Stiltz (Once Upon a Harem Book 3)

by C. M. Stunich

  I know what my life is going to look like if I keep living it the way it is. But the mystery, the promise of something different if I take the path shrouded in shadows and beset by thorns? I can’t resist that.

  Thing is, I can’t decide if I’m making a smart decision or a stupid one. The brave choice or the weak one.

  “You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?” Harry growls, shoving a hot pink drink on the counter next to me. “This is called the Broken Heart, by the way. Might as well enjoy it since it could be the last drink you ever have. I’ll make sure to provide free alcohol at your funeral.”

  I smirk and cross my arms over my chest.

  “Why not think positively? I’ll hire you on at the Family House.”

  Harry snorts; we both know the vampires would never accept an ogre in their ranks, especially not one that’s mixed with human.

  “Besides,” I continue, “we never listen to each other anyway. We each give good advice and the other person ignores it. That’s why our friendship works so well.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Miri asks, blinking long thick lashes at us. Her dark hair hangs in a braid over her shoulder and she tugs loose strands out of it as she looks between me and Harry.

  “Nothing,” he growls out, shaking his head at me as I sigh and uncross my arms. I reach for the blue drink, finish it off while stifling a grimace, and move onto the pink one. It, too, tastes like gin and tequila.

  Oh, Harry.

  “Go clean the tables off.” He chucks a rag at Miri and she frowns, spinning away with a huff and storming to the back corner to scrub rings off the polished wood.

  “She has a thing for you, you know,” I tell him and I swear to God, the look he gives me is pure hell. “What? She does. Since she’s only a quarter-ogre...” I wag my eyebrows at him and he curls his lips. “She’d probably be pleasantly surprised with—”

  “Don’t even go there,” he warns, pointing a finger at me as I laugh and suck down the rest of my drink in search of what warm, pleasant little buzzed feeling. It’s been about a week since I slept with Vyce and Sorrow, and I can’t help but wonder what their reaction will be when I call the number on that card. “Get on with you and go make your stupid mistake, so I can heckle your ghost about what a dumb decision it was to pursue the literal monsters from your past.”

  “I still think you should sleep with Miri,” I say with a grin, sliding off the stool and lifting the pink drink in salute. Harry narrows his eyes but ignores me as I make my way out the front door of The Dragonfly and into the early morning dark.

  The phone number on the card sends me straight to a pre-recorded message with an address. I wait till high noon when vampires are at their weakest before I head over there and find myself outside the nondescript door of a downtown office. It’s painted matte black, and the long stretch of windows on either side are blocked with a colorful graphic of skateboards with the name Sweet Surf Brothers in the bottom right corner.

  Clearly, it’s a ruse to throw people off. Super-duper secret magic hiding behind the walls of a skateboard company? Totally stupid, right? I mean it’s so stupid that I almost question if I’m at the right place.

  I press the buzzer near the door and wait to be let in, the distinct click of a lock letting me know it’s open before I step into a cool, shadowy foyer with a set of stairs directly in front of me. Sucking in a deep breath, I head up and find another door propped open at the top.

  “Hello?” I ask as I head inside the most boring goddamn office known to man. It’s clean, professional, nondescript. I’ll probably forget what it looks like in about two seconds, which is most certainly the point.

  The door behind the desk opens and a man steps out.

  It’s Wolfe, the asshole who brushed me off at the bar.

  As soon as he sees me, his gray eyes darken, and his beautiful mouth turns down in a frown.

  “You,” he says as I smile sweetly.

  “I’m here to see Vyce. He in?”

  “He doesn’t have time for booty calls today,” Wolfe growls—literally growls—at me. His teeth flash in that absurdly handsome face of his. I can’t believe he used to be human. It’s rare that I’ve ever seen a born vamp this attractive, let alone this powerful. “Show yourself the door.”

  Crossing my arms, I lift my chin haughtily and stare him down. He might be a good six inches taller than me, but fuck it. I’m used to being the underdog in both magic and physical strength. Ethel is tucked under my jacket along with Ricky. I stuffed him under a pink trench coat and used the high collar to hide the hilt of the sword. Luckily, this area is full of hipsters, cosplayers, and weirdos, so a girl with a sword isn’t really that far outside the scope of a human’s reality.

