A Monster and a Gentleman

by Lila Dubois

  “I know this goes against the very fiber of your being...” Margo reached out and grabbed Cali as she went past, pulling her to a stop. “...but why don’t you take a minute and at least consider the idea of you and Seling in a relationship?”

  “You’re only saying that because the two of you have guys. Just because you’re seeing people doesn’t mean I have to. You’re like crack dealers, pushing your merchandise.”

  “First of all, we’re engaged, not dating—”

  “What Margo’s trying to say,” Lena said, shooting Margo a glance, “is that we worry about you. When was the last time you stopped and let yourself consider letting someone into you life? It doesn’t have to be Seling, because maybe you just aren’t that into him, but someday you’re going to have to let someone in.”

  Cali pulled away from Margo and backed up, sinking down onto the bench. Taking a deep breath she turned and looked out the window, not wanting them to see her expression. After a moment, the door opened and they left. Cali was alone with her thoughts.

  Later that night, after she’d sent emails, called department heads and made notes on her script about the next day’s filming, Cali couldn’t put it off anymore. She took a glass of wine out onto the balcony of her penthouse condo. She loved this view. The city stretched out below her, while far off to the right she could see the sliver of dark blue ocean, rising to meet the horizon.

  She wasn’t an emotional person. She was brusk, blunt—rude, even. She was known for both speaking her mind and speaking the truth. She had lots of acquaintances and a few close friends.

  She was scared to have it any other way.

  Cali took a sip and looked up. Only a few stars were visible. A smattering of clouds and L.A.’s light pollution hid all but the brightest.

  What Lena and Margo had said today wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. She didn’t like relationships, and she was terrible at them. Relationships depended on lying, even if they were little white lies. After the way she grew up she never wanted to be in a position where she had to live within a prison of lies...and she never wanted to be in a position to be hurt by someone she loved.

  When she was in college, she’d made an effort to date, biting back her comments and trying to play nice—though that never lasted more than fifteen minutes. She’d never lacked for dates, and while she knew some of it was due to the fact she was good-looking, a lot of it was because guys were fascinated by her. While her friends bemoaned her truth-telling, guys found it refreshing. The first time she’d told a guy “You know I’m not sleeping with you tonight, right?” he’d laughed and spent the rest of the night trying to change her mind, which had been more fun than either of them had expected.

  In the middle of all this college dating, she’d softened to the idea of “love”, something she’d given up on after living through the hell of her parent’s relationship. Until the professor.

  Cali was always the most outspoken person in class, and every professor in the prestigious film production program knew her name. When the young, hot professor of their developing technologies class had asked her to accompany him to a swanky charity event, she’d straight up told him that she wasn’t going to risk her future by sleeping with him, but that she’d go with him for the networking. He’d laughed and told her he’d expected nothing less, then taken her out to coffee. Coffee was followed by dinner, then afternoons in museums discussing the influence of art on various movies.

  Cali had actually planned on sleeping with him—she was going to wait until summer, when the class was over. He was smart, successful, handsome and charming, the kind of guy that she could see herself with. Late at night, lying in bed, she’d let herself fantasize about a real relationship with him. She’d tell him her secrets and learn his, and he’d never get angry with her for saying what she thought. They’d be an industry power couple, helping each other on groundbreaking, seminal works of motion picture art. They’d develop and pioneer the sciences that would lead the industry into the next phase of its evolution, and they’d do it all as a team, a team founded on mutual respect and caring—ideas Cali trusted far better than “love”.

  But it was all bullshit. While she was fantasizing about their future together, the asshole had been fucking another girl in her class—an awkward but sweet girl that no one would ever suspect of sleeping with the teacher. The other girl was brilliant but seemed destined to fail in the cutthroat entertainment industry, so Cali was hard on her, trying to toughen her up, though everyone else said she was just being mean. That girl was also Cali’s film project partner—Joanna.

  When Jo had confessed to sleeping with their professor, Cali had lost it. She’d let down her guard, let herself imagine something silly and romantic, and in the end he’d been a lying asshole—dating her while sleeping with Jo. She was angry with both herself and Jo for being so stupid as to fall for it, and enraged with him. For their own sakes Cali and Jo hadn’t reported what happened.

  That event had destroyed two relationships–the romantic and professional one she’d planned to have with the professor, and the professional one she’d been trying to develop with Jo. After that Jo had shut her out, and Cali had nearly failed the asshole professor’s class because she was so aggressive and confrontational with him.

  Cali’s elaborate revenge plan, which involved becoming super powerful in Hollywood and then squishing his career, never worked, because not long after she’d graduated, he’d returned home to Nebraska. She and Jo hadn’t spoken, despite the fact that they were both rising stars in the industry, until Lena and Margo had convinced Jo to join this project. Jo’s awkwardness had turned into a cool eccentricity, and as Cali had predicted, she was awesome at what she did.

  And Jo was in a relationship—with a monster no less. Jo had gotten over what happened when they were in college.

  Why couldn’t Cali?

