Knight in Leather

by Holley Trent

  Simone and Heath were standing on the opposite side of the empty pool, both looking very perplexed in their deep conversation, but that was typical for them. There was no such thing as a “petty concern” as far as the two of them were concerned. A few fairies, including Daryn, milled about in the shaded courtyard playing some card game that had looked like a supernatural Cards Against Humanity to Dasha when she’d walked past. Oblivious motel guests, still in their beach clothes, lingered around, sipping complementary booze and waiting on Sully’s charred meat.

  Ethan had apparently taken the admonition to babysit his fellow fairy to heart, because he leaned against a pergola support pole and glowered at the grill grates.

  Dasha snorted and picked up her hamburger.

  She found that being amused by the man was so much easier when he kept his distance. And just looking at him was easier from where she was. Looking certainly wasn’t a hardship. She could find a man attractive without wanting to be with him. And he was attractive, but they all were—the fairies. Alluring and magnetic, a good deal of their magic seemed to be tied up in their abilities to make people stare. She wanted desperately to resist the pull, but couldn’t fight the urge to look. She figured thirty seconds of ogling couldn’t hurt, seeing as how he wasn’t looking back.

  He was tall and broad-shouldered. He looked strong, but without all the big, bulky muscle that came from serious weightlifting.

  What kind of exercise do fairies get, anyway?

  Blond men generally didn’t do much for her libido, but most of the men she worked with in her department were clean-cut conservative types. They certainly didn’t wear their hair in dense knots held in place by rubber bands they’d yanked from around bouquets of broccoli. Dasha had seen him filch the elastic at Simone and Heath’s. Ethan had gotten frustrated by his hair and took the band off the produce.

  At least he’s industrious.

  And that was more than she could say for her ex. Ben hadn’t had a creative bone in his body. He didn’t know how to make due or to problem-solve. All that fell to Dasha. She was plenty creative, but he’d never wanted her to use that gift for anyone but him. He was so jealous of everything. He didn’t like her thinking too much apart from him, so naturally she got to the point where she didn’t want to think about him at all.

  After a pathetic sigh, Dasha forced herself to take a bite of the hamburger. She didn’t want to think about Ben anymore. Getting him to back off had taken a lot of effort and legal paperwork, and there was no good reason to dredge up memories. He couldn’t follow her to North Carolina. He wasn’t going to ruin her life any more than he already had. He still had a couple of years left on a federal prison sentence. She’d hoped to have herself emotionally squared away before his release, if not physically. She didn’t know if the odds were looking so good.

  Simone departed from Heath and went to work the crowd. Heath, wearing a starkly neutral expression Dasha rarely saw on the charismatic prince, moved with his hands in his pockets toward the courtyard. His gaze wasn’t on Simone, where it generally was by default, but on the parking lot.

  Dasha set down her plate and, letting out an exasperated breath, put her feet on the ground. “Okay, what is going on up there?”

  “Nothing.” Siobhan plucked the bratwurst off Dasha’s abandoned plate and took a bite.

  “Don’t tell me nothing. There’s definitely something happening. When Heath isn’t smirking, there’s something going on.”

  “Stop worrying,” the princess said through a mouthful of food. “Ooh!” Her eyes went round, and she pointed at Dasha as she chewed.

  “What?”

  Siobhan swallowed. “You said you had motel ideas. Tell me about them. Are they going to affect the next phase of construction? I’ve been trying to buy the neighboring lots so we could have a privacy buffer. We’d like to be able to separate the housing from the guest areas.”

  “I don’t think my ideas would affect that one way or another. And what’d you do? Did you track down the owners of the lots?”

  “Yep. Both of them,” Caryl said. “The one on that side”—she pointed to the right—“hadn’t done anything with that old gas station in twenty-five years. I guess he kept telling himself that one day he’d fix the place up, or whatever. I actually tracked him down after I’d seen that the city had gone by and slapped a condemned sticker on the shop door.”

  “I bet you snapped the property up for a steal.”

