Misery Happens

by Tracey Martin

  Tom planned to head up the team for the Gryphons, and as the discussion descended into the minutiae of what sorts of skills he needed and when and where and how and a thousand other issues that had to be addressed, I shivered. Clasping my book against my chest, I stared at the side of Lucen’s head. This was getting very real, very fast. And despite my bravado, or whatever the outcome of my go with Claudius later, I wasn’t at all sure I’d ever truly be ready.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lucen tucked Purgatory’s key in his pocket and shut the club’s door behind him.

  “Does everyone on your council have a key to this place?” I asked, returning his coffee.

  He smiled mysteriously but retrieved his cup without an answer, so I took that to mean no.

  Between the sugar in my large café mocha and my nerves, I was wired. I was also relieved that Lucen was here today. As per our unspoken agreement, I didn’t ask whether Claudius had been telling the truth about Lucen meeting with addicts during our training session. When Lucen had found out it had happened without him, he’d told me I should have called and he’d have been right over. I believed him, and it was enough.

  Mitch hesitated at the threshold of the club’s main room. “Do you think it’ll work—this idea Jess was researching?”

  Mitch hadn’t gotten over his anxiety around preds, and he rarely addressed any of them without some provocation. But recently I’d begun noticing a change in the way he carried himself. An increase in his self-confidence. I hoped working one-on-one with Lucen and Dezzi was helping him become more comfortable with what he could do.

  Lucen took a deep breath. “Honestly, I have no idea, and I consider myself well-read. I’m not going to throw the love of my life into danger often, but in this case, you might want to let her try this idea first.”

  “Wow, that’s chivalry.”

  “Little siren, if I were wearing a cloak, I’d let you step on it rather than sully your boots on this questionable floor. Would that be better?”

  I made a show of sniffing his coffee. “What secret ingredient did you put in here?”

  Mitch laughed. “You know, I was horrified when Jess told me about the two of you, but you’re actually good together. And trust me, that disturbs me almost as much as what I’m about to do.”

  “Jess apparently has a way with all the satyrs in Boston,” Claudius called out. He was lounging around the bar and must have been listening in.

  My smile turned sarcastic. “Not all of them. Not as long as you’re in town.”

  Claudius had his feet propped up on a table, and he let them fall to the floor with a thud. “No, this evening, I get to have my way with you again. Lucky for you, I brought more of this to heal your tender soul when it’s over.” He slapped the flask on the table.

  My smile got stuck, and Lucen placed a reassuring hand on the small of my back. “I can’t wait to watch.”

  Raia wasn’t here tonight, so Dezzi and Mitch returned to wherever they’d gone the day before, and Lucen and I made our way to the bar. Claudius somehow had gotten hold of a remote to change the lights. He dimmed the bright ones overhead and cranked up the red spotlights.

  I finished my coffee, unpleasantly aware of my heart beating. “Do we really need the mood lighting?”

  “I’m simulating the great outdoors. Not that you’ll notice, seeing as your eyes will be closed in ecstasy the whole time.”

  “Agony, you mean.”

  “For some people, there’s a fine line between them.”

  I took up the same position I had yesterday, resting against the balcony. Much as I wanted to be touching Lucen for support, I didn’t think that was a good idea. I’d likely crush him in frustration. “Trust me, when you’re in my head, it’s not a good pain.”

  “You sure? You enjoyed it yesterday.” Grinning suggestively, Claudius grabbed a chair and sat in front of me.

  I let my simmering rage answer for me since he could understand it quite well.

  My first attempt to thwart Claudius yesterday had, sadly, been my best. I blamed it on a deep-rooted exhaustion of my gift that even the satyrs’ alcoholic concoction couldn’t ameliorate, but regardless, I had not been pleased by my failure.

  Nor what failing in this situation had entailed. It wasn’t stripping in front of Claudius and Raia that bothered me so much. Hanging around satyrs had cured me of most of my modesty, and I was comfortable enough in my own skin to not care if other people judged me for having less than newly shaven legs or extra padding on my butt.

