The Hob

by Dana Marie Bell

  The four-poster bed was the one piece of furniture he’d insisted upon. She’d become bolder in their love play, allowing him to tie her down upon occasion.

  Indeed, she’d tied him down once, and he’d discovered he enjoyed being at her mercy. She’d been a tender lover, careful of him as so few were, aware he could easily break free but trusting him not to do so.

  He had not. After all, turnabout was fair play, and Robin enjoyed playing fair with his lover.

  “Found you!” Soft arms encircled his waist. She buried her face in his hair and hugged him tight.

  Robin chuckled. Trust her to be one of the few who could find him when he made an effort to be elusive. “So you did.” He turned and pulled her into his arms, dazzled anew by her. “Gods above, you’re beautiful.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I know you are, but what am I?”

  Robin shook his head. Always, she took his compliments and turned them back on him, teased him for his supposed vanity. He preened for her, and she sparkled with laughter. “Lucky?” She tickled him, and he grabbed her wrists, placing soft kisses on her palms. “Witch.”

  “Me?” She batted her lashes.

  “You must be.” He nibbled her fingers, delighted when her eyes darkened. “How else would you have bespelled the Hob?”

  “With my sheer, unadulterated awesomeness.”

  It was said with such a straight face that Robin couldn’t help but laugh. “I believe that last was a given.”

  “As long as we have that straight.”

  “We do, indeed, my dear.” Robin bent and took his bondmate’s mouth, eager to taste her once more.

  Michaela whimpered as she woke. Damn it. Just as the dream was about to get good too. Stupid alarm clock. Stupid night shift.

  Ugh. Stupid life.

  She stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, her body throbbing, eager to finish what her dream man had started. But she had to get ready for work. She had kids to take care of, kids who needed her.

  She held up her toothbrush like a torch. “I am nurse. Hear me roar!”

  Then she wiped the toothpaste off the mirror, thanking God her dream man wasn’t real and couldn’t see what a dork she was.

  Chapter Three

  “What the fuck is this?” Robin stared at the entrance to the Marriott. He turned and looked at Kael in disbelief as people, huge masses of people, streamed in and out of the building. A woman in nothing more than a bikini made out of leaves walked past him, distracting him.

  Kael cocked one pale brow.

  “What? She has nice eyes.” There was no reason for the sudden guilt Robin felt. He’d barely met his bondmate, after all, and hadn’t yet mated with her.

  Still, from now on he would keep his gaze to himself. Robin rarely felt guilty about anything, and the sensation took him by surprise. It was unexpected, and unpleasant.

  Kael grunted, whether in agreement or not Robin couldn’t say. “I think it’s a fairy convention.”

  Robin turned to where Kael casually pointed at a rather large, florally decorated sign situated right outside the front doors. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He could think of only one person who would’ve chosen this is as the place to negotiate her nephew’s release. Laughter bubbled up inside him, seeking release. It was a truly evil mind that had thought up this as a neutral location. “Gloriana’s idea?”

  “Who else? Ugh. Fairies.”

  The utter disgust in Kael’s voice was his undoing. Robin threw his head back and howled. Truly, Gloriana could not have picked a better venue. The Black Court delegation would be climbing the walls within seconds. The laughter was welcome after his aborted dream last night.

  Just a few moments more, and he’d have had her. But something had interrupted his dream, waking him abruptly. He’d been in a foul mood ever since.

  Trust humanity to find a way to amuse the Hob.

  Kael glared at Robin. “I see nothing funny in this.”

  Robin snorted, his shoulders shaking.

  “How are we supposed to hide in a group of humans this big?”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Robin snorted, still laughing. The two of them were masters at hiding in plain sight. And here, even if Kael dropped his Seeming, he’d fit right in.

  Robin, not so much.

  “Did you see those idiots with the strap-on fairy wings? I mean, really. Butterfly wings? A real fairy wouldn’t be caught dead with wings like that.” He completely ignored the woman with the purple monarch butterfly wings glaring at him.

