by Sam Hall
“So are you two gonna finally mate?”
We both turned to see the cat strolling along the bed, his tail twitching, but our eyes were drawn back to each other seconds later. His purr filled the room as I got to my feet, stalking after Marlow.
“Kira,” he rasped. “Once you have your preceptor, you can request me. The Rutherglen will be glad for the opportunity, as he’ll want to earn your favour. We need to stick to the plan.”
I’d never been this aggressive in my life, but that seemed to be a small, inconsequential thing as I moved in closer until my body pressed against his.
“Kira…” he hissed. “We need to be smart about this. If we play this right, I’ll be with you tonight. We—”
I liked to think it was his fault, dousing me with faerie aphrodisiacs, but as soon as my lips touched his and I tasted that combination of lip gloss and him, I was fucking gone. Everything he said had merit, and a cold part of me was taking in his advice about the manoeuvrings, but that wasn’t in the driver’s seat. My hand went up under his shirt, my skin thrilling at the feel of his warm hard muscle, the other clawing at the waistband. He grabbed me around the wrist and pulled me away firmly, but I smiled into his lips when his hand replaced it, popping the button with ease. We were sliding our hands in when the door popped open.
“Kira…oh!”
I looked at Jen through lust fogged eyes, the need for Marlow beating a pulse inside me.
“Jennifer, I’m—”
“It’s OK,” she replied, recovering quickly, especially as hands were removed from pants and buttoned up. She grinned when she took me in and then dived at me, hugging me close. “Look at you! Marlow, you’re a bloody genius. This is just gorgeous!” She put her hand under the hem of the shirt I was wearing, inspecting the embroidery. “Ki, this is it! I never thought you’d make the transition, not like this! This is so exciting! You can move into the estate, or Crewe! That’d be even better! Away from the eagle eye of your parents, we could travel to all those places they always said no to. You don’t have to languish in this little hole anymore, love. The whole world is open to us!”
“If I go to Rutherglen.”
“If?” She seemed stunned by that. “Haven’t you…?”
“Not yet, milady,” Marlow said.
“Oh, well, I’ll duck out then. It’s all very naughty, taking a preceptor before court convenes, but everyone knows what happens when the blood’s up. Transition is intense. Makes you rapaciously horny. Marlow and I will help create a harem for you, and when you’re more in control of your power, we’ll take over the world. We might have to fulfil that contract with The Changelings, but that’s only six months. I’m sorry, darling, we thought you were never going to transition, and finding a solid job for a latent was the best I could do, but now…” Her eyes gleamed with pleasure. “Anyway, you don’t have long. I was tasked to come over and summon you, so you’ll need to move fast. Bring her to court as soon as you can…” Her eyes took the two of us in with a smile. “You can explore things more thoroughly back in your rooms. Ki, you should see it! I’ve set up a whole suite for you with—” She calmed herself visibly. “You’ll have your own rooms, right next to mine and Daddy’s. Ki, we’ll be a family.”
She meant it with love, I could see that shining through her eyes. She was a political animal, and it seemed everyone here was, but she loved me, that was plain. But for her, what seemed like a golden future was, for me, tainted by velvety sexy threats against those I cared about. I could almost feel the thrust of her dad’s cock still between my legs, something that had me feeling guilty, horrified, and turned on all at the same time.
Which probably was a nice summation of things since I woke up yesterday morning. I was riding fate, and it was a skittish, chaotic bitch of a thing, and it was hard to know where to direct it. She looked at the two of us, giggled, and then exited stage left.
But that confusion left as soon as the door closed and his hand took mine. He brushed a kiss across the knuckles and then let it fall, our fingers still entwined. “So, unless you’ve decided to fall in with Jennifer’s plan, we just need to waste a little time.”
“Waste?”
My hand went to the sliver of bare skin I could see between his shirt and his jeans.
“Fuck, why are you so bloody tempting? The court is going to be in an uproar over you. Anything more than what we’ve done counts as a bond made and your choice is taken away. I don’t know how they know this, but they do.”