  What bugged me—no, what pissed the ever-loving shit out of me—was that I’d had sex with an imaginary Claudius. Not once but twice.

  Thank dragons, this weird hallucinogenic sex did not equate to actual real-people sex, but it was horrible enough to have experienced it in any form. I’d failed to get a grip on the bond between us, failed to draw on his power, and in both those situations eventually failed to care. I’d given in and let fake him do exactly what he wanted to me.

  I suspected the only reason the real him hadn’t attempted the same stunt was because Raia and Dezzi were at hand to remind him that I needed to be willing to continue our training. It didn’t matter if he could claim that I’d wanted his attention in the moment. If he’d overpowered my will and touched me in real life, I would have been out of there faster than anyone could say “acquaintance rape”.

  As it was, the whole ordeal still felt violating, but mostly I was just pissed off. I’d told Lucen about it, and I was quite certain there would be blood if Claudius pushed me harder today. Already, the muscles in Lucen’s arms were taut as he stared down the back of his superior’s head.

  Claudius was awaiting my response, so I chose not to give him one. I focused on my breathing instead, finding a source of calm inside me. Claudius would not catch me unawares with his power this time. Besides, I had a plan. I simply had to remember to implement it.

  “Let’s begin then,” he said.

  As soon as the words left his mouth, I could detect tendrils of his power grazing me. Wisps of magic lightly brushed my face, and I sensed his body on mine without him moving. A gentle finger traced my lips, and I tingled. A slow stream of pleasure trickled down my core, between my breasts, over my stomach. It slipped between my legs, and I tensed, my breaths coming faster.

  “Look at me, Jess,” Claudius commanded. “Not at Lucen.”

  My brain begged me to resist, but Claudius’s voice couldn’t be denied. I wet my lips, heat rushing to face and my chest as I obeyed. The bond hadn’t formed yet, but he was working on it. As usual, my subconscious was fighting it.

  Claudius stood and stepped closer. His rich, woodsy scent washed over me, increasing the sensitivity of my skin. My fingers relaxed on the railing, and the memories of what he’d had me imagine yesterday flooded my mind. The way his teeth had grazed my throat, his hands firmly cupping my breasts, the pure heat of him as he’d thrust into me.

  I realized my eyes had closed, and I opened them. Claudius’s dark ones locked on my gaze. I was breathing hard, and my hands had given up on the railing, eager to find something else to touch.

  “You’re resisting less today,” Claudius said. “Good. That makes things go so much faster.”

  I was mentally with it enough to scowl at him even as my body was crying out in need.

  Claudius chuckled. “But still resisting. I want you to take your shirt off for me. Let me see how your skin looks in this light.”

  If his voice had demanded to be obeyed before, his commands were simply my own will at this point. There was no fighting it, no consideration. I knew he’d pushed me to the breaking point at last. Do what he said and the bond would be formed.

  My fingers curled around my shirt’s hem, and I pulled it off. The cool air brushed against my exposed skin like a kiss. Grasping the railing once more, I tossed my head back and moaned in anticipation.<
br />
  The bond—I could feel the bond. I was supposed to do something with it too, but the only thing I wanted to do was the satyr in front of me. I had to get it together. I had to focus. But oh, my clothes chafed and my body ached. I needed a release before I could focus, only there wasn’t going to be one, was there? Such was the agony of addicts.

  Claudius dragged a finger along my bra’s lace edge, setting my skin on fire. His voice sounded far away, which meant he wasn’t talking to me but to Lucen. “So which one of you has the taste for lacy undergarments? Jess doesn’t strike me as the sort, so is it you or the unconscious one?”

  “If you touch her unnecessarily again, I’m willing to shoot you.”

  I gasped. Lucen’s voice brought me some additional clarity. Lucen was here, and I was supposed to be testing my new theory.

  Find the bond. Grab the bond.

  I closed my eyes, searching for the threads. When I tried visualizing them, I wasn’t surprised to find myself transported to the same forest as yesterday. Claudius had returned me here for each attempt. He must have liked my underwear more today because I wasn’t naked this time.

