by Misty Kayn
“Of course you should. I’m yours.” I slid back, then forward, and because Titan was rock hard, he entered me. I paused and savored this moment for a bit, then rose up on top of him and began riding him. He tensed, the muscles in his chest strained, but I didn’t stop. It felt so good, and I told him so. I picked up my pace, played my fingers over my clit. Heat pooling in belly, I threw back my head.
A cold breeze washed over my skin.
Goose bumps rose.
I rode him faster.
He flipped me, his body over mine, and I crossed my ankles behind his back.
Titan snarled and pounded my pussy. I hitched a breath, which he caught with his mouth. Above me, he moved with fast, hard, deep thrusts. When he couldn’t get deep enough, he hooked my knee over his elbow, spreading me more, then rose onto his hands to pump. I pushed one finger into his mouth as I played my clit with the other hand. I closed my eyes and felt his cock, hard and smooth inside me.
We didn’t speak.
We didn’t talk dirty.
We enjoyed the quiet, hard morning.
Titan pounded me into the bed. My mind didn’t think, didn’t plan. I surrendered so completely to him, I forgot where I was. I forgot the planets, the bed, even our joined bodies. I forgot who I was, not that I ever knew who I was, and that was when I heard him call again.
“Rain,” Titan said from afar.
This time, I hurried to answer. “I’m here,” I said. Cold air swept my skin again. It wrapped around me like a blanket, and I shivered, my body feeling as if it floated. I was as light as a feather, and the creature I’d seen yesterday showed itself. I lifted my hand to touch the robed skeleton coming out of the shadows, but I couldn’t move, even though I knew Titan hadn’t tied me up. Unable to move while the cold wrapped my body, I let the creature come to me. I should be afraid. It was terrifying, a skeleton with hollow black eyes, but somehow I also felt it didn’t mean to hurt me. “Hi there,” I said. “You’re here for me, aren’t you?”
In response, it echoed my name, a musical sound as if they were many. That was when I saw them. Hollow gray skeletal faces on the ceiling above us. Their bodies peeled away from the shadows and descended. One figure hovered above me where Titan’s body should be, while the others circled. They hummed, chanting my name. A mating call. It had to be.
I opened my mouth to answer.
Titan shouted my name.
I blinked my eyes open and gasped.
Titan hovered over me, his hands on my shoulders, his eyes as black as theirs. He shook me.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m here.” I touched my face to make sure it was solid. “I think I just had an out-of-body experience with…with the things from the shadows.”
He released the breath he held and moved to sit at the end of the bed, his back to me. He hung his head. “It’s not like this all the time. The mating season demands we mate, and not only in a physical way.”
I sat behind him, resting my cheek on his back. Despite the best day of my entire life, the dark cloud of uncertainty hovered over us. I heard his call, and he bared his soul to me, told me his secrets so I could see the side of him I hadn’t known. Those things promised an endless void for me to explore. I didn’t know all this for sure, but they’d touched me, and I felt I understood more than before. Regardless, they were here for me.
“What are those things?” I asked.
“Wraiths. The dead fae army, empty souls I summon at will. Usually at will, but the mating season is different. I…they’ve come to witness and aid in my mating.”
He wanted to mate me! I lifted my head from his back, then scooted to sit next to him. Titan stared at the floor, his hands resting on his knees. He looked at me. A smile turned up his lips, but it went away so fast, I’d probably imagined it. “You’re mine,” he said, and his shoulders hunched.
“I’m happy to be yours. It’s a little weird, this whole mating thing, I mean, but I’d get through it if you told me how it works.”
When he rested his head in his palms, a slap of reality hit me. Oh God, he was disappointed. A mate was a mate, a soul mate, the one who completed the other. I didn’t know if it was fate, but it sure wasn’t a coincidence. I was his, and he was mine, and he probably wished it was someone else. The wig, the clothes, the makeup, none of it mattered, because in the end, he’d wake up to me. “You’re a hard to man to read. Most of the time, I don’t understand you, but I love you. I’ve always loved you, so I’m sorry. I’ve tried everything, and I don’t know who else to be.”
