warrioress trembled, staring at Charlotte with horrified golden eyes. Charlotte rubbed her ass against the mirror she rested against. “Fuck together.”

  The huge man rolled onto his back, arching his enormous dick up with rigid hips. It was Charlotte’s first clear sight of an erection, and it was gorgeous. The falcon’s wings folded and she tore her pants off, settling on him delicately but still staring at Charlotte. Charlotte bit her lip. The delicate man stood facing the falcon, directing his erection at her face, and finally the woman looked away, sucking the man’s cock deeply. They moved together with a unified rhythm. Like marching.

  Charlotte grew angry. They were held by her command but not lost to it. They made something ugly out of something that was supposed to be freeing. Drilling her gaze hard, she imagined shooting darts with her eyes. Cupid darts. Truth darts. Orgy darts. They paused.

  The violence with which they fell on one another was pure. All three seemed to wrestle for control. Kisses blurred red, hips pumped wildly before another member fought to take that place. The large man roared in rapture, and
a falcon’s high cry cut across the music in counterpoint.

  Charlotte relaxed. Satisfied. She smirked at the stone-still shadow of the Elder. Now for something more personal.

  Charlotte twirled a loose strand of coppery hair and focused on the golden sylphs. “Submit.” The women knelt, their hands outstretched along Ryder’s bare torso.

  Sliding her own arms up along the glass, reaching sinuously, bare except for her high-waist cotton panties, she purred to Ryder, “Please yourself.” The bossy sylphs had tried to use their sex magic against the vampire. But now the tables had turned.

  Ryder tore his leather pants right off. The leather shredded, and he cast it aside. One woman was scooped forward, her face mashed to his groin. Before Charlotte even had time to appreciate Ryder’s cock, it was swallowed.

  She shivered, wondering at the woman’s hedgehog teeth and Ryder’s pleasure, but he tossed his head in apparent ecstasy. The women stayed crouched around his legs while his ass flexed and thrust into the woman giving him fellatio.

  Charlotte sighed, happy. Her gaze drifted over the room. A cluster of people watching in awe at the bar received her next order, as did the bartender and waitress, huddled by the cash register. The crowd in the doorway were drawn back in and sent to the floor, and faces pressed to the glass vanished. A man leaving the restroom joined the closest group with one flick of her finger. When Ryder tossed the first sylph away and drew the second one to his hips, she clapped.

  Humming, she rubbed her ass back and forth on the cool glass, her blood sizzling, no longer starving but not quite sated. This wasn’t the same as kissing a boy. It was better. No fussing about her safety, no worrying about condoms or tomorrow. How perfect to be part of it all, yet not.

  Movement without sensuality caught her eye. The Elder and her matrons had walked onto the dance floor. The Elder raised her hands.

  Nausea lanced out of nowhere. Charlotte jerked forward, retching. She turned her head, breathing through clenched teeth, willing herself not to vomit. The horrible urge to gag faded as she watched a couple kiss, slow and loving.

  Straightening, she stared at the triumvirate of fairy evil. What should she say? Kneel? Leave? Fuck? She cradled her breasts again, thinking.

  The matrons laid their hands on the Elder’s shoulders. The Elder raised her arms again and a sharp burn exploded between Charlotte’s eyes. Her head rocked back sharply, smashing painfully against the mirror. But it was a dull ache compared to the twisting drill driving inside her skull. Warmth slithered over her lips from a gushing bloody nose. Pressure built. Stroke, her inner self screamed, terrified.

  Decision made. Holding her head in both hands, she stared into the shadowed hood of the stooped Elder and whispered, “Die.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, she pushed her will out like a lance. The Elder staggered. The matrons braced her with both their hands.

  Uh-oh. Charlotte pursed her lips. Before the trio pulled some new trick, she needed to stop this. She needed more power. Her narrowed gaze fell on Ryder’s still-thrusting hips. Fuck, she thought at him.

  Ryder tossed the sylph working on him away. She fell prone beside the first. He took a new sylph by the hair and spun her around. He fell to his knees and slid inside her. She dropped to all fours and shrieked, bucking back against him.

  Charlotte sighed. That was nice. A very satisfying moment. She straightened up, glad for the mirror’s support, and bared her teeth. Die, bitch, she thought at the Elder.

  The Elder swayed, fell to her knees. The matrons staggered, but their hands remained, holding her up. Agony took Charlotte’s heart and caged it, cranking the bars smaller with every second.

  Charlotte couldn’t breathe. Her heart couldn’t beat. Her skull was going to crack at any second. The fairy Elder was pissed, and Charlotte had lost. Her decision to revel in the freedom of the club had been a deadly jig of hubris. The lights dimmed, the music faded. Sorrow filled her. She’d just been about to discover something amazing, to become something new . . .

  Charlotte looked at Ryder. Your fantasy. Now.