  The laughter was turning into outright guffaws at Kael’s continued disgust. The man was entertaining as hell.

  “It isn’t funny.”

  Oh, yes it was. Robin bent double, clutching his knees to hold himself upright. He could just picture some Black Court Sidhe prancing amongst mortals in strap-on wings. He’d have to videotape it just so Oberon could also watch the fun. Perhaps Gloriana was finally developing a sense of humor.

  “Don’t even think you’re strapping fake wings on my ass. And don’t even think about solid-gold Lycra boy over there.” Kael pointed to a man in a skintight gold bodysuit, his face, hands and hair spray painted gold to match.

  “I think you’d look stunning.”

  Kael snarled. “I’m not the one who’s willing to grow a vagina. You wear it if you like it so much.”

  Robin laughed so hard he nearly stopped breathing. He was definitely recruiting Lord Kael for the Blades, if only for his entertainment value.

  Kael sighed, grabbed Robin’s arm and turned him around, navigating around a slightly pudgy faux fairy in iridescent dragonfly wings to enter the hotel. The fact that Kael felt comfortable enough with Robin to manhandle him nearly stopped his laughter. Unfortunately, some human male in far too much body glitter and far too little clothing chose that moment to walk by. His companion, a burly man dressed as, of all things, a large furry pooka, had Kael literally growling, setting Robin off once more.

  Kael sighed. “C’mon. I don’t know about you, but I need some caffeine. I can’t deal with this shit before coffee.”

  Kael managed to keep Robin upright until the last of the laughter worked its way out of his system.

  This assignment had a great deal more potential for fun than he’d first thought.

  Michaela sipped at her salted caramel hot chocolate and listened to the discussion her two friends were having. Why they insisted on picking on her over her crush on Robin Goodfellow she’d never know. She’d been dreaming about him since she was a little girl, fascinated by bright blue eyes and impossibly long hair. She’d pretty much devoured anything remotely related to Puck. She’d even liked the way the character was brought to life by Stanley Tucci in the movie version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Christian Bale and Calista Flockhart.

  Her friends just wouldn’t let it alone. Did she bother them over their obsession with Jason Momoa? No, she did not.

  Okay, so the dude was hot. But she could so totally tease them if she wanted, she just chose not to.

  “Face it, Puck was a serious bastard of the first order. If you look at what he did just in Shakespeare’s plays, you’d realize that. He gives a man a donkey head, for fuck’s sake.” Stella began ticking points off on her fingers. “In Jonson’s work he forced people to follow him, leading them away from their homes, probably killing them in the wild.”

  “Pfft. In the wild. Please.” Michaela rolled her eyes. They were talking Lancashire, not the Serengeti.

  Stella continued as if Michaela hadn’t interrupted. “He stole kisses and food, would strip their bedclothes from them, pinched them, punched them and threw them out of bed.” She wrinkled her nose. “Seriously, he’s a prick.”

  Amanda nodded in agreement. “It’s true. Just read the ballads.”

  Michaela rolled her eyes. Like she hadn’t memorized the darn things. “You’re forgetting something.”

  “And that would be?” Stella leaned back and crossed her arms. Amanda gave her that an
noyingly superior look.

  No matter what Michaela said they were going to stick with their belief that Puck was nothing more than an evil little hobgoblin, but she had to try. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  The guy had a bad rap, but it wasn’t entirely his fault. Most of what he’d done had been to people who’d deserved it, but Stella and Amanda had been teasing her over her obsession for too long now to acknowledge that. She began ticking her own points off, just as she always did. “According to the very same ballads, Puck would card wool to help the less fortunate, help with the farm work, get lazy workers to do their jobs, lend money to the needy and expose nasty gossips to those they’d betrayed. Even Bottom’s misfortune was due not to Puck’s mischief but orders from Oberon.” She shrugged. “He just got it a little wrong.”

