by Zara Zenia
"I thought you two were completely fine with Thomas," I said. I'd started to gravitate toward calling him Tom instead of his full name. Within the confines of this conversation though, I didn't think I wanted to use something so familiar. I was starting to really dislike him all over again. At least for the next few minutes anyway.
"Can I assume anything we say to each other is going to stay between us?" I asked. "It's not that I don't trust you guys. I guess it would just make me feel better to say it out loud.
"I give my word," said Vlad.
"I'm not gonna run off and tattle to Marina," said Daniel.
Nodding my head and making eye contact with each of them one at a time, I added, "I promise as well. Alright then. I have to get this out in the open. I admit that I don't mind sharing Marina with you two as long as we have trust there. Honestly."
"I feel that," said Daniel while he and Vlad maintained eye contact with me, taking this seriously. That made me feel confident that whatever they said to her was the truth. Maybe I would regret that trust later, but I was pretty sure anyway.
"I just don't like being lied to in a relationship, no matter what kind of set up it is." I knew they had to know about Nala. Hell, she lived right across the hall from Marina's dorm room. I made a point to avoid running into her whenever I went to visit. "I guess you both know why I have an issue with the trust thing..."
"Yeah, we do. That was a shitty way she acted," Daniel said.
"And the bitch has done it to eight more guys since you," Vlad said. "I mean eight more virgins. Oh, I only meant that .... forget I said anything." He caught that he'd put his foot in his mouth pretty quickly.
"Was she really your first?" Daniel asked with genuine curiosity. "I mean, if you want to talk about it that is. Might help?"
"It might help to talk about it with you guys, yeah. Nala was my first. She was a third year student when I started here. I was just infatuated, you know? I'd never been in love before. How was I meant to stand a chance against someone that manipulative? And she only gets turned on with a virgin. I found that out firsthand when she threw away my ass like a bag of trash."
"Not to mention hot," said Vlad. "Who can blame you?"
It was true. Nala has that wavy silver hair, pallid skin that only added to her delicate, feminine features, and her unicorn form was formidable. Altogether she was an impressive package. "Yeah, I'll admit that I still find her attractive despite how much I don't like her."
"You and me both," said Daniel. It felt weird to be talking about other women when we were all dating Marina. "What?" he said when he noticed my confused look. "It's not like any of us three are monogamous. And that was never part of the deal. Tell me you're not fucking other women?"
"I couldn't tell you that unless I lied," I said. A sly smile was coming over my face now and Daniel chuckled a little. This was kind of nice, hanging out with a couple of guys and talking about relationships, girls, a possible murder ... Well, scratch that last one and it was reassuringly human.
"So, what's with the jealously?" asked Daniel. "No one's exactly holding a gun to your head. And you've got other women you could no doubt be dating if you wanted something more conventional. I kind of assumed you were into this like we are?"
"I guess you assumed right," I said. I was starting to feel a lot let experienced than these two. Daniel and I were both first years, and Vlad was only in his second year. We were all practically the same age then, so why did I let myself feel like a little boy? "I don't know. Maybe it feels like, sometimes it's like I never really got to live my childhood. With my parents getting rid of me when I was born a Fae. I was never just assured a place to be a child, to feel safe that I wasn't going to be left. Sorry, this is getting kind of emo," I said with a laugh.
"Hey, we all have to be a bit emo sometimes. That's how you stop yourself from losing it," said Daniel.
Vlad nodded solemnly and I wondered what was going on in that brain of his. What more he might add to the conversation if he was able to speak in his first language.
"What are your thoughts on the whole Thomas situation," I asked Vlad. I knew he had something on his mind that he didn't want to share.
"Me? Of course, I do not like the situation any more than you. Only, what can we do?"
"I can't think of what to do. What, do we tell her to stop seeing him? That's not gonna work out in our favor," said Daniel.
"She'd probably just withdraw from us. I really don't want her to be out of my life."
"She's a great girl," agreed Daniel.
"And I think we all know the passion she has," said Vlad.
Daniel chuckled and shook his head.
"What?" said Vlad, "Are we going to pretend like we do not all fuck her? And what is wrong with that?"
"Nothing," Daniel said. "We've banged a few of the same girls. I think you've been with some of the same ones as me too," he said to me.
"I think so," I agreed with a laugh. "Well then. I guess we have to agree that we're suspicious. That we don't really like it. But that there's not much we can do other than wait."
"And watch," said Daniel.
"And be prepared," added Vlad, arching his wide shoulders back and pushing his honestly impressive chest muscles out. If Tom even thought about doing anything that might put Martina in serious jeopardy, he would quickly live to regret it. That was for damn sure.
11
Marina
Needless to say, we did not go out on our date after that. But since I was already with Tom, we figured it was best that we discussed what needed to be discussed. "I guess we may as well go back to your hotel room since just about anyone could have easily seen us driving through town together?" I wasn't in much of a mood to go to dinner anyway. The romance of that plan was gone too. Tom wanted me to tell him all about what happened, but I wanted to remove myself mentally from the situation as much as I could. Disassociating wasn't a normal thing for me, but I was aware that a lot of people used that to escape trauma. Whether or not they intended to, or even realized they were doing it.
