by Harry Nix
“No deal, White Fang. It’s dinner and a show and then a show if you know what I mean,” Juno said, elbowing him in the ribs.
“What kind of show are we talking about?” Alex said.
“Do you mean the first show or the show back at the hotel room? Because the second show has a very explicit rating,” Juno said. Although they were joking as they walked along, Alex kept glancing about trying to see if they were still being followed. Eventually they came to the front of a theater, which was advertising a puppet show for adults.
“This is it!” Nia said.
“Puppets… you didn’t tell me it would be puppets,” April groaned.
“Hey! I have never complained, not once, when you’ve dragged me to those orchid shows, which you have made me go to many times.”
“Why would you complain about an orchid show? They’re amazing.”
Alex glanced behind them. There was no sign of anyone following them. When they were inside, Juno could scry every now and then to see if they were still being watched.
“Let’s go see some puppets,” Alex said.
They made their way inside where a short, dumpy man stood waiting behind a cash register looking bored out of his mind.
“We need four tickets,” Nia said.
“Ninety dollars,” the bored ticket-seller replied.
“Ninety dollars! For a puppet show! What are you, crazy? What do these puppets do—come gold or something?”
He just shrugged. Alex got the feeling he’d heard this type of thing before.
“Just pay him, let’s go in,” he said.
“Ninety dollars,” Nia grumbled as she handed over the money. “Big Puppet once again ripping off the everyday puppet show enthusiast.”
“Big Puppet?” Juno asked.
“You know, the shadowy figures behind the scenes running everything. Their little marionette fingers in every pie,” Nia said, mimicking a marionette’s movement.
“Enjoy the show,” the ticket seller said, handing the tickets over.
They walked down a short corridor and met… the ticket seller, now waiting with his hands out.
“Tickets please,” he said.
“Are you serious? Why not just rip them back there?” Nia said, throwing her hands up in the air.
He just shrugged again. “This way I get two paychecks,” he said, tearing the tickets off and handing back the stubs.
By the time they got into the theater, Nia was fuming and garumphing like an upset racehorse.
“We’re just here to hide out for a little while,” Juno reminded her.
“You might be doing that. I’m here to be, and I quote, ‘enchanted and swept away to a world of adventure and magic,’ end quote,” Nia said, looking at a program she’d picked up on the way.
The room was about half-full and Alex saw plenty of eyes on his three mates as they slinked to their chairs. Soon the house lights dropped and the show started.
About halfway through the show Alex nudged Juno to scry. She whispered back that they were still being watched.
Although he tried to keep his mind on the show, part of him wanted to sneak out the back entrance and creep up on the man watching them. When the show finished, one puppet gorily executing another, he broached the plan to his mates.
“Okay, let’s do it. You and Juno go out the back. Me and April are going to provide a distraction,” Nia said.
Alex and Juno soon found themselves walking a narrow alleyway between two buildings, Juno hiking up her dress and complaining a little as she tried to navigate the cobblestones in her high heels.
“Such a glamorous date night, darling,” Juno said with a laugh as they passed a collection of overflowing garbage cans.
“I really know how to show a girl a good time,” Alex said. They crept around until they came to the small alleyway where the man surveilling them was parked.
“Use conceal,” Juno whispered to Alex.
Alex brought up his spell screen but stopped short of casting the spell when he looked across the street and saw Nia and April and the “distraction” they were starting in front of the theater: kissing.
Nia, who was taller than April, had reached down and wrapped her hands around her. April had her arms around Nia’s waist and her head tilted back as they kissed. The sight of two gorgeous women in killer dresses was certainly attracting attention up and down the street with a few men calling out and whistling. Alex found it hard to look away until Juno nudged him.
“Come on now. He can’t look away either,” she said. She cast conceal and Alex felt the magic ripple. He finally got his attention back on what he was doing and cast it himself. It was a spell he hadn’t used much, although he had been practicing the basics as instructed by Ruby. Essentially, it was a miniature ward, with a look away push on it.
