by Eli Constant
It seems to take forever to fill the tub and as soon as it nears the overflow drain, I wiggle out of my panties, unsnap my bra, and sink down into the steaming bath. It is so hot that I wince as my body drops, fraction by fraction, into the wetness. Once I’ve gotten used to it though, I lean back against my blow-up vinyl pillow, close my eyes, and hum along to the music playing softly above my head.
Soon though, I drift off, dozing and soaking and letting go of everything.
“Lovely view, big sister.”
At first, I think it is a dream.
“I suppose it would be a little uncouth for me to take a picture for posterity’s sake?”
I try to open my eyes, but sleep still has a firm hold of my mind and body. The disturbingly sing-songy voice comes again. “Oh, Victoria? It’s not nice to sleep whilst you have company.”
Shaking my head a little to clear the dream fog that envelopes me, I try to sit up, only to realize that something is holding me down. Now that wakes me up. Wide freaking awake.
My eyelids flash open and I see Braeden leaning over me. I thrash, trying desperately to sit up and get out of the tub, but I can’t move my upper body. The weight is still against my shoulder, like two large anvils forcing me immobile. Braeden looks amused, his fingers gripping the edge of the tub and not touching me.
“Let me the fuck go, Braeden!” My voice is too frightened-sounding to execute the curse word convincingly. I sound like a child tempting God to smite her on Sunday morning.
“Of course. Anything for you, big sister.”
With those words, it feels like the anvils are removed from my shoulders, but immediately, something akin to vice grips take hold of my throat and force me beneath the water, which sloshes about so violently that it waves over the lip of the tub to soak the tile floor.
He pulls me up from the water just as I’ve reached the brink of giving up. “Are you sure you won’t come to the dark side, sis. It’s fun over here. All the candy you can eat and not a single cavity in sight.”
“You’re a fucking cavity on the world, you piece of shit.”
“Oh-uh,” Braeden shakes his index finger at me and ‘tsk, tsks’ with his mouth, “wrong answer.”
And I’m under the water again, with no time to suck in a lifesaving gulp of air. Again, I fight. I kick. I do everything I can to get out of the water and breathe. His magic’s too strong for me though. And I can’t concentrate to call his blood to me. I can’t concentrate on anything except the pin pricks of light I see filtering through the crashing water as I drown.
Once more, Braeden pulls me from the edge of the abyss called death. I gasp and the air hurts as it inflates my flattened lungs.
“This is fun, isn’t it? Lovely bit of sibling bonding. I can see why these humans like waterboarding. It should be a sport.”
I can’t respond, I’m still spitting up water and fighting to get enough air back into my body.
“Lost for words? Well, that’s a first. Here, let’s see if we can’t loosen your tongue a bit with a nice drink of water.”
My vision clears enough to see Braeden’s mouth move in a silent whisper and his hands make a motion, palms down, as if he is pressing something to a table to keep it from being picked up by a gust of wind. I take a large swallow of air before I’m under the water again.
Of course, that only buys me time.
Please help me. God, please help me. I send out the mental cry, so much anguish in it that I know I am crying. Crying underwater, where no one can see the tracks running down my cheeks. Please. Please. Please.
I repeat the word, over and over again. Braeden’s not going to let me go this time. He’s going to kill me. Is that possible? Can I die? What happens when we die?
Everything brightens in a flash of white light and I begin to float to the surface of the water. Slowly, slowly enough that I pass out before my mouth can taste air.
Wake up, Victoria. Wake up, my Queen. My heart. “Please wake up.” Liam’s voice is coming to me in dual audio. My head hears him faintly. My ears hear him faintly. And that means that I am alive.
I try to blink, but it takes a moment. My eyelashes feel heavy and wet and I’m so very tired. With effort, I open my eyes. The first thing I see is the ceiling pattern. All the little marks and divots that I pretend are little constellations in my own piece of sky.