"That's probably a good idea. I don't think you should be out in public. Are you sure you wouldn't rather go back to your dorm?" he asked.
I could tell he was just trying to be polite, to act like he wasn't interested in getting me alone. "No," I said. "I don't want to go back there and be by myself. I'm not sure if Laurie is there yet."
So, we headed back to his hotel, doing our best to be careful about being seen by anyone including the hotel staff. I realized that we were probably not the first couple to have tried to sneak into their hotel room without being spotted. Only people usually did that when they were up to no good.
Once we were inside, I went straight to the luxurious king-sized bed. "Wow, look at this!" Diving onto it and letting myself roll around on top of the sheet, I felt like I was a kid going on vacation like when I was younger. When my parents were still together, and it was easy for me not to notice how unhappy they were with each other.
"Haha, yeah they're pretty nice. Do you want me to check you over and make sure you're okay?"
"I’m okay, I promise," I said knowing it was a lie. While I had managed to get away without being physically harmed, the emotional turmoil had taken a toll on me. But I continued trying to change the subject onto something less serious. "These sheets are incredible. They must cost more than everything I own!"
"I wouldn't go that far. But yeah, I wasn't really in the mood to rough it if I was going to be away from home for a while. And why should I if I don't have to?" I couldn't really tell if he was trying to flex, or if he was more covering up how rich his family was by playing down the cost of his hotel room.
"I didn't think they had anything this nice here. But I guess the university has drummed up a lot of business for the locals."
Tom nodded and started to seem like he was eager to continue to conversation on that topic. "Right? It's like, why are all these local hicks getting so worked up about having to live near a paranorma
l school? It's done nothing but fill their pockets and stop their one-horse town from eventually going under. Like it was surely going to if you look at the statistics."
"I guess so," I said. "I don't really like to think of people's homes as being nothing but numbers, profits and losses. I suppose when you come from a poor family you never learn to look at the world in that way."
"Oh, I didn't mean to imply anything..." he said, suddenly dejected. "How about we change the topic, huh? You look beautiful tonight."
"Thank you," she said. "I mean, I wanted to look really nice for you. This was going to be a special night after all, despite the other reason we were meeting."
"And you look amazing. I don't know how you manage to look even more beautiful than that night of our first date. Do you remember how tongue tied I was?"
"You? What about how shy I was? You were the first guy I'd even gone on a proper date like that with. You were my first..."
Tom's Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped. "Yeah, that's crazy to think about isn't it?" He slid his hand over onto my thigh. I was still lying on the bed, facing up now though. He had come over to sit beside be. "I still think you're the hottest woman I've seen in my entire life."
He was rubbing my thigh, which honestly did feel really nice. But I wasn't in the mood. Asking him to stop was a thought but doing so might have spoiled the moment. I decided instead to just let him keep his hand there. It wasn't going to lead to anything, right? There was no way he could really be thinking about wanting to have sex at a time like this.
"Are you sure they didn't hurt you?"
"They didn't even lay a hand on me, I promise. Those bats they were carrying though, I think they actually meant to do a lot more than just get their hands on me."
"Do you think they wanted, you know, more than just to hit you?"
"What? Oh, I hadn't thought of that. No, one of them was a woman I think, I'm almost positive she was. Damn it, Tom, I hadn't even thought of that. Why did your brain go straight to that?"
"Sorry," he said. He turned to face away from me a little and removed his hand. For a moment he seemed like he was trying to figure out what to do next. He had an anxious kind of look to him, like he was stuck between two very different choices and couldn't decide on either one of them. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay," he finally said.
"I know you do. That's why you rushed out to rescue me, hero," I said. Stroking a guy's ego was always a good way to get them to calm down. "That was so scary," I said. I hadn't been meaning to talk about it, to let him know just how much I was working to avoid talking about it— how much I needed to let go and fall apart.
"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" he asked, turning back to face me, now putting one of his hands out on the bed and leaning down on it. The way that position made his muscular shoulder arch back a bit displayed his physique nicely. He had such a lean, fit, hard body that it was a pleasure to watch him move. I marveled at how lucky I was to have him care so much about me.
How lucky I had gotten to have not one great man, but four who truly did seem like they would do the world for me. Those cold blue eyes went straight through me and, despite their cold color, worked in wonderful ways to warm me. "You treat me so good," I said with a girlish grin. The warmth was spreading to my cheeks as I felt a little flustered by this burning attention from him.
"Well, if you don't want to talk about what happened. Maybe we should discuss the rest of this situation? What did you and the guys want to find out from me?"
"Anything you can tell us, basically. We can't know what's important until we find out all we can." That didn't sound like it was very helpful, but in my head wasn't screwed on properly at the time.
"I told you everything I know, honestly. This is all just as new and strange to me as anyone else. Except for the person who really did this, I guess. And by now you have to know for sure I couldn't have had anything to do with this, right?"
