Fury’s Kiss

by Nicola R. White

  “Fine. But this something between us? We’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later.”

  I pressed my palm against the hard length of him to illustrate my point. He groaned and shifted beneath my hand, then sighed and pulled me in against him. I nestled against the hard muscles of his chest and he stroked my hair. Despite the fact that we’d been naked together just moments ago, this was the first truly intimate moment we’d shared, and I felt vulnerable and raw in a way I hadn’t before.

  “What are you?” he whispered in my ear. “I’ve never felt anything like this.”

  “I don’t know,” I answered softly. All I really knew was I’d never asked for it, whatever it was.

  Overwhelmed by the events of the past few days, and by Jackson’s uncharacteristic tenderness, a tear slid down my cheek. He brushed it away with his thumb.

  “Shh,” he soothed me.

  “I just—” I drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, or what this is between us. Everything’s going to hell around me, but I can’t stop wanting you.”

  “Hey, come on.” He tilted my chin up so I had to look at him and his mouth twisted in a half-smile. “You think I have a better idea than you do what this is all about? I can’t keep my hands off some stranger, and I just found out she’s some kind of snake woman, too.”

  He rubbed my back gently, comforting me. “It’ll be all right.”

  I sniffled and nodded my head against his hard chest, comforted. If he kept it up, I was going to have to rethink my perception of him as a macho, arrogant jerk. Maybe I’d been too quick to judge him back at the Stardust.

  His next words proved me wrong.

  “We just can’t give in to this…attraction. We need to concentrate on figuring out what’s going on with this Fury thing.”

  My heart twisted painfully and I raised my head to look up at him. “What are you saying?”

  What happened to him not being able to keep his hands off me?

  He leaned away from me now. “What just happened was great, but whatever you think you’re feeling, it isn’t real. This is just physical—pheromones or something, from all the changes you’re going through. Besides, I’m too old for you.”

  “It’s more than that,” I insisted. “I can feel it and I know you can, too. And you’re not that much older than me.”

  “I’m thirty-two. What are you? Twenty, twenty-one? This was a mistake, and we had no business giving in to…whatever it was.”

  “I’m twenty-two,” I murmured sullenly. He couldn’t really believe what was between us was just physical, could he? He’d already admitted to never feeling anything like the connection between us before.

  But the playful spark between us was gone. Jackson’s hold on my arms tightened, all gentleness gone now, and he pressed his hard length flush against the part of me that ached to feel him inside again.

  “You feel that?” he said roughly. “That’s all there is between us. It’s just something that thing in your head is making you feel. It’s not real.”

  “Don’t say that. You said yourself you’ve never felt anything like this.”

  He pulled away from me, muscles now taut with anger rather than sexual frustration, and brushed past me toward the house. When he spoke again, it was with his back to me.

  “Look, I’ve tried to be nice, but you’re not getting the message. This was fun, but I’m not interested in anything more. I’m not able to give you anything more.”

  He went inside and didn’t look back.

  My heart twisted again and my stomach clenched painfully. OK, that hurt. More than it should have, considering I’d only known Jackson Byrne for a couple of days. But there was still no way I could fool myself into thinking the sharp, stabbing pain in my chest was anything but what it was. I argued with myself, trying to convince my heart that what I was feeling couldn’t be real. I barely knew him, for God’s sake.

  But after seeing that playful, relaxed side of Jackson, the way he cared about Ruby, and the charm he’d displayed in the face of Mrs. Hadley’s mortifying interruption, I knew my feelings for what they were. Somehow, I had developed a serious infatuation for the man. Not to mention the amazing, mind-blowing sex we’d just had. Whether Jackson was willing to admit it or not, there was something between us. Something real.

  Angry tears of hurt pride and heartache gathered in the corners of my eyes so I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids and tried to will them away. The girls would be back with Nora and Ruby any minute now, and unless I wanted to answer embarrassing questions from an uncannily perceptive five-year-old, I needed to follow Jackson into the house and get cleaned up.