  He was though, leaning against a large oak. The branches behind him framed his head like a pair of antlers, and with the myriad glyphs covering his legs and his blatantly large erection, all he needed was a set of wooden pipes to have stepped out of some classical myth.

  That erection. My eyes were drawn to it like an imp to a streetlamp. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to get any wetter, but seeing Claudius in all his glory proved me wrong. My body was awash in heat of all sorts, and I rubbed my bare skin.

  “That’s it,” he said as my fingers slid under the trim of my underwear. “Take them off. This is better than what you were trying to imagine, isn’t it?”

  Yes. Yes, it was. But the command in his voice resonated in my gut, a reminder of the bond. With a pang of regret, I lifted my fingers and concentrated.

  There it was now, more greenish gold than last night, but there all the same. Before Claudius could distract me, I envisioned the energy flow and yanked on the power. Searing-hot pain slammed into me, and a low scream escaped my mouth.

  Fake Claudius crossed his arms, watching me with an amused expression. His smugness made me angry, and I tried again. My nerves shrieked, and my brain began to pound on my skull. If I continued to pull, I’d come close to blacking out. Claudius would drop the connection.

  Like hell. I wasn’t suffering through this any more times than I had to. I was going to get this right on the first attempt.

  Against the tree, Claudius winked at me, and I felt him give a gentle tug on the bond. Some of my pain vanished. “You’re going to push yourself too hard, too fast. Come here, and at least enjoy the experience before you bring on a migraine.” He wrapped a hand around his cock as if offering it to me.

  “Fuck you.” I pulled again, using the burst of power to will my eyes open.

  Catching my breath, I discovered I was on the floor. So predictable. The real Claudius continued to hover nearby, but he wasn’t touching me any longer.

  Once more, I told myself. Breathe it in and breathe it out.

  I grabbed at the power, keeping the visualization firmly in front of my open eyes. My nerves wailed, but this time when I drew on the bond, I imagined the power coming through the rope, into me, down the nerves and out of my fingers.

  For a second, the pain overwhelmed me and I thought my body might burst, then it subsided ever so slightly. My fingertips tingled as though zapped by electricity. Something deep inside my chest, however, expanded. I could take more energy next time. I was positive.

  In again. My head felt like it was going to explode, but with this attempt, when the pain passed it left the rush behind. Power spread across the cracks in my soul, filling them in and smoothing me out. I was dancing. I was floating. And even better, I was doing what I intended.

  Again. I was vaguely aware that Lucen had jumped off the table where he’d been sitting, and Claudius’s smug expression had lost some of its smarminess. My limbs were light, and I no longer ached. My pain had lifted with my mood. The magic was restoring me instead of breaking me.

  One more time. I sucked hard on the power, hearing myself cry out as I drew it in. The bond flared, its golden color fading to a dull yellow then to orange then to a brilliant scarlet. Too much power threatened to tear me apart, and I flung the excess out through my fingers.

  It flew across the seating area, past Claudius and Lucen, and slammed into the bar. Glasses exploded, and shards spun off in all directions. Liquor bottles burst, their contents showering the floor and us with potent sticky, sweet alcohol. Lucen swore, and I think I laughed.

  No, I knew I laughed; I simply didn’t feel like myself. I was drunk on Claudius’s power and high from breathing the fumes. I was invincible and glowing. I was a god, and that meant for this very brief time, I outranked and out-powered His Supreme Upper Asshole.

  So while Claudius gaped, I did the one thing I’d been meaning to do for weeks. I leapt forward and kicked him in the groin.

  * * * * *

  “Eat.” Lucen shoved a bag of pretzels across the table. We were sitting around the one farthest away from the bar and therefore one of the few not covered in glass fragments or liquor.

  My hands struggled to open the bag without sending the contents flying. Apparently, channeling so much power had its downsides. I couldn’t stop moving, and the concept of doing anything gently was not one my body would tolerate. I had a bad case of what my mother used to call “the fidgets”.

