by Sam Hall
“Come here, grunge girl,” Marlow said when I looked up. “Through here.”
I found myself following his command like it was the most natural thing in the world, walking into a simple bedroom adjoining the main room. He flicked the light on, and I saw it was a very basic setup. A single bed, a bedside table, a mirror on the wall, and that was about it. He came over, and I was almost able to feel those soft green eyes on my skin as he reached out for my camera and my bag, removed them, and placed them on the floor.
“Here,” he said, passing me a large hoodie and some sweatpants. “It’s a pity about that dress. Was damn near perfect for you, but you’ll need to be comfortable with what’s coming.” I looked at the clothes like he was offering me a million dollars, putting out a tentative hand. “Just take them,” he said with a sigh. “Now, let’s get you out of this mess.”
He didn’t ask, just moved to my back and slid the zipper of the dress down, stopping when I shivered at the feel of his knuckles grazing my skin.
“Gods,” he said in a low husky voice. “They’re gonna love you. Too fucking responsive by half. Get dressed, sweetheart.”
Marlow busied himself with drawing the curtains shut and turning off the main light, leaving only a lamp on. I found myself going limp at that, and had to force myself to pull on the clothes or just stand there, naked but for the tights. Something settled inside me as the soft fabric settled on my skin. I sat down on the bed, curling my legs up to my chest and resting my cheek against them once I had both on.
There was a scent in the fabric that felt like it stroked me all over with a velvet glove. Like it was soft, so soft I could fall into its plush depths, drowning in that faint spicy perfume. But it wasn’t enough, and that had me frowning, an unwelcome feeling in the only moment of peace I’d had all day. My eyes opened a crack, and I flinched at the light that now seemed incredibly bright, but that need for more of that sweet smell had me questing. I reluctantly uncoiled my limbs, feeling a deep ache through all of them, but no more than the one between my legs. That didn’t matter though. The scent, I needed more of the scent. I almost sobbed when I twisted and turned on the bed, dislodging the covers to reveal a great cloud of it.
A small part of my mind told me that throwing myself onto a stranger’s bed to bury my face in their sheets was pretty out of character, but it didn’t seem to matter. As soon as I got closer to the bed linens, a roaring need came to life.
“What are you…? Oh Jesus, love, no.”
Firm hands went around my ribs, hauling me back, something that had me screeching and scratching like a scalded cat.
“Fuck, Kira! How are you so damn strong? Oh—”
I stopped the moment my nose registered it, turning within the arms that held me fast. There! There it was. That same scent, but so much deeper and sweeter. I thrust my face up into the crook of his neck, moaning as the full-bodied perfume smashed into me. My legs parted, bringing my body closer to his as I straddled him and wound my arms around him. That warm, heavy weight, that perfume helped me go limp and do something I would never have thought possible—let go.
I clung to Marlow like he was a rock and I was the vine, feeling something deep and sweet click together inside me. I wanted him with everything I had—the feel of his skin, the weight of his arms, the feel of his lips, the taste of him in my mouth. Instead, hands went under my arms and prised me away.
Tears pricked at my eyes as I hung in the cold, empty air. A sob fought its way out of my chest as the pain smashed into me. My skin was on fire, burning with some kind of horrible cold light, a light that speared into my eyes when I opened them a crack.
“Marlow…” I begged, but my tongue felt oddly shaped and lumpy in my mouth, barely able to form the words.
“I know, sweet. This is not how it should be, but you’re going to have to ride it out. I promise, the alternative is easier only in the short term. You won’t like what happens if you take it.”
I couldn’t disagree, even though everything inside me reached out for him. But not my body, as that weird muscular twitching started again, but this time, it came with a sharp stabbing pain. I contorted, the spasms dragging my limbs into a horrible rictus, and I was powerless to do anything to straighten them as my joints turned in ways that should never have been possible without breaking them. I whimpered, then cried out as my body fought me to reassemble itself, my hands clawing and shaking at the loose cloth that seemed to be forming my shroud, because that had to be what this was. I had to be dying.