He crept down the alleyway towards the car. Every now and then he felt the attention of people passing on the street sliding away from him, slightly draining away his mana.
Juno went to the passenger side and Alex crept around to the driver’s side. He glanced across the street and saw that Nia and April were still kissing each other passionately, perhaps getting a little carried away. Juno nodded to Alex and he pulled open the driver’s side door just as Juno did the same on the other side, jumping into the passenger seat. The driver had left the keys in the ignition so Alex took them, the concealment spell canceling as he did.
Now he was up close he got a proper look at the man. He was bald and chubby and the car smelled like sweat, like he’d spent long hours sitting in it. There were a few screwed up junk food wrappers floating around the front seat as well as a notepad and a camera with a long lens on it.
“Hey hey hey!” the man said.
“Why are you following me?” Alex demanded. He was tempted to change to hybrid form just to threaten the man a little more, but there was too much passing traffic for that. Also, he wasn’t sure whether the guy was supernatural or normal.
“Yeah, why are you following us?” Juno said. Alex saw that she had pulled a butterfly knife out of her bag. She wasn’t exactly pointing it at the man but had flipped it around a few times.
“What I’m doing is perfectly legal and I have every right to do it. So give me my keys back before I call the cops,” he said, holding out his hand to Alex. Juno reached over and snatched something out of the console.
“Bronson Childers, private investigator, who also does skip tracing and apparently bounty work,” she said. She poked Bronson in the fat that was spilling over his belt. “You don’t do much running on these bounty jobs, do you, Bronson?” she said.
“No, it’s mostly sitting and watching, which is what I’m doing now, which is legal. Now give me my keys and get out of my car,” he said. Alex could tell there was some bravado to it, but he could also sense that the man was scared. The wolf side of him found it enjoyable. He almost wanted to scare him to make him run just so he could chase him down.
“My name’s Alex Lowe and I have some bad people after me. So tell me who hired you,” Alex said. He saw Bronson look back between Juno and him, and then at Nia and April across the road, who for the time being had finished making out, but were standing quite close together, looking at each other. Then Bronson threw up his hands.
“Okay, look, it goes against my ethical code, but if you make it worth my while I’ll find out,” he said.
“You don’t know who hired you?” Alex said.
“I’ve got a guy. I don’t think he’s the guy though. I think he’s the guy who works for the guy,” Bronson said.
“You need to stop following me and I strongly advise you not to take jobs from him again,” Alex said.
“Are you serious? They’re paying twice what anyone else is!” Bronson said.
“How much for me to pay you to find out who they are?” Alex asked.
Bronson appeared to think about it for a second. “Twenty thousand should cover it,” he said. Juno suddenly stabbed the butterfly knife down in
to the seat cushion beside his leg.
“Fifteen thousand would definitely be enough,” Bronson stammered.
“That’s better. We’ll be in touch and for now don’t follow us again,” Alex said, passing back his keys.
“Look, pal, until I’m paid I’m still on the other payroll and I need to deliver otherwise it’s going to look suspicious. I already have some good photos and I know you’re going to the hotel down the street, so I’ll just get some tomorrow morning and that’s it,” he said.
Alex didn’t like the idea that some random private investigator already knew what hotel they were going to.
“Don’t report anything tonight,” he said.
Juno got out of the car, slammed the door, and stalked off down the street, heading back towards April and Nia. Both men watched her go.
“I don’t know how you pulled that off,” Bronson said, looking at the three girls. Alex realized he was staring, too.
“Find out who’s paying you,” Alex said, and then slammed the door before walking off to join his mates.
5
The hotel was luxurious, but Alex only got hints of it—red carpet, a gold bar running down the check-in counter, plants and soft music—because he couldn’t take his eyes off of April and Nia. They had all had plenty of champagne to drink, but this was more like hypnosis than drunkenness. April and Nia never broke contact, moving their hands, shoulder to wrist, around waist, back to shoulder, the nape of the neck.
