by Lyra Evans
Niko froze. “Do not call me that.”
Preston’s smile remained. “What would you prefer?”
“Slut, slave, whatever the fuck you want, but not that,” he snapped.
Preston nodded. “As you wish.”
Chapter 21
They approached Juniper’s home from around the side, slipping through the brick wall by a hidden door Preston opened with a word. Preston guided Niko through a narrow passage between the ten-foot hedges that lined the perimeter of her property and the next one over. Niko made no effort to keep the twigs and branches at bay as he walked, taking Preston at his word that more dirt and disruption to Niko’s outfit was better. Preston led the way in silence, stopping only at the end of the path to crouch down and dig something up from beneath one of the hedges.
Niko watched in silence as Preston unearthed a black box about the size of a shoebox. He set it down on the ground and opened the sealed lid with a strategic press of his hand. Niko thought it must have been locked to his magical signature, which meant the contents were likely valuable in some way. But then why bury it in a shallow hole under some hedges? On someone else’s property, no less. Inside the box was an assortment of items Niko had barely the chance to peek before Preston removed a slim, black, cylindrical case and replaced the top of the box. He reburied it quickly, slipping the black case he’d taken into his pocket.
“You’re going to tell me what that is,” Niko said rather than asked. Preston straightened and smiled at him, the quirk of his lips never not unsettling to Niko.
“It’s for you,” he said. Niko’s expression remained hard and sharp. Preston ran his tongue along the edge of his teeth. “Excuse to come into the city, remember?” He pulled the case from his pocket and tilted it side to side in display.
Niko remembered what Preston had said before they’d left. “A toy,” he repeated, the churning in his stomach echoed in his words. “What. Is. It.”
There was no part of Niko that wasn’t worried just then, but Preston brushed off his concerns. “You’ll get back to your Selkie intact, I promise you. And I won’t do anything—irreparable.”
Niko grabbed Preston by the shoulders and pinned him to the base of the hedge, forcing him into the prickly branches with a seriousness Preston couldn’t just play off. But when Niko stared him down, face to face, eye to eye, he found Preston still calmly amused. It made Niko’s blood boil.
“What do you plan to do to me?” Niko asked, voice rough and gravelled.
Preston shook his head. “We’re going to have a play,” he said. But when Niko didn’t let him go, he sighed. “I have to hurt you, Niko. It’s what she’ll expect. What she’ll want. But I won’t be—” He hesitated, weighing out his words. He rolled them on his tongue as though to taste them. “—Touching you inappropriately. Unless you consent.” He winked, and Niko tightened his grip, pressing his thumb to the base of Preston’s neck in a warning. “Noor isn’t interested in men, remember? She doesn’t want to see you fucked or getting off. But I have to make it look good, so be prepared for that. I won’t allow any lasting damage.” He held up his hands. “I promise it.”
Fingers itching to tighten further, Niko held his position a moment longer, perhaps to weigh out Preston’s words, perhaps to weigh out his own willingness to accept them. Then he let Preston go and backed off. He was well aware Preston had allowed himself to be pinned. Niko was strong and trained in combat, sure, but Preston was a Werewolf. If he had wanted to escape Niko’s grip at any time, he could have. He could have torn Niko to pieces if he chose. He hadn’t.
Instead of returning to the path forward, Preston closed the distance between them again, breathing in deeply when he was close to Niko. Niko froze, muscles tight and heart racing. Preston seemed to hum softly to himself as he exhaled.
“You smell—unlike anyone else I’ve ever met,” he said in an undertone. “Under the sweat and the fear and the wafts of me and lingering breath of the ocean you get from Sincloud…you smell of something divine.” Searching Niko’s eyes, Preston hesitated. “Why might that be?”
Niko didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to. He had the distinct impression Preston already had an answer to that question, but Niko didn’t have time to entertain it. In another life, the look of hunger in Preston’s eyes would have set him on fire. But in another life, he didn’t have a wounded Selkie waiting for him. A Selkie that had already burrowed deep into his chest and set himself up a home. Niko had never thought himself one of those guys who liked to be considered prey, but maybe he was. Maybe he did want to be chased and hunted and downed. He just wanted a very specific hunter.