My heart beat in increasingly unsteady thuds, and the gaps between each beat grew longer and longer. My chest burned as the organ stuttered and struggled, trying to keep going while all hell broke loose. The cold fire that had burned through me just got higher. I’d have shivered if I could have managed any sort of control of my body, instead, it just got more and more intense. Ice crystals formed in my arteries, the blood crackling as it turned to a slush and scored at my veins.
Finally, the scream that had been building and building in my chest, trapped by my contortions, burst out of me, my eyes snapping open as I was blasted by the fierce shine of my body.
“Fuck this…” I heard a voice say. Relief came with the slap of a hand. Marlow sat hunched up next to me, touching my shoulder, which seemed to draw off some of the pain. “I’m sorry, Kira,” he said, and for a moment, all I could see was the crystalline glimmer of the tears caught in his eyes before mine fell closed. He hauled me into his arms, holding me so I lay across his knees, wrapping his body around mine, and rocking me slowly. That, the warm fabric, the smell of him, all sent me spiralling down into a blessed darkness. Whatever it was my body fought, won. I surrendered to it, to him, and I’d have to deal with the aftermath of that when I woke. But right now, there was only peace and silence.
14
I awoke to power.
I became conscious with the kind of slow-moving languor you see cats use when waking. It wasn’t a bleary-eyed detaching from sleep, rather, I rolled back into my body. My new body.
I knew it as soon as I woke—I was not what I once was. When I opened my eyes and stretched out my arms, I was not surprised to see them glow faintly with an unearthly light, my already pale, somewhat freckled skin refined by whatever fire had burned through me into perfect pearl-like smoothness.
“You’re awake. I was worried you’d be out for longer.” I turned, lying on the bed now, I realised. I lay on it with Marlow doing the same, facing me. I went to reply, to answer him, be polite, but as soon as my eyes landed on him, all words died. Had I realised how beautiful he was before now? I stared into those eyes, lost in the sea green shards I saw within them, and wanted to identify and catalogue every shade I caught. It was his smile, tentative and curious, that drew my eye away to trace the plush twist of his lips. I reached out to touch them, unable to believe anything could be as soft as they appeared to be. He caught my hand, but I pushed forward anyway, and he didn’t really put up a fight. His breath drew in when I made contact, as did mine, my thumb brushing against the fuller bottom lip and pressing down on the slightly darker spot where my teeth had bitten down. He sucked the tip in, pulling, provoking, stirring something deep inside me that rose with a violence that had me gasping. I shoved him back on the bed, straddling those pleasantly lean hips with their beautifully drawn muscles above each, his body a veritable masterpiece of restrained muscular elegance. My thumb popped free as I slowly, deliberately settled my hips over his.
“Oh, fuck…” he said, his back arching as he felt the pressure of my groin against his. “What the fuck is this?”
The question appeared to be entirely rhetorical as his hand went to the hem of his hoodie. It was his scent that I’d wrapped around me, that had kept me from coming undone. His scent that I now wanted to wreath myself in. I leant down as his hand slid against my skin, my nose grazing the air above his chest, moving, moving until I found the source again. There, transmitted by the feverish tattoo of his pulse along the corded musc
le of his neck. I buried my face in the pillow, in his neck, in him. This sudden, throbbing knowledge of him beat inside me as I tasted his heartbeat, running my tongue along his skin.
“Fuck! Kira!” He had more to say, I knew that, but when my blunt teeth bit down gently on the skin there, his taste like burnt caramel and cinnamon in my mouth and making it water for more, the words fell away. Why wouldn’t they? Our bodies spoke much more eloquently, a song I wanted to hear more of.
