Inamorato

by Keira Michelle Telford

  “No-one shaped me. I was born to be a Hunter.”

  Mrs. King cackles at Ella’s naivety. “Your father wants to control everyone around him, and if he can’t control them, he disposes of them.”

  Ella’s not buying any of that.

  “You’re a bitter, angry, old witch. My father is a good, honest man, and he supported your son in every way that he could.”

  “Your father is a monster!”

  That’s enough for Ella.

  She shoves old Mrs. King in the chest and knocks her down, then she makes a run for it. Eager to put this disturbing encounter behind her—emotionally and literally—she keeps running until she reaches Kink Central. This is where she’d started her adventure first thing this morning, and this is where her car’s still parked.

  Hopefully.

  She slips in through a side entrance and navigates her way through the rooms until she finds the gambling hall. Since she only recently became legal and platinum, she’s hoping that a few hours of gambling will prove to be a new and interesting experience for her. There’s only one problem: Alex is here.

  She stands motionless in the doorway, waiting for the sudden appearance of some Police Division Agents, or perhaps some Security Officers.

  Nothing happens.

  Either the restraining order doesn’t apply in the Fringe District, or the temporary order has expired. Whatever the case, Ella’s determined to have fun, and she’s not about to let the presence of her former lover interfere with the rest of her evening.

  He’s sitting at a poker table with two other Hunters, and he’s utterly oblivious to her arrival—but that’s about to change.

  As she walks further into the room, a heavily intoxicated, female rookie Hunter climbs onto a tabletop and beckons to her with come hither fingers. The Hunter unzips her Kevlar vest, pulls up her shirt and exposes her naked breasts, entirely for Ella’s benefit.

  Ella cocks an eyebrow at the display. Why not?

  She grabs the Hunter by her Kevlar vest and pulls her into a kiss. In doing so, she kills two birds with one stone. Firstly, she gets Alex’s attention. Secondly, she gets to feel up a really pretty girl.

  Score.

  Still kissing her, Ella massages her naked breasts till her nipples respond and her body’s begging for more. Then, Ella pushes her out of the way.

  She thinks that’s the end of it, but the display appears to have given some other people in the room the wrong idea. Other Hunters—male and female—begin to whistle and shout pick-up lines at her.

  Alex tries to make eye contact, but she deliberately veers away from his table. She’s not interested in talking to him, or any of the other Hunters, and she pays no attention to them. Unfortunately, there’s one in particular who’s not going to let her off the hook so easily, and what she thought was just a bit of harmless fun is about to get violent.

  As she passes by one of the room’s many poker tables, one of the male Hunters oversteps his bounds and slaps her on the ass.

  She gives him a warning and shoves him away from her.

  It doesn’t work.

  He comes up behind her again, reaches one arm around her waist, and grabs her ass with the other.

  He’s about to get put back in his place.

  Ella elbows him in the throat, pushes him back against a poker table, slams his head down against it, and squeezes her fingers around his neck.

  “Don’t you ever touch me again.”

  She’s half his size. The fact that she dared to stand up to him has every other woman in the room cheering.

  Not for long, though.

  One of the Hunter’s friends—a Fringer—pulls her off him and tries to shove her aside.

  “Take it easy, little girl.”

  He’s easily seven feet tall. Ella doesn’t have a hope in hell of being able to stand up to him—not without help. As he turns his back on her to tend to his friend, she jumps up onto a tabletop, grabs hold of one of the rafters above her head, and swings her legs up so that she can kick him in the back of the head.

  Now she’s asking for it.

  The giant swings around to lay a punch into her, but she pulls herself up onto the rafter and stays out of arm’s reach. She’ll need to do more than that, though. The giant yanks a broom off a nearby bartender and begins to jab the handle up at her, trying to knock her off.

  She dodges, and he makes chase.

  She sidesteps from one rafter to another, doing cartwheels and back flips, never once putting a foot out of place. She’s agile and has an excellent sense of balance, and she thinks this is funny. She’s got a massive grin pasted on her face, and she’s enjoying taunting the giant.

  He’s getting red in the face, and he’s determined to bring her back down to earth. As he makes one last lunge for her, he trips on a well-placed crutch. He hits the floor face first and completely knocks himself out. It takes eight giggling, scantily clad Jades to pick him up and drag him away to ‘recuperate’.

  Rather nonchalantly, Alex picks up his crutch and returns to his card game. He’s making it seem as though it was accidental, but it was absolutely deliberate.

  Ella watches him carefully from her perch up in the rafters. He takes out a bottle of pills and swallows two with a mouthful of whiskey.

  That’s it.

  She’s seen enough.

  She jumps down beside his table just as he folds and loses another bet.

  “You shouldn’t be doing that,” she chastises him.

  “I had a lousy hand.”

  He reaches for his whiskey, but she nabs it from him, downs it in one gulp, and tosses the empty glass away.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” He glares up at her.

  “Saving you from yourself. You’re not supposed to consume alcohol when you take those.” She points at the bottle of pills. “I know I have a little bit of experience when it comes to doing things I’m not supposed to, but even I’m not that stupid.”

