Charlotte

by Mima

  For an eternity, voices echoed inside, cries of fury and gladness, fear and awe. A connection slammed through her. Charlotte had known such a bond with one person in her life. Gram had been mother, sister, friend, and mentor. The emptiness she’d left behind was filled, matched, expanded. So many people. She knew how far away they were, how sad, how lost. She knew which ones were to be feared, which were in need. And they all recognized her, in return.

  It was impossible to understand. She arched on tiptoe, crying out, her ears echoing with the thrum of drums and guttural voices shouting, “Queen!” And then the music stopped. The speakers crackled. The winking dance lights stilled, faint white lights coming on through the rigging. Heaving breaths came audibly, a faint groan of pleasure, a sigh.

  In the silence, she settled onto her heels. Every pair of eyes in the nightclub stared at her. She did not feel exposed, shy, ashamed of what she’d done. Clutching hard to Winter and Willow’s hands, she looked at Ryder, one of the handful of non-fairy pools of silence in the room.

  His chest billowed with the force of his breaths. He eased from the sylph in front of him, stroking himself boldly. She watched as he took in the scope of the bodies spread around him. He blinked with lingering shock, then stared over at her, his black gaze drawing her.

  She tipped her head. Would they deny their desires? Would there be an outcry of fear now that her power seemed to be settling? More people pulled apart, while some continued to kiss again. Voices began to murmur. The falcon woman staggered over to the bar and pulled down a bottle of bourbon.

  Ryder licked his lips, then winked.

  Charlotte’s lips spread slow and wide. Then she winked back.

  What do you think will happen when a spurned werewolf discovers he dumped the new Fairy Queen?

  No, it was too dark, too chaotic, and this carnal hunger wasn’t normal. Something was going on, either with this new foxfire status or just from being with all these magical weirdos. It seemed as if the very air was drugged, so maybe those sylphs weren’t really bothering Ryder. The falcon woman jerked her hard enough to face the pink-and-white booth in the black cave of a room.

  Charlotte followed her, weak and weary. This whole night was too frustrating. Her head began to throb on the off-beat. She went from yearning to bounce to wanting to disappear. When they stopped at the velvet rope, the scent of flowers overwhelmed the musk of the dancers.

  “Elder.” Falcon woman bowed and returned to her place in the line holding the crowd away.

  Charlotte couldn’t believe the intricacy of the two women’s hair. One was a silver gray and one was a salt-and-pepper brunette. Their hair was glossy and thick, coiled and braided, woven and threaded with ribbons, ivy, flowers, and for one blink, a pair of tiny red eyes that retreated. The curls were set perfectly in the pile, untouched by pins or the stiffness of hair spray. Looking down at their faces past their hair took a long, rude moment, but Charlotte had always had hair-envy.

  Neither of the women looked at her. They continued to stare idly into space toward the crowd.

  The woman in the cloak pushed the hood back just enough to bare her face. The cloak was a richly textured handspun weave, and appeared to be wool. The face below was just as textured, and appeared to be leather. Tiny turquoise blue eyes bored into Charlotte from the deep folds and wrinkles. This woman seemed an unlikely patron to the thrumming, sexual nightclub.

  “Fairy found. By accident, I think.” Her voice was nothing like her face, low and sultry with a Hispanic accent. “Your hand.” She extended an elderly hand in demand.

  Charlotte shifted. Her feet began to itch. She didn’t want to be here. Well, she did. But not in this world. She wanted to go, to be young and alive and normal. To get out of here, she put her hand on the Elder’s. The woman gave a faint jerk and slid her hand away.

  “You’re a will-o’-the-wisp, a creature of water. A cruise is a very dangerous place for you to be when you have no control. You were stupid to come.” The observation was delivered mildly, but the spot between Charlotte’s shoulder blades began to burn with the need to run.

  She had experience ignoring seniors when they grew bad-tempered. “I understand there are some laws I should learn.” She looked to the pair of semi-bare-chested women on the other side. Neither looked at her. Neither seemed to be helpful against this Elder who was judging her unfairly.

