by K. M. Shea
“What do you mean?” I asked, turning around to face the talking reptile.
“The cyclopes are a nice race,” Corona factually said. “But they’re horrible readers and will exploit anyone who is willing to help them.”
“What do you mean?” I said as I plopped down in a chair next to Toby, who was talking on the phone.
“I mean you’ll be getting dozens and dozens of requests to help fill out forms. The first cyclops you helped spread the word. They’ll all be flocking here now. Don’t feel bad; it’s happened to all of us at some point. Eventually, you will have to tell them no; there’s not enough time to help them all,” Corona said before turning to a pair of tourist fairies who fluttered in front of the desk.
As Toby started yelling at the poor creature on the other end of the phone call, I leaned back in my chair and wondered. Would I really have to turn them away? If all of the employees at the information desk had been plagued with this sort of problem at one point or another, it was obviously a serious issue. The MBRC wasn’t correctly providing for one of the races they professed to be rehabilitating.
“Okay you ready to go 123?” Toby prompted after hanging up on his customer.
“Sure,” I replied.
“Alright next question: I saw someone walking a guinea pig on a leash down Main Street of the town I live in Is this normal behavior I should copy?”
“Oh, gosh. No. Tell them NO!”
Corona was right. By the time Toby finally took his break at approximately 5:15, only about ten minutes before Frey would drop by to pick me up, I had helped at least half a dozen cyclopes.
They were easy to assist. Generally it only took five to ten minutes, and Toby was in a fairly good mood and didn’t mind that I got up every few minutes to aid the newest cyclops client.
“I’m going to run to the bathroom really quick; I won’t be long,” I told Corona before slipping out of the many-sided desk.
“Sounds great. Frey will be by soon to pick you up,” she reminded me.
“Right,” I acknowledged before plunging into the hustle and bustle of the main chamber, moving in the direction of a small inlet Corona had pointed out to me the day before: the bathrooms.
I dodged a sorceress and her five students, walked beneath a beautiful phoenix, and skirted around a white, hairy creature that looked suspiciously like a yeti before reaching the bathrooms. They were a little weird as the stalls were built for a variety of beings, but they were probably the cleanest, prettiest bathrooms I had ever set foot in.
As I left the bathrooms I was still marveling over the differences, so I was totally caught off guard when a male arm was thrown across my shoulders and spun me around.
It was Devin.
6
The Formation of the Cyclops Union
“Hello, Morgan!” he beamed down at me, his yellow-moon eyes glittering. Without warning, he hugged me tight and nosed my neck. He moved so fast my brain wasn’t able to keep up, which was a good thing for him.
Before I reacted with violence, Devin deeply inhaled and abruptly jerked back. He glared at my neck and sneezed three times. “That mutt’s been hanging around you again, hasn’t he?” he sneered, his upper lip curling with distaste.
“Yes,” I said without apology.
Devin cringed and rubbed his nose. “He smells like dirt. Dirt rubbed on a wet dog.”
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked, taking a step away from the shape-shifting fairy.
“He rubbed his scent all over you,” the handsome boy grimaced before showering me with his dashing smile. “But it’s no matter. It only makes the whole thing more amusing. How are you, lass?” he asked, suddenly grabbing me by the shoulder before pulling me close.
“I was fine until you showed up,” I said as I tried to squirm out of his grasp. This time, however, he did not move into any intimate/inappropriate contact. Instead, he pulled his black shirt sleeve over his hand and scrubbed at my neck. “What on earth are you doing? Do you want a repeat performance of the last time we met?”
“I am driving that mongrel mad,” Devin said, moving to forcefully scrub the front of my neck. I gurgled in protest. “And really, Morgan, you cheated.”
“Stop that!” I said, slapping his hands away when I managed to break out of his arm hold.
“It is going to be delightful to see his reaction,” Devin smirked.
“I don’t get it. Why would it make him freak out?” I asked, brushing myself off.