His head snapped up. “What?”
“You must’ve noticed all the hair changes, the colored contacts, and the styles I’ve changed over the months.” I glanced at him, and his jaw clenched and he had this scary expression on his face, so I looked away. “For years, I tried to get your attention, and then I realized that maybe it was a physical thing, because I knew it wasn’t anything else. We get along, always have. I wasn’t your type, and men always look for a type of woman they like. My sister’s ex? He’s proof. People say looks don’t matter, that only love matters, but they’re wrong. I can’t have sex with Dohan down the hall because I’m not attracted to him, and if I’m not attracted to him, I can’t even give him a date. Hence, I can’t get to know him to love him. Looks do matter. In the eyes of the beholder, they matter, and you know what else?” My voice rose. “People keep trying to look better. They exercise, they try to eat healthy, they go to spas and salons, men shave or grow beards while women wear makeup, and yet, everywhere you turn, people judge and say looks don’t matter. Bullshit.” I cleared my throat. “And so I tried to…”
“Matter?” he said.
I nodded.
“Mates are of the soul, not of the body,” he said.
“No worries, I got that part.” He was disappointed with his mate. It didn’t matter why. Was it even possible for a fae to be disappointed with his mate? Sure it was. For Titan! Boy, I really knew how to pick them. Even my sister hadn’t found a match. My man didn’t even bother lying. I’d thought the mate was everything a fae hoped for.
My heart hurt.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Stupid girl.
The bed was the only place to sit on since he’d removed my desk, and standing would be awkward, so I scooted away from him. I wished he hadn’t moved my desk. But then I’d be stuck working inside his quarters. I furrowed my brow. I needed to work today. On Titan’s ship and under his direction.
“You don’t get any part of what I’m saying,” Titan said. “You presume you do. You’re so wrapped up in your head, you’re not paying attention.”
I gaped. The nerve of this one. “What? Me?” I pointed a finger at my chest and rose.
“You.” He leaned back and rested his weight on his hands, his whole magnificent body laid out.
I avoided his hip area and locked eyes with his black ones. “I pay attention,” I said.
“If you paid attention, you’d have noticed some things.”
“Like what?”
“I hate that you wear heels.”
“Guys love heels.”
“Do I look like a guy?”
“No, but you are a male.”
“I like heels only to feel them jabbing my ass while I fuck you. Other than that, I like bare feet. I like you barefoot.”
I chuckled. “Barefoot and working. That’s…that’s different.”
“Mm-hm. That’s right. I want my mate barefoot and pregnant and running around my quarters. All day long inside my quarters so that I can come and fuck her whenever I want. All day if I want. No work with groins. But I can’t have any of that because of the mating ritual. So excuse me for being a little pissed off when I can’t come inside you and claim what is mine!”
I stepped back. “I’m willing!” Except for the no-work part. We’d have to talk about that at another time.
“Back on Droila, our land, during our mating season, the wraiths rise to witness. They hover with the living and bond our
souls. They brush them with death snaga. It is the way of my people to pay respect to the death snaga, which keeps us in power. You are human.”
“You mate humans. There are several human mates on your ship,” I said.
“There are, but there is only one Titan of the Fae. A mate to a Titan must be a fae, and if the wraiths brush a human’s soul, they will take it. She’ll be severed from her human self and become fae. If you mate me, you couldn’t even drive a car. You’ll have to live up here, and when you do go to Earth, you better not touch anything other than the trees, because those grafts you’re working on might not work on you.”
“I don’t care about driving a car. I don’t care if I never step foot on Earth again. You are mine.”
He appeared in front of me, his lips close to mine, he said, “I’m living dead, and I carry death snaga. Did you know that?”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re not dead. I see you, so you can’t be dead.”