“Thank god,” comes a thick, deep voice. I don’t recognize it. It sounds as if it is being filtered through fabric. I turn my head, finding Liam kneeling beside me, his face full of anxiety and also relief. I look past him though to find the other speaker.
The doorway is filled by his frame. He’s so large, in fact, that he is bent over so that he can lean inward. And he is covered in fur. Thick fur the same color as his human form’s hair. And his body… it is not the shape of a man’s, but of a bear’s. A giant brown bear who can speak English. If I hadn’t almost died, I might have laughed and said something like ‘hey Boo Boo’ or ‘stolen any picnic baskets today?’ But having a near-death experience saps the wit and humor right out of you.
I stare at him a while longer, as the fur begins to recede and his bones begin to snap and shrink and remold into that of a man. His eyes are the same though—whether bear or human—those deep pools of lovely brown. Puppy dog eyes.
Not the eyes of a giant beasted-out berserker.
“Does that not hurt him?” I glance at Liam, who cannot seem to take his eyes off my face.
“No, berserkers release a very potent pain blocker whenever they must change into the beast. He feels nothing now, though the day after a shift, berserkers have been known to intake large quantities of food and experience some residual soreness once the natural pain-numbing agents have dissipated.
“It looks like it hurts,” I look back at my beau and grimace as his back arches violently and a sound like gunfire shoots through the room. His face is nearly human again, the bones shifting like gears beneath the skin. He is some half-formed thing now, fur slinking into the skin, legs still shaped more like the animal than the bipedal man.
“I assure you, it does not.”
I take my gaze away from Kyle’s transformation and I meet Liam’s eyes again. “Where’s Braeden? How did you get here so fast? Kyle… there’s no way he could get here from the bar in time. How did he know?” I spit the words out fast because I suddenly feel like I’m going to upchuck. “Shit,” I gasp as the acid and bile jets up my throat. “Help me to the toilet. Please.”
Liam quickly threads his hands beneath my arms and lifts me where I need to go. Which is, thankfully, only a foot away. The lid is barely up before I start choking on foamy yellowness. I’m glad I hadn’t eaten lunch, nor really breakfast for that matter. Liam holds my hair back as I heave, my stomach going in and out like a belly-dancer’s. A belly-dancer with freaking food poisoning, that is.
He leaves me only for a moment, to wet the washcloth hanging on my sink and fold it to set against my forehead. The coolness helps.
When I’m spent and exhausted, I rock back on my heels and look for Kyle. I don’t see him until I lean backwards so Liam isn’t blocking the floor of my bedroom. Kyle is spread out, naked along the floorboards, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. “Is he okay?”
Liam tosses Kyle a cursory glance. “Yes. Just like you, he’s exhausted.”
I nod. “Liam, can you help me to bed? And…” I trail off, realizing for the first time that I’m completely naked, wet, and kneeling next to the man I don’t want as a boyfriend, “can you get me something to wear. Please.”
His lips twitch, fighting a smile. It’s because I’ve said his name and asked him to help me. He wants to be needed by me and I feel bad about that. Because I love Kyle, even if the love is some sort of magical side effect. I still love him. I care for Liam. But it’s different. “Of course,” he says in a flat voice, any hint of a smile gone. He’s heard my thoughts. I hate when he does that. He stands up and walks stiffly to the bedroom, making a great show of st
epping over Kyle’s large frame on the floor. At least I’m not the only one naked.
I know, by Liam’s sudden change of attitude, that he’s read my thoughts, understands that I don’t want him to take anything I say as flirtatious or inviting. Even when I try not to hurt him, I do. Dammit.
“Here. Do you need help dressing?” Liam hands me a pair of grey panties and a casual cotton dress. It’s not a nightgown, but hell, I’d take a burlap sack if it meant I wouldn’t be naked with my wannabe fae boyfriend in the room.
“I think I can manage.” I try to stand up, but my legs won’t support me. Liam catches me as I fall. And I am even more aware, very keenly freaking aware, that I’m naked. “Maybe a little help?” I say apologetically. He shouldn’t have to help me like this. He’s not getting what he wants in return.
