by Tay LaRoi
“What’s funny?” Bella asked, trying not to ogle Cassie too obviously.
“I saw you sneaking looks. You know I don’t mind you looking, right? You’ve seen it all before. You know my scars and flaws, and you’ve not judged yet. If I didn’t feel comfortable with you watching me undress, I would have asked to use your bathroom,” Cassie explained.
“I guess having a beautiful woman in my room turns me back into a teen. I promise not to pull your hair and call you names like we’re on a playground,” Bella joked.
“Oh you can pull my hair. I don’t have much, but go right ahead. As for names, well, I guess it depends on which things you call me and when.” Cassie winked as she put the blue shirt over her head.
Bella tried to act like she wasn’t tongue-tied and drooling as she found her own clothes and got out of her suit finally. Once they’d gotten comfortable, Bella led the way back to the living room and put her TV on, showing Cassie where she kept her DVD collection.
“I like your taste? Want to watch a horror film, and I can hold your hand and kiss you after the jumpy bits?” Cassie offered.
“Okay, just nothing with witches or werewolves. Not after this day. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved spending it with you, but I could have done without the warlocks trying to kill us. I don’t think the bounty is just to scold us for being mean,” Bella said, getting a blanket out of the chest she used as a coffee table.
“Those films can be good for a laugh; the werewolves on two feet make me laugh. But not tonight, and don’t worry about the bounty, there’s a team searching for all of these warlocks, and if any did find us and attack, between me and you, they have no chance. You do have a security system, right?” Cassie asked, picking up a DVD and handing it to Bella. One of the Final Destination movies.
“I have a regular electric alarm to put off humans, but I have a magic alarm, too. If anyone comes in without an invite, a siren goes off that I can hear even if I’m not in the apartment. I can alter the spell for now so you can hear it and can react to it too,” Bella suggested, hoping it didn’t seem too forward or like too big of a commitment as she put the DVD in the player and went to take Cassie’s hand and lead her to the couch.
“I’d like that; will it work with only one ear?” Cassie asked, taking Bella’s hand and letting herself be led to the couch. They sat down close together and got comfortable under the blankets.
“I think so, but I could make your skin vibrate as well, so you feel it as well as hear it,” Bella offered, running her fingers over Cassie’s arm and watching the hairs stand up in her wake.
“Good idea. Do you need anything, or can you do it now?” Cassie asked.
“The original spell took a lot, but changing it will just take a few things. One second.” Reluctantly, Bella got out of the blanket cocoon and went to get a glass of water. She sprinkled a couple of different herbs she had growing fresh on her windowsill into the water and swirled it with her finger, speaking ancient words.
Bella brought the glass over to where Cassie was sitting, looking curious. Bella dipped her fingers into the mixture and drew several shapes on Cassie’s arm, dipping her fingers in the water again every time they dried out. She repeated the shapes three times, and they glowed faintly before disappearing.
“And it’s done,” Bella said, getting under the blanket again.
“You’re amazing,” Cassie said as Bella started the DVD.
“I’m glad you think so. I feel even safer knowing you can feel anyone unwelcome coming.” Bella rested her head on Cassie’s chest and sighed when Cassie started playing with her hair.
“It’s midnight already,” Cassie said, sounding surprised.
“Give me a kiss. Kisses at midnight are lucky,” Bella insisted.
They had to move slightly to get in a good position, but dedication to kissing won out, and they were soon kissing softly. The kiss deepened, and Bella didn’t see any of the movie.
About L.J. Hamlin
L.J. is a disabled queer writer in her late twenties, she’s been writing for many years and loves to share her stories she’s never without a few projects on the go and writes as much as her body allows. She is a lover of animals which often shows in her books and her social media.