  I heaved a deep sigh and squared my shoulders. It was time to put on my big-girl panties, as Alex would have said, and face whatever was coming next. Whatever else Mrs. Hadley had to say, I knew she had gotten one thing right already. Being a Fury meant I had responsibilities to live up to, whether I wanted them or not. And I owed it to myself, and to the little girl who was depending on me, to figure out who was after us.

  Chapter 12

  When I went back inside, Jackson was nowhere in sight. I glanced through the picture window in the living room and saw that he’d taken a seat on the front steps. He looked miserable sitting there in the sticky July heat, and I felt an uncharitable stab of satisfaction at the sight. If he wanted to get away from me so badly, that was fine with me. He could sit out there and melt for all I cared.

  I turned away from the window and told myself to let it go. I wasn’t the first woman to be turned down by a man, and I wouldn’t be the last. Right now, I had bigger problems to deal with than my feelings for Jackson Byrne. I went into my room to brush out my hair and change my clothes, and had just finished when Alex’s car pulled into the driveway. I headed outside to greet the girls, and Ruby held out a dripping ice cream cone.

  “I got you this,” she said sweetly. “Rachel said you like sorbet.” She struggled a bit with the unfamiliar word but smiled happily as I took the cone she held out. Then she skipped past me to present a similar offering to Jackson and I turned my attention to my roommates.

  “Mrs. Hadley stopped by,” I told them, fudging the details slightly, “and she’s somehow involved in all of this.” I paused. “She knew I was a Fury.”

  “Mrs. Hadley?” Nora asked.

  “Our next-door neighbor,” Rachel filled her in. “And what do you mean, she’s involved in all this? What exactly did she say?”

  “Just that she knows I’m a Fury.” I shrugged. “And she said I’d better come over for apple crumble, if you can believe it.”

  “Apple crumble?” Nora was now more confused than ever.

  “Mrs. Hadley’s way into desserts,” Alex told her, as though that clarified anything.

  “I know what Mrs. Hadley’s gonna say,” Ruby announced from the step next to Jackson, where she was busily crunching a sugar cone.

  “What’s that?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s the rules,” Ruby said with the air of someone stating the obvious. She dimpled, clearly enjoying her secret, and I looked to Nora for an explanation.

  Nora sighed. “We’ve been over this before. As far as I can tell, there’s no rhyme or reason to the rules she says she has to follow. The oracle thing just happens when it happens.”

  “You should go visit soon,” Ruby advised, turning her cone to catch the chocolate dripping onto her hand. “Mrs. Hadley’s old.”

  “What do you mean?” A chill swept over me. “Is something going to happen to Mrs. Hadley?”

  She didn’t answer, oblivious to my concern. I opened my mouth to ask again, then decided to save my breath. Ruby had turned her attention back to her ice cream with single-minded determination and I could see she’d divulged all she was going to.

  “I guess I’d better get over there,” I said. “Alex, Rach, are you guys coming too?”

  “Ca
n’t.” Alex looked at her watch. “I’m due at the club tonight and I’ve gotta hustle.”

  “The club?” Jackson asked from his step. “Do I even want to know?”

  “Probably not,” I told him, but Alex, nearly impossible to offend, didn’t mind explaining.

  “I’m a dancer.” She demonstrated by extending one leg up nearly parallel to her ear while she balanced on the other. “I’ve got more range when I’m warmed up, though,” she commented when she had both feet back on the ground.

  “A dancer,” Jackson repeated.

  “You got it, stud.” She turned on the breathy voice she used at work, just to be sure he wouldn’t miss her point.

  “She goes by Alexis Diamond,” Rachel offered. “She’s very good.”

  “Just to be clear,” Jackson said, “this club is a—”

  “A strip club,” I confirmed, narrowing my eyes at him. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  He shook his head. “Why would I? It’s nothing to me if your roommate’s a dancer.”

  “Yeah, right.” I snorted. “You called me a hooker just because you saw me kiss some guy at a bar, and I’m supposed to believe you’re not judging my roommate, the exotic dancer?”

  Nora cleared her throat with a pointed look at Ruby, and I backed down. It wasn’t the time or place for a fight with Jackson, but I was still stung by his rejection.

