Fever Fae

by Meg Xuemei X

  What the bloody hell?

  The swordsmen crossed their steel. They swung, ducked, parried, and lunged. Every single knight was ferocious and vicious, worse than career criminals. Blades found their targets on both sides, and blood sprayed on the ground in front of my house.

  As if this day wasn’t bizarre enough, a freaking battle had just broken out in front of my family home, which sheltered four children and two teens.

  A blaze of fury shook me.

  “Fuck off!” I shrieked, my eyes burning with rage. “Everyone back off! I’m using my elephant gun with iron bullets on you assholes if you don’t comply. Get out of my yard and never come back!”

  “Back off,” Baron called.

  “Stop,” Rowan ordered.

  The two opposite groups immediately broke off and stayed in their lane but still glared at each other, eager for another bloody conflict, if their Fae mafia bosses ever gave them another go.

  Baron and Rowan waved their minions away. And in an instant, the Summer and Winter thugs cleared out of my yard.

  “I want you two to leave my property as well, and take your roses and chocolate,” I said sternly. “I don’t have time or energy for all your freak shows. I have a family to look after. Leave me alone, or you’ll be served with a restraining order, or suffer worse consequences.”

  “I can’t stay away from you, Lady Evie, even if I hope to,” Rowan said ruefully, his expression pained, yet the heat in his gray-blue eyes never dwindled. My body responded to his heat again, willing and ready without shame.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I hissed, annoyed when my voice sounded husky.

  “It’s beyond my ability as well, to not be close to you,” Baron said, leaning toward me as if he wanted to bury his nose against my hair to inhale my scent. I had to leash my body tightly to prevent it from inching toward him.

  “This is nuts,” I said. “I don’t need stalkers. Now get off my property before I call the cops.”

  I was bluffing, knowing that calling cops wouldn’t do a damn thing. And part of me didn’t want them to leave. However, my cold reason also laid out for me how bad it would end up if I entangled with the Fae. If I didn’t have to look after my family, I might walk on the wild side and let hell loose.

  “You’re drawn to me, too,” Baron said. “You can’t help it any more than I can.”

  “Excuse me?” I narrowed my eyes at him. He spoke the truth, but I didn’t want him to know that. He was arrogant enough already. I couldn’t help being drawn to them, and it took every ounce of willpower I had not to pounce and have my way with them right on the porch.

  “Your body summoned me with your mating call,” Rowan told me.

  Mating? Who talked like that?

  Baron inhaled deeply. “We can smell your arousal.”

  Wow. Just wow.

  “No one can smell that,” I shouted at them, then flushed furiously as I realized my mistake by admitting it. “Just no fucking way. You should not sniff at people, which is incredibly rude. We aren’t animals in heat!”

  “We are now, my darling lady,” Baron said, his amber eyes turning molten gold with heat, and my knees went wobbly. “Your irresistible scent is a fever song in my blood, and your carnal need—”

  “—is the winter song in my soul,” Rowan said. “Evie, you’re my fated mate.”

  Utterly speechless, I did the only thing I could.

  I slammed the door in their faces.

  Chapter 7

  Smelled my arousal? Yeah right.

  But why hadn’t the liquid fire twirling the apex of my thighs dwindled? My heated core ached so much I wanted to hit those two no-good Fae for winding me up.

  And fated mate? Who believed in that kind of thing? Baron had looked like he was going to declare the same before I put a stop to his idiocy.

  Suppose I was someone’s fated mate, but how could I be two dudes’ mate at once? Their premise was skewed, though I was insanely attracted to both of them.

  A slice of guilt washed over me.

  I had a boyfriend in college. We hadn’t broken up. We still texted each other every other night. I wasn’t a cheater, yet I had never felt this intense lust toward Richie. Sex with him was good, just like the sex I had with my other ex-boyfriends. It was fun, and that was it. I’d never asked for more.

  But when I’d faced Rowan and Baron out there, I’d thought I’d die if they didn’t fuck me. Only by sheer force of will had I held my ground instead of taking them to the ground and fucking them brutally right there.