“But it is who I am. Titan of the Dark Fae. The stuff of myth, the fairy creature from another realm. There is no realm, Rain. We are fae. We are people. We exist, and we’re not like you.” He paused to whisper, “Before you all had satellites, my ancestors used to come around and seduce human women so they’d breed more fae. Once the women delivered, they abducted the babies and made the mothers think they’d died. Most of those poor women ended up in your mental institutions, saying that men with pointy ears and black eyes fathered their children and took them away. Yeah, that went well for them. How about that? We’re a heroic race.”
“I love you, and I don’t care. You didn’t do any of those things.”
“But I would if I hadn’t killed the King and many other of my own people. I’m no hero. You look at me like you’ve seen the sun, and all my sins leave me. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“You’ll die if you mate me. You’re willing to die?”
“You are not dead, and I don’t think the wraiths will hurt me.”
He took my face between his hands. “I can’t mate you, Rain. The idea of your heart stopping even for a second is terrifying. You make me want to be better, learn about humans, do some good. We can’t mate, but we can be together. That’s all I got. Let’s get though the cursed season, and I’ll move your desk back. It’ll be me and you. Like always. What do you think?”
“And the next mating season?”
“By then I’ll figure something out.”
He couldn’t figure it out, or he would’ve already. I glanced at the corner of the room. I wanted to please Titan. I wanted to, and I could never tell him no, anyway. Especially not now, when I knew he cared about me. “Sure,” I told him. “We’ll just go back to normal.”
“I’m asking you to move in with me.”
“Sure, I’d like that.”
Thirteen
Pop!
A gum balloon exploded on my face. I peeled it off and threw it in the trash, catching myself on the sink at the last minute. “Oops.” I picked up a bottle of whiskey. “Almost slipped. Careful,” I told the bathroom mirror, then threw my head back and chugged. The alcohol burned its way down my throat and settled in my empty stomach. Whiskey used to make me gag, but after drinking half the bottle, it went down smoother than water.
My sister walked into the bathroom and picked up a toothbrush. After breakfast, I went home and cried myself to sleep. As usual, Apple stayed in her room and hadn’t come out until after noon. I couldn’t even care anymore.
“A bit early for that.” She stuck a toothbrush in her mouth.
“Look who’s talking,” I said.
“It’s noon. I start drinking at lunch.”
“It’s after noon. Why wait? You should start now. Here.” I nudged her shoulder with the bottle. “This way, you don’t have to worry about eating lunch either. Maybe you could sustain yourself on alcohol alone.”
She tilted her head, and her brow furrowed. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing. Let’s drink.”
“No, thanks.”
“Why not? You’ve been drinking for months, and now you can’t share? That sucks for me.” I chugged, then shrugged and turned away from the mirror.
Water splashed behind me, and Apple wiped her mouth with a towel. She slapped it over the rail and folded her arms across her chest. Leaning against the wall, she said, “What happened?”
“I fucked Titan.”
“Ah.”
“Actually, it was more like ‘Yes, please, may I have another?’”
“I see. Did you have another?”
“A few.”
“And?”
“Nothing. Back to usual, he said.”
Her head thumped the wall. “It happens. Maybe we’re cursed.”
“Hm. Maybe. Can fae curse people?”
“Don’t know. What’s his problem?”
“His mate is found in death. He thinks he’s dead because they don’t have heartbeats, and technically he is dead and has death powers, but he is very much alive. Very much alive. Yup.”
Apple blinked.
“See, beyond the words, beyond the fae male persona, Titan can’t come to terms with who he is and how different the fae are from us. They float up there in space, hoping they’ll meet a woman to share their life with. They want to live on the ground, but they can’t. He doesn’t see that I don’t care about who or what he is and where I’m gonna live as long as he’s with me.”
“I know someone who can’t come to terms with who they are,” she said.