  “I admit that…misunderstanding was my fault,” he said, “but can you blame me? I ran into you in a stranger’s motel room.”

  “You didn’t run into me,” I muttered, determined to get the last word. “You followed me.”

  He raised his hands in a no-harm-no-foul, let’s-all-be-friends gesture that made me want to throttle him. My hair began to twitch, so I unclenched my fists and turned away, grateful for the distraction Alex created as she demonstrated some of her more family-friendly skills for Ruby. She went up on demi-pointe and turned a perfect pirouette before sliding gracefully into a full split on the lawn. It was this flawless technique combined with her more…adult repertoire that made her a crowd favorite at the high-end club where she worked.

  “The Xanadu,” Alex said in her breathy showgirl voice, “where pleasure dreams come true.” She parroted the club’s slogan with a perfect, pearly smile, then dropped the act and held out a hand for Rachel to help her up. “High-class clientele, it pays well, and they let me choreograph my own routines.” She shrugged. “What more could I ask for?”

  Alex had taken dance lessons for years in exchange for manual labor, mopping floors and cleaning mirrors for Madam Pavlova, Russian émigré and owner of Hawthorne’s foremost—and only—ballet school. Years of dedicated training had given Alex the strong, disciplined body and work ethic that had earned her a spot as the Xanadu’s top earner. In return, the club paid well and gave her a generous allowance for hair, makeup, and costumes. Best of all, it demanded that its patrons show nothing but respect for the women employed there.

  Jackson, Nora, and Ruby looked suitably impressed.

  “Anyway, I gotta hit the shower,” Alex said. “It’s a long drive to Boston and false eyelashes don’t apply themselves. Rach and Tara, wait up for me tonight, and that’s an order. I’ll be dying to hear what Mrs. Hadley has to say.”

  She bent down to toss Ruby up in the air and catch her again with arms strong from performing acrobatic tricks on the pole night after night.

  “And I’ll see you in a couple of days,” she told the little girl, swinging her back down to the ground. Ruby giggled as they performed a complicated high-five, obviously perfected while out for ice cream.

  “What happens in a couple days?” I asked.

  “We’re gonna fire up the horses and let ’em run!” Ruby said, clearly repeating something Alex had said to her earlier. I looked to Nora for a translation.

  “Rachel and Alex thought it would be a good idea to test your abilities in a controlled environment,” she filled me in. “Ruby loved the idea, of course.”

  “Controlled environment?”

  “In keeping with Alecto’s origins,” Rachel said, “we’re going to have our own mini-Olympics. We’ll go to the track at the high school first thing in the morning, before anyone else shows up, and see what you can do.”

  Alecto flexed happily, liking the idea of being able to use her abilities without my usual efforts to restrain her. Swirls of orange flashed in my head and I took an involuntary step backward.

  Whoa. Did you do that, or am I hallucinating? I asked the Fury. Alecto’s thoughts had always felt foreign, but this was the first time I’d ‘seen’ them as bursts of color.

  It is a sign that we are becoming more integrated with each other, she answered. More permanently connected.

  She didn’t comment on whether she was pleased with that development, and I felt oddly let down.

  “Everything OK?” Nora asked, watching me. I started, then nodded that it was, and she picked up her daughter. “Well, we should get going. Oracle or no oracle, it’s getting late and Ruby’s a bear when she doesn’t get enough sleep.” Ruby showed her disagreement by making a face and shaking her head vehemently.

  Jackson stayed silent as good-byes were exchanged, then got on his motorcycle to follow Nora home. He’d parked down the street to avoid detection when he’d sneaked up on us earlier, and I wondered how he’d known where to find us. As I watched him drive away, I turned to see Rachel looking at me with understanding in her eyes.

  “Ain’t love grand?” she said, doing her best Humphrey Bogart as she slung an arm around my shoulders. “Now let’s go see what Mrs. Hadley has to say for herself, the canny old bat.”

  I had to laugh in spite of myself. At least Alex hadn’t stuck around to see the look on my face. An inveterate meddler, she would have wanted to hear all the juicy details of what had happened with Jackson. Rachel, though, was content to accompany me next door to our neighbor’s house, knowing I would tell all when I was ready.