  “Yes.” The Elder looked at the silver-haired woman with the sheer blouse. “She’ll need a taste of Iugo.”

  The woman slid out of the booth and left in a waft of overwhelming rose scent. That shifted the perfume remaining to an intense lily-of-the-valley.

  Charlotte stood there long enough to feel uncomfortable and irritable. The club music beat on her, settling inside her ribs. Eventually assuming she was waiting for the silver-haired woman to return, she crossed her arms.

  “My skin itches from here.” The corseted one spoke without shifting a muscle, her voice so faint it barely traveled over the electronic music. “It’s the first night of the cruise and the crowd is wild. Using the Iugo could be explosive.”

  Alarmed, Charlotte looked from one to the other. Explosive? What was she talking about? “I just want to learn the rules and go to my cabin.” It would be nice to get some tips about what kind of magic she held, but that looked unlikely with this crow.

  The rose-scented woman swayed gracefully around the silver rope end stand and sat. She placed a clay goblet on the table, a thick tan one, clearly handmade. It was the type of thing Charlotte saw at summer art festivals, not a nightclub.

  “Drink that.” The Elder drew her hood back down over her face.

  “What is it?” Charlotte stared into the liquid. It was flecked with herbs but appeared clear like water. With the light so dim here, it was hard to tell. “I’m just here to get the basic laws.”

  “You will drink, or I will have you pinned to the floor while it’s poured down your throat.”

  Charlotte reared back. The other two women still did not look at her. Heart now pounding, she turned to go.

  And could not move. Her feet were sealed to the floor. She could flex her knees, but even when she leaned far past her balance, arms straining, her feet would not move.

  “I will not drink some potion from strangers.” Magic strangers. Mean magic strangers.

  The three women sat impassive. Charlotte flailed, pulling at the rope until one of the end stands toppled. “Help!” she cried out. Not loud enough. Throat tight, voice high, she screamed again. “Help!”

  None of the nearby crowd even looked. Diving for the cup, she tried to grab for it, to spill it, throw it in the crone’s face. But it slid out of reach as if on a conveyor.

  The silver-haired woman stood, taking the cup up again. She had incredibly complicated white hair, uptipped breasts displayed in a ghostly shirt, gray silk slacks without a crease . . . and sad dark eyes. Charlotte shook her head. Something very, very bad would happen if she drank that.

  The woman came closer. Charlotte shoved at her, but as soon as she touched her arm, the room spun with the force of yearning that ran through her. Lust. Skin. Now. If her interest in Ivor and Ryder was married and doubled, it would feel like this.

  Her head sagged slightly to the side, and her knees trembled. “No . . .” But it came out in a moan.

  Her belly fluttered when the woman lifted a hand to cup the back of Charlotte’s head. Her touch was gentle. Charlotte’s head collapsed into her touch, and Silver Hair lifted the goblet to her upturned mouth.

  Keep your lips closed!

  The cup rammed hard, cutting her lip on her teeth, weaseling into the seam. Liquid poured over her cheeks, chin, and inside. It was delicious.

  Don’t swallow!

  Her chin lifted to better accommodate the rim. Her jaw opened. Liquid, more than what the chalice should have held, filled her mouth, ran down her neck, pushed against
her locked throat. She swallowed. Flavors burst into fireworks and her nipples went to ice.

  What is it doing?

  The woman stepped away and sat once again, the goblet empty on the table. Charlotte’s tongue worked thickly in her mouth, seeking out more cinnamon, more cucumber, more anise. A thousand flavors that didn’t belong together suddenly made her ravenously hungry.

  From far away, a tiny voice wailed, I’ve been drugged. Get out of here!

  She turned and stumbled toward the crowd. Heat poured from her as if she were the sun. She shoved her way through the bodyguards, starving. Her head swung heavily toward one bouncing couple in the center of the dancers.

  Out of a wide field of humping, grinding people, that pair was actually fucking. The woman had her legs around the man’s waist, although only a faint glimpse of an upraised knee could be seen among the bodies. The man had a fist in the air, waving his arm in time to the music’s bass.