“Frey is a werewolf. He’s got some baggage and abilities and crap that normal humans never have. One of them is his supreme sense of smell. He naturally hates me; I’m far higher up the hierarchy of power than he is—the dope—so of course he would hate it if I snagged you right out from underneath him,” Devin said, surveying the crowd.
“So you’re saying that’s why he’s been so cautious about me seeing you?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“It’s not that you tricked me, and I’ve probably been mentally scarred for life, and he’s actually concerned for me?”
“Well, maybe a small sliver of his humanity feels that way, but I guarantee his werewolf part just burns when he smells me on you—a person he considers to be a pack member.”
“But I’m not a werewolf. How could I be a pack member?” I argued.
“You don’t have to be a werewolf to be pack,” Devin shrugged. “Dave is one of his pack members; most likely any little siblings he has are, too. Frey is a part of his family’s pack, and then he has his own. Anybody he sees as being underneath him or below him, or anyone who needs him and his protection is part of his pack. If I really got to you, I would not only whisk you right out of his pack, but plop you up higher on the power scale than him. Of course, that would only be if I was serious about you,” Devin supposed.
While Devin talked, my blood boiled.
I was not shocked about the casual way Devin talked about taking and dropping me. Corona said he was a womanizer. Based on the way the nymph reacted to him yesterday and even from my own experience, I could confidently say Devin was probably the number one enemy of women across the globe.
But Frey?
I had actually thought he was warming up to me. I thought we were becoming friends.
Talking to me instead of Dani and Toni, being my Spanish partner, stopping by my locker, buying me Jamba Juice, it was all an act. He was just trying to control me! I remembered how easily he would let his arm fall to bump my neck; he was probably trying to rub his scent on me the same way Devin just had.
“You can’t completely blame him,” Devin continued, interrupting my boiling anger. “It’s a natural instinct for him. He thinks he’s protecting you. Actually…he sort of is. It doesn’t help he’s an ignorant male. I’m sure he’s aware to some extent that he is flirting with you, but he isn’t doing it to be cruel,” Devin said, sensing my hot rage. “All the same, though, this is going to be fun,” he gleefully added.
Devin’s speech did not drain the anger from me, but he did have a point. If Frey was acting based on instinct, I couldn’t completely blame him. We were different races. When I was twelve, a foreign exchange student from Poland stayed with my family for a year. She was a nice girl, but it was a lot harder to try and understand the differences between our cultures than I would have originally thought. And she was human! The differences between werewolf culture and human culture had to be like night and day.
But still. Frey had played with my feelings, intentional or not.
I scowled as I considered my options. I could either scream at Frey, or I could play the game, perfectly aware of what Frey was doing, and perhaps wheedle a few more Jamba Juices out of him before my memory was tampered with on Friday.
Devin made the decision for me. “There he is, over by the desk! Come on!”
There was a flash of yellow, and when I turned to face Devin, he wasn’t there. In his place was a handsome, black dog that was built like a German Shepherd.
“Your dog shape?” I guessed.
A pink tongue rolled out of the dog’s mouth, and he leaned forward to lick my hands.
I smiled and squatted down, sinking my fingers into Devin’s soft, black fur.
Devin managed to lick my chin before I remembered that he was actually a human. I placed one leg on his doggy chest and kicked, sending him skidding away.
He smacked into a wall as two fairy godmothers floated past me, tisking.
“Did that young lady just kick that poor, poor dog?” the first fairy godmother asked.
“She did. She must be a wicked step-sister,” the second fairy godmother said.
“No licking, nudging, touching, nosing, rubbing, or patting me,” I warned Devin before I stood and stalked off into the crowd.
Devin pitifully whined behind me, but I ignored him.
“Hey, Frey, is it time to go?” I asked him as I walked up to the desk.
“Oh, hey. Yeah, you ready?”
