Smoke (The Slayer Chronicles Book 1)

by Val St. Crowe

  “And there’s a difference?” I said.

  “Definitely,” said Eden. “In a polygamous family, it’s all about the guy. He gets to sleep with lots of women, but the women all have to be monogamous to him. It’s sexist. We’re not like that at all.”

  Jocelyn popped her head in. “Well, we’re a little different than most polys, though, because we are all monogamous to the triad. Which isn’t what most relationships are like.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you can say what most polyamorous relationships are like,” said Eden. “There’s no rules. But I guess it’s safe to say that most polys think that there’s no way you’d find one person that you’d want to have sex with for the rest of your life exclusively.”

  “Really?” I said, cringing.

  “Or even two people,” said Jocelyn. “But… I don’t know, I don’t find the idea of it all that limiting, really. I like our family.”

  “Me too,” said Eden.

  “I don’t understand how that would work,” said Naelen. “If there are even just two people, and they each take one other partner, and then those partners take one other partner… How do all those people even…?”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be a cohabitation situation,” said Eden. “Sometimes it’s just a man and a woman who live together in their own house and they sort of date other people.”

  “Like swingers,” I said.

  Eden and Jocelyn giggled.

  “Well, ideally, you want to cultivate relationships, not just sex,” said Eden.

  “Yeah, it’s really not about sex in the end,” said Jocelyn.

  “And,” said Eden, “in response to your question, Naelen, not all relationships will be with all of the people. Depending on how you set up the perimeters, it could be that each member of the relationship pursues one-on-one relationships with other people, and that those other people aren’t necessarily connected to the other partners, if you know what I mean.”

  “Or you could be like us, and just all entangled,” said Jocelyn, taking up another armload of plates.

  “Yeah, we don’t just each have a relationship with Brian,” said Eden. “Jocelyn and I are also in a relationship. Jocelyn and I were together first, actually.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Oh,” said Naelen.

  We exchanged a glance, then we turned back to her.

  “I’m freaking you out, aren’t I?” She laughed a little.

  “No, not at all,” I said.

  “Well, we don’t have to talk about it,” said Eden. “Maybe I pushed too much? People are usually curious, so we’ve gotten into the habit of being an open book. But if you’d rather not talk about it, I’ll shut up.”

  “We didn’t say that,” said Naelen.

  “We’re not freaked,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Eden.

  We were all quiet.

  Jocelyn came back in and got the rest of the plates. She grinned at us, eyebrows raised.

  We smiled back.

  She went back into the kitchen.

  “So, um, you were gay?” I said. “And then you met Brian?”

  She laughed. “I knew you were curious.”

  I cleared my throat, studying my knuckles.

  “I’ve always identified as bisexual,” said Eden. “Jocelyn identified as a lesbian, but she’d had relationships with men in the past. They had never worked out, though. So, anyway, she and I met, and we were together, and we were happy. But… I don’t know… there was something missing, I guess.”

  “Are we telling the story of how we met?” said a voice.

  We looked up to see Brian coming back into the kitchen.

  “Wow, they went down fast,” said Eden.

  “I think they were exhausted,” said Brian. He sat down at the table and addressed Naelen and me. “You guys haven’t gotten up and run out of the house yet, so that’s probably a good sign.” He chuckled.

  Jocelyn came back out with a bottle of wine. “You know what always helps these conversations? Alcohol.”

  “Hey,” said Naelen, “I have that wine I got from Moreau’s in the car.”

  “Oh, that stuff was good,” I said.

  Naelen got up from the table. “I’ll be back.”

  “How’d you two meet?” said Brian to me.

  “Oh, we’re not… together,” I said.

  “Right,” said Jocelyn, pouring wine into glasses. “Because she’s Clarke.”

  “Oh, that Clarke,” said Eden.

  “Like there are that many women named Clarke,” said Jocelyn.

  “Logan was talking about you one evening,” said Brian, eyeing me. “He really cares about you.”

  “Yeah, we’re good friends,” I said.

  “Oh, I thought you guys were like star-crossed lovers or something,” said Jocelyn, handing me a glass of wine.

  “No,” I said, laughing. God, this conversation was making me more uncomfortable than the one about being polyamorous.

  “The look he gets in his eyes when he talks about you,” said Brian.

  “Yeah, well…” I shook my head. “That’s just Logan being Logan. He talks a good game, but he’s not very good with the follow-through.” I turned in my chair. “What could be keeping Naelen?”

  At that moment, he burst back up the steps, carrying two bottles of wine. He set them down on the table with a smile. “Glad we ran into you guys. Otherwise, I would have practically had to drink these alone. Clarke is a lightweight.”

  “I am not,” I said, a little more sharply than I might have otherwise. The whole stuff with Logan was getting under my skin. How dare he talk about me to total strangers? He probably made me sound horrible. Made himself sound like Romeo or something when he was really incapable of having a proper relationship.

  “So,” said Brian, rubbing his hands together, “where were we? Is it about the point in time when I enter the story?”

  Eden laughed. “Well, I met Brian out one night.”