“What I want is for you to give me a chance,” Liam whispers. Why is whispering so much more intimate than speaking in a normal voice? It is though, like little tender fingers walking up your spine.
We walk to the bed, Liam’s arm around my waist, and I perch on the edge. Liam helps me, leg by leg, to pull the underwear up. He gets points for being efficient, for not hovering where he didn’t belong. He’s a gentlemen, managing to avert his gaze whilst helping me dress. It earns him points.
“Can I get you anything else before I go?” Liam has his back to me, looking at the door to my room and beyond that the door to leave my apartment.
“You’re leaving?” I can’t help the note of worry in my words. Kyle is passed out on the floor. Braeden could come back. I’m not strong enough to fight him. I don’t know enough yet.
“You have your guardian berserker right there,” he points to Kyle, “like a guard dog slumbering on your throw rug.”
“He seems pretty out of it.” I’m cross legged on the bed. The radio is still playing in the bathroom. And Kyle seems to be sleeping like a baby. Definitely a dilemma. Do I let Liam leave, as he clearly wants to, so he can get away from me and my constant refusal of his feelings or do I ask him to stay, using my pitiful girly wiles, so that I’m protected from the big bad wolf? Dammit. I want him to stay.
I wish I could say, honestly, that I only want him to stay for my protection.
“He’ll wake up if you are in danger, Victoria. You will be fine.” Liam’s voice is matter-of-fact. Almost as if he’s giving up on the situation. “I’m not giving up on you, Victoria. Someday, you’ll realize the truth and you’ll begin to crave a love that’s real, not a device of dutiful magic.”
He doesn’t give me time to respond. He becomes the swiftly-moving metallic cloud, flying towards the kitchen, opening the door, and leaving my apartment. And leaving me to the company of only my own confusing thoughts.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kyle slept what was left of the day away. Braeden didn’t come back.
When my beau, all de-furred, looking well-rested and wearing one of the sets of clothes he kept in the uppermost shelf of my closet, came out of the bedroom he was greeted by fried fish. Piles and piles of fried fish. I don’t know what made me drop every single piece of the fish Leslie had given me into a water bath to thaw. And then every single piece into milk, flour, egg wash, cornmeal, spices, and then a big hot vat of vegetable oil, but it’s what I had to do.
I wanted the evidence gone, the evidence of where I’d found the little heart earring, of the shit that was going down, of the people who had died and who might still die. I just wanted it all gone. And what I especially wanted gone was this whole situation with me trying not to love two guys at once.
Because all the therapeutic cooking had helped me decide one thing. I did love Liam, and not just as a friend dammit. And he was probably following right along with my thoughts, so he’d know the conclusion I’d come to also. But, just because I’d figured this out, didn’t mean I was going to act on it. And that was the crux of it.
“Hey, you’ve been busy.”
“While you were sleeping.” I smile at the movie reference. I could watch that film over and over, especially the revelation at the end when she finally tells everyone that she was never actually engaged to X and that she had fallen in love with Y while pretending.
“That floor’s not great on the back.”
“Well,” I flip over a battered piece of fish and step back as the sizzling oil begins to pop and fly in little hot drops out of the tall cooking pan, “I would have moved you, but you sort of weigh a ton.”
Kyle moves to sit at the table, pushing the chair back far enough that he can lean back and stretch his legs over the center shelf of the pedestal and place his feet on the opposite chair. “How exactly did I end up passed out on your floor? Last thing I remember, I was at the bar talking to Mikey.”
“Blackouts must be part of the whole beasting out thing.” I move the piece of fish onto a clean paper towel to dry. I’ve got six plates of various sizes scattered across the countertops already laden with oily fish.
“Jesus,” Kyle swipes a hand across his face and then lets it drop limply against his lap, “What the hell happened? You must have been in trouble, like last time? Was it your brother?”
I nod slowly, turning off the burner as I take off the last piece of fish. It was very small, took only a minute a side to cook. “Brother dearest paying a visit. Waterboarding at its finest.”
