Fairy Tales (Queer Magick Book 2)

by L. C. Davis

  I should have known better than to hope. He picked up the frame and turned it over, staring down at it for a few seconds with a blank look on his face, as usual. When he finally looked up at me, he seemed confused. “When was this taken?”

  I swallowed as I forced myself to look at the picture in his hands. “You were in it,” I said dryly. “Shouldn’t you know?”

  He said nothing, just waited patiently for me to answer him.

  “Freshman year of college,” I muttered. “Right before it happened.”

  It was the euphemism I used for, “right before the guy you’re wearing like a suit murdered our friend and dumped her body God only knows where,” because I was a fucking coward and even now, I had to be in the right mood to face the truth.

  “Ah,” he said knowingly, placing the frame back with the others. “That makes sense. The memories are a bit fuzzy leading up to that point.”

  My stomach churned even though I hadn’t touched the greasy food on the counter and hadn’t had anything else in it for days. There were so many things I should have asked him while I had him there, for me, for the man he’d replaced, for Jessica. As much as I resented the charade he was putting on of living the life he’d stolen, now that he’d been letting it slip around me, part of me wished he’d put it back. Part of me liked not knowing for sure.

  “That’s convenient.”

  “I suppose it is. Truth be told, if I remembered what he’d done with the body, I might be tempted to do something foolish.”

  “Like what?” I asked warily. There were a thousand ways I could think of that thought finishing, and none of them would leave me with the ability to fall asleep that night.

  “Do you know what it’s like to look into the eyes of a woman who thinks you killed the daughter she never even got the chance to bury?” he asked, his voice as calm and casual as ever. “It isn’t pleasant. Not even for a thing like me.”

  His words were a punch in the gut and I didn’t even know why. Something about the fact that this thing, this monster standing in front of me was more human than the man I’d given my heart to, the ghost who still had most of it in his frigid grasp, made me sick. “If you care so much, why not just leave?” It wasn’t the first time I’d asked, but it was the first time I felt like I stood a chance of getting an answer.

  “Sometimes we have to face other people’s consequences, Daniel. You should know that better than anyone.”

  “Why did you really come here? You’re obviously not interested in giving me any real answers, so what is it? Do you just like watching me squirm? Do you enjoy making me watch you use him like a puppet, knowing you still have an effect on me?”

  He seemed to be considering his answer, and when he took a step toward me, I took one back out of instinct. “I suppose the best way to put it is that you’re one of those consequences. Your lingering feelings for him do exert a certain pull I find hard to resist at times.”

  I didn’t miss the fact that he said my lingering feelings, not Dennis’. If Dennis had enough of a soul to leave behind a ghost that haunted its new occupant, I doubted he had ever felt anything strong enough for me to leave behind an imprint.

  “Is that why you bit me?”

  “Your blood was exquisite the first time I tasted it,” he murmured, his fingers brushing over his lips like he was remembering. Flickers of that night I’d gone to confront him in his office came to me here and there, but the rest was foggy. “It’s a shame you had to go and die.”

  “Yeah, sorry. That was inconsiderate of me.”

  He made a sound that was almost a laugh. “It’s probably for the best. A vice isn’t something I can afford to indulge.”

  “I didn’t know my blood would make you sick,” I muttered, feeling like I had to defend myself for some reason.

  “I know you didn’t.”

  Silence hung between us, heavy and torturous. “Holden sent me to ask you to the gala,” he said in an offhand way, as if we’d just been on the subject.

  “He what?”

  “He’s worried about you. I thought he was just being himself, but with the way you’ve been acting lately, I think he’s onto something.”

  “Great. Just what I need, my ex and his new boyfriend talking about my mental health behind my back.”

  “Holden broke up with me, for what it’s worth.’

  “He did? Why?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” he asked in a mockingly scandalous tone. “The werewolf ‘defined the relationship.’”

  “Yeah, I heard alright.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “What?”

  “When did you go from seeing Nick as Brent’s annoying kid brother to loving him?”

  I stared blankly at him.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not quite as painfully obvious to everyone else as it is to me. I keep an eye on all of this vessel’s old contacts, so I notice things others wouldn’t.”

  “Does he know?” I asked stiffly, knowing there was no point in denying it. “Since you ‘keep an eye on things.’”

  “I think there are plenty of things Nick pretends not to know because it’s more convenient for him.”

  A diplomatic answer, as always. And a useless one.

  “Are you going to answer?” he asked patiently.

  “I don’t know when,” I muttered. “It just happened.”

  “Some point after you saved his life, I’d imagine. You always did have a bit of a savior complex,” he mused.

  I said nothing, not about to give him any more ammunition.

  “That’s alright, I was just curious,” he said, leaning against the back of my couch. “So, does your tux still fit? You’ve gotten a bit husky.”

  I scowled. So I wasn’t a fitness model, I still had abs. They were less defined than they had once been, but they were there. “Fuck you. I’m not going to that stupid gala, and I’m sure as hell not going with you.”

  He ignored me and strode into my bedroom, turning on the lights.

  “Hey!” I yelled, stalking after him to find him rummaging through my walk-in.