  Stella sniffed. “You can’t deny that Puck did an awful lot of bad things without orders from Oberon.”

  Michaela wagged her finger at Stella. “The thing is, when he did them, did he do them because the person deserved it or not?”

  “Not always. You’ve read the ballads, you should know better than us.” Amanda picked up her empty cup and frowned. “Damn. All out of my skinny mocha. Anyone want seconds?”

  “Not me. It goes right to my hips.” Stella patted her well-rounded bottom. Her boyfriend loved Stella’s hips and would have already bought her another one, silencing her protests with a kiss. Frank was good for Stella, and Stella adored him. It did Michaela’s heart good to see one of her friends settled with a wonderful man.

  Michaela held up her cup. “I’m good.”

  “Be right back, then.” Amanda stood and threw her cup in the recycling bin before getting back in line.

  Stella kept up the argument. She was never one to let something die. “I’m telling you, Puck was a shithead.”

  Michaela frowned. “No. He wasn’t.” The final act of the play, where Puck asks forgiveness of the audience, had been both sad and roguish at the same time. She was enchanted every time she saw it.

  She wrapped her hands around her cup and began to recite one of the ballads.

  “Yet now and then, the maids to please,

  I card at midnight up their wooll:

  And while they sleep, snort, fart and fease,

  With wheel to threds their flax I pull:

  I grind at mill

  Their malt [up] still,

  I dresse their hemp, I spin their towe;

  If any wake,

  And would me take,

  I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!”

  Stella laughed. “You are not quoting Ben Jonson at me.”

  Stella was a literature major, but Michaela was a connoisseur of all things Goodfellow. There was no way Stella would win this fight. “Yes. Yes, I am.” Michaela sipped her hot chocolate and smirked at Stella over the rim. Take that, hater.

  Stella’s eyes narrowed. The woman loved a challenge. “What about the times he messed with people’s weddings just for fun?

  “He welcome was unto this feast,

  And merry they were all;

  He play’d and sung sweet songs all day,

  At night to sports did fall.

  He first did put the candles out,

  And being in the dark,

  Some would he strike, and some would pinch,

  And then sing like a lark.

  The candles being light againe,

  And things well and quiet,

  A goodly posset was brought in

  To med their former diet.

  Then Robin for to have the same

  Did turn him to a beare;

  Straight at that sight the people all

  Did run away for feare.”

  Michaela bit her lip to keep from laughing. “He was hungry.”

  “Hungry. Uh–huh.”

  Michaela grinned. “What about the time he saved a woman from her lecherous uncle by tricking said uncle into writing down his consent for her marriage to her true love? Remember, Oberon gave Robin a scroll that said he was not to harm any who didn’t truly deserve it.”

  “Oh, please. He played pranks on everyone, never mind if they deserved it or not.” Amanda flopped back down in her seat and sipped her skinny. “Besides, it’s only when Oberon is listed as Puck’s father that he gets that scroll. All the others, he’s just another hobgoblin.”

  “Then why was he so closely linked with Robin Hood?” Michaela chalked that one up to a victory.

  At least until the girls burst into laughter. “You can’t actually believe that.”

  Amanda was laughing so hard she almost dropped her skinny. “That’s been disproven by numerous scholars.”

  Michaela’s grin didn’t slip. If anything, it became sweeter.

  “Amongst the rest, was a good fellow devil,

  So-called in kindness, ’cause he did no evil,

  Known by the name of Robin (as we hear)

  And that his eyes as bigge as sawcers were,

  Who came a nights, and would make kitchens cleane

  And in the bed bepinch a lazie queane…”

  “And now you’re quoting Thomas Rowland. Seriously, your obsession with Puck is getting ridiculous.” Stella twirled her empty cup between her hands.

  “You’re the one writing a thesis on how evil he truly was, and that was why he was equated with Satan.” Michaela threw her napkin at Stella’s head. She was only doing it just to prove her point once and for all. “He wasn’t. He was a good guy.”