“Yep, just let me grab my stuff,” I said, ducking behind the desk to grab my light jacket and backpack. “It was great working with you guys today,” I told Corona and company, pausing to pet Doggy before I slipped out of the desk. “Tell Toby I’m sorry I missed saying goodbye to him,” I said, walking up to Frey before setting my backpack down. As I hunkered down to dig through the pockets of my bag, I spotted Devin weaving through legs and appendages. He was watching Frey with open anticipation flashing on his canine face.
I stood up when I found what I was looking for, a hair tie.
“I’ll be sure to do that. Thank you for your help today, Morgan,” Corona smiled, hefting Doggy in her arms as Frey shifted closer to me to pick up my jacket for me.
I grinned and started to collect my hair up in a messy bun, leaving my neck uncovered. “Oh, no prob! It was fun—,” I started before Frey deeply inhaled while standing up from his crouch, his arm brushing mine as he stood. When he reached full height, he froze and inhaled again.
“Morgan, you saw Devin again,” Frey growled.
“Yeah,” I said, putting on a long-suffering face. “He accosted me when I was trying to find the bathroom.”
I was pretty sure dog Devin flinched somewhere behind me.
“What did he do? You didn’t fall for whatever romantic drabble he spouted, did you?” Frey asked, his eyes flickering over my body as though waiting for me to break out in hives. “You didn’t let him, like, touch you, right?” Frey continued reaching towards me with both hands. Now that I understood the situation, I could clearly see he was dying to try and wipe Devin’s scent off me but had enough restraint not to.
I was hurt.
I had hoped that maybe he was concerned for me, but no. Frey didn’t ask if Devin had done anything to hurt me—although I had been the violent one ever since Devin had taken on his human shape—the only thing he was concerned with was my standing level with Devin and the fact that I smelled like the fairy horse.
“It’s fine,” I sighed. “He hugged me. That was all.”
Frey leaned a little closer to get a better whiff of me and shook his head. “He more than hugged—,”
“You know it’s too bad that his personality is so rotten,” I said, taking my coat from Frey before slipping it on. “He’s really cute,” I shared before stooping over to pick up my backpack. I shouldered it and waved once at the crew behind the desk.
Corona looked faintly amused. “We’ll have to talk tomorrow, Morgan,” she said.
“Right, bye!” I chirped before walking off. “Frey, you coming?” I called.
My call broke Frey out of his shell-shocked stupor, and he hurried after me. “Devin is only good-looking because he’s a fairy. You need to be careful, Morgan. He’s a total player; he’s not serious about you,” Frey lectured as we scooted around a pair of glowing lizards.
“I know that.”
Frey released an unconvinced huff and spent the entire train ride home discreetly trying to bump my neck with his arm while pulling me into some of the most amusing idle chit chat in my life.
By the end of school on Wednesday, I was no longer amused and back to anger. Frey was not desperately clawing to keep me in his grasp, but the more I mused on it, the more I could see it was his werewolf nature driving him to befriend me.
It was in the way he would talk to me, the superior tone he took on, like he was an alpha male of a pack. It was the way he herded and bumped me to the train station—it wasn’t a protective motion, it was a you’re-so-stupid-you-can’t-get-to-the-train-station-without-my-help sort of motion. He would ask me questions about my life, but only while leaning back, making it absolutely clear he was doing me a real honor.
The sad thing was I probably would have fallen for it, hook line and sinker, if Devin hadn’t have said something earlier. That was what really infuriated me.
I was so grateful when we arrived at the MBRC, I practically ran to the information desk, Toby’s decaffeinated coffee in hand. I skidded to a stop when I trotted into the main MBRC chamber.
Through the mass motion of magical bodies, I could see ten or twelve cyclopes, lined up by the information desk, waiting.
Frey and Dave caught up with me and followed the line of my gaze.
Dave whistled. “Got yourself saddled with quite the project, didn’t you missy?” he asked before plunging into the busy MBRC, getting swept along with the crowd.
“You’ve been helping the cyclopes?” Frey asked, watching the one-eyed beings.
“Yeah. They have trouble reading their paperwork,” I said, a little stunned at the line.
