by Sam Hall
I went to protest, to say I was perfectly capable of getting my own food, when he vanished, only to reappear at the buffet table. I felt his absence as soon as he left. I didn’t like that. I’d been as independent as I could be for most of my life, and these guys had been in it for mere days. How could I lose that feeling of being OK alone so quickly? I didn’t get much of a chance to think about it, as my thoughts were interrupted by my name screeched at a million decibels.
Jen threw her arms around me, mine doing the same on automatic. I settled my head down on the thistledown fluff of her hair and just held her for a minute.
“We’re going on tour. We’re going on fricking tour! You should see the bus! Daddy did the most amazing job of—”
“Shhh…” I replied.
“What? Why? Are you OK? You’re not still having attacks, are you? That would be very—”
“Shut up, Jen. Just stop for a second.” I took a breath, then leaned back so I could see her. “Everything’s happened and I haven’t seen you, and I found out you live in this whole other world and…” I didn’t need to say anymore. I never did. She nodded, and I was unable to tell if her eyes were shining with tears of excitement, or both. “This is gonna be amazing. I’m super psyched about doing it with you, but let me discover a bit.”
“Of course! I’m an idiot. Your head must be spinning and Marlow…” Her smile grew sly. “Details, girlfriend. Spill!”
“You sure you wanna go there? You want to be thinking about what your stylist does in the sack? ‘Cos I can give you details.”
Her smile widened. “Damn, I so do and I really don’t.”
“Yes, let’s discuss the herald’s sexual prowess over breakfast, shall we?” Aen said, having appeared by our sides, arms laden with plates of food.
“Oh, well…”
Aen was like the sun—you couldn’t help but turn towards him. While there was something about him that just had me staring, in a small way, I didn’t love how quiet and careful his presence made Jen. She was my best mate, and we were going through something massive here, but I’d had no chance to talk to her about it all. When we sat down at the table, one on either side of me, I didn’t like how she eyed the food but didn’t reach for it, or how her hands went neatly to her lap like a good little girl.
“Aen, I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to Jen.”
“Kira!” she hissed, giving me a furtive head shake.
“No, no, please speak freely,” Aen replied.
“She’s my best friend. This is about to become a big meeting, and we haven’t talked and…”
My voice trailed away as the startlingly beautiful feminine side of the Cat Sidhe appeared.
“Does this help? Sometimes women find it easier to discuss what they need to in the presence of other women. I’m sorry, my flower.” The endearment became a whole other thing spoken through her perfectly plush lips. “One of us needs to be with you at all times. You are precious to all three of us. Now, tell us all about the lovely Marlow’s assets.”
I shot a look at Jen who seemed to have to shake herself to come back to the conversation. She smiled wickedly when she did, picking up a slice of cantaloupe from the plate and winking at me. “C’mon girl, spill the beans!”
Were we doing this? Being with Aen was dizzying, but I couldn’t bring myself to complain. I just leaned forward, plucked a sausage from the spread before us, and held it up. The two of them snorted when they took a look at the thickness of it, complete with a shine of grease on the skin.
“Yeah?” Jen said, cocking an eyebrow.
“This is probably underestimating his ‘charms.’”
“Well, damn girl. Better than those bloody idiots at the pub who wouldn’t know hotness if it came up and head butted them. But does he know what he’s doing with it? I’m afraid to tell you, there’s plenty of fae that are all cock, no technique,” Jen said. “Like this one guy…”
Things devolved pretty quickly after that, as conversations with women often do, and Aen’s input just took it to whole new heights and depths. We both sat there, feverishly picking at the food as she described some of her completely insane sexual experiences.
“So a spiked penis?” I said, my fork now left forgotten on the table.
“Not like some kind of medieval torture device,” she scoffed. “Small…nodules is the best descriptor, made from cartilage, like parts of your nose.” She reached out and booped me, something that had both of us jumping.
“Is that something you’ve seen, Jen?” I asked.