  As we entered the small, modest dwelling, the smell of freshly baked oatmeal cookies assailed us and my stomach rumbled its anticipation. It had gone unsated earlier in favor of other, more illicit pleasures.

  “Come in, come in,” Mrs. Hadley urged. She met us at the door, and I suspected she had been watching us through the window all along. “I imagine you have questions for me,” she said, leading us down a hallway, “but first, we’ve got to feed that beast inside of you.”

  Alecto bristled at the term, and Mrs. Hadley turned to look back at me as if she could read my mind.

  “Now, dear, a beast is just what you are.” She chuckled soothingly, and I realized she was addressing Alecto rather than me. “But that’s not an insult. You’ll see when the others arrive, and you have some company. You won’t feel nearly so testy then.”

  “Others?” I asked, but the old woman pretended not to hear me as she bustled down the hallway ahead of us. I looked at Rachel. “Do you think she means other Furies who might be out there somewhere?”

  Alecto had hinted as much, implied that she wanted me to find them, but I hadn’t had time to consider that they might come in search of me.

  “I have a few theories,” Rachel said, “but it’s too early to say much. I need more data.”

  I sighed. That was one of the worst things about Rachel—it was hopeless to try to get anything out of her before she was ready to tell you. She’d just say something like ‘her hypothesis wasn’t yet supportable’ and go back to whatever she was pondering in that tangled, brilliant mind of hers. She was well suited for her work as a tutor and I thought again, as I often did, that it was too bad test anxiety had kept her from acing the SATs and getting a scholarship to pursue the Ivy League education she’d always dreamed of.

  I followed her down the hall to the kitchen, where I stopped short in the doorway and stared. The ceiling was strung with bunches of herbs tied by their stems to a web of multi-colored threads that crisscrossed the room. Shelves holding containers of every imaginable shape and vintage
, from retro Coca-Cola bottles filled with a sickly, yellow fluid, to ancient-looking pottery with Hellenistic soldiers marching around their rims lined the walls. The avocado green of the appliances would have been at home in any old lady’s kitchen, but the huge cauldron of sulfurous something-or-other brewing on the electric stove would not. The steam rising above it was a pretty, pleasing purple very much at odds with the foul smell emanating from it.

  “Sit down, children, sit down.” Mrs. Hadley waved us into the room and got out a bowl, three teacups and saucers. Into the bowl, she ladled heaping spoonfuls of the stinking purple liquid simmering on the stove, then poured what looked like plain old Earl Grey into the teacups. She placed the whole assortment onto a silver tea tray, added a few spoons, and set it on the table in front of us. She gave a cup of tea to both Rachel and me, setting the other in front of herself, then placed the bowl of purple liquid in front of me.

  “Sugar? Cream?” she offered. We both declined, dumbfounded, and she went on to fix her own tea. She passed me a spoon. “Soup before tea, my beastie. Eat up!”

  I raised my eyebrows at Rachel and looked down at the so-called soup. Was it safe to eat? She grimaced, telling me that she had no more idea than I did what it was. I took a tentative sip and struggled not to spit it back into the bowl—it tasted pretty much how it smelled. Mrs. Hadley actually cackled, sounding distinctly like the Wicked Witch of the West. Suddenly, I doubted the wisdom of allowing ourselves to be lured into the old witch’s lair, and I tilted my head subtly toward the doorway, telling Rachel to get ready to run. Mrs. Hadley was turning out to be something very different than what she had always seemed, and there was no way I was going to sit there and let the crazy old hag poison me.

  Rachel nodded and we pushed back from the table in unison, but Mrs. Hadley’s arm shot out and her tiny, wrinkled hand clamped down on my wrist. She moved with a speed and strength that would have been astonishing in a woman half her size and age, and I saw that she had Rachel in a similar hold on the other side of the table. Judging from the pained look on Rachel’s face, our neighbor was even stronger than I’d realized. I flexed my fingers, testing the woman, and considered fighting back but Alecto transmitted only mild curiosity at what the witch would do next, so I decided to wait and see what would happen.