  Alex pockets the pills. “It doesn’t concern you.”

  “It does concern me—that’s the problem. Dying people, injured people, endangered people. I have this nasty little habit of jumping in and doing the right thing, even when nobody seems to want me to. Maybe that makes me weak, but I really don’t care. I’m not gonna watch a member of my unit bleed to death on the line, and I’m not gonna watch you abuse yourself like this.”

  “You’re not my mother.”

  “No,” she snorts, “I’m not. I’m much better than her, since I’ll actually be here for you when you need me. Which you do right now, whether you want to admit it or not.” She scowls at his gambling buddies. “And what kind of real friends would let him get like this? You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

  She tries to pull Alex up out of his seat by his elbow, but he resists her. He looks utterly miserable, and she’s never seen him like this before.

  “Will you please let me take you home?” she pleads. “You need to sleep this off.”

  As he looks up at her, something about her expression softens him. He’s tired, he doesn’t feel well, and he can’t see straight, but he knows that her kindness is genuine.

  He reaches for his crutch and tries to get up, but he’s too unsteady. Ella has to help him get vertical, and she supports him over her shoulders as best she can while she walks him outside to her car.

  Unfortunately, her night’s about to get just a little bit worse.

  Her car’s been vandalized.

  Well, Maydevine’s car has been vandalized.

  “Shit,” she whines. “My papa’s gonna be pissed.”

  It’s covered with vulgar graffiti. Some of it is drawn on in dirt, feces, and makeup. Some of it is spray-painted on. Some of it is written in indelible marker pen.

  Ella sets Alex down with his crutch atop a nearby pile of bricks, pops the trunk, and sets about looking for something to clean the car with before she drives them back to the Sentinel District.

  Looking at the rear passenger
side of the vehicle, Alex laughs heartily at a caricature of Maydevine, drawn with a large, veiny cock protruding from his forehead.

  “Now you know why I drive a piece-of-shit Old World car. You can’t bring anything nice into the Fringe District.”

  “Really?” Ella pulls a dirty rag and a bottle of water out of the trunk. “I thought you drove a piece-of-shit Old World car so that you could entertain underage girls without getting caught by Omega?”

  That wipes the drunken smirk off his face.

  He holds up his index finger. “One girl. Singular, not plural. And there wasn’t anything entertaining about it. In fact, she was irritating and obnoxious from the very outset.” Alex sweeps his arm dramatically from left to right, as if drawing a line over the whole experience.

  “If she was so awful, why did you fuck her?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He looks sincere, despite the high volume of alcohol in his system, and Ella has to look away. She douses the rag in some water and begins to rub at the purple mushroom head of the cock.

  “Maydevine’s gonna kill me,” she mumbles.

  “Here”—Alex gets up on his unsteady feet and limps closer to the car—“I’ll help you wash it off.”

  Ella tears the rag in two, expecting to hand him one half, but that’s not quite what he has in mind. He unzips his pants, takes himself out, and begins to urinate all over the back quarter panel. The golden stream somewhat dissolves a lipstick and eyeliner sketch of a wide open vagina.

  Ella rolls her eyes. “You’re disgusting.”

  “I’m helping.”

  He’s concentrating so hard on his aim that the tip of his tongue is poking out, pinched between his teeth. Having little success with the rag and the water, Ella discards them both and gives up.

  She catches Alex as he sways precariously to the side, and stops him from toppling over with his exposed cock in his hand. With her support, he’s barely keeping himself up at all; he’s completely relying on her. Taking his weight over her shoulder, she leans into him with one arm around his back and the other pressed against his chest.

  Eventually, he manages to empty his tank. As he shakes himself off, a droplet of urine flicks into one of Ella’s eyes.

  “Eughh!” Ella slaps her hand over her eye and pushes him away from her. “Fuck you!”

  Alex bursts into laughter again, and stumbles backwards into an old biofuel drum.

  “Pee is sterile,” he reminds her.

  She retrieves the bottle of water from the ground, holds her eyelid open, and flushes her eyeball with what’s left of it. When she’s done, she chucks the empty bottle at his head.

  “You’re such an asshole. She’s welcome to you.”

  Alex is so intoxicated, he’s not sure if he heard her correctly. “Who?”

  “Celia.”

  Ella picks up his crutch and tosses it into the back seat. By the time she turns back around to help Alex to the car, he’s crouched on the ground, throwing up in a pothole. Instinctively, she’s repulsed and turns away, but he’s rocking unsteadily back and forth, and she doesn’t want him to collapse.

  Crouching behind him, she holds onto his Kevlar vest with one hand and strokes his back with the other. When he’s done, he leans against her and moans.

  “Time to get you home.” Ella hauls him to his feet. “You’re a shell of a man right now.”

  She helps him to the car and deposits him in the passenger seat. Handing him another bottle of water from the trunk, she gets into the driver’s seat and starts the engine.

  “You’re not gonna get motion sick, are you?”

  Of course he does.

  They have to stop eight times on the way back to his apartment.

  By the time they get to his front door, he’s ready to pass out. Ella swipes her wrist for entry, somewhat surprised to find that her credentials are still accepted.