  Maybe that was why Rowan boldly and foolishly claimed that I was his mate—we had wanted to screw each other as if nothing else mattered, as if our lives depended on it.

  I shook my head. I had enough headaches, and the last thing I wanted was to let lust addle my mind.

  I stomped to the kitchen and quickly put away the rest of the groceries. I could sense Baron and Rowan lingering outside the door the whole time. Ignoring my urge to run to open the door for them, I pulled up a chair and grabbed the .308 Winchester from where I’d hidden it above the cabinets, then headed upstairs to the bathroom.

  A cold shower would put out this stupid fire inside my tight channel.

  However, I still felt horny and miserable after an icy shower. I scrambled downstairs, pricking my ears to discern if Rowan and Baron were around. They were gone this time. Relief and disappointment warring in my thoughts, I shrugged and made myself a big sandwich.

  I took it to my room to eat and peeked out the window. Instantly I sensed that my house and I were watched. I sent out my awareness to explore further, reaching beyond the perimeter, as Dad had taught me.

  Neither Rowan nor Baron registered on my radar, but their minions remained, blending into the trees, bushes, and shadows. The two rival groups kept a distance from each other.

  I swallowed the last piece of the bland sandwich and sat on my bed.

  At the moment, I didn’t think the Fae would attack us. In fact, their stakeout at my perimeter could prevent the Nightling from coming back. As long as I kept their bosses at bay while not pissing them off too much, I could use the Fae “knights” as free security guards without them realizing that. At least, that was a temporary solution.

  Next on my to-fix list was the money problem. I sighed. Money was always a problem.

  When Emmett and I had searched the entire house, we found only five hundred dollars in cash and a pair of jade earrings inside Mom’s jewelry box. I’d never pawn Mom’s earrings.

  I needed to find a job before our household ran out of cash. I flopped back on the pillow with a heavy sigh, thinking about what I could do to earn money.

  Babysitting was easy, right? But I already had a bunch of siblings I needed to manage, and babysitting didn’t pay shit. I also crossed out tutoring, waitressing, Uber driving, and all sorts of low-paying jobs. I could land any of those jobs no problem, but they wouldn’t pay enough to feed myself for a month, never mind my siblings. But I wouldn’t find any high-paying jobs since I’d majored in screenwriting and had only been in college for two months.

  I also needed to cover energy bills, phone bills, car insurance, school supplies for my siblings next year, and many more. They were growing up too fast for my taste, and they’d shout for new sets of clothes and shoes very soon.

  I prayed to the universe to slow their growth. I didn’t care if the universe made my siblings small and short, as long as they didn’t add more inches to their height so quickly and cost me money.

  A ray of light suddenly shone into my head and my eyes brightened.

  I could be an assassin. I had the skills. I knew how to trap, hunt, and shoot. I handled both swords and guns well, and I knew how to ambush people.

  But then who would hire me? I had no contacts that could refer clients. It wasn’t like I could set up a website and advertise with Google.

  I sighed. I needed a decent paying job now, or my siblings would go hungry soon, which was unacceptable.


  Then another idea struck me.

  Several months ago, my friend Becca, her cousin, and I had tried to sneak into this club. According to Becca’s cousin, this bar was the most dangerous underground bar in California. Even its name—Claws, Fangs, and Fiends—made us shudder.

  “Rumor says Claws, Fangs, and Fiends hosts the wildest parties ever,” Becca’s cousin had said. “Their memberships are the most exclusive in the country and they tailor to dangerous kind of patrons.”

  He’d heard about this place from his friend, who’d learned about it from another friend, and so on. He’d also mentioned in envy that even a bartender in that club was paid a six-figure salary with bonus and medical coverage that included vision and dental.

  That night, we’d gotten the address and called an Uber, riding straight to the club. The driver had cruised around Old Town Pasadena for over half an hour and couldn’t find it, and he’d insisted that the address was wrong and that he’d never heard of any bar or club had the ridiculous name of Claws, Fangs, and Fiends. So we’d jumped off the Uber and given him poor tips. It took us another hour to find it by walking around and searching every brick—I spotted it at last by chance, as if it’d been intentionally concealed.