  “Listen, dude,” I say and he cocks an eyebrow at my surfer slang, “I’m not here to fuck your friend again; I’m here to make a deal.”

  “I knew I was right about you,” Vyce whispers, suddenly behind me, pulling back strands of blond hair with his fingers. Fuck. I hadn’t even heard him come up the stairs. And he had to have just come in; there’s nowhere in here to hide. Either I need to up my game or else this guy is just that goddamn good. “Potential client.”

  He slides around me as Wolfe sits down at the desk, murmuring curses under his breath. Vyce perches on the edge of it and crosses his arms, mimicking my pose. His blue-turquoise-purple hair is styled the same as it was last week, and his red eyes shimmer with amusement. He’s dressed all in leather again, with a short-sleeved navy-blue leather tank, black pants, and black boots. To be quite frank, he looks like a kick ass video game hero.

  “What do you want, Cameron Darke?” he purrs, smiling at me with a seductive edge. It’s sharp enough to cut.

  “You learned my full name, good for you. There aren’t a lot of dhampirs in this area anyway.”

  Vyce just laughs at me, the sound as dark as shadows in the night, black on black.

  “You should tell that bartender girl to keep your identity secret,” Vyce says, putting a finger to his lips in a shushing motion. I ignore him and smile my own sexy little smile.

  “I want to spin straw into gold,” I say and his dark brows go up. Behind him, Wolfe snorts. “For real though. And I want the transmogrification to be permanent. I know you’ve got the magic for that stashed away in here somewhere.”

  “And how the hell would you know that?” Wolfe asks. “You don’t know shit. Get the fuck out.”

  “Wolfe,” Vyce snaps, turning a look over his shoulder that’s all flashing teeth and irritation. “Enough.” He looks back at him and soothes his facial expression some. “You have inside information about the Stiltz family business, do you?”

  “Let’s just say a little bartender told me,” I quip, lying through my fucking teeth. “She serves a lot of supernaturals, so gossip makes its way around. The Dragonfly is a hotbed for it. And anyone who’s ever heard of Rumpel Stiltz knows there was a woman once upon a time who asked him to spin straw into gold for her.”

  “It worked, too,” Vyce says, standing up from the desk with a small sigh. “Coffee?”

  I shrug, and he heads to the machine on the far side of the room. Even from here, I can tell it’s a fucking Jura, the Rolls Royce of coffee makers. Those things cost over a thousand bucks! I want it so bad I start to drool. When I become queen, first thing I’m doing is getting one. Shit, I’ll get an even better one, something professional, plus, a whole team of highly trained baristas to make drinks for me.

  Crap.

  I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Can’t help it though. Coffee just excites me.

  “So, you want to be queen of House Verenim, huh? Have a crush on Vesnic, like everyone else?” he asks as he goes about preparing me a cup of coffee. I’m almost as excited for the java as I am to be queen. Also, I get to check out Vyce’s ass as he goes about making it. With those leather pants clinging to his tight cheeks, it’s a criminally delicious sight.

  “Actually, I could give two
fucks less about him. I’m tired of being poor, tired of living in shadows, tired of vampire scraps and sneers and bullshit. This is about power and respect.”

  Vyce chuckles as the door at the bottom of the steps opens and I glance over my shoulder in time to see Sorrow making his way up. He doesn’t try to sneak like Vyce did, his boot steps loud against the carpeted stairs.

  He grins at me as he hits the landing, coming to stand just in front and to the side of me. He purposefully rakes his blue eyes over me and shoves some red and white hair from his face.

  “Damn, it’s good to see you again,” he says, smiling just brightly enough to flash a single fang. It’d be cute if he hadn’t come inside me and then scrambled out the door with no shirt on.

  “I wish I could say the same,” I say, letting my voice get this icy coolness that I don’t feel. Fuck no. Standing here with Vyce and Sorrow, I’m hot as hell inside. My cunt is pulsing, my nipples are hard, and I feel like I could quite easily tear my clothes off and go at it right here on Wolfe’s desk. Hell, he can even watch if he wants. “Not in as big a hurry today, I see.”