"Tom," I said, a little taken aback, "you don't really think I suspect you in any way, do you? I mean, I was attacked."
"We don't know that had anything to do with the student's murder. I know you don't' suspect me. This whole thing though, coming to meet me secretly. I feel like you wanted to interrogate me to appease the other guys."
"We all trust you. We only want to be able to help you if we can. Going through this alone can't be good. And with your parents being left in the dark, they can't even offer you legal advice from their lawyers. You told me how helpless you feel, and I wanted to help."
"Oh, well thanks," he said but still withdrew physically a little. He leaned down and lay on his back near me, so we were barely touching each other. I sighed and shifted over so that my head was on his chest and my hand on his hard stomach. Immediately I noticed his heartrate increase as he placed his arm around my shoulder and began to gently stroke my upper back just below the neck. The shivers I got when he moved his long, firm fingertips up to the nape of my neck were enticing. That sure helped me to forget all that had happened that day.
"If you don't want to talk about today, maybe we could do something else to take our minds off it?" he said. That was a clear indication of what any boy's mind went to. I had only been sexually active since starting college that year, but it was easy to learn when you were dealing with so many advances.
"Oh really? And what did you have in mind, mister?" I asked playfully as though I didn't know what the answer was already.
"Hmm, I might have to think about that for a bit," he said. Then he moved his other hand down to my breast and began to play with it. He knew just how to do it so that an electrical bolt of lust went from my nipple down to my vagina. That was such an unfair tactic to use; he knew I couldn't resist.
So, I looked up to him and leaned in for a kiss. I preferred for the guy to make the first move with most things, but it was kind of hard for him to do when he was lying on his back like that. Our lips met with warm, wet passion and stayed locked for long enough that I lost track of the seconds, or minutes. And the kiss became more and more wet as we went. Tom's hand moved beneath my top and slid sneakily under the black lace bra I was wearing for the special date. My nipples were hard and my panties, also black lace, were started to get pretty steamy too.
"Wait," I said. "Wow, okay give me a minute." I made a sound that could only be described as a sexual laugh as I spoke. My eyes looked to the side of me and up a little, like they were trying to roll back into my skull. I was a pretty fit girl who looked after herself and ate right, but even my youthful lungs were working hard to keep from just about hyperventilating. "Wow..."
"Wow indeed," he said, letting his hand move from my breasts down toward my panties. "How are you feeling now?"
"Great," I said, "but we can't do this. It just wouldn't be fair to the other guys. They're at home worrying about me and—"
"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting up a little and looking me over like he was expecting to find that I'd been wounded in the attack and somehow not realized until that moment. "Are you okay?"
"Vlad!" I said with sudden dread.
"Vlad?" he asked, confused but mostly just crestfallen. I knew what he was thinking immediately: that I was distracted thinking about one of my other boyfriends and that's why I didn't want to move to third base or beyond.
"He was meant to pick me up! My memory was completely gone of that until just now."
"Wait, what? They must have used mind magic on you. You're really only just realizing you were meant to meet him? Didn't he try to call when you weren't there?"
I check my phone, and sure enough, Vlad had been blowing up my phone since just after 5:00 p.m. It was almost 6:00 p.m. now. "He must be worried sick! I had it on silent so it wouldn't interrupt our date. I feel terrible. I have to call him right now."
"I assume the others are worried sick about you too."
I called Vlad to let him know that I was fine, that I'd met up with Tom. I explained everything that had happened, including the new
memories that were coming back to me now that the mind control effects were starting to wear off. He wanted to come and get me but had no working car. Colin and Daniel didn't have their own cars either, of course. We agreed that I would stay the night and Vlad would come get me in the morning after picking up his car.
Tom looked utterly lost. So, I filled him in on all the details of the attack, plus the things I was now remembering about the time leading up to it. After listening patiently to my story, he gave his own thoughts. "That must have been some serious mind control to make you walk all the way among the farms where I picked you up. And to forget you were meant to wait for Vlad like that? Whoever did this must have a whole lot of practice manipulating people's minds with their magic. Do you think the people who attacked you were paranormals?"
"One of them had to be the mind magic expert. That's the only thing that makes sense. They didn't look very old either."
"How could you tell if they were wearing masks and hoods?" he asked.
"I don't know, I guess it was just the way they held themselves, their size maybe. They sure didn't seem like middle-aged people or younger kids."
Tom said, "It's so strange that they didn't use any sort of attack magic on you, or even defend themselves against your luck or force push. You'd think a witch or wizard would have learned that already even if they were young adults like us."
"Maybe one of them wasn't a paranormal," I said coldly.
"But that would mean they were a..."
"Hunter," I said. A shiver ran up and down my spine.
12
Vlad
I knew it was going to be difficult to justify; but fuck it. I’d planned to have a party off of campus before all these terrible things happened. There was no point in letting some bad times get in the way of some good times. People needed to have a way to unwind and let out their stresses, especially during a time of crisis.