“We have somewhere to be,” Niko said. Preston nodded and finally turned around to lead them out of the hedges.
The house, when they approached the front door without the obstruction of the hedges, was hardly a house at all. Mansion wasn’t quite fitting either, but castle was grossly inappropriate. As they stood briefly at the edge of the property, lingering in the shade of the front garden near the street, Niko squinted up at the massive structure and could only settle on the word fortress as a descriptor. It had little of the elegance of a manor home or family mansion that the surrounding homes did. Its stark white walls and sharp edges lent it the imposing quality of a military base, but Niko was unconvinced it could sustain the assault of real combat. Arrow-slit windows scored the outer walls, and a heavy door large enough to fit a dragon through stood shut to the world. Around the house, trees and hedges and greenery spread out, as though nature tried to soften the edges of the place but couldn’t quite manage.
Niko glanced down the street, half wondering if the neighbours were bothered by the hostility of the aesthetics of Juniper’s place, but there was nothing at all to indicate that. No one was outside within view. Not even police. And it was then that Niko realized he hadn’t heard helicopters or sirens or any indication the police were scouring the streets for him. But why should they look here, amid the richest and most powerful people of Maeve’s Court? Except that Niko supposedly had it in for the wealthy like Preston and had the skills to get in here.
“There are no guards or cops,” Niko muttered, feeling increasingly unsettled by this.
Preston nodded. “Gated neighbourhood. There are probably dozens of officers stationed around the perimeter of the community, but not a chance any of these people would let police wander openly outside their homes. And they know they’re not in danger because they’re the ones who set the police after you in the first place, remember?”
Niko gritted his teeth. Was there no one who saw this for what it was? Not a single Courtier? He’d long had a vague disdain for the rich, for people who had more money than sense and never worked a minute for their wealth and power, but now the disdain grew into something else. And he was beginning to worry his faith in even the Court system and the justice department was misplaced. But what was a cop without faith in justice, really?
“A mercenary,” Niko muttered to himself.
Preston moved up the sprawling driveway toward a low stone wall that lined the inner portion of the property. Niko followed closely, stopping as Preston reached out and plucked at a tear-drop-shaped tree. He removed a handful of purple-blue berries from the tree, picking out the greenery and tossing it aside. Holding one berry up to offer to Niko, he took one and held it to his own mouth.
“Juniper berries,” he said. “This is the way in.”
Niko took the proffered berry and considered it. “These aren’t a fruit though, are they?” Preston shook his head. “Is it safe to eat?”
Preston laughed. “I wouldn’t consider anything available to you on Noor’s property as safe. But it won’t kill you.” He popped the berry into his mouth and chewed, pulling a face as he did.
Niko followed suit, and as his teeth crushed the fleshy outer portion of the berry, a strangely perfume-like flavour filled his mouth. Like eating a pine air freshener. Except beneath that, at the back of this throat, was the slightest hint
of citrus and the vaguest memory of gin. He swallowed, despite himself, and immediately felt a light tingling all over his body. With a sharp look, he searched Preston’s face. The Werewolf only nodded, gesturing to the line marked by the low stone wall. He stepped gingerly across it and waited. Nothing at all happened, and he held out his hands in display.
“It’s a key,” Niko concluded, sorting through the magical undercurrent of the tingling sensation. He stepped over the line and felt a wash of heat pass over him, cleansing the tingling from his body. “What happens if you don’t eat a berry?”
Preston only smiled. “Never bothered asking.”
Of course. Why would he?