  Charlotte stumbled blindly into the dancers, intent on getting to them. The man’s engorged penis was deep in the woman’s wet sheath. She knew it. Mashed between one jumping person and one shimmying person, she came to them, staring at their hips. The woman’s short skirt frothed around her bottom, disguising everything. Her hands locked on his shoulders, her head thrashing up and down to the beat.

  The man tipped his head back, sweat running in beads down his throat. “Whooooo-hoooooo!”

  It was incredible. Lost in the music, trapped in the dance, all kinds of people moved together. And in their midst, a pair of them fucked. It was beautiful. Primal, crazy, young, sexy, strong, fantastical.

  Charlotte moaned, hips sliding to the suggestive beat. I don’t stand a chance against fairy magic this powerful. Just go with it. It’s so good.

  The yearning the silver-haired woman had set on Charlotte wove into the gnawing hunger. Wait. The werewolf told me I can do something. I have power. What was it? I’m a fairy . . .

  She turned to the person jumping beside her and whispered beneath the music, “Fuck.”

  The man leaped on the woman next to him, even though she had her back to him. His mouth sealed to the woman’s neck. She stiffened in surprise, then melted, arching her ass back toward his hips.

  Charlotte turned again to a person carelessly, heedlessly grinding against her. She breathed that dangerous, unknown word again. “Fuck.”

  The woman fell to her knees, tossing the skirt of her partner up to dive beneath it. Charlotte’s palms slid against her thighs, toying with lifting her own skirt up.

  I have the power to compel. I can make people do what I want. But I’m not supposed to. Or was that just for humans?

  Turning, dizzy and swaying and sweating and itching, Charlotte breathed the word again and again. Slowly, space opened up around her as people compacted together. She peeled her shirt up and off. It was too confining. Her bra was tan and plain, thick straps notching her shoulders. But she suddenly felt like a movie star, glamorous and polished. I’m not making them do what I want. It’s what they want. I’m just setting them free.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” People toppled to the ground around her, bodies rolling, clothing ripping. Someone screamed, someone laughed maniacally, but the music covered them quickly.

  I don’t know what I’m doing here. The old fairy wants something. Wants me to dance? That seemed easy enough. Charlotte danced. Kicking, twirling, giddy, deaf from the music, blind from the lights, drunk on the fucking couples at her feet, she writhed, shimmied her breasts. Hands twining above her head, she loved how her braid stuck to her spine.

  Across the floor, beyond a pair of men locked back to front on their knees, stood a circle of exquisite, lithe women, each with trim tanned legs and thick, lustrous golden hair that fell below her ass. In their center, a disheveled head of deep chestnut rotated.

  Ryder. And the wicked, selfish women who had taken him from her. She could take him back. I have magic. I’m drugged. Will the magic fight the drug? Or is the drug for the magic?

  Charlotte loosened her skirt and let it fall. Clad in her cream satin half-slip, she picked her way through the men’s feet to the women. They were half her dress size, just a touch shorter than she but the same height in their elegant heels. Reaching out, she petted the hair of one. It was stiffer than it looked, coarse.

  Ryder rotated within their sliding hands and lapping mouths. His face was flushed, hair stuck to his temples, lips red and glossy, white fangs glistening from within. Charlotte’s stomach growled, desperate.

  He saw her. Surprise, then desire, his nostrils flaring, his jaw sagging just a touch wider, tongue flashing to the center of his lip.

  Charlotte stepped back and undid the clasp on her bra. In the middle of a club gone to chaos, she dropped it on the floor, her breasts lowering to rest on her rib cage. They were swollen and tight, the nipples stabbing forward. Bom-Bom-BomBomBom went the bass in her bones.

  It would be so easy to whisper the word one more time. So lovely to watch the five matching women take Ryder to the floor, all their perfect, beautiful bodies writhing together.