“So kisses don’t count?”
“God, no. If everyone was bonded to every person they kissed, the whole court would just be one giant harem.”
I grinned.
Which is how we came to be making out, as Marlow sat on the chair with me straddling his lap, the two of us holding hands and kissing until our mouths ached, while Aen curled up on the bed, his back towards us. Right up until the moment someone knocked on the door.
Coming back from kissing him was like coming back to consciousness. We hung there for a second, just staring into each other’s eyes, before we pulled apart.
“Finally,” Aen said with a long stretch. “Now we get to the good part.”
I didn’t get to investigate that any further as the door opened a crack.
“Kira, we need to discuss the paperwork, and then we’re due for your audience,” Mark said through the gap.
“We need to stop, anyway. I am aching,” Marlow said, adjusting himself, something that drew way too much attention. Damn, the popular view of faeries was that they were all flighty and slender magical creatures not big burly blokes with equally big—
“Kira?”
“Yep, come in. Marlow was just leaving.”
“Talk about the clothes and the value of them as gifts. Emphasise how much it means to you. Makes it easier to request me as a favour,” he said to me in a whisper.
“Of course. See you soon.”
Mark watched him leave with that professional mask that everything seemed packed up behind now, then said, “Come into the briefing room. My superintendent has arrived and will oversee the process.”
17
“Kira, is it?”
I nodded to the large man with the thinning grey hair sitting at the end of the long table. He flicked through the paperwork in front of him.
“I’m Heath Byers, superintendent for this branch of the League of Heroes. I’ll be overseeing your transfer into the court of your choice. Now, the facts. Transitioned last night at…approximately six forty-five pm. Has had several expressions of interest registered in the field as well as quite a few since.” His finger flicked briefly towards the pile of papers in front of him. “No tokens accepted except for that of Rutherglen, Hartley, and the Cat Sidhe of…Rochester. Rochester? I had no idea there was a Cat colony there.”
Mark shrugged. “It’s what was on the carrier he was supplied in.”
Byers shook his head and then continued. “Known association with the court of the Rutherglen. Long-term friend of the heir. Demonstrated a preference to the Rutherglen herald, who saw you through transition. So, apart from this motion to uphold a previous agreement from the Hartley camp, this all seems to be pretty cut and dried. With what His Lordship is offering them, we’ll see you installed in their camp within the hour. We’ll provide some supervision as the preceptor bond is established, and then it should be quite simple.”
“No,” I said. That little word again, I liked it more and more.
“No?” Byers looked mildly irritated, the kind of low key WTF you give a child. “Which part are you objecting to?”
“I’m not going to Rutherglen.”
“Is this about the psychic attack recorded by our cadet? You do realise that this is much more likely to be the work of the Rutherglen’s enemies? Refusing an offer from a modern court you have a connection with, especially one as well placed as this one is ill advised. Going to Hartley won’t change anything. They operate under his Lordship’s auspices.”
&n
bsp; “So how does this work, exactly? No one’s really spent the time to explain it.”
This earned Mark a snakey side-look, but seriously, I was about to bond myself to someone forever. If it meant tossing ex-potential lovers under the bus, so be it.
“Each of these courts will have put forward a candidate for preceptor.” He patted the pile of paperwork. “Keep in mind that to them, this has little to do with someone they think will instruct you well or will support you through your integration and everything to do with who they think you’ll find enticing. Best looking, offering riches, power or influence, sexual allure and performance. You take their preceptor, you take a member of their court into your bed and your life. Then it’s not so hard to bring you into the rest of it, particularly as there are very few preceptors that would dare operate outside the influence of a court. So you see, unless you have decided on someone outside of the Rutherglen sphere, which is highly unlikely considering the ignorance they’ve kept you in, you’ll be considered of the House whether you take…” He consulted the list. “Marlow or Jonathon.”
