by Sam Hall
“I’m going to court tonight with Jen and Vervain. Dress me,” I said when we pulled apart.
“Really? Like the works? I have the most amazing dress—”
“Just make sure I can…do whatever I have to in whatever you put me in. I’m taking Jake with me, trying to work out what the fuck that means.”
“You’re gonna be a baby Dom?!” His eyebrows shot up.
“Everyone keeps saying that. I have literally no idea what that means.”
“Are you going to manhandle my stylist for much longer, or can we get this show on the road?” Rhiannon said. “Time is ticking by.”
Her voice was arch and insistent, demanding what she wanted and not considering that anyone would say no to her.
“You’ll treat him with respect,” I said, biting the words off. “It says nothing in the brief or contract about having a personal stylist. I’ll have one of the drainers run a brush through your hair and call it done if you don’t behave.”
“Who the hell are you to talk to me like that?” she snapped. She was being a bitch, but I still wanted to photograph her, the fire in her eyes shining like a diamond.
I didn’t answer her, I just stepped up into her personal space until I was close enough she could catch whatever it was about me that smelled like power. I stared into her eyes, watching the moment they widened and she realised what she was messing with.
“Down to your underwear and on the bed,” I said, jerking a finger to the bedroom door.
“I’ll be right back with something more suitable if she’s wearing granny panties,” Marlow said with a smirk and then took off.
I’ll say this for Rhiannon—she rallied well. When we opened the door, my camera now in hand, and faced the array of barely dressed man flesh laid out on the bed, she just smiled, slipping off her shoes and wiggling out of her jeans and pretty top. I lifted my camera, taking a few test shots and checking the way the light was being captured on the LCD display on the back. She crawled towards Liam, elegant as a cat when I looked back.
I admit, I took some satisfaction in the fact that he paid her no mind, his eyes entirely on me. He gave nothing away about how he felt, just staring back. This was the first time I’d shot him since the day before the party. There was a weird symmetry to that—him telling me about how much he’d ached for the woman beside him as I’d taken his photo. I searched the tableau on the bed. Was that what was going to happen today? They’d talked about Rhiannon ‘not being the one’ in overheard conversations last night, but what did that mean? Was this a scene she’d been in before, though with considerably less clothes? Was I just the newest meat in all this sandwich?
I shook my head. I didn’t have time for that. Time was ticking if they were going to get to those interviews on time.
“Lie on your back, Rhiannon,” I said, “looking up at Liam. Yep, that’s perfect.” Click, click. “Now reach out for him. Not quite so strong. Soften your arm and make it lazy. You’re in bed, it’s early in the afternoon, and you’ve got hours to just be together.”
She took direction well, and as I’d suspected, the contrast between his big muscular body and her slender feminine one was a picturesque one. Liam just stared into the camera, completely oblivious to her imprecations, which had a nice spin to it. It spun on its head the media narrative that he had been chasing after her, as well as that audience engagement. That hot gaze… A million men and women would look at that image, see his intensity, and imagine it was them under him, not Rhiannon.
“Alright…” I said, my eyes flicking around the room at the guys sitting back against the walls. What was going to be the best way to do this? Rutherglen wanted something saucy for the media to chomp on. I’d give him hot. “Billy, you make the calls. Direct the others, tell them what to do to her.”
“What?” Rhiannon’s voice had lost its confident tone.
“No one’s going to actually do anything, but the Rutherglen wanted a story, a sexy story. Well, this is it. You’ll be showing the world their most beloved fantasy—a hot girl surrendering to a whole lot of hot guys. “
“But this wasn’t—”
“Show me what it’d be like,” I said to Billy, watching his brown eyes bleed away to black. “Show me what the monster would want.”
He gave a short, harsh laugh at that, but I saw him get to his knees and crawl closer, shaking his head for a moment, then look to Jake.
“Spread her legs,” he said to Johnno and Jake, the redhead scrambling to do his bidding, Johnno looking somewhat troubled by the idea. “Lucas, grab her wrists.”