  And then the bouncers had thrown us out before we could even get in, even though I’d protested that I was old enough to drink and Becca had shown them her fake ID. But one of the big asshole bouncers had still ended our daredevil club hop adventure with an unnecessary threat.

  Walking down the memory lane, my heart lurched. I could try that club again, this time not to crash the party but to get a job. If even a bartender could earn a six-figure income, what was I waiting for?

  I had dealt with clawed, fanged fiends this morning. After chasing off a Nightling, two Fae ringleaders, and two squads of Fae thugs, I was definitely qualified to work in that kind of environment. I doubted that club had any patrons scarier than what I’d met today.

  I would head to that underground club, apply for a job, and convince them to let me try the day bar, so I could still pick up my siblings after my shift and guard them at night. As I went through the plan again, it sounded farfetched, even to me.

  But didn’t they say fortune favors the bold, and often the dumbass?

  I glanced at the retro clock on the nightstand. I still had three hours to kill before I had to go get my charges.

  I changed my outfit swiftly, patted my cheeks hard to give them more rosy hue and courage, and glossed my lips. I didn’t look too bad in the mirror.

  I jogged to my van, flipping the bird around the perimeter to the Fae gangs and anyone else spying on me, before I entered my vehicle and pulled it out of the driveway.

  Chapter 8

  My van cruised past Holly Street and the old Pasadena historic district, then the train station. I recalled the station was where our Uber had gotten lost last time when Becca, her cousin, and I tried to find the Claws club.

  The Uber driver had claimed that he knew Old Town like the back of his hand. He was lucky that I was too lazy to give him a one-star rating after that.

  A few more blocks after Fair Oaks Avenue, I made a left turn and parked the car in the street. It’d be hell to find a space on Colorado Ave, and I was too cheap to give the city more money by feeding their public parking monsters.

  And from my experience, you couldn’t find Claws, Fangs, and Fiends while inside a car.

  The sun was bright, spilling onto my golden hair as I got out of the van. I shook it off from my shoulders and gave Old Town, the most prosperous area of the city, a good look. This was the only city my family had stayed in for more than eight months. Part of me wondered if my parents would have been around if we’d left California behind.

  I hadn’t come to Old Town, also called Athens of the West, since my last failed attempt to get inside the Claws club with Becca. Now I walked down the broad Colorado Street, my slender, high-heeled boots clicking on the walkway, passing a few upscale restaurants, shops, and outdoor cafés. I didn’t linger, though I really wanted to go into the Victoria’s Secrets shop and update my wardrobe with one or two new pink lingerie. I liked pink.

  I quickened my pace to resist the window-shopping temptation and made a turn on Garfield Street. Following my memory, I trekked to Green Shade Avenue. My pulse picked up as anxiety filled my stomach. I was close now. Maybe I should go home.

  Home was safer.

  But I needed to feed my family.

  I shook my head as if I could shake off my nervousness and squinted at a three-story modern art museum that looked old and new at the same time. The Claws, Fangs, and Fiends entrance perched right between the museum and a Masonic temple at the northwest corner.

  I strode across the street and made a beeline toward the two-story Victorian with a blue brick façade and bay windows. Red ivy vines sprawled halfway up the brick walls. Granite pavers connected the sidewalk to white marble stairs leading to the grand double doors. The sign above the door read Claws, Fangs, and Fiends in small, ornate letters.

  The club looked more like a private, lavish theater for selective clients than an exclusive club.

  Yet somehow no one else on the street paid it any attention. Some pedestrians even seemed to go out of their way to avoid stepping on the granite path despite never acknowledging the grand building.

  For a second, I paused on the sidewalk, blinking up at it in confusion. The building had appeared differently last time. I distinctly remembered it had looked dark and foreboding, the kind of place only criminals frequented. When we walked toward it, I’d felt a sudden dread, as if the building itself didn’t want me there.