  “And we were already poly at this point,” said Jocelyn, “because I knew that Eden liked men, and I knew that I couldn’t ever be that to her, so it was okay with me if she wanted to be with a man.”

  “Right,” said Eden. “We were both open to the other person having other partners.”

  “But we had rules,” said Jocelyn. “Our rules were that I got to meet this person before Eden went out with him, you know. And if I met a girl, I would introduce her to Eden first.”

  “So, they had me over for dinner,” said Brian. “And I didn’t know I was auditioning to go out with Eden or anything. I just thought I was having a dinner with friends.”

  “And we had a great time at dinner,” said Jocelyn. “And afterward, I remember that I told Eden I didn’t know if it was a good idea if she went out with him, because I was finding myself attracted to him too.”

  “Of course, I though they were both great,” said Brian. “But I was very much not polyamorous at all. In fact, I’m kind of the cog in this wheel here, because I’m very possessive. If it were up to the two of them, we’d all be free to go off and date anyone.”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” said Jocelyn. “We all decided to be monogamous to each other together.”

  “Like we have time to date with two toddlers,” said Eden.

  Brian shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll just admit it, that was my hang-up. I didn’t feel I could share a woman with another man. I don’t know if it’s my upbringing or some kind of overactive lizard-brain thing, but…” He shrugged. “I can’t get past it.”

  “So, we worked through it,” said Jocelyn. “Because that’s what people in love do.” She reached over and took his hand.

  He squeezed it and gave her the kind of smile that a guy gives a woman he’s besotted with.

  I looked over at Eden, but she had cocked her head to one side and was gazing at them with a similarly besotted look.

  “Wait,” I said. “Seriously. You don’t get jealous?”

  “Mmm… not so
much anymore,” said Eden. “But back when I was first in a poly relationship? All the time. I mean, I knew it was what I wanted, so I decided I would work on my jealousy. It wasn’t easy, but now it’s paid off. And I get to have everything. A husband. A wife. Kids. A perfect life.”

  “Aww,” said Jocelyn, winking at her. “I love you too.” She turned to me. “I’ll freely admit I’m not as enlightened as Eden. I still get jealous. But we work through things. We have an insanely high level of talking-it-out time amongst the three of us. Like, constantly.”

  All of them chuckled.

  I nodded and smiled. Okay, whatever.

  “More wine?” said Jocelyn.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Later on, after we’d cracked into one of Naelen’s bottles of wine and moved to the living room, we were all sitting together and talking. I had to admit that they were likable people. And I didn’t much care what they did. They were happy being a triad or whatever they called it? Fine. It seemed like a stable, happy home as near as I could tell.

  More power to them, I decided. Still, I could never imagine myself in a relationship like this. No way was I sharing a guy with another woman, not even if I got to go out and have sex with other guys. No freaking way.

  “Well,” Naelen was saying, “honestly, I think it’s great. I’m practically a convert.”

  “You are?” I said.

  He took a sip of his wine. “Well, you remember that conversation we were having earlier about the troubles I have with women? I think this would solve all of them.”

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “No?” He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think I’d have a problem with the women I see being with other guys, because I don’t currently ask anyone I’m seeing to be exclusive. I’m kind of already doing it, anyway.”

  “No, you aren’t,” I said. “Because you never see the same woman more than once. You just have one night stands. This polygamy thing is about long-term relationships, near as I can tell.”

  “Polyamory,” said Eden. “And you’re right. It is about forming relationships.”

  Naelen set down his wine glass. “Well, that means that I have to listen to them go on about how their day went or get in fights with them about what to watch on TV, then? See them in between waxing appointments?”

  Everyone laughed except me.

  I was too busy being shocked at what an utter ass he was.

  “Yeah, maybe it’s not for me, after all,” he said.

  “You can just go back to man-whoring your way around Sea City,” I muttered.

  He clutched his chest. “Ow. Geez, Clarke. You wound me. Man-whore? Really?”

  I gave him a cool look. “I call it like I see it.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” said Brian. “Men say this kind of stuff when they’re single. But when they meet the right people, or the right person, they change their tune.”

  “Oh, no, no.” Naelen shook his head. “You do not get it, man. None of you guys are dragons. You don’t have destined mates, like we do. I’m not settling down just because I feel the tug of some weird mating bond. I’m fighting that crap. I’ve seen firsthand what it can do to people. My own parents were really in love, right? They loved each other a lot. And that’s about all they loved, you know? They were just so caught up in each other that they let everything else go to shit. Hell, my sister and I wouldn’t even have anywhere to live—my parents wouldn’t have somewhere to live—if I hadn’t stepped up and rescued us financially. So, screw all this business about love conquering all, because I don’t buy it.”

  No one said anything. We were all simply staring at him.

  He picked up his wine glass. “I mean, no offense. It seems to be working out fine for the three of you, so sorry. It’s not for me, though. I know that.”

  “It sounds to me like you’ve got a lot of anger towards your parents,” said Eden.

  Naelen shrugged. “No. Not really. I don’t care about them. They do their own thing. We try to stay out of each other’s way.”

  “If you want to talk about it,” said Jocelyn, “we’re really good at talking things out. We really are.”

