Strange Fates (Nyx Fortuna)

by Marlene Perez

  “Why is that?”

  “Sawyer Polydoros is more dangerous than any Fate,” Talbot said. “He used to be a Hecate follower. But he double-crossed her and the next thing everyone knew, Hecate had been banished to god knows where and Sawyer was married to a Fate.”

  “He seems like a nice guy,” I ventured.

  “Nice guys don’t cheat on their wives,” Talbot said.

  “I thought Naomi’s parents were happily married.”

  He shrugged. “There was talk about another woman.”

  “Another woman? Sawyer?” I was glad my cousin had passed out and couldn’t hear us.

  “Yeah, but she conveniently vanished. She was young, too. A few years older than Naomi.”

  “Are you sure about this?” It didn’t fit the picture I had of Sawyer.

  “I know more about the magical community in Minneapolis than you do.” He’d reverted to the snotty tone he took when he was feeling insecure, but he had a point. All the Houses kept tabs on each other. I made a mental note to pick his brain at a more convenient time.

  We’d reached my apartment. I unlocked the door while Talbot hoisted Naomi up to get a better grip on her.

  She lifted up her head. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “My apartment,” I told her. “Where you’ll sleep it off and try not to puke on my floor.”

  “Are you feeling better?” Talbot asked gently. I rolled my eyes at him.

  “Exactly how much did you have to drink?” I asked her. “You’re too young to handle your booze.”

  “Got into Auntie’s secret stash of the good stuff,” she said. She swayed before she went down, but Talbot propped her up.

  “You know how to have fun,” she slurred. “Not like them. It’s just duty this and honor that. I’m sick of it.”

  She threw up all over Talbot’s shoes, but he didn’t seem to mind that much.

  “Put her in my bed,” I instructed.

  He bristled. “No way.”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter,” I said. “I’ll sleep on the couch. You can have the floor.”

  “I hadn’t planned to stay,” he said.

  “There is no way you are leaving me alone with her,” I said. “What if she gets sick again? What if I need help? What if Elizabeth walks in?”

  “I’ll stay,” he said. I followed him into my bedroom. He tucked her in gently while I found a trash can to put beside the bed, just in case.

  “What do you think she was doing in there?” I asked.

  Naomi perked up for a second. “Looking for you,” she said, before she snuggled deeper into the covers.

  “Naomi, why were you looking for me?” I asked. But she was already fast asleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sunday morning, Talbot’s snoring woke me up. I was on the couch in my apartment. I was disoriented for a moment, but remembered that my drunk cousin was sleeping it off in my comfortable bed.

  I threw a pillow at his head. “Talbot, wake up.”

  He finally opened his eyes. “Why are you waking me up at this ungodly hour?”

  “We have to get Naomi home,” I said. “Now.”

  He rolled over on his side. “Later.”

  “Not later,” I said. “If you haven’t noticed, she’s my boss’s daughter and the daughter of a Fate. She lives at home with them. Do you seriously want to piss them off?”

  He sat up. “No.”

  “Then help me get her out of here before her parents call the police.” Or their Tracker. The last thing I needed was for Gaston to come sniffing around.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Naomi asked from the bedroom door.

  “How to get rid of you,” I said bluntly.

  Now it was Talbot’s turn to throw a pillow. “What Nyx means,” he said, “is that we didn’t want your parents to worry.”

  I looked at the clock and groaned. “Naomi, you have five minutes and we’re taking you home.”

  “I have my car,” she said. “It’s in the Red Dragon parking lot. Or at least I think it is.”

  She was still drunk. I gave Talbot a meaningful look.

  “I’d be happy to drive you home,” he said.

  After they left, I took a handful of aspirin and went back to sleep.

  * * *

  I had plans with Elizabeth that night, but almost as soon as I arrived at her place, a blizzard moved in.

  “The roads are closed,” Elizabeth said. “We’re going to have to skip the movie.”

  That left me stranded there.

  “How do you stand it?” I asked. “Does it ever stop snowing?” I yearned for the sun’s hot rays or even a day where the thermostat rose above freezing.

  “Spring isn’t that far off,” she replied.

  “How am I going to get home?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Elizabeth said. “You can sleep over.”

  I gave her a look.

  “In the guest room, if you insist,” she added, with a pout.

  “It’s not that I don’t want—” I said.

  She cut me off. “I get it. Your virtue is safe with me.”

  She was miffed at me. I couldn’t really blame her. What guy in his right mind would turn her down?

  The lake called to me, but even I wasn’t foolhardy enough to go out this time. This storm made the others look tame in comparison. “What should we do instead?”

  On anybody else, the look she gave me would have been a leer. On her it was plain sexy. “I have a few ideas.”

  Visions of those ideas swam in my brain and it was only with an extreme act of willpower that I was able to reach for the remote and click it on. “What’s on television?”

  She swore. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She walked away, but not without a parting shot. “You are completely unnatural.”

  If she only knew how right she was. Elizabeth avoided me the rest of the night, but Jenny didn’t budge from her chair across from mine. She kept a blanket draped around her, even though the furnace was on and the room was warm.