Soon they were in an elevator and then Juno was swiping an electronic fob to get them into their room. As soon as they were inside, April and Nia kicked off their heels and went stumbling towards the bedroom, followed by Juno and Alex.
The luxury of the room finally broke through Alex’s stupor. They were high up, looking out over Baxter, surrounded by the twinkling lights of a few other skyscrapers and hotels. The room was enormous and tastefully decorated.
He almost stepped on one of Juno’s heels after she kicked it off. The main lounge led to a simply enormous bedroom. The bed was like someone had taken a king-size bed and grown it by half again. April was already naked and was now unzipping Nia’s dress, standing on her tiptoes to kiss her on the back of the neck. Juno came to a halt so suddenly that Alex almost crashed into her back. He wrapped his hands around her and gave her a kiss on the back of the neck, matching the one that April was giving Nia.
“That distraction was very…” Juno said before trailing off.
“Distracting?” Alex said.
“Yeah. Can you get the… the thing, there,” Juno said, waving vaguely at the zipper on the back of her dress. Nia was down to her underwear now. She turned around and faced April, stripping out of it. They seemed completely entranced by each other.
Juno slipped out of her dress so quickly that Alex was left holding it. She went slinking over to the bed, stripping off the rest of her clothes as she went. April and Nia tumbled into bed, kissing passionately while crawling across its vast expanse. Juno joined them, moving over to stroke April across her shoulders and down her back.
Alex stared for a moment before realizing he was still fully dressed in a suit, holding Juno’s dress in his hands. He dropped it where he was standing and went over to a luxurious sofa that sat against the wall near the bed. He took his shoes and socks off and then lost himself in the view of his three mates.
April and Nia had entwined themselves, kissing like it was the last kiss they would ever have. April had trailed her fingers down Nia’s body and now had them between her legs. The werewolf had her thighs clamped around her hand and was gently moving as she bucked her hips. Juno was behind April, kissing the back of her neck and shoulder, and had trailed her hand down from behind, slipping her fingers into April. The result was both April and Nia gasping and moaning in between kisses. Small glints of red and green popped out of the air, swirling towards the girls
Nia and April began moving faster, Nia rocking her hips back and forth against April’s fingers. The movement jostled April as Juno worked her fingers in and out as well, still kissing the back of her neck. There was a flurry of green and April groaned before leaning forward to bite Nia on the shoulder. The pain must have set Nia off because she moaned, a noise that sounded like a howl towards the end. The two girls rocked to a stop, their faces pressed up against each other, occasionally kissing and whispering sweet nothings. It was then that Juno looked across to Alex. He felt her attention like a spotlight, pulling him into action.
“I told you this show was X-rated,” Juno murmured. Alex stood up as Nia and April broke apart and directed their attention to him.
“You forgot the alpha, naughty werewolf,” April said and pinched Nia’s nipple. Nia smacked her hand away.
“Yeah, well if someone hadn’t been kissing me like that,” she said and pinched April in return. Although April squealed and twisted away there was a flurry of green that burst out of the air, showing that she enjoyed it.
Alex took a step closer to the bed as Juno slipped past the two of them and sat on the edge of it before suddenly kneeling on the floor. April and Nia broke away from their light wrestling and followed suit almost as though they were being commanded by Juno. Alex suddenly found himself standing there with his three mates kneeling in front of him completely naked.
“You seem to be wearing far too many clothes,” Juno said. April reached up and undid the zipper on Alex’s pants. She reached in, pulling his boxer shorts down and his cock out. Immediately she darted forward, enveloping him with her mouth before pulling back, breathing as though she had been sprinting.