  “God, do you think you have enough carpenter jeans? It wouldn’t kill you to invest in some shoes without laces, either.”

  “I have wingtips,” I said.

  He pulled my tux from the back of the closet and wrinkled his nose as he unzipped the garment bag. “I suppose this will have to do. There isn’t time to get you fitted for anything decent,” he said, dropping the tux on the bed. “Go on, get undressed.”

  “What? No. I told you, I’m not --”

  He ignored me and started pulling off my robe. “I’d say you should burn this thing, but I think it’s federally protected as a biosphere at this point.”

  I shrugged out of my robe as a sacrifice to get away from him. He was shorter and a lot lighter, but he scared me more than Locke did. Maybe it was just because I knew I couldn’t actually bring myself to damage his vessel. “I said I’m not going, you freak.”

  “Please don’t call me that.”

  I blinked. Of all the retorts I was expecting, that one took me off guard. “I’ve called you worse.”

  “Worse is fine. I’d rather not hear that particular epithet from you, if it’s all the same.”

  I watched him, trying to figure out if he was joking. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t. “Okay...fine. But I’m not calling you Dennis.” I hesitated. “Do you even have a name?”

  “It’s not one you’d have an easy time pronouncing.”

  “Of course it isn’t.”

  “The closest equivalent a human tongue would be capable of producing is Asherath.”

  “Asherath? That’s...kind of a mouthful.”

  “You could always call me Dennis.”

  “What about Asher?”

  He tilted his head and seemed to be considering it. “Asher is fine. Just not in public.”

  “Asher in private it is,” I muttered. He stepped closer and gathered the hem of my undershirt. I could f
eel the warmth of him, his face close enough to mine that I could feel the electricity between us. He waited, as if for permission and whether it was shock or just finally accepting that he wasn’t going to give up, I peeled my shirt off. “Happy?”

  He didn’t say anything, but his hands ran down my chest and I couldn’t stop myself from shivering at his touch. His right hand settled over my heart, his fingertips fluttering over the flesh that was still sensitive from being impaled by a tree branch. “How strange,” he murmured. “You’re empty.”

  In more ways than one. His eyes met mine and for a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. For a moment, I didn’t know what I’d do if he did. His gaze traveled down again and he slipped his finger into my waistband, tugging my sweatpants down, leaving me in my boxers. I stepped out of the fabric pooled at my feet and clumsily stepped into the slacks that went with my tux, mumbling about him being a weirdo. That term he didn’t seem to mind.

  The pants fit well enough, even though I kind of had to suck in a little to avoid proving him right. I pulled on the shirt and fumbled with the buttons. This time I couldn’t blame my lack of fine motor coordination on not having fed recently. I could feel him watching me, but to my relief, he made no further move to help until he offered me the black silk bowtie. I pulled it around my neck and he moved closer, pushing my hands away to tie it himself.

  “You were always bad at these,” he murmured, his breath cool on my neck as he leaned in, fussing until he had the bowtie just the way he wanted it. “Now the jacket,” he said, holding it out. I grudgingly slipped into it, partly because even I had a threshold for awkwardness and this was far past it and partly because whatever this weird ritual was, I wasn’t ready for it to end.

  He stepped back to survey his work, studying me closely. When he reached out and smoothed his hands down my lapels before fastening the button, I felt like I was more at risk of spontaneous combustion than I’d ever been.

  “There,” he said in a tone of approval that affected me so much more than I wanted it to. “That’s not bad at all.”

  I stared at him, trying to make sense of it. His reason for being here, what he was, but mostly the fact that he’d just given me a compliment that wasn’t backhanded, which alone would have been proof that he wasn’t Dennis. “What do you want from me?” I asked once I reached the end of my admittedly limited deductive abilities.

  He closed the door and rested his hand on my shoulder, looking into the mirror hanging on the back of my door. I tried not to look too hard at the picture staring back at us. It was too close to the one that had always been in the back of my mind for comfort, even though in the childish fantasy I could never entirely purge from my mind, we were both wearing tuxes. “I want you to be my date,” he replied, as if it were really that simple, before fussing with some small piece of lint on the arm of my suit. “Did you get a cat or something?” he asked, sneezing.

  “Not exactly. I know Holden put you up to this, but you could just tell him I said no.”

  He turned away from our reflection to face me. “Are you saying no?”

  I gulped. I’d never been good at telling people no on the rare occasion my crunchy demeanor failed to filter out their requests, but with Dennis, it had always been impossible. He and Asher had that in common, at least. “Why do you even want to be seen out with me? Isn’t that bad for your new image?”

  “If the town forgave me for killing Jessica, I think they’ll get over this.”

  “Fine,” I muttered. “If it’ll get you to leave me alone, I’ll go.”

  “Is that what you want? For me to leave you alone?”

  I clenched my jaw and looked away. I’d never been good at lying to him, either.

  “I don’t think that’s what you want,” he murmured, moving a little closer. I wouldn’t look at him, but I could feel his lips against my neck and I swallowed hard. “It’s not what I want.”