  “Nope.” Siobhan scowled. “That weaselly bastard nickel-and-dimed me. I guess he could tell how badly I wanted to take the lot off his hands. The property sure as shit wasn’t worth what he was asking, but Heath told me to just give him the damned check before the guy decided to jack the price up again. He accepted the offer. Just waiting for him to confirm the closing date.”

  “What about over there?” Dasha canted her head toward the left. On the other side of the motel was an empty one-acre lot, which was huge for land that close to the beach. There wasn’t even a real estate company sign staked near the road, and Dasha had never seen anyone tending the land. It was overgrown and littered with garbage folks had tossed out of their car windows or that had blown on from the beach. She’d believed the county owned the space.

  “That was trickier,” Siobhan said. “I had to look up the county records and trace the owner, just like with the place on the other side, but the owner on record was dead. Apparently, there was some delay with the execution of his will, and for a long time the family couldn’t work out who the property belonged to. The record was updated recently. I reached out to the new guy, but I haven’t heard back yet. I really hope he doesn’t want to build anything there. That’d suck. We need the space.”

  “Especially if some of your fairy peers who’ll depart the realm end up joining you here, huh?”

  Ethan sidled up close before Caryl could put her foot up on the railing. He dropped another piece of steak onto Dasha’s plate. “Medium-rare, I think. Sully can’t tell the difference.”

  Dasha looked down at the tender fillet. “Um. Thank you, but…there’s no way I can eat all this.”

  “You don’t like steak?”

  “My lack of enthusiasm doesn’t have to do with me not liking what’s on my plate. I’m simply pondering where I’m going to put all this food. I don’t have a fairy appetite.” She looked up to find him furrowing his brow.

  Her very normal appetite seemed to perplex him.

  “Ethan, honey,” Siobhan scolded. “If sourcing food for her means that much to you, carry on. I’m sure she’ll let you scavenge off her plate when she’s done picking things off.”

  “I can make a new one if that one’s not right.”

  Dasha tightened her grip on the edge of the plate. She wasn’t giving up her food, and she had a strong hunch that if Ethan were to attempt a round two, the second offering would have an even more startling pile of meat. “This is fine,” she said in a voice she hoped was soothing. “It’s just a lot of protein for a girl like me.”

  He grunted, then walked away scratching his head.

  “You can’t fault him for the way he is.” Caryl reached over and speared Dasha’s grilled chicken. She plopped the breast atop the small triangle of salad on her own plate. “He’s going to do what he can to take care of you, even if all the fussing drives you nuts.”

  He returned a moment later and thrust salad in a bowl at her. “I don’t know why anyone would want to eat that, but…I guess there are some nutritional benefits or whatever.”

  “Um. Yeah. Green stuff is an important component of the human diet. Also…you know. Starches?”

  That factoid seemed to bewilder him, which made Dasha wonder how the man had survived as long as he had. The pile on her plate was a harbinger of a heart attack.

  Or perhaps fairies simply have more forgiving constitutions for this kind of food.

  After all, Ethan didn’t seem to be suffering for his dietary decisions at all. Quite the opposite. There wasn’t anything s
pare about him—not a pinch of fat anywhere to be found, at least as far as Dasha could see. As always, he was mostly covered. Leather was a good friend to him. It did wonderful things to his backside. His front side, too, if she were being honest with herself. She found keeping her gaze fixed at a respectable point to be difficult when his crotch was at her eye level. She didn’t think all that bulge was zipper.

  “Oh.” He pulled a fork out of his pocket, wiped the fuzz from it onto his shirt, and handed the utensil to Dasha.

  Bemused, she took the fork and said, “Thank you,” but he didn’t seem to have heard her. His gaze was at the parking lot again, and his full lips pulling into a grimace.

  She would have asked if something were wrong, but obviously there was, judging by the way Siobhan abandoned her seat and jogged after Simone toward the front of the motel.

  “Where are they going?”

  Ethan squeezed between the loungers and went after them.