Website: http://www.ljhamlin.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/L.j.hamlin91
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ljhamlin
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ljhamlin
Like a Bell through the Night
Kayla Bashe
Jaffa Volkovitch knew many things. Prayers and curses in antique Yiddish. How to pick the latest fingerprint-coded locks. The phone number of a busty lesbian dominatrix who hosted tasteful orgies out of her Brooklyn apartment.
She also knew that young immortals still aged until nineteen, or thereabouts. But she had never really considered that people still aged at long distance.
For instance, she’d known Rhiannon for a decade, and Rhiannon sent her secure letters by messenger blue jay. Most fairies liked bluebirds or sparrows, but Rhiannon was always writing long letters and enclosing things: pressed flowers, fabric swatches, ticket stubs. Over the decade of their friendship, her childish tip-tilted scrawl had straightened into something that passed for penmanship. She’d gone from wishing for a puppy to walking dogs after gym class to studying dog grooming at vocational school.
But when Jaffa pictured Rhiannon, her mental image never changed. A preteen girl in overalls with dandelions woven into her messy brown braids.
On her third day camping in the Target parking lot, the blue jay landed on her rearview mirror, clutching a single scrap of paper in its beak.
As her seat shifted to an upright position, she blinked at the bird. Too lazy to reach for the controls, she rolled down the window with her toes. “What the fuck do you want?”
The bird squawked at her and poked her hand.
“All right, all right,” Jaffa muttered. She unfolded the paper.
Three words, in shaky glitter pen: HELP MY NIECE.
It was evening, and she’d just awoken. Her head still pounded from last night’s hangover. Her mouth tasted like shit. But the only things in her mind were denim and dandelions. She hoped like hell the girl who wore them still survived.
It had always been easy for Rhiannon to lose her grasp on human paraphernalia—concepts like time, numbers, entropy. When she was nervous they skittered away from her like tiny silver fish in a sun-dappled stream. No, like shrapnel after an explosion. Which makes me the walking wounded at the heart of the blast.
The streets had so many numbers. I’m a faerie mage, she wanted to tell every sign, not some sort of mortal scientist! She’d had to backtrack three—no, four times. And the overwhelming fear crowding around her like smog didn’t help.
The dead, wilted roses in the graffiti-covered planter raised their pink curled heads in a sudden flourish of vivid life as she hurried past. The unlit sign above the nail salon sparked into full illumination. This injured city was pulling at her, drinking her life-giving power, and it thrilled her to give.
Except I carry power the way a nuclear reactor carries energy. I’m the most precious commodity on the black market. And unlike a nuclear reactor, I don’t have security protocols. I don’t have guards.
Just me, in the unwashed clothes I scrounged up from my bedroom floor yesterday morning like the responsible mortal adult I am.
A white man in a polo shirt sidled up to her and put his hand on hers.
Look unconcerned, she told herself. Odds are he’s just some guy, just some human guy from a local college on a Thirsty Thursday out…
“You’re going to leave with me,” he murmured.
“Shove off. I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” she tried to say. But by some alcohol-slurred alchemy, her intentions weren’t realized. She blinked up at him, feeling sleepy; smoke played around the edges of her vision, and colors shifted in and out of unsaturated dimensions. His hand on her lower back seemed
to stretch—were those claws scratching at her shoulder blades? “Uh-huh,” she heard herself mumble. He linked arms with her.
“Someone save me,” she wanted to scream. The words only came out as slurred little whines. She concentrated, bringing her magic to bear on the fog in her thoughts.
“You want to know what I put in your drink? As soon as I get you to my car, none of that will matter. I’ll make one hell of a profit turning you over to the Zagan Syndicate.”
The Zagan Syndicate. Allies of the winter fae and the bone demons. They’d spent years sending people to look for her. Even though they didn’t know where she was, they could still ruin her life. He herded her out the door and into the dark parking lot behind the building. She managed to plant her feet.
“Come on, sugar girl,” he said like a boyfriend trying to get his girlfriend to forgive him after a fight, as if he wasn’t planning to profit from her death. “Let’s just get in the car, yeah?” His hand tightened on her shoulder, dangerously strong.