He reached around and grabbed Niko around the neck, pulling him close and burying his nose in Niko’s hair. Niko felt himself tense, the urge to shove Preston off him rising instantly, but sheer force of will stopped him acting. They were definitely in sight now, definitely open to witnesses. And Niko wasn’t Niko. He was—someone else. Some toy for Preston’s pleasure. And though the idea scraped at the rawest parts of him, he let it play out. He let Preston breathe him in and touch him and hold him. He let him be rough and bold with his hands, because Niko’s mind was back at the cabin, worrying over Cobalt and the injury that could have killed him. What if the water didn’t help enough? What if he was slowly dying, alone and isolated, while Niko played at being someone else’s slave?
Preston knocked at the massive front door with such a light hand Niko was certain no one could possibly have heard it inside. But barely a moment passed before the door creaked open. Except it didn’t. Not the full door, anyway.
Where the entryway was the size of an average house, the portion of the door that actually opened to them was relatively normal-sized. It swung inward a few inches, a cut-out from the larger door that blended so seamlessly it was impossible to define when closed. Niko worked to keep his breathing calm as Preston’s mouth played over his ear, his teeth scraping lightly at Niko’s lobe. The shudder ran through him involuntarily. He couldn’t control himself when it came to his ears, but the guilt and discomfort in his stomach cut the spike of pleasure.
An older woman stood inside the door, her dark eyes squinting against the onslaught of light from outside. Her hair was a steel grey that didn’t immediately give away her race, but the pointed ears were unmistakeably Fae. She wore a simple, dark grey uniform Niko had seen on other serving staff over the years, but her feet were adorned with specialty shoes that made no noise on the stone floor. They were black and padded as slippers.
“Mr. Preston, Sir? We were not expecting you,” she said. Her voice was quiet and higher pitched than Niko expected. Preston smiled more pleasantly at her than Niko had seen him do to anyone.
“Hina, my darling, what a radiant sight you are,” he said. “How many times must I beg you to drop the ‘Mr.’? It’s just Preston, love. And don’t fret; I didn’t give Noor any warning. Just popping by. Is Noor in?”
Hina seemed to relax slightly at this, and Niko wondered what she might have suffered if his arrival had been forgotten rather than unanticipated. The long sleeves on Hina’s uniform coupled with the high collar did not sit well with Niko.
She stepped back from the door and allowed them entry, eyeing Niko a moment before quickly turning away. “Mistress Noor is indeed at home. She is performing her daily meditation. Shall I call on her for you? You and your toy can wait in the side parlour if you like.”
Niko remained as impassive as possible. That she’d pegged him for Preston’s toy in only moments was a good indicator their ploy had worked. Or else Hina just assumed anyone Preston brought with him she didn’t recognize was a toy rather than another kind of guest. But Preston was focused on other things.
“Oh, I hate to interrupt her meditation,” he said in a slow drawl. “We’ll just go to her. In the rock training room, correct?” Hina nodded. “Lovely. I know the way, love.”
It was a kind dismissal, Niko supposed, because Hina seemed, again, relieved. She disappeared quickly down a side corridor and left Niko and Preston in the main entrance. Niko took a moment to take in his surroundings, and the impression of a fortress only deepened on him. The main entrance was hardly an entrance at all by the standards of the manors and mansions he’d seen. It was a small anteroom with doors along one side Niko took to be some kind of closet and passages leading off in three other directions. The corridor down which Hina had escaped was to the right, and it was the narrowest of the three, painted in shades of grey. Directly ahead was the largest of the passages, and it rose up a few steps then into a stark white corridor. The passage to the left was small like the first, though it was also stark white. The branches were all confined spaces, not the vast open areas most modern designs tended to prefer.
Preston grabbed Niko roughly and shoved him forward toward the passage straight ahead. “Go on, get,” he said, some weight to his words where before he’d been calm and without hurry. Niko fell into his role and flinched slightly, rushing ahead of Preston as instructed. That he longed to turn around and deck Preston was a sensation he needed to set aside for now.