  “I’ll going to bed. You can use the room you stayed in last time,” Jenny finally said. The blanket slid down as she stood. Her arms were a mass of bruises.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing,” she said.

  “Did your boyfriend do that to you?”

  “None of your business,” she said.

  There was no sense in trying to talk to her when she was in that mood, so I turned in early. Or at least I tried.

  I didn’t sleep much that night. I pulled open the drapes and watched the storm trying to bury all signs of life. My mind swirled as furiously as the snow. Even the storm called it a night at about 3 A.M. By dawn, city plows had already started turning the impassable roads back into safe city streets.

  I was braced for trouble, which never came. I kept waiting for Gaston to reappear, or my aunts to make a house call, or some other kind of hell to break loose, but it was quiet.

  * * *

  I woke to the smell of strong coffee and cracked an eyelid. There was a tray on my nightstand containing two cups of coffee, along with milk and sugar.

  “I knocked on the door, but you didn’t answer,” Elizabeth said.

  I closed my eyes again and put the pillow over my head.

  There was a long pause. “Nyx?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you awake?” she asked in a low voice.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Come on,” she said. “Wake up.”

  I finally gave in, took the pillow off my face, and sat up. She was sitting on my bed, wearing a ridiculous flannel nightgown that went all the way up to her neck. Only Elizabeth would look adorable in a pink flannel nightie with ribbons and lace. It made her look like a present that I wanted to open.

  Despite the urgency to get away, I wanted just one minute alone with her. I wasn’t a saint. There’d been other girls, but my feelings for them were like pale ghosts compared with what I w
as feeling now. I knew I should leave.

  I told myself I kept my distance in order to protect her, but it was really my own heart I was trying to guard.

  “I thought we should get an early start today,” she said. She handed me a mug of coffee.

  “Oh, coffee,” I said. “I could use a cup.”

  She patted the edge of the bed. “Come sit.”

  The coffee was strong and dark and had the faintest taste of something I couldn’t put my finger on. It was familiar, a little bitter, but pleasing all the same.

  We sipped our drinks and then I moved until I was so close that our shoulders bumped, drawn in by the need to touch her. It had been a long time since I’d been this attracted to a girl. I was immortal, but my body was that of a normal young man and Elizabeth was tempting. Her cheeks were flushed, and I thought about how easy it would be to kiss her.

  I took the cup from her grasp and placed it deliberately on the nightstand. I leaned in slowly, giving her enough time to move away, but she stayed where she was, lips parted. The girl knew how to kiss, hot and sweet. Our bodies had been barely touching, but I kicked the covers off and pressed her down into the soft sheets.

  Her nightgown had ridden up, which gave me access to the smooth skin of her thighs. I ran my hands along her body and she shivered. So did I, almost overcome by the sheer lust I was experiencing. It was almost…magical. I came up for air to give myself a minute to think, but tendrils of need wrapped around me and I kissed her again. As we sank back into the bed, the kiss became all tongues, spit, and teeth. Magical. Not magical, Magic. The thought came again and this time would not leave me.

  I sat upright, breathing hard and pushed her away from me. “What the bloody hell is going on here?” I asked. “And tell me the truth.”

  There was the taste of something acidy on my tongue. It was either shame for my behavior, since I’d nearly seduced an innocent girl, or it was the remains of a spell I tasted.

  She wouldn’t look at me.

  “I bought a little spell yesterday,” she confessed.

  Not so innocent after all.

  “What kind of a spell?” I stared at her until she met my eyes. “And how do you know where to buy a spell anyway?”

  “I thought…” Her voice trailed off.

  “You thought what?” I asked. I was holding on to my temper with difficulty. I’d actually thought she’d been interested in me, but I’d been tricked. I’d been stupid, I’d let my guard down, but I wasn’t going to be dumb enough to stick around to see what she had in mind for me.

  I grabbed my stuff and bolted from the room, ignoring her as she begged me to wait.

  Jenny poked her head out of her bedroom. “What’s going on?”

  “He knows,” Elizabeth said. It sounded like she might be crying, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

  “You two are something else,” I shouted. I went down the stairs two at a time, but Elizabeth followed me. She was persistent, I’d give her that. I was at the door when she caught up with me.

  “It was my idea,” she said flatly. “Don’t blame Jenny.”

  “It’s always your idea, isn’t it? Whatever stupid, dangerous stunt you two get up to, you dream it up and she follows along.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  I knew she would have said anything at that point in order to appease me.

  “Well, I’m not a friggin’ sheep to be led to the slaughter and I don’t appreciate someone messing with my emotions like that,” I snarled at her.

  “I didn’t mess with your emotions,” Elizabeth said. “I messed with your libido.”

  I stopped and turned around. There was a faint blush on her cheeks, but I made her repeat it anyway. “What?”

  “I didn’t mess with your emotions. I messed with your libido. Or the potion did. It didn’t make you do anything you didn’t already want to do.”

  I was too angry to respond.

  “Did it work?” she asked.

  “None of your business.” I should have been gone by now, but my feet hadn’t moved.

  “It’s embarrassing, you know. The person we got it from couldn’t guarantee it would, you know, get you going.”