  She poured herself a second glass and wandered over to one of the loungers. She’d spent plenty of hours out here when she was between projects. She lay back and closed her eyes. The time she’d spent here in the sun had been filled with ideas, plans and daydreams. The dreams about the future were always filled with professional success and time with her wonderful friends.

  Those dreams had never included a relationship. She’d never planned to have one—she never lacked for male company if she wanted it, and for companionship she preferred her friends.

  But over the past year her friends had started partnering off—they were dropping like flies. While she still saw them at work, it wasn’t the same. At first she’d rolled her eyes and pitied them, but lately she was feeling left behind—as if she were the fool, when a year ago she was convinced it was them who were the making foolish mistakes.

  In quiet moments like this, she’d started to admit to herself that she did want someone. She wanted someone who would hold her, kiss her, laugh at her and with her. She wanted someone in her life who loved her so much that no matter how scared she got, how hard she pushed them away, they wouldn’t let her go.

  A small sob broke the easy silence that lay over her balcony. Cali curled into a ball and pressed her hands to her face as shudders wracked her. She was terrified of being alone and terrified of letting anyone in.

  Chapter Six

  Oren and Maeve

  Oren stared at the beautiful woman straddling him and tried to decide what the hell to do now.

  Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. He’d been in a freakish almost-accident, which she’d admitted to orchestrating. She’d been able to read his mind and know that despite doctors’ warnings, he wanted a red-meat burger and fries, not the healthy option he’d ordered. And now, though before he passed out he could have sworn he’d seen her morph into something distinctly non-human, he was fighting the arousal that her nearness and position on his lap caused.

  “You’re a what now?”

  “A Bean Sí. A banshee.”

  “Could you, uh, get off my lap?”

  She
tipped her head to the side, that long hair falling over his arm. It was cool and heavy, like silk. She considered him for a moment, tapping his lower lip with her fingers before slithering off him and into her seat.

  “Isn’t a banshee a woman who, uh, lures men to their death?”

  “That’s a siren.”

  “Of course, how could I forget?” Oren flexed his fingers before turning the car on. One way or another, they needed to get out of this parking lot. They could figure out the rest while they drove. “Banshee...is that the one that wails before someone dies?”

  “Very good!”

  “Thank you.”

  “Though ‘wail’ implies a distressed infant. Keening is the word I prefer.”

  “Keening.” Some long-buried SAT prep knowledge surfaced, so Oren was able to nod. “Got it. If you’re a banshee, does that mean that you can change into something, like the guys?”

  “Yes and no. I change when I See, but it is not two separate physical beings.”

  “See what?”

  “When I See.” She waved her hands in the air in front of herself.

  “I still don’t get it,” Oren admitted reluctantly.

  “Hmm, yes. Let me begin at the beginning.”

  “And don’t stop until you reach the end.”

  “Alice in Wonderland.”

  “You know Alice in Wonderland?”

  “I love children’s books.”

  “That makes as much sense as anything else that’s happened today.” Meaning it made no sense at all, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “How much do you know about particle physics and quantum mechanics?”

  “What?” Oren almost missed the freeway on ramp. He got a hold of himself. “How much do you know about it?”

  “More than the humans who study it, though I don’t have the terms for it that they do.”

  “You know...that’s just too good.” Oren laughed. Now that he wasn’t so freaked out, he realized that he was in a situation he’d never be in again. He was meeting a creature that until now he would have said was nothing but a myth. Unlike when he’d met the other monsters, he wasn’t getting this information filtered through another human. He was finding it out all by himself. He wanted nothing more than to get a particle physics lecture from a banshee.

  “There is an energy that connects everything in this world.” Her voice was sweet and husky. Though Oren kept his eyes on the road, he could feel her watching him.

  “I’m with you so far…only because I’m going to assume you’re talking about the Force.”

  She giggled. “From Luke’s favorite movie, yes. But it is a real thing, and your scientists have a name for it—the Higgs boson.”

  “Whoa. You weren’t kidding when you said you know physics.”

  “That energy goes in all directions, not only in the present, but into the past and the future. It connects and binds all possible pasts and all possible futures. My ancestors called it the Everafter.”

  Oren was thinking hard. He nodded as he worked out what she was saying. “So because of this energy that’s connected to the future, you can somehow tell if someone is going to die.”

  “It’s more than that. I can touch the Everafter. That is what I do when I See. I look into the Everafter, the energy, as it flows in and out of a person.”

  “So when you touched me.” Oren blew out a breath. He felt like Alice eating the cake; suddenly everything seemed tiny. “Wait, just wait until we get there.”

  They rode the next ten minutes in silence, until Oren pulled up outside his townhouse. He’d gone home out of instinct. When Maeve climbed out of the car too, he hesitantly led her into the building. He had a nice place, a two-story apartment with hardwood floors and a fireplace. This far north, nice places were easier to find and cost the same as a dive in Hollywood or K-Town.