My camera was up, ready, capturing their moves, clicking as fast as I could to capture the way they settled around her.
“No, no, this is not what was in the brief!” Rhiannon cried.
“You want out, you just say so,” I said, capturing her frown, her fear. There was a whole BDSM element to what was going on here, so reluctance may as well be a part of it. “The minute you say it, I’ll stop everything, but this is it—my vision for this shoot.” She stared back at me, fury simmering there clearly. “The Rutherglen is using you as a pawn. The Changelings don’t need any more PR, you know that. It’s Dave you want, not Liam. But we aren’t taking this shit lying down. Say no, walk out. You’re beautiful enough to seduce a man like him. Go to him, play his games, entice him, and walk away from this. We aren’t going to be played by him.”
She lay there, every line of her body trembling with reined back tension. She was going to stay, I just fucking knew it.
I sighed. “What’re your limits?”
“No kissing, no hands under my underwear, and he doesn’t feed from me,” Rhiannon said, jerking her head at Billy.
“Like I’d want your scant offerings,” he sneered back.
“So we’re doing this?” I said, not taking another photograph until I saw her terse nod. I shook my head and settled in.
This had nothing to do with her, just as it had nothing to do with the girl with the velvet throat back at Jen’s estate. I could see how it was going to be between me and the band. We could crush people, stepping over them to get to each other, especially when they just laid down and let us. I paused for a moment, watching the way Lucas stretched her arms up and above her head and then pinning them decisively to the mattress, Jake spreading her thighs and taking one ankle and holding it down while Johnno did the same with the other. Liam and Billy, they leant over, as if tasting the fear and irritation that came off her in waves. Then they looked at me.
All of them. I caught that moment of synchronised motion, looking for all the world like a pack of predators, ready to rip the guts from their prey. It was kind of brilliant, the whole scene, the moody lighting and dingy room, the prosaic underwear. But all that ordinary couldn’t mask what was there.
There’s a terrible symmetry that you find in the face of the beautiful. It’s like when fashion photographers get that bright idea to take these gorgeous young models and put them in a junkyard or an abandoned building. The place stinks of piss and decay, there’s shit everywhere. But when they frame that girl in the viewfinder of the camera, the one with that same regularity of bone structure these people had, in amongst it all with the fur stole over her shoulder, suddenly, it looks like that’s where she should have been all the time. Beauty does that—it makes anything seem reasonable.
The lens loved them, capturing their messy little games and turning it into something eternal. I moved as quickly as I could, trying to catch it all—the interplay, the mood, the sharp impish grin of Jake’s, the more shamefaced stare of Johnno’s. Lucas was as blank and remote as a statue, but I could see it now that I’d gotten under his skin. That was a careful façade used to keep a whole lot back. Liam looked like he couldn’t have been more proud, his twisted smile happier now that I was down here in the dirt with him. And Billy…
“You ask me what I ached for? What the monster wants?” he said, his eyes glittering black in the golden sunlight. “This was always one of them. We’
d capture someone in our web, too far gone to say no anymore, craving anything we had to bring to the party. We’d stake her out, shivering, trembling from anticipating, and fucking dripping between the legs. We’d tie her down, and she’d jerk against the bonds once they tightened around her, but not before. Her safe word would stay unbidden, on the tip of her tongue as she scanned the room and saw the lot of us gathered around to slake our hungers on her. It’s only then that he could really come out to play, when his prey was brought to ground and helpless beneath him that his fangs could come out.”
I shot him in continuous mode, wanting to record every phrase uttered by the mobile face. Did it thin down, the hollows under his already impressive cheekbones growing deeper, his teeth longer? He didn’t look any less beautiful, but here was Death, and he looked down on his Maiden, ready to consume her beauty, youth, and ultimately, her life. Those empty holes for eyes dropped down, his fingers landing on her ribcage to her flinch, walking slowly upward. Liam just grinned as his bandmate leaned over him, the dark twin and the light one working together as one.