“Wait!” he gasped as I reared back, casting his bronze body silver with my reflected glow, and his own flared to light in response. He glanced down at it, brows creasing, but my fingers clawing down that perfectly smooth chest soon had whatever thought that plagued him tossed to one side. Rather, his mouth fell open as my nails scraped against his nipples, something that wasn’t quite enough. I dropped my head down, licking and teasing that hard little nub with my tongue until it swelled hard under my ministrations, something that had my own tightening in sympathy. “Fucking hell…” he groaned, and his hands tangled in my hair, stroking through the now silken strands as my teeth closed gently around him. “Why is that so fucking hot…?”
I pulled away, his words twisting the need inside me tighter, but they also alerted some background niggle that had been clamouring for attention since I’d woken. I looked down at him, his lips swollen and bruised looking, his eyes heavily lidded, and took in the restless shift of his body, one that had my eyes rolling closed momentarily as his hard length ground up against me. I wanted that, wanted to peel away the soft fabric and rub myself against his much smoother skin, but my traitorous mind supplied the one question to stop me in my tracks. Why?
I shook my head, the details of the room, the bed, my body, and his, all snapping into sharp focus. It took longer for the haze of lust to dissipate in Marlow, but he came back to reality the longer I was still. A rueful smile, still foggy with hunger, spread across his face, and he nodded, pushing me back so I rested against the wall, the weight comforting. As were the sweats. He neatened the fall of them so my body was hidden again, a barrier I needed, because there inside me, like the beat of my heart, was a need like I’d never experienced. I didn’t want to do what I was about to do. I wanted to fling myself into his arms, assuming he’d throw them wide to catch me. He wanted me, those skin tight pants revealed just how much, and I felt an answering sharp throb, pulling a low cry from me as I felt the phantom of what it’d be like to give in and let whatever this was run its course.
“You want to know what you are?” he asked, grabbing a pillow and shielding his groin, something that had me frowning and taking a weight off my shoulders at the same time.
“I know what I am.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could think about it, and both of us looked confused by that. Where the fuck had that come from? I rolled them over in my mind, but they felt as true as when I’d said them, I just had no idea why. My hands plucked at the sheets, the feel of them a comfort. My hands…
I leapt out of bed with a speed that startled Marlow, but as I padded over to the mirror, I knew what I’d see. I was still Kira, sort of. My parents might struggle a little to make the connection, old school mates probably wouldn’t. Marlow appeared behind me, my beautiful shadow. He reached out slowly, so I could pull away, and pushed the hoodie down over one shoulder. My skin gleamed like the surface of the moon, like a star. It was smooth and perfect, like the rest of me.
I’d always been caught by Jen’s beauty. There was something of the porcelain doll about her, every flaw and blemish smoothed away on her, something that had made her a target at school. The one thing us teens had was a solidarity in our spotty awkwardness, and she’d swanned through adolescence, untouched. So it was odd to see some of that same angular perfection in my own face.
“Refined.” Marlow reached over and brushed a thumb across my cheek. “You’re still you…just more.”
“A lot more,” I said, seeing now how the sweats fit me in a whole different way. When I pulled up the hoodie to reveal my stomach, it was flat with rounded muscle in the way I’d seen only in fitness models. Marlow’s eyes followed my every move as I tugged the waistband lower, and looked at the swell of my hips, the ratio between them and my waist obscene. “I’ll never wear jeans again,” I said, shaking my head.
“I’ll hand tailor them to fit your every curve,” he said, his hand going to my waist. My eyes rolled shut for a second at the low burn from his touch, from what flared inside me. “You’ll be the hottest grunge girl in town, if I have anything to say about it.”