  “What the hell?” Dasha turned in her seat, straining to see anything, and was about to get up to investigate for herself when Caryl slid over and said, “Careful, you’re going to drop your salad.”

  Dasha looked down at her precariously tilting plate and bowl and righted them. “What’s got them so amped up?”

  Caryl’s gaze flitted shiftily. “Uh. Guest checking in, I guess.”

  “That doesn’t require three fairies.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Okay, you can’t just leave me in suspense like that. Stop trying to shelter me from things that might be interesting in a way you think I’m not going to like. Let me decide if stuff is interesting.” Dasha set her food on the sandy little table between her lounger and the empty one to her left, then stood.

  “I swear, there’s nothing for you to be concerned about.”

  “Bullshit. The last time someone told me that, I ended up having to get a series of rabies shots.”

  “Dash!”

  Dasha’s gaze was pulled to the opposite corner of the pool area where Zenia had walked through carrying a covered dish and grinning broadly.

  Shit. Dasha looked toward Sully, but she hadn’t needed to. Caryl was already heading toward him. He was at the barbecue holding a bit of steak between his tongs and peering back at Zenia, obviously incited, but for the moment, he was glued in place.

  Who the hell invited her?

  “Did I miss all the good food? I’m just now getting off work. I brought cookies.” She started toward the buffet table, but Daryn intercepted her and relieved her of her container.

  “I’ll fix you up,” Daryn said. “Take a load off.”

  Matt absolved Sully of his grilling duties and guided him to the far corner of the courtyard.

  Confusion marked on her delicate features, Zenia sank onto the lounger to Dasha’s left. “Okay…I guess. Where’s Simone?”

  “She had to run to the office for something. So, uh…did she tell you about this shindig?” Dasha knew for damn sure that Simone was very careful about keeping certain parties separated, and from what Dasha had heard, her friend had done a superb job of knocking Sully out of Zenia’s gravitational pull, despite their very local proximity to each other. Spilling the beans didn’t seem like Simone.

  “Oh, no.” Zenia gave her septum piercing a straightening twist and settled more cozily into her seat. “A few of the guests mentioned there was an event when they were at the restaurant for lunch. I figured I’d stop by and be a friendly face before I went home. Jeez, are all those guys living here now?”

  “Huh?”

  Zenia indicated the gaggle of fairies milling around the empty pool and in the courtyard. “I don’t think I’ve seen so many of the gang at once.” She furrowed her brow. “Are they a gang? Is that what you call motorcycle crews?”

  “Gang is as good a word as any, I suppose.”

  “They make them tall wherever they’re from, that’s for sure.”

  Dasha didn’t think Zenia was all that concerned about “they.” She seemed specifically interested in one in particular. Fortunately for that particular fairy, she’d picked the right one.

  Sully wasn’t even trying not to stare. His gaze was so hot that if there had been water in the pool that separated him from his mate, it would have been boiling.

  Zenia twirled an end of her spiky peach hair and gnawed on her lower lip, staring back. “So, uh. What are the plans for tonight?”

  “No idea. This place doesn’t exactly have a social director. The best I can tell, Simone plans most activities by the seat of her pants.” And that was one of the things Dasha had scribbled into her motel fixit-list. Planned and advertised activities would go a long way in shaping the sort of clientele the motel needed to have. Simone could demand more money per room and actually get it. There were a lot of people who’d cough up the money to be that close to the beach, but only a certain subset of those folks who wouldn’t trash the place while they were there. To say that Simone was getting sick of frat boys would have been a fair statement.

  “We should go do something tonight,” Zenia said evenly. She still wasn’t looking at Dasha. She was giving Sully the same sultry stare he was giving her.

  Daryn gave the top of Sully’s head a thump. He finally looked away and Daryn returned to the food table.

  Dasha sighed. “Do something like what?”

  “Dunno. Bonfire on the beach, maybe, assuming there aren’t any fire restrictions right now. Or go to a movie or something. There’s probably something worth ten dollars playing in Elizabeth City.”