  Sorrow frowns and steps around me, heading for the Jura and stealing the cup from Vyce’s hands as he turns toward me.

  “That was for our guest, asshole,” he says, but at least Sorrow does actually bring the cup to me.

  “Peace offering?” he queries as I raise a blonde brow.

  “You didn’t even make the damn coffee,” I say, but holy shit, his blood smells good, and I can’t resist reaching out to take the cup, just so our fingers can tangle together for a moment. Prickles of white-hot magic trace up my skin and then slide down my spine, reminding me of Sorrow’s tongue on my inner thigh, his lips on my clit, his cock buried deep inside of me.

  Fuck.

  My hormones are going crazy around these guys.

  “Your weird tattoo have any reason for you making a run for it?” I ask and he shrugs, his red leather motorcycle jacket crinkling. He’s got on dark blue jeans and a white t-shirt that’s so tight I can see his erect nipples through the fabric when he moves.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks, heading back over to the coffee machine without bothering to answer my question. The next mug he steals from Vyce’s hands, he takes for himself, breathing in the aroma of freshly brewed beans with his eyes half-closed. After a moment, he sets it down on the table and grabs a small creamer, tilting it into his cup until thick red liquid pours out.

  Yup.

  It’s blood with some sort of preservative in it to keep it from coagulating or going bad. Vamps call it red sunrise for whatever reason.

  Me, I take my coffee black like a fuckin’ Mundane.

  “Is this a booty call?” Sorrow asks, coming back over to stand next to me, his mouth twisted in a smile, the skin at the edges of his eyes crinkled. “Please tell me it’s a booty call and not a bargain you’re looking for.”

  “Straw into gold,” Wolfe barks, sitting in the desk chair with his arms crossed over his chest. He’s wearing a black button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and a two-piece waist coat with a silver vest on top and one underneath that’s as red as Vyce’s eyes. Wolfe catches my gaze, frowns even more severely than before, a shocking feat I didn’t quite think was possible, and then opens his laptop. “An expensive favor.”

  “Why would you want that?” Sorrow asks as he moves over to the off-white sofa on one side of the room and lounges in it like it was put there specifically to fulfill all his needs—and he damn well knows it. But that’s normal. All vampires are like that: entitled, stuck-up, overconfident. It comes with the ten fingers and ten toes, straight out of the womb. “Oh, fuck, the king?”

  “I want power and respect,” I say, somehow bothered by the idea of these guys thinking I’m in it to bag the king. I mean, he’s not bad looking so I guess we could shag? But it’s not my primary motivation. Hell, it doesn’t even factor in except for the fact that it’s not a total deterrent. “Queen of the Verenim Family House sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me.”

  Vyce hands another cup of coffee to Wolfe and takes one for himself, sitting on the edge of the desk and lighting up a cigarette while his friend scowls menacingly at him.

  “This is a big favor and a big price you’re asking,” Wolfe says, turning his raging glare over to me. If anything, it gets even meaner once it’s focused on my face. “We’ll have to consult Rumpel on this one.”

  My heart shudders inside my chest, seizing at the mention of that name. Fuck. If that man ever finds out who I really am, I’m screwed. Maybe Harry was right about me coming over here.

  “We’ll be able to do it...for the right price,” Vyce continues, all three vampires studying me with entirely different facial expressions. I can’t quite interpret a single one of them. “For example, a firstborn child.”

  “I’m willing to pay the price,” I say, keeping a straight face. My infertility isn’t known by anyone but me, my dead mother, and a long-ago dhampir doctor. If the Stiltz’ brothers decide to make the bargain with me, they’ll want me tested to make sure that I am fertile. They’ll send me to a vampire doctor who’ll most likely do a spell that’ll bounce right off. It won’t tell her shit. If she does examine me, she won’t know enough half-breeds to tell the difference, I’m sure of it.

  “That was awfully quick,” Vyce purrs with a raised brow, tilting his head to one side to study me with is blood-red eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to think about it? Giving one’s child up is the hardest thing most people will ever go through.”