  “I can’t believe Devon’s going to be thrilled about you raiding his inventory.”

  Sensing an imminent pretzel explosion, Lucen took the bag back and opened it for me. “Worry more about his opinion of you doing a few thousand dollars’ worth of damage to his club.”

  I wasn’t a huge fan of pretzels, but I took a bite, assessing the destruction. The area reeked of alcohol, and while I no longer felt drunk on the fumes, odds were good that we all were inhaling quite a bit of it. Dezzi had called the new manager and informed him that he might want to send in the custodial team.

  “He’s going to take the cost of this out of my ass, isn’t he?”

  “Assuming you both live.” Claudius glowered several tables away. Our relationship hadn’t exactly improved by me attacking his junk with a steel-toed boot.

  I refused to feel sorry about it, and Claudius—to his credit—had continued to work with me once he got over threatening to kill me in a variety of gruesome ways. Just figuring out how to channel the excess power clearly wasn’t enough. I couldn’t keep going around blasting the hell out of what was around me. Claudius insisted, as did the stuff I read in the Gryphons’ books, that I needed to learn how to properly discharge the power.

  I was having a difficult time of it. My second attempt at discharging had resulted in a couple cracked floor tiles, and by my third attempt, Lucen had retreated to the second-floor balcony just in case. Mitch and Dezzi had stood watch with him. Since I’d wrecked the bar, everyone had wanted to observe.

  After the third attempt ended with me flying backward and colliding with the railing, we decided it was break time. I’d never managed to shake all the accumulated power, and my extremities trembled as a result. Dezzi had suggested eating something because the food would absorb some of the magic.

  “Feeling better?” she asked as I crunched into my fifth pretzel.

  I nodded. Better wasn’t precisely the right word because buzzing with excess magic was euphoric. But I did feel more normal. More capable, say, of opening a bag of pretzels without casting its contents to the winds.

  Dezzi waved a hand in front of her nose. “We are going to need to find a new place to train before we end up drunk.”

  “Anywhere but The Lair.” Lucen helped himself to a handful of pretzels. “I just finished rep
airing the bar. I don’t need Jess turning it into another war zone.”

  “Hey!” I stuck my tongue out at him. “It was trashed by sylphs last time, not me.”

  “Perhaps a padded cell would be appropriate?” Claudius suggested.

  I flipped him off, and Dezzi took out her phone. “I’ll figure out something,” she said. “Meanwhile, this would be a good time for Jessica to explain what she did to Mitchell.”

  I washed down my last pretzel, wondering how to do that when I barely understood it myself. But Mitch didn’t need much theory. Mainly, he needed steps.

  “So basically, magic theorists describe power as consisting of emotional energy, physical energy and magical energy,” I began. “A person’s soul is the source of all those things, and the ability to hold them can grow over time.”

  As I rambled, Dezzi’s phone rang. My voice trailed off as I watched her expression change from concern to delight by whatever news she was receiving. “This is wonderful. I will be over shortly.” She hung up and rejoined us. “That was Azria. Devon is awake.”

  * * * * *

  Our short training break became a longer break. Mitch had no reason to want to visit Devon, and Dezzi figured he and Claudius might as well begin working together. Since we needed to leave Purgatory anyway, and anyone with half a brain could tell Mitch wasn’t excited to be getting the Claudius treatment, they returned to Gryphon headquarters to begin. That way someone could be there to supervise if necessary. The rest of us hurried to Shadowtown.

  Dezzi seemed pleased but calm, as if she’d always expected Azria would find the right counter-curse. Lucen seemed relieved—Devon was his closest friend, after all—but he was also so in a quiet way. I attributed that to being a man thing.

  That left me as the only one of the three of us who was an emotional mess. Aside from my freakout when Raj had cursed Devon, I’d had little time to fret. The problems pressing down on my shoulders were far heavier than one unconscious satyr. Even one I cared about. My fears had to be saved for those middle-of-the-night fits when I woke up alone, my eyes wet and my heart convinced all was hopeless.