The hallway was white but still somehow dark and oppressive. It curled and turned, branching off into other corridors or doorways that led to unknown places. Niko tried to keep track of their direction, but everything was so much the same it was difficult to find any useful landmarks. Revising his earlier assessment that this house could not withstand battle, Niko decided it was the perfect place to hole up should a violent war be coming. If anyone ever broke in, they’d get hopelessly lost before they ever found someone to fight.
Finally, Preston yanked Niko back as he was about to pass another set of doors that seemed no more remarkable than the last. The polished surface was white, like the hall, and only a brushed chrome handle gave away its purpose. Niko fell into place next to Preston, striving with his other senses to identify something to ground him. There was no sound but that he and Preston made as they walked. But as Niko breathed in deep, calculated breaths, he smelled the faintest whiff of something on the air coming from beyond the door. Where the corridor smelled of nothing—or maybe an excess of cleanliness—the slight waft from beyond the door was more identifiable. It took him a moment, but Niko finally settled on leather and dust. He thought it a bit odd for meditation in a rock training room, but then, he didn’t really know what to expect.
Preston knocked once and pushed open the door. Inside, the room looked somewhat like a quarry. The walls were rough rock, like the edge of a cliff, jagged and uneven. Boulders and rocky hunks were scattered around the area that seemed as large as a warehouse. Light came from above, but Niko couldn’t identify the source. It was as though the ceiling was open to the actual sky, but Niko was also certain there was at least one floor above them, making that impossible. Gravel crunched beneath their shoes as they pressed into the room, the door closing itself behind them.
Noor Juniper was the only person in the room, and meditating was not how Niko might describe what she was doing. Clad in black leather fitted to her skin, her powder blue hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, Juniper was fighting a boulder. There was really no other way to describe it, Niko decided. A massive rock stood before her, and she struck it repeatedly with her hands and feet. She let out small grunts or cries as she hit it, her chest heaving with every technical move she completed. As they approached, Niko realized there were red marks staining the rock where she was hitting, and red bandages were wound around her knuckles and bare feet. But the most frightening thing about the fact that she was beating a rock until her own hands and feet bled was that the rock was breaking.
Preston clasped a hand to Niko’s shoulder to stop him when they were about ten feet away, waiting and watching as Noor continued. She brought up a knee and slammed it full force into the stone. A vomit-inducing crunching sound followed, but Noor didn’t let up. She cried out more in anger than pain and threw a punch that rooted itself from the base of her toes into the rock. Then another. And
another. And with a final spin, she kicked the same precise point on the boulder with her heel.
The crack was loud enough to deafen. It rocked through the quarry-like room with enough force to shake free loose pieces from the edges of the walls. The boulder cracked straight through and fell in massive slabs to either side, the ensuing crash barely audible after the first crack.
Panting and heaving, Noor wiped the back of her hand over her forehead and glared at the boulder she’d just defeated. Preston clapped slowly from behind her, and she turned to face him without the slightest indication of surprise on her face. She didn’t even spare a glance for Niko.
“Impressive,” Preston said. “I remember when you could barely crack a rock half that size.”
Juniper rolled her eyes and reached down to place a palm to her knee. From this direction, Niko saw she’d clearly destroyed her kneecap in the assault. It was violently purple and green and beginning to swell. Unconcerned, Noor made some kind of trade that killed the swelling and allowed her to straighten her leg properly. She gritted her teeth a moment, shaking violently, then calmed again, and Niko realized she likely traded the injury for pain. But the amount of pain she’d have to endure for a few seconds to heal a long-term injury like that was intense, and Juniper didn’t even scream.
“You’re supposed to be in the woods,” Juniper said, peeling the bandages off her hands. She was breathing heavily still, and the state of her hands suggested her fingers were all broken, but that seemed to concern her no more than the knee had.
“Funny,” Preston said, but Noor only offered a flat look in response. Clearly she didn’t care for his read of her words. Waving her off, he leaned back against a nearby rock and watched. “I am in the woods. Technically. But it’s been months and I got bored. I just popped in to the city to pick up a new toy. Can you really blame me? Three months is a long time.”