  But something made her turn. She rotated slowly to face the small black room. The Elder stood at the pink velvet rope, the two matrons flanking her the picture of powerful females. Unafraid, Charlotte ran her tongue around in her mouth. Her hands lifted to massage her own breasts. She wanted her hair in curls and ribbons, a corset nipping at her waist displaying her breasts. She wanted that confidence, that acceptance.

  A man bent a woman in half beside her. He thrust between her legs, howling while the woman snarled. Something almost painfully hot dripped down Charlotte’s thighs, sliding past soaked panties. Charlotte whimpered, watching the man’s cock disappear and reappear gleaming with moisture.

  She turned again and stared at Ryder in the center of the women he’d called sylphs. Mmmm. Would she breathe out the command that filled her with power and watch him fall to her mercy, or would she step forward and claim the black rascal as the fine male meal she was due? I’ve always wanted to dance. To fuck. I want, so much. Is this the drug? Or just me finally being free?

  It seemed important to know which. One half of her whispered to go and touch and grind. How sweet it would be to participate.

  Meanwhile the essential power in her blood actually purred with satisfaction over the scent of sex in the air. She’d done this. They were hers to command. All of them. Even Ryder and these perfect women. Even, if she wanted to push that hard, the wrinkled fairy Elder.

  Her feet braced, her throat dry, she dragged her tongue across her lips. To control him, or to join him?

  Her hand was around the strange stretch of flesh before she could think. “I believe I’ll head south,” she purred.

  Ryder’s throat was beautiful, but this male flesh was so rare, she couldn’t pass up the chance. He draped his arms along the deck. “I love modern women. So direct.”

  She stood before him and wrapped both palms around his erection. It was firm and surprisingly textured, not smooth like the skin flowing under his shoulder muscles. There were ridges and veins and hollows. Holding his gaze, she explored.

  “Firmer. That flesh does not care for wispy touches.”

  They grinned together at the bad pun. But his words made her bolder. She rubbed her fingertips over all of him. “Like this?”

  “You feel fantastic, Charlotte. I am waiting here until you feel ready. Do you remember my fingers inside you?”

  She gave a small laugh. “Yes.” The water lapping across her bare skin ignited the memory of his strength moving her core from deep within. The stillness that had gripped her since she touched him vanished. One hand slipped up to cap his tip, then slid down to the softer globes beneath.

  Breathing hard, she pressed up against him, hands frenzied, legs threading against his hard thighs, breasts shoving into his muscled, furred chest.

  “You’ll put
this inside me.” Still she held his dark gaze, so she could see the flicker of red that lit at her words.

  She wasn’t the least bit fearful. All those nights in her own bed, watching movies, reading romance, even peeking at internet sex, made her so, so tired of waiting. This wasn’t love, and she wouldn’t regret it. She wanted to feel. “Tell me what it will be like.”

  He didn’t even hesitate. “My first entrance will be slow and strange. Then I’m going to slide inside your smooth wet grip, so much deeper and thicker than my fingers. We are going to find such pleasure together.” Clearly, the man knew what he was about.

  His eyes were no longer dark. They began to glow, a little like demon eyes. Mesmerizing, like the small teeth that flashed behind his beautiful lips. Her fingers worked over him, twisting and stroking as best she could in the water. He remained still, muscles taut, but those eyes told her what she needed to know.

  He wanted her, too.

  Grinding her nipples into him, feet restlessly trying to push her body closer, she laced her fingers and brought her palms together in unison, thumbs locked to encircle him. Pressing down until she hit his tight abs, she held the moment, tightening her grip on his base. His tip rubbed her belly, and she imagined it would soon do the same from the inside.

  He blinked slowly. His fan of thick black lashes looked more dramatic now that his eyes were entirely red. When she’d first seen him, his honed face had been lovely, all cheekbones and sharp jaw. Now he looked even more intense, eyes narrowed, chin thrust forward. Less lovely, more passionate.

  Her skin tingled and itched. The water seemed to reflect with the slashing power of diamonds at noon. She hungered, and she had no reason to wait. Tearing her hand away from him, she patted across the water until she found the floating condom. She ripped it open with her teeth, and then put it on him. It took a few tries to roll it down right.