  That was probably why I hadn’t insisted on getting in when the extremely rude bouncer demanded we leave. Now that I thought about it in more detail, the whole experience had been very odd. Becca’s cousin’s eyes had gone all white, and Becca had practically been in tears. After we fled the scene, they’d told me they saw a pair of wild animals with real claws and fangs lurking in the shadows near the entrance.

  I blinked again and stared at the blue brick building. A subtitle glinted on the sign underneath the club’s name: Enter at your own peril.

  It couldn’t be worse than Hell, right? I chuckled to psyche myself up before striding up the path. I ambled on the granite path, trying to be as quiet as I could, but my heeled boots weren’t cooperating.

  No bouncers guarded the large, burgundy wooden double-door except a statue of a winged black beast situated outside the entrance. Maybe that was what Becca and her cousin had seen. The beast’s expression was livid.

  If I didn’t know better, I swore it stared at me, sizing me up with both curiosity and suspicion.

  I paused at the door, gathering my thoughts and my cool. I felt a strange pull from this place, and last time, I’d felt repulsion from it.

  Giving myself one more moment, I raised my hand and knocked on the door since I didn’t see a doorbell. The knock felt like a small rock sinking into the deep pond.

  I waited for a second and knocked again.

  No one came to the door.

  Had I driven all the way here and come to the wrong place?

  But this was the club. I could see the name clearly. And Becca’s cousin had said this was the only twenty-four-hour club, even though it didn’t have a phone number listed anywhere.

  Maybe it was out of business. Or maybe it operated only at night. I wouldn’t work at night since I needed to guard my siblings, who were all I had now.

  I raised my fist and pounded on the door, giving it one last try for the sake of my gas money.

  The heavy door flung open, and I jerked half a pace back. Then I rested my palm on the statue’s head and tried to look cool and relaxed.

  No one wanted an uptight bartender.

  A head poked out of the door and a pair of dark eyes swept over me before the towering figure stepped out and shut the door behind him, his massive arms folding before his chest.

  It was the same mean bouncer who had po
unds of muscles and great height. He dressed all in leather with a dagger strapped to his massive thigh. And this time, to my shock, he had two short, black horns sticking out of each temple.

  I didn’t mean to be rude, but I was staring at them. Then they faded. When I blinked, they formed again.

  I threw the hand that wasn’t on the head of the beast to my mouth to stop a curse from spitting out. I coughed into my fist.

  The bouncer regarded me coldly.

  “Sorry, I’m allergic to pollen,” I said.

  His eyes narrowed as if he spotted my lie. “Pollen season was gone months ago.”

  I tried hard not to look at his horns again.

  “Not for me, man,” I said. “I’m the sensitive type.”

  “Don’t put your hand on that statue,” he snapped. “You’re lucky it didn’t—” He stopped and stared at me as if I had just sprouted horns.

  “Sure,” I said, dropping my hand from the statue. It was just a statue, dude! Although my palm had started to tingle. “Is it a gargoyle? Why is it so hot?”

  I glanced at my palm and gasped at the faint glowing rune on my skin. I gave the statue one more look. It didn’t appear any more strange than I’d first spotted it. But had its fangs grown larger?

  I shook my head as if to get rid of a sudden haze of fog inside.

  The bouncer was still staring.

  I shouldn’t get sidetracked. I flashed him a smile. “I remember you, man. Last time you were really friendly toward my friends and me.”

  “I don’t remember seeing you, girl,” he said. “And no one has ever said I’m friendly.”

  My smile toward him grew more encouraging. Mom taught me how to treat the meanest bastard. Show him a huge smile first, and when that failed, punch the dipshit as hard as you could. The courtesy was more of an act to disarm him.

  “There’s always a first, isn’t there?” I said.

  “What do you want?” he asked, not buying my act at making friends.

  This one wasn’t up for a small talk, which was fine. I didn’t come here to chitchat either. I schooled my features into a getting-down-to-business expression. “I need to see your boss.”