“Not me. The Cat Sidhe, they pretty much keep to themselves and only take humanoid form with others of their kind. The few times I’ve seen them, they were always fluffy. So, I thought, were there barbs?”
“In a way,” Aen said, holding out a palm, our eyes trained on the surface as it began to change. Long tapered spikes appeared there, looking like nothing I wanted anywhere near my vagina. “Touch it and see for yourself.”
Jen and I shot looks at each other, but I did as I was told. “Oh!” I said as the ‘spikes’ gave under the lightest touch. They weren’t the rigid cunt scrapers of doom I’d anticipated.
“They’re quite soft,” I said to Jen.
“Well, they are now. Stroke them a few more times.”
I fought the urge to giggle as I did so, daring a look up at Aen. Her lips dropped open slightly as I rubbed her palm, but there was no other reaction. Well, except for the spikes themselves. I felt them stiffen like…well, you know what they were like.
“They engorge with stimulation. Now try to force them back against the grain.” Her voice was kinda breathy, but all three of us watched my hand move with great interest. Aen let out the tiniest of moans as the spikes flexed back. “This is how they hold their partner in place, the spines dig into the place you humans call the g-spot. Works equally well for men as women. They don’t hurt or pierce, just press in a rather pleasurable way right where you need it the most.”
“You’ve experienced this?” I said.
“In every way,” she said with a slow smile as she watched us put that together mentally.
“Hey, things are about to start,” Johnno said, drawing up a chair. “What are you…?”
“If I can get everyone’s attention,” Liam’s voice rang throughout the room, and silence followed soon afterwards. He lounged in his chair, his arm slung over the back, only regarding the crowd when he was ready.
“So it’s not just me that’s kinda curious about all of that,” Jen whispered.
“Oh no, not just you,” I hissed back to the sight of Aen’s smile as he reverted to his male form. He watched my eyes slide down his body, then chuckled before giving Liam his full attention.
“Alright, we’re starting off a massive tour, and I just want to say straight up, this is gonna be a bit different,” Liam said. “Rutherglen’s got everyone crisscrossing the globe, so we’re going to be doing guest spots and some will be coming to us. House Johnson will be one of them. Because this is part of a larger project, the Rutherglen’s heir will be accompanying us. Her bus is sacrosanct. No one enters, goes near, or even breathes near that bus or any of its inhabitants. They will be Vervain, Marlow, and Jennifer of House Rutherglen as well as the drivers provided periodically by his Lordship. Now, to our new photographer…”
His words trailed away as I shot a look at Jen. Her knuckles went white as she jerked to her feet.
“You dickhead,” Johnno muttered.
“She is allowed free access to any and everywhere that Hartley holds sway. I know you all like to sort out the new meat yourselves and find where they fit in the pecking order. Well, this is going to be a little different. Kira comes to us as Johnno’s novitiate, so it goes without saying, a move against her is a move against the rest of us.”
The crowd sitting around the table mumbled at that, but it was only now that I saw the rest of the band. Jake nodded to me with a cheeky smirk, Billy surveyed the crowd with an impersonal menace. And Lucas
? Arms crossed, he just stared blankly at the table.
“As a member of the inner circle, she’ll bunk with us,” Liam said, silencing the room.
“The hell she will,” Jen said. I didn’t see this side of her often, but you could tell that this was a woman born to rule. She met the combined hostility of Hartley without even a flinch. “The arrangement as outlined in that bloody contract says—”
“She’s unaligned.”
“What?”
“She’s committed to take Johnno as her preceptor, but if they formalised the bond last night, I would have felt it. Until she formalises the bond, she’s unofficially aligned. She stays with us. Let her get to know her preceptor, see if the bond is what she really wants. She’s not going to get that in your little palace on wheels, fucking your stylist.”
“The paperwork was clear. It was all agreed.”