  She encourages him into the bedroom, and he drops down onto the edge of the bed like a deadweight. With a deep sigh, she kneels down in front of him and begins to unlace his boots.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see this again,” he mumbles.

  “See what?” She pulls off his boots.

  “You on your knees in my bedroom.”

  He cracks a smile, but she doesn’t share it.

  “You’re drunk.” She forces him to lean back as she edges forward between his legs and removes his weapons. “It’s probably best if you keep those thoughts to yourself, don’t you think?”

  Casting his weapons aside, she turns her attention to his Kevlar vest. Grabbing him by the collar, she pulls him up into a sitting position.

  “Why are you even wearing your emblems?” she asks as she unzips him. “You’re not back at work yet, are you?”

  Alex shakes his head. “The emblems are a prerequisite for the Fringe District. Don’t you know that? Especially for you.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the most beautiful creature that’s ever set foot out there, and if you went out there bare, they’d eat you up. Probably literally.”

  He allows her to help him off with the vest, and tries not to get carried away with himself when she starts to unbuckle his belt.

  “El—”

  “Don’t.” She pulls his belt off. “Don’t joke, don’t tease, don’t flirt. I’m not in the mood.”

  She gets up off her knees, pulls back the sheets on the bed, and maneuvers him into a horizontal position. Not content to lie on his back, he tries to turn over onto his side and grunts in pain.

  Ella puts her hand gently on his hip. “Can I get you anything?”

  He shakes his head and sighs. “You’re the only thing I want.” He presses his face up against the cool pillow, almost passes out, and whispers, “I love you.”

  Ella sheds a tear. “I don’t think you do.” She wipes the tear away and covers him up in the sheets. “I have to go. I’ll come back and check on you in the morning.”

  He didn’t hear a word of that.

  He’s already asleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Revelation

  Ella takes a deep breath and knocks on the door to Alex’s apartment.

  No answer.

  She tries again.

  Still nothing.

  Standing there in the hallway, holding his crutch, she begins picturing a series of worst case scenarios: Alex choking to death on his own vomit; falling out of bed and hitting his head on the corner of the bedside table; choking on his own tongue.

  She swipes her wrist over the scanning plate and pushes the door open a crack.

  “Alex?”

  No response.

  She pushes the door open further. “Hello?”

  It’s deathly quiet.

  She steps inside and begins to look around. He’s not in the living room, or the kitchen, so she heads for the bedroom …

  The bed’s empty, but the sheets are ruffled.

  A toilet flushes.

  Before Ella can react to it, Alex hobbles into the bedroom from the adjoining bathroom. He’s stark naked, and almost has a heart attack when he sees her standing there.

  “Jesus!” He presses a hand over his thumping heart. “Where the fuck did you just appear from?”

  Ella doesn’t know where to look, so she turns her back on him. “I’m sorry. I said I’d come to check on you. I didn’t mean to …”

  He’s struggling to get back to the bed unaided, and she hears him bump against the dresser and curse under his breath.

  Keeping her back turned, she holds out the crutch. “We left this in the car last night.”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t be such a prude.” He encourages her to face him. “You’ve seen it all before.”

  He’s in pain; Ella can tell by the tension in his voice. Without being explicitly asked to do so, she sets the crutch aside and turns to help him. She drapes his arm around her shoulder and assists him the rest of the way back to bed.

  “Have you sobered up?” she asks.


  “The pounding in my head assures me that I have.”

  She lies him down and tucks him up in the covers, trying not to let her eyes wander. “Do you remember what you said to me last night?”

  Alex looks blank. “Why? Did I say something embarrassing?”

  “No.” She shakes her head, pretending to be unaffected. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Before she can pull away, he takes her by the hand.

  “Thank you.”

  She forces a smile. “I’m sorry I just barged in like this. I knocked, but you didn’t answer. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” She hesitates. “I’ll leave.”

  “Don’t.” He holds her hand tighter. “Please, don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I want to know what happened.”

  “Last night? Nothing much. You were off your face and I brought you home. That’s about all there is to it.”

  “Not that. I mean, why did you change your mind? About me. Us.”

  “I didn’t change my mind, Alex. You got scared.”

  “You stopped coming to the hospital.”

  “Yeah. I made a mistake, okay? It was one day, though. You’re telling me that’s all it took for you to slam the brakes on your feelings for me? One fucking day. I’m sorry I let her get to me, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to you. I came to my senses a day later, but it was already too late. You’d already shut me out.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You signed the restraining order the day before I came to the hospital.”

  “What restraining order?”

  Ella rolls her eyes. “Gimme a break. The Security Officers escorted me off the premises and showed me the damn thing, so don’t lie to me.”

  “Honestly, I’ve never had a restraining order against anyone in my life. Why would I lie about that?”

  “Maybe because you realized you made a colossal mistake, and now you want to try and pretend as though it never happened.” Tears well in her eyes. “Seriously, if you wanted me to leave you alone, you should’ve had the decency to tell me so.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “For what? For fucking me? Or for behaving like a heartless prick afterwards? Be more specific.” A tear breaks free.