Nia came forward and kissed April on the side of the mouth and then licked at Alex, opening her mouth as April pushed his cock into it. Alex felt the temperature in the room increasing, sure that if he didn’t breathe soon he’d collapse, his head already dizzy. The sensation from Nia’s mouth was like molten lava, shocks of it running up his body. April pulled his cock away, Nia making a disappointed sound, and then it was Juno’s turn. Her mouth was no less hot but she did something with her tongue, a twisting movement that almost made Alex’s knees buckle. She only did it a few times before April pulled his cock away and took her turn. Alex saw some of the red and green drifting in the air was now hitting him.
His three mates took turns, seeming attuned to his body, halting before Alex could get out of control, slowly making him climb the mountain but never quite getting to the peak. Eventually Juno reached over and undid Alex’s belt, getting his pants off and then his boxer shorts. Nia stood up and helped him shuck off his shirt. After one final lick, April pulled him onto the bed to lay on his back. With her hand still around his cock she turned to face Nia.
“One, two, three,” April said as they did rock, paper, scissors. Nia made some strange hand movement that Alex didn’t recognize and whatever April did also incorporated Alex’s cock as she pointed to it at the end.
“Damn,” Nia swore, evidently having lost.
“You’re seriously doing rock, paper, scissors?” Alex said, his head still muzzy.
“Freestyle rock, paper, scissors. You can do anything you want,” April explained.
“So I just did Friedrich Nietzsche’s Concept of Eternal Return versus…” Nia said.
“The Oscar Meyer wiener,” April said, giving Alex a squeeze.
“How do you decide which one wins out of those?” Alex asked.
“It’s the wiener, duh,” April said. Alex saw Nia shaking her head at him, like how could he not understand something so obvious? Alex laughed and then it turned to a gasp as April suddenly hopped on top of him, sliding him into her and starting to rock back and forth. With all the foreplay, his mates on their knees in front of him, it wasn’t long before Alex could feel a jolt running up his legs and buzzing in the base of his spine.
Nia had come to lay beside him, nibbling on his earlobe and stroking her hand on his chest. Juno had moved over to the chair and was now watching, her hand between her thighs, her fingers moving. He glanced over to her an
d then April leaned over and bit his chest. The combination of pain and pleasure set him off and with a roar he came, grabbing April’s hips and pushing her back and forth, faster and faster. A great burst of green flooded the room and Alex caught the scent of trees and nature, wildflowers and wet leaves. April’s legs shook before she collapsed over his body, gently moving back and forth, still connected.
Alex wrapped his arms around her and then suddenly shivered as a chill washed over him. He caught the barest glimpse of Juno bolting out of the room, heading for the adjoining en suite shower. The chair she had been sitting on was frosted over, a fine filigree of ice climbing the back of it and across the floor.
“She’ll be back soon,” Nia said as Alex craned his neck to see what was happening. It was only when April slid off Alex that he realized how cold Juno had made the room. Before he could get up though, Nia had taken April’s place and was soon rocking back and forth against him, keeping him warm. Alex heard the shower in the other room, and although he was concerned for Juno, the sensations of Nia on top of him were driving him crazy. Red glints filled the air, the green down to a low baseline now that April was lying beside them stroking Alex’s arm. Nia rode him back and forth until eventually she groaned again, Alex watching the muscles of her stomach tensing and feeling her legs shaking against him.
She toppled off him, landing beside Alex just as Juno came bounding out of the bathroom, drying her hair. She walked to the chair, which was still covered in frost. It vanished at a wave of her hand.
“Sometimes you’re down, sometimes you’re up,” Juno said with a grin. She sauntered over and touched Alex’s hand. He knew she’d just come out of a shower but her hand was hot, close to burning. The chaos magic seemed to have gone in the other direction.
“There’s only one solution here,” April whispered in his ear.
“You need to fuck that little witch until she can’t walk,” Nia finished. Alex looked up at Juno, who flung the towel away to the floor. It was steaming slightly, the heat from Juno’s magic drying it.