“You think I don’t know what this is?” Liam leant forward, his elbows going to the table. “You never wanted this deal to go through, used every damn trick in the book to get your father to say no. He didn’t. He heard your offers and deals and said no. He signed her away to us, relinquished any hold Rutherglen might have on her. But then he got a sniff. You’re here as your father’s representative, to protect his investment in this tour and to see if you can get Kira to defect to Rutherglen.”
“No, I—”
“Yes. You push one of your representatives into her arms, let her slake the fire of transition on him, not one of us. You leave my brother hovering around the door, like some kind of pariah. She’s chosen Hartley, will choose Hartley as far as I am concerned. You’re not getting her on a technicality, Rutherglen. She wants to foreswear her house? Break her bond with Johnno? That’s a whole other deal, but until that happens, she’s with us.”
Jen was going to argue further, I could see it, but I got to my feet. I squeezed her hand, felt the faint tremble of anger there but nodded, recognising that she’s tried.
“Fine,” I said. “Not sure what you think seeing your skanky dick getting slobbered over by groupies is going to do for whatever cause you’re fighting for, but you want me with Johnno? I’m there.” A devilish light flared in each of the band members’ eyes, all except Lucas and Johnno. My preceptor shook his head, reached for me, but I shook him off. I needed to do this. “But with him only. You don’t touch me or come near me unless I permit it.”
Jake scowled, ready to argue, but Liam held out a hand.
“Fair enough. Anything else.”
“Once we’ve…” I felt the phantom of those hands behind the towel move over my skin for a moment. “Once things have taken their course, I’m off the short leash. I’m free to go where any other member of Hartley would go.”
Billy muttered something to Liam in a terse tone, Jake adding his own bit, but Liam waved them off. Lucas shoved his chair back from the table, moving to get up, but his leader just stared him down.
Johnno shook his head. “Kira, this is not smart. Let’s talk.”
“Talk, brother?” Liam said with a cock of his head. “We do it openly, around the table, eschewing the shitty backroom deals of other courts. What have you to say?”
“It doesn’t have to go this way. I could visit her in the Rutherglen bus.”
“I say otherwise.”
“I know what you want, but this isn’t the right way to go about it. You’re making the same mistakes again. You’re just going to—”
“I find none of this convincing.” Liam leant back against his chair, a strange glow rippling across his body, something that had the surrounding members of Hartley shifting restively. “Cede the point or step up, brother.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Not a member of Hartley yet, so you don’t get to speak except under my sufferance, and I reckon you’ve had your say,” Liam snapped at me. “Align to my court, bed my brother, and then you may have the floor. Now, before you get your knickers in a twist, I agree to your little deal. Sleep with Johnno, formalise the preceptor bond, and then you’ll have your freedom. Agreed?”
I looked down at Johnno, who was just shaking his head slowly, gazing at where he held my hand.
“Agreed.”
“One last point.” Aen stood beside me, his tall frame a comforting barrier between me and the rest of the court’s hungry eyes. “I’ve tolerated all of this thus far as I’ve been fascinated to see what sprang up in the absence of actual courts. I saw my fellows become gods, demons, and everything in between. I watched our people grow weaker and weaker, but this? Little fiefdoms carved out of nothing?” I thought I could see the axe about to fall, but I was wrong. “I’m yet to decide how I feel about them, but know this. I’m stronger than all of you, and I’ll burn all you have built down to the ground for her if she asks it of me. So proceed with your petty negotiations with that in mind.”
I wanted to savour the complete and utter way Liam Hartley’s face fell, but it was the way everyone else’s looked that scared me. They were all petrified by the man, in ways I couldn’t yet understand, but when I turned around, Jen looked exactly the same.
“Noted, milord,” Liam said, the honorific only partly sardonic. “Everyone needs to report to their team leaders now for further orders and transport assignations. Aster, I want the Lady Kira’s belongings installed in the bus within fifteen minutes or you’ll answer to me.” I felt a rising tension in my body as he strode down the room, approaching me at a steady clip, stopping only when he reached me. He held out a hand and said, “If you’d like to accompany me?” Aen nodded approvingly and Johnno didn’t say anything, so I did something I dreamed of and dreaded. I touched Liam Hartley. Part of me was kind of let down that the big calloused hand was just warm and dry like any other man’s, but the majority barely registered his touch as a wash of anxiety and excitement so high pitched it shut out everything else consumed me. I felt the slight tug as he drew me closer, and then out we went.
