My brothers could never find out about this.
“Do you have another shirt to put on, something with a high collar?” he asked.
“Why?”
“It would be wise to cover up your wound before we go up to your apartment,” he advised.
He kept saying that, and it was probably good advice.
“Are you afraid of Dain?” I asked. “Who is Dain?” I added, realizing he never answered my question about his own identity.
“Seeing a helpless girl hurt is-” Eloden didn’t finish his sentence, but I saw him fist his hands. Yeah, he was taking this harder than me.
“Are there other helpless girls you guys are stalking?” I asked before I could think about it. I had meant I was not helpless, but now I was the one sounding jealous.
“No,” Eloden said. “You’re the only female for us.”
Did he mean like for all of them? The need to know their real identities screamed at me. Their purpose was becoming more important to establish, however, and I didn’t have much time left to ask my questions. I turned down my street, pondering my words. The key might be to only ask one thing at a time.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“Would you give us half an hour of your time?”
Tall, dark and mysterious had a terrible habit of answering questions with more questions. Also, he wasn’t quite as dark anymore.
“No,” I replied. I didn’t explain myself.
A single woman living on her own shouldn’t have to explain why she wouldn’t invite six strange men into her apartment. Didn’t they realize how bad this looked?
“I promised I would ask nicely, first,” Eloden said.
I glanced at him in the rear-view mirror again. He was still hunched and hidden.
“And what’s next? The hard way? Forcing me?”
I sounded bitter. It sucked that my hero was a selfish stalker that couldn’t take rejection well.
“No, of course not.”
“Well, you asked, and I said no.”
I turned into my apartment parking lot. It was a triplex with plenty of stairs and no security, so the rest of the gang was probably already upstairs, waiting outside my door. I parked Baby and shut off the engine, contemplating what to do.
“Next, Dain is going to ask his way,” Eloden said.
Oh, so Eloden was the carrot and Dain was the stick.
“Does he know how to ask for things?” I sarcastically asked.
“Driving is over,” Eloden said. “Questions are done, and I would really like to get out of the car.”
Weird. My brother was only sick when the car was moving.
I couldn’t put off this confrontation much longer. I got out and opened Eloden’s door for him. He wiggled out, not touching anything but the seat. I closed the door behind him. When was the last time I chauffeured one of my brothers around? They usually hopped out before the car was fully parked.
The sun was torching Eloden’s hair with its dying rays. I couldn’t stop myself, reaching out and running my fingers through a few silky strands, pushing them away from his face like I had been thinking about during the drive and tucking them behind his ear, so I could see his eyes properly. His startled, green gaze flashed with something that was gone so quickly that all I was left with was the impression that he wasn’t used to being touched so familiarly.
That made two of us. I pulled back.
He grabbed my hand and held it to his cheek, before letting go. I tangled my fingers in his hair again.
“You should never wear a wig. The last one was quality, sure, but this-” I sighed, “-you have the most amazing hair. It’s soft like a velvety pelt,” I said. I rubbed it between my fingers, transfixed on such a simple thing. I really had never quite felt the like of it.
He leaned into my touch, turning his head to encourage me like he wanted me to continue to pet him. Perhaps he wasn’t as shy as I thought. My fingers twisted one red strand as I told myself it was time to stop, just one more touch.
“Not a bunny,” I contemplated. That was way too cuddly when Eloden was more primal and dangerous. He certainly had demonstrated that today.
“A fox,” he suggested, turning his head so his lips brushed against my fingers tangled in his hair.
I pulled back with a tug and a gasp. What was wrong with me? I didn’t touch strangers willingly.
“A dead fox and a cute bunny, maybe,” said another voice.
Fantastic, the rest of my stalkers had found us.
Chapter 6:
I SIGHED AND HOPED I had the forbearance to not create a scene at my apartment. All I had to do was tell Dain to go away and rip the tracking charm off my keys to throw at his chest while I did it. I wouldn’t yell, and they would quietly disappear, like a bad dream in the morning, to never bother me again, right?
My strange obsession with Eloden’s new red hair would be forgotten as well.
I didn’t owe them anything. Eloden had done me a solid, but I considered it suitable payment for Friday night’s scare. I wouldn’t press for a restraining order and he would make himself scarce. It sounded fair to me.
Eloden freed himself before I knotted my fingers to him permanently. I turned around to locate the source of the animal pun. I think it was Falin. I remembered his voice whining about my smell on Friday. Apparently, he had a sense of humour as well as delicate nostrils.
“Keep a civil tongue in your head,” Eloden told Falin. “Eve doesn’t need to hear your vile threats.”
That had been a threat? Woodland animals? Well, the fox was dead.
“Why are you hiding our little bunny?” Falin asked.
He was walking around us, voice coming from the other direction now. I peered around Eloden’s big body, finally catching sight of Falin’s piercings in the rosy sunlight. He didn’t look any less fierce in the daytime than Friday night, metal threaded through a good portion of his face. I bawled when I got my ears pierced. Nobody else from the gang accompanied him in my line of sight.