I turned away from my reflection. I had what I needed. I’d changed into something else. Fae, Rutherglen had called me, I remembered that snippet now the fog of compulsion was gone. And wasn’t likely to come back, I realised. My mind felt…stronger somehow. I was stronger. When I put my hand on Marlow’s bloody glorious bare chest, just letting myself feel that skin for a moment, I could feel the flex of muscles I’d never bothered to develop. But that wasn’t what I questioned now. I’d been that, and now I was this. There was nothing further to accept. What I wanted to know about was this persistent, tugging sensation that made my mouth and my cunt slicken, readying it for what I knew would be Marlow’s relentless thrusts. We swayed together, the thinnest of gaps between us, which was a tease in itself, this lack of full body contact. Marlow was hot, I’d known that before in my previous iteration, but perhaps due to the whole fashionista thing, I’d assumed he was gay, or at the very least, out of my reach as one of the beautiful people. So why did his scent yank me along, like a dog on a leash, while I panted happily for the privilege? Why was it taking all of my newfound strength not to peel those very lovely pants off and reveal what I knew waited for me? Why was wanting to fuck him as natural as breathing?
So I asked him.
That seemed to dispel the sensual spell he was caught in somewhat. “Gay?” he said. “Stereotype much?”
“That’s what you took from that?” I asked. “How about the fact that your words just flood my mind with hot, hot images of you on your knees with a mouthful of cock?”
His eyebrow jerked up, and a slow smile spread across his face, while I was left wondering who the fuck was doing the driving, because it sure as fuck wasn’t me. People’s sexuality was none of my business, I didn’t ask those sorts of things, and I certainly didn’t fess up my burning desire to have an MM scene from my favourite romance novel acted out in front of me.
A low purr came from his chest, but he stopped himself visibly from coming any closer. He shook his head and said, “You’re gonna be a headache, I can see that. Too much…” His eyes raked down my body and then back up again. “Kira, it’s a wild world you’ve stepped into, and if what I’ve felt is anything to go by, you’re about to cause a splash. And I’m just here, wanting to get splattered. But that’s not what you need right now. We’re…fae isn’t the best word for it. If you were in Africa, India, Indonesia, or Alaska, they’d have a different name for us. It’s just the one they use here. We’re the children of gods and mortals, abandoned here to create little courts and fiefdoms, and meddle with politics and pleasure. You’re not human, Kira.”
“No, I’m not.” I needed to say it, to have that realisation take root.
“And you’re about to be introduced to a world where sex, money, pleasure, excess, and sensation is the currency, and everyone’s buying and selling.”
That didn’t interest me, some abstract place and explanation.
“You’re avoiding explaining it,” I said, stepping closer, feeling the prickle of sensation the closer I got to him. “You want to tell me about the outside world, but you don’t want me to know what’s going on here.”
“Because I overstepped,” he said, jerking back. “You were hurting so much…”
“And?” I tracked him slowly, taking measured steps to his more frantic ones.
“And this is not usually how one of us transitions. You’d be younger, that’s one thing. Whatever your gra
ndmother was doing, she was holding this off for some reason. Jennifer’s tried to work out why and how, but could never see through her workings.”
“Still not what I want to know.”
“Transitions hurt like fuck and can kill you if they go wrong, if there isn’t enough of the god in you to transcend the human.”
“Yes.”
“But the way we get through it is usually with the help of another fae. The touch of one you are receptive to, who’s strong enough, can settle you, and help you get through it. It’s why you were seeking my scent. It tells you a lot—who’s interested, who’s compatible, who you want.”
“And I wanted you, but you didn’t want me to.” I frowned as I took in the very obvious evidence of his interest, lying in wait in his pants. “But you do. You wouldn’t smell like that, like you do now if you didn’t want me.”
“Of course I fucking do,” he ground out as the backs of his legs collided with the table. “But, Kira, helping a fae through their transition…it has a meaning to it.”
I felt like a queen as I closed the gap between us, dragging my long cloak of power behind me as I stepped up. I don’t know why. Apart from now being really useful as a temporary light source in a dark room and looking like I might be able to get a side hustle going as a model in a men’s magazine, what power had I demonstrated?
Perhaps it was this—the fine tremble in his body as he held himself back. I’d never made a man do that before, especially one as beautiful as him. I relished every pant, every shudder in his body as I moved in closer.