“I’ve got that underwear.”
Everyone jerked at the sound of Marlow’s voice. He looked at the lot of us like we were completely fucking mad. Sets of very skimpy underwear on hangers dangled limply from his fingers.
“I want out, now,” Rhiannon said, and it took several tugs for the boys to realise what was going on and let her go. I put my camera down, and her skin was even paler now, her eyes wide and flashing as she pushed past us, grabbing her clothes as she went.
“What the fuck was that?” Marlow said.
“Have you got your tablet with you?” I said.
“Yeah, in my bag. I’ve got your dress as well.”
I peered over his shoulder at a plunging red number with a full skirt. The top had a halter neck that would absolutely require fashion tape. I looked up at Marlow and smiled before dropping a kiss on his cheek. “It’s beautiful.”
Some of the shock faded away, replaced by a shy pleasure.
“Tell me again why we don’t just get naked and fuck,” Jake said, getting off the bed and sidling up to me, moving in close so he could scent me.
“Because if you’re a good boy and rub one out in the shower and get to your interview on time, I’ll take you with me to court tonight,” I replied.
The smile faltered, but not due to unhappiness. There was something infinitely boyish about Jake, in the naked hope on his face right now, in the way he’d looked like he’d cheerfully burn ants with a magnifying glass or pull the wings off butterflies only moments before.
“Really?”
“I don’t know how to do what you need me to, Jake, but I’m willing to find out more. If we’re stuck together, we may as well be happy about it.”
He swallowed, shifting restlessly before darting forward and pressing his lips to mine. They lingered, just a soft, persistent presence.
“Gonna think about you when I come,” he whispered against them, then took off again just as quickly, disappearing into the bathroom.
“You’re gonna step up?” Billy said.
“I’m going to try. I need to find out what that is, for each of you. I barely know any of you.”
“You know us plenty,” he replied, putting an arm around my neck and kissing my temple before pulling away again.
“Nicely done, my queen,” Liam said. “Stay off the camera for tonight. You gave Hartley a massive boost, but I’m a little concerned about our reservoir’s ability to take that again.”
I nodded. “I think Marlow and I will just hang out here, if he can be spared.”
“He can be for you. Your second in command can step up, yeah?”
“If you don’t give her any grief,” Marlow replied. “The dancers have to go on first, or risk Dave’s wrath.”
“Fine. Look after our girl. So you’ll be at court with Jakey? And Jennifer?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay with them, always, no matter what tempts you. Jakey will jump into the fray of anything that takes your fancy, so don’t worry about leaving him out of things. I need one of us with you at all times.”
“OK.”
He moved in closer, placing a small kiss at the corner of my mouth and pulling away before I could respond.
“I’m half mad I have to sit on that fucking throne and listen to all the ways people tell me to fuck myself oh so politely rather than come and play with you. I want a taste of you, butterfly, from the source, not from your fingers.”
“I…” My brain shuddered to a halt as I saw the same scene I’d just photographed, but with me in Rhiannon’s place. Jake and Johnno held my ankles still, my naked thighs spread lewdly as he settled down in between them.
“Don’t worry,” he said, putting a finger to my lips, “I know there’s a wait. Make her look like a queen tonight, Mar, because I’m going to announce her as such. If she’s gonna have a target on her back, I want her locked down as one of ours, so people know exactly what they’re messing with.”
“Always,” Marlow replied.
Lucas went to brush past, but seemed to force himself to stop. His gaze softened and he nodded, eyes flicking away as soon as they met mine. I grabbed his hand, not sure why, and he rubbed his thumb across my knuckles before pulling gently away.
Johnno was the last of them to get ready and leave for the interviews. He’d pulled his clothes on, all of the rawness of before packed away and locked up tight behind the pleasant façade. But it wasn’t real. He tried to smile at me, that lazy, warm thing that made my bones melt, but there was no gold in his eyes when he did so, just flat unrelieved brown.