“If I’m a bunny and he’s a fox, what are you,” I asked, refusing to let him think I was cowed by the start to a Disney movie.
Falin smiled. It made him look scarier. His teeth were very white and strong.
“The one that’s going to eat you both up,” Falin replied. It figured.
It didn’t matter that Eloden had said question period was over. Now I had another mysterious stranger that had accosted me to pester. We were out in the open in my apartment parking lot where the biggest crime to occur was all the gum I littered next to the dumpster. My aim sucked. I returned Falin’s threatening smile, deciding on my first attack.
“What big teeth you have, grandma,” I said. Falin halted. He was close enough that I could see he still had those startling lizard-green contacts in. Monstrous and shocking seemed to be his defences. I knew exactly how to pry off such superficial armour. It was the normal looking people like me that were more difficult to poke. Falin made it easier, displaying where his vulnerabilities were guarded.
“How did you ever manage to escape the notice of the wolves for so long?” Falin said, reaching down to cup my face with one hand.
I backed up right into Eloden, feeling his warmth sink into my back through my thin t-shirt. Falin followed, his other hand completing the capture of my face, so I had no choice but to meet his sharp gaze. This had not been a well thought out plan. I was supposed to be cornering the monster but he had merely been luring me into his den.
Don’t poke the lizard, lesson learned.
Falin looked down at my scratch and he stopped smiling.
“I warned you to behave,” Eloden said, reaching around me to grab Falin by a pierced ear and me by my waist. He practically lifted me off my feet to set me to the side so he could deal with his misbehaving friend.
“She’s hurt,” Falin hissed, lowering his head to save his ear.
“Do you have another shirt?” Eloden asked. He started pigeon-walking Falin back, so they ga
ve me some space, then he released him.
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I have a hoodie in my car.” Being asked three times worked like a charm. Now, I was spooked.
I would have been wearing my hoodie armour anyway, but the day had been warm, and my Baby was more expensive on gas if I used the air conditioning. I had taken it off before the trip to the Changs’ apartment.
Ignoring the two of them for a moment, I opened the driver’s side again and crawled over the seat to grab the discarded hoodie. My thoughts were racing. I wanted to deal with these guys in the relative safety of an open parking lot and what was left of daylight, but my pounding heart was telling me to make my getaway. That shit about thinking with your head instead of your heart was usually wrong, especially when it came to danger.
My phone rang.
I smacked my head on the roof scrambling out of the car.
“Ouch, fuck,” I answered my phone.
One of the twins laughed on the other end.
Thank god it hadn’t been my parents, though they knew me. The blow did little to knock sense into me, although it did startle me out of another panic attack.
“What do you want?” I said into my cell, eyeing the hulking strangers waiting for me. They were both looking at the opened car door now, but a moment ago, I wonder if they’d been checking out my ass and had gotten an eyeful of my clumsiness instead.
Falin winked at me.
He had seen everything.
My brother’s laughter continued.
“I’m hanging up,” I threatened, fighting a flushed response as I avoided Falin’s amused gaze.
“No, wait,” said Jackson’s voice. He finished laughing.
“Goodbye,” I said, as polite as I get.
“I’m sorry,” Jackson said. “You sounded riled up like Mrs. Watson’s cat in heat, yowling at all the toms hanging around the backyard.”
If I wasn’t blushing earlier that did it. I felt more like I was about to get eaten up but that put a sexual spin on my situation. Thankfully, only I heard Jackson. “Seriously trite. Also, you are such a turd,” I muttered into the phone. “I’m hanging up.”
“Wait. Are you really hurt, Evie-baby?”
“No,” I lied. My head was not as hard as my car.
“You always swear whenever you get hurt,” Jackson said. “Remember when Dad was trying to teach you to fish? You kept saying fuck every time you pricked yourself on the hook. Mom said she was going to turn the boat around and soap your dirty mouth.”
It had been when my mom was still dating their dad and I had made a terrible impression. But really, who goes fishing on a date?
“I hit my head on the car trying to answer your stupid call,” I told him, letting the grumpy off the chain. Jackson could take it. “Why did you call me other than to laugh at my concussion?”
Eloden touched my head, searching for the goose-egg, which wasn’t hard to find. When had he gotten that close to me again?
“Ouch, fu-”
“Evie-baby, do you need me to come to ice your boo-boo?”
At least Jackson didn’t laugh at my misery this time. I ducked away from Eloden’s prying touch. Jackson really would come if I asked, and he would hold a cold pack on my head while I sat between his legs, giving me a backwards hug. He could do it for hours, as long as it took for me to calm down or fall asleep. He had earned cuddlekins.