Kyle’s up in a second, walking quickly to me to wrap his arms around me. “I don’t like that I’m not me when I change. I don’t like that I can’t remember.”
I smile up at him and then lean into his body, resting my head against his chest. “Your eyes are the same when you’re in beast mode, warm and kind. So that’s something.”
He kisses the top of my head and kneads my back gently. “So I saved you? Braeden’s gone?”
“You and Liam.”
Kyle pulls away a little so he can read my face. I try to keep it as neutral as possible. Then his eyes widen a fraction. “Wait, you said waterboarding? How?”
“I was in the bath at the time.”
“In the bath…”
“Yes.”
I let the unspoken words build between us.
“And Liam was here.” Kyle fills in one of the missing blanks.
I nod.
To his credit, however, Kyle lets it go. “I’m just glad you’re safe, Tori. That’s all that matters.”
“Yes, but I don’t know if you’ll be there every time to help me. Or if Liam will be. I have to get control of these powers. When I was…” I try to explain it as easily as possible, “just a necromancer, things were easier. I had a job, I dealt with the dead. Spirits and ghosts and the occasional wraith pushed back from the anti-ether, but now the Blood Queen’s been awakened in me. I can’t just use the simple blood magic and the shaman magic I was taught growing up. It’s different, it’s a living breathing other force inside of me, almost like I’m two people. I have to get control so that I can beat Braeden myself. It has to be me, in the end.” I don’t know how I know the last bit, but I do.
The truth is black and white. In the end, when Braeden is finally destroyed, it will have to be by my hand alone.
“Then we talk to Liam and see what needs to be done. He was training you before he left. You’ve shown me the journals. He needs to start again, but not just information and filling diaries. He needs to teach how to balance your dual gifts. He needs to teach you how to keep the Blood Queen in check.”
“Yes, I know.” But I also know what it will mean if I begin working closely with Liam again. I’ve admitted that I have feelings for him, forty fish filets later. I don’t want to betray Kyle. I don’t want to even take the chance that I might.
“Good, then we’ll talk to him and—” Kyle is cut off by my phone ringing once more. I’d tossed it on the couch earlier after speaking with Mei, right before the marathon cooking session. I rush around Kyle.
“Hold that thought. Sorry, but it might be Terrance.”
My cell is pushed between two couch cushions and
I press answer before the phone is lifted even halfway to my face. “Terrance, how’d it go?”
“Weird. Really fucking weird.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know, Tori. I just got a weird vibe. The doctor was cool as a cucumber, not even a flicker of emotion when I was talking about his wife’s murdered son. And the mother, shit, fucking piece of work. She showed emotion, but it came in the form of saying her son was everything that was wrong with the world. She showed me photos of her daughter, had a fully rehearsed story about how the kid died in a boating accident years ago. The doctor took me aside as I left and told me that he allows her the delusion, it’s the way she copes.”
“Wow…” I let my voice trail off, at a loss for words.
“Yeah, wow is right. I’m going to look into this Sherwin character some more, see how long he’s been in the area. I just can’t shake that there’s something really off about him.”
I glance up at the time. It’s six o’clock, the sun going down, light flashing off the icy lake outside and playing against the tiffany chandelier above my dining table. “You were on the way out there this morning, have you been interviewing them this whole time?
“Yeah, we got interrupted pretty quickly. The silent alarm at their house was tripped. They asked me to drive over and check it out with them. Security response was already there, but no one in sight. Didn’t seem to be anything out of place or any doors busted in. Strange stuff.”
“Yeah, real strange.” Though, it actually wasn’t strange to me. Had Liam gotten in? Or given up at the first sign of a security system? “Maybe a diversion? Interrupt your interview, put you off your game?”
“No, seems too elaborate and they seemed genuinely surprised when they got the call. They live in one of those really ritzy communities. Gates to the heavens, code to get in, monitor on every door and window. Damn house was locked up tighter than Alcatraz in its heyday.”