“Hey.” Sound spilled into the cold night as the door swung open; a tall, dangerous figure stood in the circle of illumination. “I don’t think that girl wants to leave with you.” She shifted forward, a predator’s walk.
Even drugged and half-dazed, Rhiannon still had to catch her breath. She’d remembered Jaffa as utterly mesmerizing. Childhood recollection hadn’t done her justice.
She’d mentioned her age once—early thirties. By human terms, that was middle-aged; to shifters, faeries, vampires, and their kindred, who could live to be four hundred years old, they were both barely legal.
A figure-hugging black tank top showed dangerous cleavage; her jeans left nothing to the imagination but whispered even more fantasies from the way denim poured over her long, well-muscled legs. She wore an old leather jacket like battered armor, and the streetlight showed every scratch.
The vampire scoffed. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m the dumbass with nothing better to do than take you down.” Her mouth twisted, and fuck-you crimson lipstick accented that wicked smirk, and dark curls as glossy as a blackbird’s wings brushed against her shoulders. “But you can call me Jaffa… Ring any bells?”
“Dammit,” he growled. “They said you were dead.”
“Funny how rumors spread.”
They lunged at each other and began to fight, bloodsucker speed and agility against pure bestial instinct and strength. It was almost too quick and intense for the human eye to follow. But suddenly Jaffa stumbled, and the vampire took the advantage, grabbing her by the throat.
The drug had worn off, and Rhiannon sprinted forward. “Get away from her, you jerk face!” She swung her backpack at his head, and her full water bottle banged his skull. It took him an instant to process the pain. In that moment, Jaffa stabbed him. A wound through the chest would slow any immortal down for at least a week.
Her hand came down on Rhiannon’s shoulder. “Hey. Kid.”
Rhiannon blinked up at her. “You knew I was in there?”
“I have a decent memory for scents and faces…and I could hardly forget yours. When your aunt sent me a letter, I used that to track you down. You all right?”
“I’m a little shaken up, but nothing that won’t heal. Do you still have that motorcycle? We need to get out before this creep’s backup arrives.”
“My baby girl’s been in the shop these past few weeks. We’d travel faster on her, but right now, we’ll just have to make do.” She gestured to a nearby beat-up car. The movement made her wince, and Rhiannon noticed.
“Oh, no. Are you badly injured?”
“Just a scratch. Come on. You want to take the wheel while I bandage these up?”
“Umm…I’m kind of a shit driver.”
“You’re, what, twenty in human years? Must’ve had plenty of practice.”
“It’s not safe for me to drive when I’m in fae mode. I keep thinking about the caterpillars chewing through their cocoons in the oak trees and the dandelions blossoming at the side of the highway. It’s only my magic that lets me avoid crashes.”
“Note taken. I’ll get us onto the highway. We shouldn’t see any cars once we’re far enough from civilization.”
Jaffa lived out of her car. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have the money to own homes. She just liked being able to move wherever the job took her…or flee when she felt the Zagan Syndicate nearby. The tradeoff was that her car was a fucking mess. She shoved some of the magazines with article titles like “Beauties of the Negev Desert” and “Israel’s Hottest Queer Women” into the glove compartment and kicked some greasy paper napkins under the seat.
Rhiannon slid into her own seat and looked around. “There’s one thing you’ve forgotten.”
“I doubt it.”
Her smile was an infuriating flash of sunlight through clouds. “Seat belt,” she said, clicking hers into place.
“Uh-huh. Tell the immortal shifter to wear her seat belt.” Jaffa shook her head. “I stole the car, I make the rules.” She rifled through the glove compartment and came out with a first aid kit.
“Okay. But you should still wear your seat belt.”
How long had it been since anyone dared to tease her? With the slightest roll of her eyes, she pulled the seat belt across her chest.