“Choices, choices,” Aen said, jumping on the desk and strolling down its length. “Or the illusion of such.” He looked back at me, green eyes wide. “Whatever will you do?”
“So if I don’t choose them, I, what, listen to each one argue their case?” I said.
Byers stared at me implacably, then sighed. He leant forward and pressed a button on the intercom. “Someone call my wife and let her know my orders have changed. I’ll be in bloody Gisbourne for the duration.”
So, feeling like a total burden, wearing the equivalent of faerie Viagra, and accompanied by a smart-mouthed cat, off I went to court.
“Kira, a court in the fae world is just a leader and their followers. That’s what this is, a chance for them to see you, for you to evaluate them, and see where you might want to go,” Mark said on the stairs of the main building in the estate.
“Come along, Sullivan,” Byers said. “Let’s do try to prepare the novitiates before they are presented to the faerie host.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Head up, eyes front,” Aen said as we climbed the steps together.
“Easy for you to say.”
“Perhaps, but important nonetheless. Your herald has given you a tool, to find out who is truly compelled to be by your side. Now you need to use it.”
This was my idea of hell.
I walked down a long procession way, sentinels at my back and in front, leading me past paranormal creatures of every colour, shape, and description who lined either side. They were dressed in finery, fur, their own and others, but they all had the same purpose—to inspect me. I felt the weight of hundreds of eyes upon me, like fingers on my skin and through my hair.
Was this what it felt like, when I photographed people? This never-ending gaze that took me in and gave nothing back? Though that wasn’t exactly true. The perfume Marlow had given me had flared to life when I came inside, though it was definitely not a bloom. I was not aroused, I was intimidated as hell, so when some broke ranks and lunged towards me, eyes shining for a moment with naked lust, only for the sentinels to stop and regroup around me hurriedly with weapons drawn, I took note and then scurried on.
“Back!” The command in Byers’ voice was like a baton brought down on naked fingers, stinging long after it had passed. “Get back, or risk contravening the laws of hospitality!”
They did so, but some were slower than others.
One was Duke fricking Franklin.
He wasn’t that close to me, but it felt like it. He might have been a world-famous musician, known for his curious fusion of blues and rap music, but this man was a warrior. I just blinked up at him. Like a sculpture of the ultimate Black man, he was tall with a heavily muscular body that shifted slightly as he looked me over, and those warm eyes seemed to take the entirety of me in with one long look. This sent the sentinels into a spin, but he paid them little mind, holding himself with a loose alertness as that body conveyed a sense of coiled strength, like he might move at a split second’s notice to take me down and leave me gasping for more. He smiled, as if he knew what I was thinking or something, and it was this slow, unhurried thing, like nothing could make him move any faster than he wanted to.
“And what do we have here?” he asked.
The sentinels started to demand he stand back, and I could hear them move closer around me, drawing their guns, but that didn’t matter. He just smiled, and the expression was almost feline as he watched me stare. I was being rude, watching him with my mouth half opened, but my brain seemed to go on standby the moment our eyes locked. He stepped closer, forcing my neck to crane upward to maintain eye contact. And I couldn’t stop. Not when he chuckled at my inspection, not when he reached up to brush the back of those nimble fingers against my cheek, fingers that had managed to pull sounds out of a guitar that no one before or since had matched.
“This one’s got power,” another man said, coming to stand beside us. Duke gave him a sidelong look and a nod.
“Mmm hmm…coming off her in waves. Couldn’t see what the fuss was, though the packaging is…” his eyes slid down my body, “damn fine, but I’m seeing it now.”
“You want one of us to step up? We can train her up right,” the other man said.
Duke considered the idea as the sentinels shouts got louder, more insistent, but he didn’t even recognise them. He considered me like he had all the time in the world. To take me apart, measure my value, and see whether or not I was worth the investment.
“You want that, sweetheart? You want James here to take you in hand? Show you the ropes?”