  “He was a rotten bastard who pinched women’s butts, which makes him a skanky, sexist asshole.” Amanda stood, her skinny mocha in her hand. “Listen, I’d love to sit here and argue with you some more about Puck the Magic Grab–hands, but I’ve got to get to work.”

  “Me too.” Stella threw her empty cup in the trash and shook her head. “You know what you need, Mick?”

  “Here we go.” Michaela rolled her eyes. Stella knew how much she hated being called Mick. She only did it when she was losing an argument.

  “You need a real man in your bed, not some goat-faced, fuzzy fantasy.”

  “Oh man. I never thought of that. Mick is a fuzzy.” Amanda’s eyes widened dramatically. “Please tell me you don’t get turned on by My Little Ponies.”

  Michaela sighed and banged her head on the table. “I hate you all.”

  “Oh my God. I bet she has a thing for Twilight Sparkle.” Amanda’s voice shook, and Michaela knew the bitch was trying desperately not to laugh. “Or maybe Rarity. She always did go for the pretty ones.”

  Stella tilted her head. “Wouldn’t that make her a lesbian fuzzy?”

  Amanda choked on her last sip of mocha. “You’re a lesbian too?”

  Michaela pointed toward the front door without even raising her head. “Go!”

  “You think you know your friends,” Amanda muttered, making her way to the door.

  “Later, Mick.”

  “Bye, guys.” Michaela raised her head and waved to her friends as they headed out the door. “And I am not a fuzzy!”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Oh, shit. Kael and his totally hot friend were standing next to her table. The friend was silently laughing, his hand covering his mouth in an oddly familiar gesture. Kael had his hand around the dark-haired man’s arm, holding him up.

  Shit. They must be a couple. She hadn’t suspected Kael was gay. He eyed her up whenever they met, no matter how subtle he thought he was being, but his hold on the other man was proprietary.

  Damn. There went her daydreams of getting biblical with Tall, Dark and Dreamy.

  She had to admit, they were certainly gorgeous together. There was no doubt of that. The dark-haired man’s golden skin and dark, almond-shaped eyes were the perfect contrast to Kael’s blond, all-American good looks.

  It was weird, because Michaela tended to like guys with lighter hair and eyes, like Kael, but her gaze was constantly drawn to the darker of the two. It had been that
way earlier in the parking garage too. She just hoped she hadn’t been too obvious in her attraction, especially if the man was taken. Michaela didn’t poach, not even when the object of her unrequited lust steered toward the fairer sex.

  Out the window behind them Michaela caught a glimpse of one of the convention goers dressed as some kind of walking tree. She tsk’d loudly. “Poor guy. He’s going to wind up with splinters in some interesting places.”

  The brunet, still vibrating with laughter, collapsed into the chair Amanda had recently vacated, placing him right next to Michaela. “In truth, it gives new meaning to the term woody.”

  Kael pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not enough caffeine in the gods’ bedamned world.” He sighed. “Ringo?”

  “Iced caramel macchiato.”

  “Got it.” Kael walked away, shaking his head.

  Michaela bit the bullet. She would remember his name this time if it killed her. “I’m sorry, what did Kael just say your name was?”

  He tilted his head and smiled. Something about that smile sent shivers down her spine. His eyes had odd flecks of blue in them, like chips of blue topaz in rich, dark earth. He tilted his head in an oddly old–fashioned gesture, almost like a bow. “Ringo Midori, at your service.”

  Wait. She knew what those words meant from all the manga she read. “That name’s Japanese. That would make your name Midori no Ringo.” She laughed. “Oh, man. Your parents named you green apple?”

  One dark brow quirked upwards in surprise. “I was an interesting looking baby.” She thought for a second she detected respect in his gaze before the laughter returned. “You speak Japanese?”

  “Nope. I read a crapload of manga, though.”

  “Manga?” Kael settled into his chair and handed Ringo a cup.