  “What do you want?” It came out as a plea.

  His lips pressed against my skin, almost obscene in their gentleness. “I know the answer to that less the longer I’m here,” he said thoughtfully, winding his arms around my waist, resting his head against my chest as he leaned against me. I hesitantly wrapped an arm around him, feeling very much like a cobra had decided to snuggle up to me. Hate-fucking I could handle, but this was uncharted territory and it didn’t seem any safer to return the strange gesture of affection than it was to rebuff it. “I just know that when I’m with you, it’s the only time I ever feel like I belong in this place and I don’t want it to stop.”

  “I thought I didn’t mean anything to you,” I said through gritted teeth. “I thought I was just ‘a phase.’”

  “You were,” he said without a hint of remorse. “To him, that’s all you were.”

  “And to you?” I asked, even though I was afraid of the answer.

  He nuzzled my neck, snaking his hand up my back and into my hair. “To me, you’re poison.” With that, he pulled away and lingered in my doorway. “Be ready to go at seven thirty. I detest being late.”

  Eight

  HOLDEN

  “Don’t fuck this up,” I said, looking my reflection square in the eye.

  “Yeesh. And I thought I was bad at pep talks.”

  I frowned as Locke’s reflection appeared behind me and turned to find him standing in my doorway, already dressed in a sleek white tux. He made me feel like a kid playing dress-up standing next to a runway model with his long and lean build and his smooth white hair pulled back into an ever-so-careless ponytail.

  “What did we agree to when I moved in here?” I demanded, folding my arms.

  “I said I wouldn’t come into your room without being invited. Still waiting on that invitation, by the way,” he scowled. “I haven’t even crossed the threshold.”

  I looked down and saw that his pointy leather shoes were, indeed, over the line. “It’s always a technicality with you, isn’t it?”

  “Devil’s in the details, darlin’.”

  I rolled my eyes, turning back to the mirror. No matter how many ties I’d worn to Sunday service, bowties were my weakness. “Whatever. Did Lucas and Carla even invite you?”

  “I’m a proud member of the Stillwater business community now. They had to.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I got licensed. Now you can hawk your snake oil in the shop downstairs,” he purred.

  “Why do you want people coming here? Shouldn’t you be, you know, keeping a low profile?”

  “Not really my style. Will you please let me do something about that?” he groaned, gesturing to my bowtie. “This is painful to watch.”

  “Fine, but just this once.”

  He was in front of me the very next instant, pulling the knot I’d been working on for five minutes free with a single tug. “You’re so cute. Like a little gay wedding cake topper.”

  “What does that make you?”

  He considered it, his lips pursed in concentration as his nimble fingers tied the knot around my neck. “Always a bridesmaid. There,” he said, taking me by the shoulders and turning me to face the mirror. “Perfect, no?”

  “Thanks,” I said, still struggling to get used to Nice Locke. Ever since I’d caved in and agreed to move into the house with him, he’d been on model behavior, but I was afraid to get used to it. Locke’s personality was fluid to say the least and I didn’t want to let my guard down. I caught his wistful gaze in the mirror but he shook it off as soon as he caught me staring.

  “Who knows? When Nick sees you looking like this, he might go full-on gay.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that’s how it works.”

  He was already exploring my room and I knew now that I’d let the demon in, there’d be no getting him out.

  “Stop that,” I said.

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop judging my decor.”

  “This is decor?” he challenged.

  “See?”

  “I’m just surprised, tha
t’s all. It’s not what I expected. I mean, I said you could do whatever you wanted and it looks like the inside of a Tommy Hilfiger photo shoot.”

  “You were expecting what, lace? Glitter?”

  “Maybe a bit of glitter. I mean, you do wear dresses.”

  “It’s drag. You can’t seriously tell me you’ve never put on a pair of heels.”

  “Heels, yes, but I remember the days when they were made for men. If I’m in the mood to see how the fairer sex lives, I shapeshift.”

  “Of course you do,” I sighed.

  “I could teach you how.”

  I frowned. He said it like it was an invitation, but there was something in his tone that made me suspect it was a test. “It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  “That I crossdress.”

  “If that’s all it is…”

  “Why does it matter if it’s not?” I challenged. “Is that why you scratched up all my skirts and dresses? Have I actually found the one thing that offends the unflappable demon?” I would have been offended myself if I wasn’t so damn amused by the shade of red he was turning.

  “Of course not,” he snapped. “Why should I care if you want to prance around in frilly underwear? Buy out the whole store if you want, I’ll give you my black card.”

  “It does bother you,” I said, staring at him in disbelief. “I don’t get it. I mean, you make comments about Nick being trans, but I just thought you were trying to get under his skin. I never actually thought it was serious.”

  “I don’t know what you’re going on about, but I’m bored now,” he said, dropping my throw pillow as he stalked out of the room.

  “Locke!” I followed him, against my better judgment. Before he could disappear down one of the many tight hallways I still got lost in, I reached out and grabbed his wrist. He turned, pure venom in his eyes that made me second guess my decision, but the only thing worse than pissing him off was showing fear. “We’re not done talking about this.”