  “I’ve thought about it all week,” I say, feeling tenseness in my throat. I really have. Ever since the king made that proclamation, I felt the tiny bubble surrounding me pop, the shadows fall away, the door to a new future opening. Metaphors aside, I need this. It’s the only way I’ll be worth more than the shit on a vampire’s shoe.

  Fuck.

  Maybe I’m not such an unemotional little eggplant after all?

  “I’ve thought about it,” I repeat, looking at Vyce and trying not to imagine how good it felt to have his teeth sunk into my neck, hot blood welling, tongue lapping at the wound. I shiver and take a step back, finishing my coffee and setting the cup down on a side table next to a decorative plant. “Talk to the boss and then come find me when you’re ready to seal the deal,” I tell them, turning and heading down the steps before those three unnerving stares get to me.

  5

  It takes almost a whole other week for Rumpel Stiltz’ kin to get back to me.

  I’m sitting at The Dragonfly, wondering if this new job is really all it’s cracked up to be because fuck, am I bored. A single dhampir gal like myself can only go to so many movies alone, wander the aisles at the bookstore until they close, and eat takeout from places that they don’t live above.

  I miss being a vampire hunter.

  Is that fucked up?

  It’s the dead of night and The Dragonfly is packed far beyond legal human capacity—not that Harry or his business partner gives a shit about that. But holy hell, it’s crowded in here and the smell is interesting. Sweaty bodies are packed shoulder to shoulder, a whole host of different species pressing up against my back, waving cash and credit cards in an effort to get a drink.

  Me, I’m just fine with my four different colored mixed drinks. And this time, only three of the four tastes like gin and tequila! The fourth just tastes like tequila.

  There are so many people, so many different species, that my senses are overwhelmed. Normally, I’m fully aware of each person in the bar, their species, the rate of their pulse. But tonight, there’re too many for me to keep track of, so I relax into the anonymity of the crowd and sip my drinks until I’m buzzed and smiling.

  Even with the supernatural horde filling The Dragonfly, Harry keeps the drinks comin’ for me, and I stay put, laying claim to my stool and my little section of the bar. I don’t usually come in here on such busy nights because I’m out working, but I’ll be damned if I give up my space ton
ight.

  Besides, the people-watching—er, the ogre-vampire-faerie-dragon-whatever-watching—is prime. I’ve already seen three fights, two hookups, and an argument about fae politics. Fantastic.

  The last thing I expect to see that night are the Stiltz brothers.

  But as soon as the door opens that day, I can feel them like a lightning bolt to the chest, even through the thick, dense crowd. Fuck, they’d be impossible to miss. I notice the rest of the vampires—and a single other dhampir—that’re sharing the bar with me all turn to look. The crowd even parts to let them through.

  “Look at that,” I purr, just drunk enough to be brazen, just sober enough not to slur my words. “The red-carpet treatment. Bravo.” I clap my hands together in a slow, melodramatic sort of way as Sorrow cocks an eyebrow and Vyce slides onto the stool next to mine, very recently vacated by a pretty young fae girl in a thick glamour. Who the hell knows what she looks like underneath?

  “Are you drunk?” Vyce asks with a small, little smirk. “Because we’d like to talk business, and I don’t do business with drunk girls.”

  “Hardly,” I say, whipping a knife out from my belt and pointing it at Vyce’s midsection. He doesn’t stop me. I can’t decide if that’s because I got the jump on him or because he’s just being nice. “I call this one Lucy.” With a grin, I spin the knife with the rowan handle in a full circle and tuck it away again.

  “Lucy, Ricky, and Ethel, huh?” Sorrow asks, tucking his hands into this fabulous red wool military coat. “I like the theme there, babe.”

  “Ooo, the name babe doesn’t sit well with me,” I tell the blue-eyed vampire with a tight smile spreading across my lips. “Stick with Cam.” Wrapping my fingers around the hideous orange drink that Harry’s named A Sunset in Cabo, I knock it back and then rise to my feet.

  An ogre girl immediately slips into my place and steals my spot; my mouth drops open in shock. Harry gives me a don’t you dare look before he moves over to the girl and leans on the counter, flirting heavily with yet another chick who wouldn’t appreciate the size of his dick.