  Maeve followed him in the front door, looking around curiously. She kicked off the cheap flip-flops she wore, and he watched as her cute toes curled into the living room rug. Had he really just thought of her toes as cute?

  “This is nice.”

  “Uh, thanks.” Oren scrubbed his hands on his jeans. It was clean enough, mostly because he didn’t spend any time here now that they were filming, but it felt weird having someone else in his home. “Do you want something to drink?” He checked the fridge. “I have...water.”

  “I like water.”

  He brought them both a glass, then led her into the living room. He took a seat on the couch, but Maeve sat cross-legged on the floor, her hair pooling in her lap.

  “We may talk now?”

  “Yes. I just didn’t want to talk this all out in the car.”

  “I’m sorry. I forget that this is hard for those who don’t know to understand.”

  “I think I understand, but if what I’m thinking is right then it changes everything.” Maeve nodded gravely at his words and Oren continued, “You can see things by using the Force, the energy that connects everything, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if that energy is in the past and the present and the future, when you touch someone you can see their past, their present and their future.”

  A small smile touched her lips. “Yes.”

  “So now you know...my future.”

  “Yes...and no.”

  “Holy shit.” Oren put his head in his hands. She could tell his future. Not in a vague predictions way, but in a concrete use-the-Force-we-are-all-connected way.

  “There is no future, not really, only possibilities.”

  “But still, you can see those possibilities.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know, from every movie ever made, that I shouldn’t ask this, but what did you see for me?”

  “You’re future was gray—”

  “Oh God, I’m going to die.”

  “No, all the images I see in the future are gray, but yours was fog.”

  “I’m going to die in fog?”

  She huffed. “If you were about to die, I would know. I would weep for you.”

  “You would?”

  Their gazes met, held. “I would, and I think it would not only be the keening of the banshee.”

  Oren wasn’t entirely sure what she meant, but it felt like something intimate had passed between them. “So I’m not going to die?”

  “You will die someday, but I don’t know when, so don’t ask me.”

  Oren closed his mouth.

  She laughed. “You future wasn’t clear. Sometimes it is that way, sometimes it is not my place to know. But I did see some things.” She closed her eyes and tipped her head back. Her eyeballs moved under the lids and her fingers twitched. He drank his water in silence, not wanting to interrupt her.

  She opened her eyes and gasped, causing Oren to yelp and almost drop his glass.

  “What, what did you see?”

  “Nothing for you to fear, but it was harder than I thought to sort through the Seeing.” She rubbed her temples. “I see success in your possible futures.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”

  She raised a brow. “But was that success from selling my Clan’s, my people’s secrets?”

  “If that’s what you saw, then you aren’t in sync with the Force or whatever.” Oren pushed to his feet. “I didn’t do it. I know my past makes me the most likely suspect.”

  “I know. I saw your past.”

  He turned. “Well, then I guess I have no secrets from you.”

  “Of course you do. I could not See all of a person’s life, even if I wanted to. I only See those things that changed or influence the energy of your life.”

  “Then ignore my past and listen to what I’m telling you right now. I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t. I like Luke and Runako and the other guys, and even if I didn’t, I want this to be a success as much as they do.”

  Maeve was still sitting calmly in the middle of his floor. “I know.”

  He stopped. “You do?”

&nbs
p; Maeve watched Oren pace. He was tall and lean with a trim, hard body. As humans, most of her Clans-men were massive, their powerful true forms represented in their heavily muscled human bodies. Oren was different. His arms were corded with lean muscle, and she could see the way his ass flexed as he moved.

  She blew out a breath and shifted, trying to calm her arousal. That’s what she’d felt in the car when she was on top of him—arousal. No male had made her feel that way in a very long time.

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” Maeve assured him. She knew he wasn’t the one to blame after seeing his future, but she’d wanted to test his reaction. “I couldn’t see all the possibilities or far into your future, but from the things I could make out, your potential futures involved success because the movie was made.”

  “That’s good.” Oren sat down and scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but I think I should point out that even if the information is leaked, the movie might still get made. I could have leaked the information and then profited from the success of the movie.”

  “No, there is no movie if our secret is exposed too soon.” If their secret was exposed, if they lost control of this situation, they would all go home and spend time together, as a Clan, before angry humans showed up and murdered them all.

  “No movie?”

  “No.” Maeve toyed with a lock of hair, debating whether to say more. “Did they tell you why we need to do this now?”

  “You mean come out of the closet? Yeah, a bit. I know you—your Clan is it? That you’ve moved around a lot to stay hidden, because humans have almost found you. But now there’s not a lot of places left to go. And I think someone said that the spell that lets everyone turn into humans is new too.”

  “That is part of it. Living in secret is not a realistic course, and the wonderful shifting spell is new.” It had taken her years, but she’d figured it out. “But there is another reason.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There are some humans who already know.”

  Oren sat back. “What?”

  “There is a group of humans who know we exist. They think we are demons from Hell. They’ve kidnapped, tortured and killed many of us. They killed Runako’s sister and tortured Seling.”