Jaffa pulled out of the parking lot. “So…is this a pleasure visit, or are you offering me a job?”
She’d hoped to see Rhiannon just because Rhiannon wanted to see her. But the little faerie looked worried, her normally warm-brown skin ashen, her pretty dark curls limp under her hoodie.
“I need to get out of human territory, now.”
“Did you piss someone off?”
“Yeah, by existing. You remember how it’s been safer for me in the human world? Well, now the tide’s changed. I’ve got to hurry home, as quick as I can.”
In her opinion, unfair was something that weak people said when they were making excuses, but Rhiannon’s situation really was unfair. A daughter of deposed fae nobility, she’d been forced to hide in the human world most of her life. She had immense power, and there was no telling what would happen if her magical strength fell into the wrong hands. Now that the rightful ruler was in control once again, it was safe for her to return, but various mercenaries were trying to kill her or capture her for her power before that could happen.
“My aunt said she’ll meet me in Connecticut. She has a portable portal…”
“You don’t carry your own escape route?”
“Most powerful faerie mage in a generation. There’s no telling where that portal would lead after a few weeks in the same room with me. A high celestial pocket dimension, or the rich dark fire at the beginning of the universe. Sometimes I look at the stars and laugh for the sheer joy of living under them. I could warp a portal’s essence and end up on some planet known only to life itself. I mean, I’d like to be the witchy goddess of an evolving civilization, but…awfully impractical, really.” When she laughed, her magic sparked.
Power poured off her smooth skin like waves of pure honey. People would kill for just a taste of this, Jaffa thought. Smash the world up to drink her down slowly.
They were reaching an intersection, and Jaffa slammed her foot on the brake a little too hard. “You keep that shield up, you hear me? No telling who might be sniffing around.” With that wild nimbus of power, Rhiannon was like the neon sign outside a strip club, broadcasting an invitation to the world.
Instead of shielding herself, instead of being sensible, she just blinked at Jaffa. “But I’m safe around you, aren’t I?”
“I’d kill myself before I laid one claw on you, but I’m not unaffected. If you think I can play chauffeur, sniper, and bodyguard with all that power curling from your lips like cigarette smoke every time you so much as breathe—well, you’d be right, because I have more control than these slavering idiots who are after you. But it’s still damn distracting. Dial it down, yeah?”
“Or what? You’ll knock me on the head wi
th a shovel and hogtie me in the trunk?”
“Yup, that’s what you young things are doing these days. Bodily harm and kidnapping. Prime material for a new episode of I Love Lucy.”
Rhiannon settled back in her seat, casting a dubious gaze at Jaffa, who pretended not to notice. “Stop pretending you’re all that much older than me.”
The first time they met, though, Jaffa had felt infinitely older.
Baby powder and white roses, lemon sugar, sweet honey still in the comb. The light glittery scent of faerie magic drifted over the lawn and kissed each wildflower. A little girl with deep-brown curls was seated in the middle of a sunbeam, humming some action-movie theme as she steered a winged doll through a clump of weeds. She wasn’t a stock photo or a china figurine. Her hair was tangled, and she’d worn through the knees of her jeans.
And Jaffa, lurking in the bushes at the edge of the yard, thought, what a goddamn good kid.
Then the first assassin leaped down from the tree, his gun already raised. Jaffa charged at him. She caught the bullet in her palm, already shifting; she hit the ground in full feral mode, with a snarl that showed every sharp fang.
Within an instant, she’d sunk her teeth into his neck and ripped. Her hands nearly paws, she fought the remaining assassins, heedless of the bullets sinking deep into her fur. “Kid,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. Her body could no longer maintain beast form; she dragged herself over on scraped hands, wincing with every movement.
“Kid, you can come out. It’s safe now. I got them…”
For a moment, everything was silent. Then Rhiannon peeked out from behind a tree. “I knew you’d protect me,” she said, her wide eyes shining. “I just knew it.”