“Our humble castle,” he said as he opened the tour bus doors, gesturing for me to precede him.
3
I’m not sure what I expected. Smelly clothes, used condoms, and beer bottles everywhere probably, but that wasn’t what I saw. A guy with a head of long straggly hair and a goofy grin waved to me from the driver’s seat as I climbed on.
“That’s Animal. He looks after us while on tour, swapping out with Griff. Animal, this is the Lady Kira.”
“Nice to meetcha, milady.”
“Um, hi.”
“We have our living area here,” Liam said, gesturing to the booths and tables set on either side of the bus. “The kitchen is kept well stocked, and if there’s anything specific you’d like, I’ll have the caterers get it. Most of us grab something from a drive-thru or from the catering tents after a gig.” I just nodded. He led me further into the bus. “Bunks are here and here.” He pulled back the curtains to reveal sleeping alcoves, but rather than be free and ready to sleep on, both the top and bottom ones had been used to store belongings in. He then opened several doors. “Separate bathroom and toilet.”
“Mm…”
I turned at the faint sound to see the rest of the band had clustered around us. Each one of them, even Lucas, watched me take the bus in. The attention was kind of weird. I was relieved that there was at least a shower on board, as I’d been worried about dealing with hygiene on the road.
“And lastly, sleeping quarters.”
There was some of that old challenging look on his face as he opened the door, something that was completely ruined by the sight of Aen sprawled across the surface of a truly massive bed. This wasn’t king or queen sized. I could now see why the rest of the bus was somewhat basic by comparison, because everything had been put into this. A bed where the whole band could sleep and more besides. I looked at the huge platform, complete with neatly tucked in sheets and a line of pillows, but that’s not what I saw.
For a moment, the smooth surface and Aen was overlaid with a complex tangle of naked bodies. My i
nternal eye saw darker skin against paler, limbs shifting, in sleep or in ecstasy, twisting and turning, thrusting up against—
“I can’t sleep here.”
Liam took a deep breath, my scent obviously pleasing him.
“Well, that’s a lie.” His grin grew wider. “Scared of what you might see and feel?”
“Dude, I’ve seen enough orgy scenes in porn to not be frightened of seeing your dick in multiple holes,” I snapped. “I just don’t really want to be within splashing range.”
“That won’t be a problem. It will be only us sleeping here.”
“Cool, can I grab a bunk then?”
“Kira.” I turned when Johnno said my name as he pushed forward and took my hand.
“Didn’t tell her, did you?” Liam said. Those blue eyes bore into my preceptor’s.
“You sure you want to share this shit with one of the Rutherglen’s puppets?” Lucas said. “This is not smart. Let her fuck right off to the luxury bus. Johnno can do conjugal visits there.”
“And I said no,” Liam said.
“If you’re going to stop bringing people back here, I’ll need to roam free for a bit. As sweet as our butterfly is, I don’t think she’s got enough in her to keep my beast fed,” Billy said.
“Blah, blah, blah,” Jake said, throwing himself down on the mattress, and the sight of the two redheads together was quite striking. “Someone said you can turn into a chick,” he said to Aen.
“But not for you,” he replied. “Come here, Kira.”
He held out a hand, and everyone watched, waiting for me to make my decision. I shrugged, put one knee on the bed, and tried not to think just how many different bodily fluids had been absorbed by the admittedly amazing memory foam mattress as I crawled over. Aen drew me down beside him so my body lay against his. I shivered when his hand drew my hair back.
“I’ll remake this bus in any way you want,” he said. “I’ll give you a bed like this of your own, where only you and those you choose lie with you. I’ll create another vehicle altogether, away from all of these squabbling factions. You do not have to do anything.”