  “You shouldn’t be embarrassed, Elizabeth.” I tried not to let my voice soften when I said her name, but it did.

  “I don’t have much experience,” she replied.

  “Is that supposed to sweeten the deal? A virgin sacrifice?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “No, it’s just I really do need your help.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

  “Look, could we just go upstairs and talk about it? Just give us five minutes to explain.”

  Every bit of my survival instinct told me to run, not walk, out of that place, but I thought of Elizabeth and the way she had kissed me. It had been a spell this time, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make it real.

  I nodded. “Five minutes. Not upstairs. The kitchen.”

  In the kitchen, a stony-faced Jenny joined us. She started mixing the batter for pancakes, which seemed impossibly homey.

  Elizabeth sat at the counter with her head in her hands. She didn’t move from her spot even when I took a seat as far away from her as I could.

  The dregs of magic wrapped around me and beckoned me to come nearer. I reached out and touched her hair, rubbing the fine strands between my fingers. It was so soft. I tilted her chin up until she met my eyes, and I cupped her face in my hands. I was lowering my face for a kiss when Jenny cleared her throat.

  I looked up, disoriented for a second, until I realized where I was. Jenny glared at me.

  I backed away from Elizabeth and Jenny plunked a huge stack of pancakes in front of me.

  “Eat,” she ordered.

  “Where did you get the potion?” I asked Elizabeth.

  “This darling little shop I found.”

  “Who sold it to you?

  “I wasn’t really paying attention,” she replied. “A woman.”

  “Think,” I said. “It’s important. What did she look like?” They were witches, so they were capable of changing their appearances, but it took a lot of magic to pull that off. I’d wager a glamour hadn’t been necessary anyway, because Elizabeth had walked right into their trap.

  “She was tall, I think.”

  That description didn’t narrow it down much, but it could be Morta. I pushed aside my pancakes, suddenly not hungry. “Tell me exactly where you saw her.”

  The reluctance on her face spoke volumes.

  “You have five minutes,” I reminded her.

  Elizabeth wouldn’t look at me. She fiddled with her pancakes until I said, “You should eat something.”

  I wolfed down the pancakes and chugged about a gallon of water to try to flush the spell out of my system. I made Elizabeth do the same, but I could feel the effects of the magic every time I was anywhere near her.

  “Did you bother to ask how long the spell would last?” I asked.

  “I’m not completely stupid,” she said.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Twelve hours,” she added. “It lasts twelve hours. I thought that would be long enough to get the job done.”

  I looked at my watch and groaned. Too much time left on the spell. If I were alone with Elizabeth for more than three seconds, I’d have her flat on her back. I was not ready for that kind of complication.

  I put my fork down. “Exactly where did you meet this woman?”

  She smoothed out her napkin. “This shop on Nicollet. I was desperate.”

  Great. The only action I’d gotten in an eon and she had been desperate. My ego might not ever recover.

  “You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” I warned her.

  She shrugged. “I was out of other options.”

  “You’ve just caught the attention of someone you don’t want to notice you,” I said.

  She perked up at that. The girl loved trouble, you cou
ld tell. “Who?”

  “Trust me, you do not want to know,” I replied. “Now tell me exactly why you pulled this stunt.”

  She started to say something, but all I could think about was that she’d known enough to go looking for a spell. She’d deceived me and it wasn’t the first time.

  There wasn’t a trace of magic anywhere in the house, but I had bigger problems.

  Our knees bumped under the table and I sucked in my breath. I could barely think when she was around, and I wasn’t sure if it was entirely the residual effects of the spell or something else. The thought didn’t thrill me.

  “I’m going for a walk,” I said. “Can you manage to stay out of trouble while I’m gone?”

  Elizabeth looked as though she might cry. I reached over and kissed her forehead. “I won’t be gone long.” I couldn’t resist and kissed the dusting of freckles on her nose, too.

  She finally smiled, which was the only thing that mattered.

  I tore myself away from her before the dregs of the libido spell made me do something I’d regret. As my gaze fell on her full bottom lip, I knew it would have been worth it. Instead, I grabbed my jacket and left.

  I walked around the lake several times, trying to get the spell out of my system. I finally stopped at the bench and stared at the water. It had become my favorite thinking spot.

  Someone else had been there recently. I caught the gleam of a bottle cap and bent down to pick it up. Parsi Enterprises Bottling Company. I ran a fingertip over the smooth surface while I thought.

  Could I forgive Elizabeth for deceiving me? I tossed the bottle cap into the air and caught it, over and over, while I thought.

  I heard footsteps on the path. Elizabeth sat next to me on the bench. The potion was still in my system and I had to force myself not to reach for her. A tiny part of my brain said, Why not? It’s what you want. But there were bigger things at stake than my love life, and I kept my hands clenched on my knees.

  “There you are,” she said. ”I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “We need to talk,” I said finally. It was difficult for my brain to function through a fog of lust.

  I turned my attention back to the lake again and pretended not to notice how great she smelled, like gardenias and freesias.

  “I’m going back to the house,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not the smartest idea for us to be alone together until…”