  “Nah,” said Naelen, draining his glass. “Maybe we should finally get around to talking about the reason that we’re here.”

  “Oh,” said Eden. “Why did you guys stop by?”

  “We, uh, we heard you know something about Ronan Cunningham,” I said.

  “Oh, geez,” said Eden. “You guys are tangled up with that guy? I assume he’s still got the objects.”

  “The objects?” I said.

  “Yeah. The arrowhead. The stylus. The scarab. The comb,” she said. “I think those are the ones he has.”

  Naelen took the arrowhead out of his pocket. “You mean this arrowhead?”

  “Oh,” said Eden. “You got it. How did you do it?”

  “We killed a vampire and took it off her body,” I said. “We didn’t know what it was. It has magic somehow, but it’s not made of dragons.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Eden. “But where these objects come from—”

  A thin, high-pitched wail suddenly came from the baby monitor.

  “On it,” said Brian, getting up and heading out of the room.

  Eden furrowed her brow. “I think that was Courtney. She’ll never go back to sleep for anyone but me.”

  “Just let Brian deal with it,” said Jocelyn.

  Eden nodded. “Uh, so where they come from, there’s magic in everything. It’s the same place that the—”

  “Eden, she’s asking for you,” called Brian’s voice.

  Eden got up. “I’m sorry. We’ll have to talk about this later. Tomorrow would probably be best. It’s a long story.”

  * * *

  The room they’ve given me to sleep in was small, but it opened onto a tiny balcony on the back of the house. Since it was a decent temperature, all the windows in the house were open, and also the doors to the balcony. A breeze fluttered through, warm and comfortable.

  I changed into my nightshirt and walked out onto the balcony, gazing out into the dark sky. It was still early for me. I didn’t tend to go to bed until after midnight usually, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with myself for now. I was far too wired to go to sleep.

  Logan could have given me a heads-up about the polyamory and all that, but I knew Logan too well. He hadn’t found any of that important, so he’d paid it no mind. Other people might have thought the relationship was repugnant or enticing or just plain interesting, but he wouldn’t have. Logan didn’t think about those kinds of things.

  I wondered what they all did for a living, because they had a big house with two guest rooms. This in addition to bedrooms for the kids and for all three of the adults. Some of that was in the finished basement, but it was still a lot of rooms. A house like this couldn’t be cheap. Maybe if you had three salaries and you put it all together, it equaled lots of money.

  There was a knock on my door.

  Was it Eden, checking up on me?

  I hurried over to tell her everything was fine.

  But it was Naelen. He was holding the last bottle of wine, the one we hadn’t gotten into earlier. “Hey,” he said. “It’s way too early for me to sleep. You want to hang out?”

  “Okay,” I said. I pointed. “I have a little balcony. There are chairs out there.”

  “Awesome,” he said.

  We settled out on the balcony. There was only one problem. We didn’t have any glasses.

  “We’ll just drink out of the bottle,” said Naelen.

  I giggled. “But this is expensive wine.”

  “All the more reason,” he said, raising the bottle high.

  I snatched it from him and took a swig. Then I handed it back. “Here. Have some.”

  He took a long drink. “This house is great, isn’t it?”

  “I was just thinking it was awfully big,” I said. “But I guess it’s because of the finished basement.”

  “Yeah
,” he said. “Which basically doubles the space of the house. It’s brilliant. But that’s not why it’s great.”

  “Why is it great?”

  “It’s just so warm and homey,” he said. “Like The Waltons or something.”

  “What?” I said, taking the wine bottle back from him. “You’re crazy.”

  “No, I’m serious. This is like living in a TV sitcom.”

  “They’re polyamorous.”

  “So what? That’s going to be a thing, soon, right? Polyamory sitcoms?”

  I snorted. “I really don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think it’s nice here?” he said. “You don’t think they’re nice?”

  “They’re very nice,” I said. “I really like them. And the house is nice too. But I would figure that you… you must have a really great house, something that would blow this place out of the water.”

  He held out his hand from the wine. “I own things. Houses. Apartments. Whatever. Different city. Different place to sleep. All of them are mine.”

  I handed the bottle over. “But?”

  “There’s no ‘but.’”

  “Sounded like there was.”

  “Well, they just seem cold. Like my parents’ house always seemed cold growing up. And I don’t mean that they ought to have turned up the heat. I’m not talking about temperature.”

  “I knew what you meant,” I said. “I’m sorry about that.”

  He shrugged. “Comes with the territory. There are so many things that dragons worry about, like keeping up appearances and making the proper social actions, and all of that. Everything feels forced. Fake. Nothing feels real.”

  “That sounds awful,” I said.

  “Right, and to make up for that awful feeling, I have scads of money,” he said ruefully. “How awful could it be, really?”

  “If you’re lonely—”

  “I’m not lonely,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean it to be offensive,” I said.

  “I don’t need someone to share my life with,” he said. “I don’t need a mate.”

  “I wasn’t saying that,” I said. “But… well, what do you think makes this house feel so warm to you? It’s that there are so many people here, and they all love each other in their unique ways. They’re a family.”