Such was Duke’s power that both James, the other man, and my focus was entirely on him. He was like a jaguar, lying in a tree and watching all the prey animals scurry underneath him. He could drop down in a moment, take us in those powerful jaws and…what? I didn’t know, but I wanted to. He watched my hand rise, ready to reach out and touch that muscular forearm, and that smile widened.
“Get back, or risk expulsion, House Johnson!” Byers snapped, jerking my attention back to the here and now. I watched the vein on his forehead pulse as the two men shifted back, slowly and deliberately.
“If you wish to put forward one of your members as preceptor, you need to wait until offers are considered,” Byers said.
I admired the superintendent’s balls as he stepped up to Duke, but damn, I wasn’t sure I’d have done the same. Byer’s was in no way a small man, yet Duke still towered over him. He just watched the other man’s face redden as his mouth spluttered rules and regulations. It was like a domestic cat trying to fight a lion for its prey.
“And it is within those very same regulations you’re spitting at me that courts be allowed a brief inspection.” Duke’s eyes slid to me, his court’s following suit. “I’ve checked her out. No violence, no coercion, no nothing.”
“And?” Byers snapped.
He looked back at his court, waiting for their reaction. It was muted, but it was far from unanimous. Some seemed to want to take a bite out of me, shouldering forward, but there were just as many who seemed unhappy by the idea.
“Nah, we good,” Duke said, answering everyone’s question, but his eyes slid to me. “But I’ll be seeing you later, sweetheart.”
“Mmm…” my cat said. “That’s a lot of power. You could do worse.”
Yep, frightening amounts.
Franklin breathed in deep as we walked past, then smiled in a way that made me want that mouth on several places on my body.
“What is this?” Byers said, looking at me. His nose worked, and then his frown only grew deeper. “You silly girl! You’ll cause a riot in here!”
“You’re criticising my tribute to the lady Kira?”
We all turned to see Dave Rutherglen standing in front of us, blocking our way forward.
“Be welcome to Rutherglen,” he said, weaving between the sentinels to come to my side and take my hands in his.
> This was a man I’d said hello to a million times, from when I was a kid to now, but that was all a thing of the past. I had transformed, and our relationship was going to do the same. This wasn’t the faintly bored gaze of a man making polite eye contact when I came to hang out with his daughter. No, I realised I’d never even had more than a second of his attention, because I had all of it right now. It was a weird, intense inspection that was almost tangible, as he took in every damn inch of me, including Marlow’s beautiful work and whatever he could see beyond the gauzy fabric. I watched his jaw work, then his mouth falling slightly open as his eyes caught on my lips.
“Little Kira,” he managed finally. “You look lovely.”
He took my hand, holding my gaze as he brushed his lips across my knuckles. I would never have imagined my friend’s dad touching any part of me with his mouth, something that had me wanting to jerk my hand away and wipe it on my perfectly tailored jeans.
Well, kind of. He was old, an adult, and an authority figure, not sexy—except, he was.
God, what is this? I thought as I felt my skin prickle with a slow burning heat. This is the man that told us off for making too much noise at night, for running around by the pool. Why is he hot? Why is this hot?
Daddy energy. I’d never really understood that whole trip, but it made sense in a way I was definitely not comfortable with. That hot, intense gaze showed me scenarios where he ordered me to do things of a whole different nature, starting with taking off these damn clothes…
“You honour my court, accepting my tribute.”
I blinked, shaking my head, not knowing what the fuck had just happened.
“Let go of the girl, and let’s get on with this,” Byers said.
As we walked the rest of the way, my eyes took note of who came towards me. Some were creatures I had no idea how we’d do what they seemed to want, since their forms were less humanoid, but no interest matched that of Hartley as we moved closer to them. Liam stepped out of line, not even waiting for us to get closer, something that had the sentinels’ guns trained on him, and he only paused when he heard the safeties being flipped off. I’d seen hunger in some of the others’ eyes, but they were nothing compared to what I saw now.