He needs something from me, I thought at the look of him.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and went to move in and give me a goodbye kiss just like everyone else, but my arm locked around him, holding him still. Skin to skin, that’s what everyone kept saying, so I slid my hand under his shirt, my fingers resting against the hot skin there.
He held himself oh so still as I did so, his muscles trembling slightly with the effort. I frowned, wondering why, and it took a few moments for it all to come flooding in. I hadn’t had a chance to think about last night all that much, one thing after another jerking my attention, but we’d… What had we done? Had sex? Made love? Joined on a metaphysical level? I didn’t know. I hadn’t had time to work that out and neither had Johnno. And I think he wanted to.
I moved in closer, putting my arms around him and holding him tight, and his did the same. I felt the sigh that escaped him through my whole body.
You’re not a good man.
My words to him came rocketing back. Whatever this was between us, it was intense and clumsy and brutal, all at the same time. It felt like the kind of relationship two powerful children might strike up. When I pulled back, his arms locked, not wanting to let me go far, and his face…
Fuck, it hurt to look at him. His eyes weren’t golden. They were fire, like looking straight into the sun. There was too fucking much for me to get my head around in them, waiting, being walled up and held back, and all to protect me. I watched his mouth thin, his jaw work as he stared into my eyes. His hand went to my cheek, his brows knitting as he stroked the top of my cheekbone.
“Johnno, mate, we’ve gotta go,” Liam said, his tone the softest I’d ever heard it.
“You’ll be here tonight?” Johnno forced out, his voice a ragged mess.
“Of course. No matter what, I’m going to be here,” I said, my voice betraying my ambivalence. It was a fucking privilege and a life sentence all at once, and what else could it be?
“This wasn’t the way I wanted to do this. I’m sorry, Kira, seriously.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said, putting my hand over his. “We’re feeling our way through this, me included. Just give me time to catch up and find my feet.”
He nodded and then took a step back, my skin missing the warmth of him when he did. “Look after her,” he said to Marlow. “Don’t let anyo
ne in here. I’m sending the sentinels over to guard the bus.”
“Of course,” Marlow said. “I’ve left the talking points for you guys in the green room. Break a leg.”
15
I threw myself down on the bed once the door closed, letting my body go limp. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see or interact with anything for just a bit, the subsequent grey darkness a relief frankly. But I couldn’t help but turn blindly when I felt the mattress shift as Marlow climbed on beside me.
“Tough day?”
I paused for a moment, formulating a million replies, and then opting for the polite one.
“Not tough, just…intense. I spent days, months, years without people paying attention to me. They saw my condition, scanned my body for signs I was going to have another turn, but never saw me. They didn’t need to. I was easy to ignore and of no great consequence, just all part of the general morass of grey people floating around in the background of existence.”
When I opened my eyes, he was lying beside me, facing me but a respectful distance apart, head propped up on his hand, just watching.
“I saw you,” he said finally.
“What?”
“I saw you at the estate a few times. Jennifer asked us to keep clear of you until…until you voiced an interest in getting to know the fae community, but I had to drop into the estate a few times for the Rutherglen. Saw you guys hanging by the pool or day drinking on the patio.”
“Oh god.” My hand went to my stomach. “You saw my old body in a bathing suit?”
His hand covered mine. “I did. Where do you think I got the idea for the dress from? I saw this lush body and…”
“You did not!”
“I did!” He grinned when he saw my horrified expression. “I’m sorry people looked past you before, Kira. I don’t know why. I couldn’t. I can understand that what’s happening is a lot to take in. There’s obviously something…big going on with you and The Changelings that’s landed on you today, but you’ve gotta see what I see. You’re coping so well. You’re insanely resilient. Court, power, fae politics, the kings of Hartley, you’ve faced it all and not missed a beat. So if you are now, and you need a bit of time to adjust, that’s OK.”