  The idea of being crowded into a theater with a bunch of fairy tagalongs didn’t do much to quell Dasha’s heartburn. Apparently, Sully staring at Zenia like he was a starving man and she was a potential meal didn’t seem to bother the woman. She seemed to like the attention.

  Lucky for her that she’s so easily able to reciprocate.

  Dasha wished she could be so open to connecting. She missed that flirty, adventurous part of herself that was more open to taking risks in life and in love. Lately, the only risks she took were popping in to visit her best friend without notice. Even the quality of her work at the agency had been unremarkable. She’d started wondering if the same anchor that held her in place romantically was dragging down the rest of her life.

  She hated that about herself. Growth required taking risks, and she’d let a man scare her off from trying to reach her potential. The mindset she was in was destructive and crippling, and she was sick of holding herself back. She missed being Dasha. Simone hadn’t been there to see the change so she didn’t notice how much less interesting Dasha was than she’d been before Simone had taken ownership of the motel and its curse. That she hadn’t was a good thing. Simone hadn’t had to witness the metamorphosis and pity Dasha.

  Dasha didn’t need any more pity. She had enough of her own.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ethan tried to close the room door before Laurel could get a word out, but she stuck her purse into the gap and giggled.

  “What’s the hurry, Ethan?”

  Rolling his eyes, he backed away and let Princess Simone take the space where he’d been standing.

  “Checkout is at eleven tomorrow,” the princess said sweetly.

  Princess Simone had had to give the scheming nitwit a room. Due to her curse, the princess couldn’t refuse anyone who came to her for hospitality as long as there was a room available to offer. And Laurel had asked.

  There was no possible way she could have known about Simone’s curse unless someone on the crew had told her, and there was no fairy in his acquaintance was that stupid. Besides, everyone on the crew knew Laurel was bad business. They’d been helping Ethan circumvent her advances for years.

  Laurel canted her blond head and broadened her already wide grin. “What if I need to stay another night?” she purred.

  “That depends on capacity and whether all my bookings show up. This time of year, keeping rooms open is impossible. The only reason I had this one available was because o
f a last-minute cancellation.”

  Laurel pouted. “Rats.”

  Hestia, who’d apparently popped in at some point during the transaction, leaned against the corner of the building and gnawed at the corner of her thumbnail.

  Princess Simone didn’t turn to acknowledge her—probably so as not to arouse Laurel’s attention to the goddess—but she had to have sensed her patron there.

  “If you need anything,” Simone said to the very unwelcome guest, “call the office and leave a message. There’s usually someone in there to answer, but if not, you know what to do.”

  “What if I need something you can’t give me?”

  “I’m sure there are a lot of things I can’t and won’t give you.”

  “Maybe you can find someone who can.” Laurel grinned again and her bright gaze shifted to Ethan.

  He growled quietly and folded his arms over his chest. He’d sooner toss her scheming ass off the end of a pier than to do her any favors, and especially not the favor she wanted.

  Princess Siobhan, standing atop the parking block of the space directly in front of the room, scoffed. “You are a trifling wretch, aren’t ya?”

  Laurel blinked. “I don’t know what you mean, Princess.”

  One good thing Ethan could say about Laurel was that she generally didn’t lie. She probably didn’t know what Princess Siobhan meant. She’d never so great at putting puzzle pieces together, but that tended to be the case with most folks with mixed mermaid lineage. Apparently, something about breathing so much oxygen all at once made them stupid.

  “Unbelievable,” the princess muttered. She stepped down from the block and nudged Ethan away from the door. “I’m sure you’re aware that there’s no love lost between me and my mother, but I know the rules haven’t changed. You’re not supposed to be outside of the realm, so what are you doing out and about? If we were still working for her, we’d drag your sorry arse back to her.”

  Laurel bobbed her eyebrows. “I got special dispensation to leave.”

  “Did you, now?”

  “Uh-huh. I asked, and she said yes.”