I shrugged. “We’re a match, then. I loved him from the day he came to the science booth and asked for my business card. I wrote my phone number on his pale hand with a black magic marker. A permanent one. And he let me. I didn’t even know who he was, and he let me draw on him. So, I don’t need any superpowers to tell me he’s mine. But”—I lifted my finger—”he’s got a point about dying, and I get his point. I hate that I can’t hate him for it, because he’s looking out for me.”
Apple said nothing. She was there to listen, and for better or worse, I got my sister back. I knew I had her back when she stripped off her clothes, showered, and asked me to pass her a razor. She hadn’t shaved in a while; didn’t care about anything. Some nights, I stayed at the front door, scared I’d walk in on her dead body. Apple wasn’t one for drama, and she’d always been a bit odd. I worried she hadn’t unloaded all of her sorrows and that she’d call it quits.
I swigged from the bottle and passed her a razor. In the bathroom, the sound of the shower drowned out the neighbor’s loud music. I guessed Cross had taken a day off too.
By the time Apple got out of the shower, I was almost done with the bottle. Wrapped in a towel, her hair wet, she took the bottle from my hand and spilled the last sip down the drain. “This’ll just make it worse. I’d know.” The bottle flew into the garbage. “You need to sober up and get on the warp-train. I’ll go with you. You can’t miss work. I need money to get back on with my life, and I’m gonna borrow a few thousand from you. Come on.” She pointed at the toilet and held up my toothbrush. “Let’s hurl. It’ll be epic.”
“I’m not going to work. I quit.” I wasn’t chugging whiskey, but my heart burned anyway. My eyes watered.
“You love your work.”
“I’ll get another job.”
We locked eyes. The job market for my specialty was scarce, and the fae paid me a fortune, so I could afford my beautiful apartment. At this time of day, traffic buzzed over the San Francisco Bridge and under the bridge; the bay’s blues sparkled. I’d have to sell my apartment.
“How do you think he’s gonna feel about you working on another ship? The smaller one they’ve got docked up there.”
I barked a laugh. “He’ll go crazy. Still, I’m not going back.”
“I’ll call my ex-boss, see if I can have my job back,” she said. “When you go on unemployment, we can put up a tent on the grass somewhere near the bridge and have the view. No worries.”
Fourteen
Every day on the ship, I ate lunch at one o’clock sharp. Five minutes after one in the afternoon, Apple flipped through her phone, looking for lost contacts. With her makeup and hair done, I remembered why Apple was the pretty one and I was the smart one. My sister was beautiful. “Looking good,” I told her.
She winked. “Getting my groove back. Wait. Your phone is ringing,” she said.
“I hear it.”
“Go get it, then.”
“Nah.”
“Is he gonna stop calling?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you change the ringtone at least? Gimme some rock ’n’ roll. The country ringtone isn’t working for me.”
“Sure,” I said.
She got the phone from the kitchen and swiped her finger over the screen. “Hola.”
I gaped.
“What’s up, T? Yup, she’s here. Hold on.” Apple plopped her ass next to me and passed me the phone. She motioned with her hand. “I wanna hear, and I don’t have all day. Hurry up.”
My sister was evil. I kicked her in the shin, then said, “Titan. Hi.”
“Lunch was at one. You are not here. Why aren’t you here?”
“Well, I called your Human Resources this morning—”
“I haven’t heard anything. What’s going on? Are you ill?”
“I quit.”
A pause. “Quit what?”
“My job. I’m not working for the fae people anymore.”
“You never worked for the fae, you worked for me.”
Tears gathered in my eyes, and I inhaled deeply, then held my breath. I didn’t want my voice to quiver. “Technically, I worked for the fae people and not—”
“I think I deserve a call or even two weeks’ notice.” I said nothing, because he was right. I should’ve told him. ”It doesn’t matter,” he continued, “I don’t have anyone to fill your position. Come to work within an hour.”
“I’m not coming in.”
“You’re coming in.”
“I can’t.”
“Don’t do this. I’ll stay away. Or if you want me around, I’ll be here. What do you want me to do, hm? I’ll do it.”