  This last command wasn’t to reach for more power. Wasn’t to spite the crone. It was just to make her last moment something good. He grabbed a sylph by the arm and pulled her up. She straddled the woman he fucked, facing him, wrapping her legs around his trim, muscled torso. He bent her back over an arm and ate at her breasts while she humped his stomach, all while he thrust. The last remaining sylph stood and plastered herself to his back, rubbing against him, kissing his throat viciously. No, not kissing. Biting. Then licking. He went wild, hips blurring as he hammered preternaturally fast into the shrieking sylph.

  Ryder screamed, fantastical canines gleaming in the club strobes. Charlotte smiled, sagging, hurting, but not sorry she’d learned her power, tested and explored it instead of running from it the way she had with Ivor. Agony twisted all her bones. Darkness tinged her burning lungs. Her lids fluttered heavily, and then the sylph that supported Ryder came. And so did the one at his back. Then the woman who lay out before him, and the two on the floor, who were entwined as well. Ryder’s hips slammed home, his muscles leaping into taut, swollen relief. His face smoothed into bliss.

  Ka-pow. It was as if every dancer’s actualized desires in the club infused Charlotte. Power tangoed through her thighs, hips, and ribs. A breath slammed into her. Her sight cleared, zeroing through the neon colors to the black hole across the room. Heart locked and about to burst, she trembled, shook, and screamed, “Die!”

  The Elder wilted, sagging forward and falling as lightly as a leaf, her cloak puffing afterward. The matrons lifted their arms and faces to the ceiling and wailed an ancient ululation that rang in Charlotte’s head.

  Wiping the blood from her mouth, she spat. Grim and woozy, she swept her gaze over the grinding bodies. Hers. All hers. Everyone here was given over to flesh and life and pleasure.

  Ryder still pumped, his body a tight arc of male beauty. The sylphs before and behind him toppled to the side, pairing off like the first two. The remaining woman hung her head down limply where she braced on all fours.

  A ripple of orgasms swept the crowd. Not everyone came, but several, including the falcon woman, who now bounced on the delicate man’s cock. The hawk’s skreee sounded again and again.

  Charlotte’s aches and pain faded. Relieved, she stood, tossing her sweaty hair over her shoulders. Power eddied uncertainly in her belly. The two matrons embraced, arms surrounding each other while they kissed with a frantic passion. Tingling sensations spread through Charlotte’s shoulders and down her arms, her fingers wiggling at the strange energy.

  Turning to face the mirror, Charlotte couldn’t believe what she saw. She shone brighter than the disco ball, glittering, her hair a lush red-gold she’d never seen before. Her breasts were enormous, her hips flowing with a curve she’d often admired in her room but thought no one would ever agree with. Now she didn’t doubt her own beauty. Her eyes were more than silver. They glimmered like . . . a mirror. A polished, shining mirror.

  Laughing, she kissed her reflection, a touch of hot lips that blurred her own face with steamy breath.

  The matrons appeared to flank her image. Unconcerned, she rolled her shoulders, turning to greet them.

  They knelt, holding hands, and spoke in unison. “My queen.”

  Charlotte smiled. That sounded fun.

  Bowing their foreheads down to the dirty club linoleum, they held the position, their mature bottoms uptipped in a bustled skirt and silver slacks. Charlotte waited.

  Then she decided to take a stroll. She wandered the club, arranging people as she liked, mixing up couples, shedding more clothes, suggesting whatever incredible sexual position popped into her imagination.

  The people were wonderful. Now that she wasn’t so caught up in the excitement, she could see how each was a marvel of magic. And not just in their bodies. Differences she’d been g
lad the club lights had masked were interesting now, and the power swirling inside their skin was clear to her.

  By the time she wandered back to the folded matrons, she was at peace, full, satisfied. “Get up.”

  Both women stood, keeping their faces lowered.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Winter, and this is Willow.” The silver-haired woman who had served her the goblet gestured to the corseted one, who curtsied. “We are now the eldest of the High Court of the Fae.”

  “Fay?”

  “Fairies. Your class of fantastical.”

  Charlotte grunted, uninterested.

  “My queen, we would serve you, as we served Astarte, who called herself the Elder.”

  “She was a queen?” Charlotte wrinkled her nose.

  Willow answered, “Yes. And we are eager to discover a new one, one who prefers skin to cloaks, dancing to sitting. We are fairies, not spiders, and it has been over a hundred years since our queen wanted pleasure for others.”

  Laughing, shaking her head, Charlotte held out her hands. “And to think I wanted to be like you.”

  Willow took her hand first, shifting to stand beside her in her whispering long skirts. “You are lovely, my queen. Everyone will soon be wearing their hair red.”

  Shrugging, Charlotte said, “Or orange.”

  Winter took her other hand. “My queen, thank you for accepting your court.”

  Clasping Charlotte’s hand tightly, she turned and lifted her chin. When she spoke, her voice rolled out in a thunderous boom, louder than the music. “Long live Queen Charlotte!”

  The entwined people paused, heads raised, bodies turning. Those who could, bowed. A very slurred echo came back: “Long live Queen Charlotte.”

  Charlotte blinked as both women went down on one knee. They took a matching deep breath, then electrified her. The room went white, as lightning raced through her. Muscles seizing, she was held rigid between them.