Frey nodded. “That’s a good thing, you know,” he said with probably the first speck of sincerity he had uttered since I met him. “No one is willing to help them, even though cyclopes are some of the wealthiest creatures in the MBRC. The center is oddly impatient with them. Someone needs to help them,” Frey shook his head, knocking himself out of his musings. “Good luck,” he smiled, placing a warm hand on my back before sliding it across my shoulders.
Before, I would have interpreted it as a romantic gesture. Now, even though I melted a little, I reminded myself it was just an excuse to wipe his scent on me.
I gave Frey a strained smile. He didn’t notice the difference and stepped into the chamber, trailing after Dave.
I slowly wove my way to the information desk, dodging dragons and wizards left and right before ducking behind the desk, smiling at the waiting cyclopes.
“I told you, dear,” Corona clicked at me. “We haven’t the time to help them all.”
I slipped off my backpack and jacket and thoughtfully stared at the group. “I’m not sure,” I replied before handing a joyful Toby his coffee. “Toby, I’m going to be busy for a little while. Give me…oh…twenty minutes, and I’ll be back. I promise we’ll beat yesterday’s record,” I said while scratching the top of Doggy’s head before backing out of the desk again.
Orion, who was in the process of aiding a family of fauns, stopped to watch me with an interested cock of his head as I approached the swarm of cyclopes.
“Hi guys, I’m Morgan, and this is just a wild guess, but I’m thinking you all need help with paperwork,” I ventured, my voice friendly as I did my best tour guide impersonation.
The cyclopes sheepishly glanced among themselves and nodded while I studied the group.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would say they were all white collar workers with impeccable fashion taste. The least dressy male was sporting slacks and a polo shirt. The females wore suits or skirts, Gucci bags and Prada shoes on all of them. Their paychecks had to be big enough to support their wardrobe, which was an interesting thought.
“Oh, Odysseus. What a far cry these creatures are from the stupid sheep-herding barbarian you blinded,” I murmured before addressing them. “I am quite willing to help you; however, I have a few questions of my own,” I said, meeting their one-eyed gazes. “Why on earth don’t you wear contacts or glasses?”
A collective slump of shoulders follow
ed.
Two of the cyclopes, a classy looking female who wore a black Chanel suit and a male who looked fabulous—one eye and all—in a delectable Ralph Lauren suit, stepped forward.
“Human contacts and spectacles don’t fit us,” the female said, a genuine smile flitting across her lips. “The whole one-big-eye in the middle of our head thing makes it difficult to find glasses with the right shape and contacts that are big enough,” she added, pointing out to me that while their eye(s) were quite pretty, coming in a wild array of colors that humans didn’t possess (hers was periwinkle blue), they were also larger than a normal human’s.
“So?” I shrugged, continuing to chatter like a bubbly tour guide. “Who says you have to use human eyewear?”
The Ralph Lauren suit guy cleared his throat before speaking in a pleasant, tenor voice. “Our visual aid needs are a very low priority for the MBRC. Daily glamours need to be cast on fairies. Vampires must be supplied with tomato juice. Dragons must be fed, and unicorns must undergo surgical changes. Coming up with a cyclops contact is hardly important.”
“What’s a glamour?” I asked, momentarily distracted.
“Fairy magic. It’s like an illusion we wrap ourselves in to hide our magical characteristics and make us look human,” the female Cyclops with the periwinkle eye explained before the Ralph Lauren guy launched into his lecture again.
“We can function in the real world through the use of a head glamour, which gives us the appearance of having two eyes. All of us here have at least one assistant beneath us who can read memos and notes to us. We use our computers, increasing the font sizes when we can. We get by. We need the MBRC’s help to survive.”
I folded my arms and narrowed my eyes, leaning back to gaze at the expensive designer clothes my cyclopes were wearing. “Does the MBRC charge you?” I asked.
“No, not really. The MBRC runs largely on monetary gifts and donations,” the periwinkle-eyed female slowly said. “They charge for some basic care, but most instruction and assistance is free; we’re simply encouraged to give donations.”