Both twins would smother me with love if I let them. It was part of the reason I moved out, recognizing that although it was platonic there was also such a tangle of old pain and desertion underlying our messy emotions that I had no idea how to unravel. Numbers and logic were my things and everything else I dug a deep hole and buried.
“I’m fine,” I reiterated to Jackson. “I’m going to pop some ibuprofen and lie down.”
“Mom wanted you to come over. She made cinnamon buns,” Jackson said. My stomach growled, reminding me that I didn’t eat at the Changs’ apartment and I had spent hours at the walk in.
“Well...” I said, eyeing my uninvited guests.
Eloden grabbed my hoodie from my slack grip and pulled it onto me while I was still talking on the phone, right over my head and arms, like he was bagging groceries, upside down. He seemed to be in a rush to get me covered up.
“Mff,” I mumbled.
“What’s that?” Jackson asked.
I mumbled something again, trying to twist myself loose of the hoodie binding my arms so I could get it on properly.
“I’m coming down to pick you up,” Jackson said. Crap, I had triggered his protective brother response.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, but Jackson had already hung up. There would be no changing his mind until he made sure I was going to survive my brain injury.
“Help me,” I told Eloden, still twisting around in the hoodie. I didn’t like being touched but hopelessly entangled in my hoodie was worse.
Surprisingly, it was Falin that helped me. The only way I knew was the different feel of their hands, slender fingers that were gentler with me than the last few times Eloden had caught me. Eloden’s bigger hands were believable for holding a broadsword as the Celtic warrior I had envisioned him playing on Friday. I wouldn’t have to worry about my hoodie being ripped by Falin’s softer touch.
I got my arms through the right holes, one still gripping my phone, and popped my head out the top to see Falin staring down at me from beside Eloden. The hands helping me were still behind me.
I pivoted.
It was one of the blonde, lookalike brothers.
“Uhh,” I said, stepping back out of reach. Strangers did not have touching rights.
“Kheelan,” the blonde said as he supplied his name. “I appreciate your help, Kheelan,” he added, suggesting I repeat his gratitude as a parent would to a toddler.
Ha. He could keep trying.
The Germanic accent was less pronounced when Kheelan spoke English, although his cadence was still harsher than Eloden. His blue eyes were cool. Kheelan didn’t smile at me. He was almost severe looking with pale, flawless skin and stick-straight, thick, blonde hair cut short all around to leave only an inch or two that couldn’t get messy or tangled. He had a thin, long braid that dangled from behind his right ear to his shoulder that seemed a little rebellious, but not one free strand of hair strayed from that tightly woven braid and the simple leather ties to fasten it were far from ostentatious. The only reason I noticed the tiny braid was because he was in my personal space. He also had three, little freckles on his right cheek.
There was a strained silence. He was waiting for a response. I scoffed and took a step back to re-establish boundaries. “I wasn’t thanking you,” I said, matching his frosty look. Please, I had invented the untouchable stare for when people dared eye contact.
“Why is she injured, Eloden?” Kheelan asked, still staring at me without an ounce of emotion.
He was armed and dressed like Friday night, the shorter but older brother. There was a bow on his back, fletched arrows peeking over his shoulder sheath. He had a sword belted to his hip and there were daggers sheathed across his chest. The weather was more appropriate this evening for his long-sleeved tunic without a coat. I guess a cosplayer couldn’t really cover up his costume. Why he was dressed up again was a better question.
“She will be fine,” Eloden replied. It wasn’t like he was my keeper. Also, he hadn’t put the wound on me.
I pivoted again and gave Kheelan my back. He was staring holes through it.
“My brother is coming,” I said to Eloden and Falin. I figured Kheelan could stew on his unanswered question as to what had happened to my neck. He deserved it after touching me uninvited.
“The cute one or the mechanic?” asked Falin.
“They’re identical twins,” I said, not quite able to hide my shock. Matthew never had a male admirer before that I knew, but Jackson was by his side most of the time and that would be a significant deterrent.
“It’s the other one,” Falin said, sighing
disappointment.
“You can’t keep him, anyway,” said another voice. It was a distance off, another of the gang, obviously, but he wasn’t that close to the car.
Either my hoodie was too hot for the weather still or I was getting a flashback to Friday night, sweaty palms informing me that I was walking into the same potentially dangerous situation. Why were there so many of them and all to talk to me? I hadn’t attracted this much attention since I punched Julie Sanders at the school assembly for telling the twins smokers should all die of lung cancer before they could kill the rest of us off with second-hand chemicals. Fat lot about cancer us preteens had known, but pretentious bullshit had always angered me. The twins’ mother hadn’t smoked a day in her life before she died.
Falin growled, bringing me back to the immediate problem that was in my face. Honestly, he made some sort of animalistic noise that no human throat should be able to replicate. I’m not brave, but I’m also not scared stupid most of the time. I have big girl panties on to live alone. Falin’s growl made me shiver.
“Don’t talk to him, Aeirc,” Kheelan said, coming around me. “He’s Dain’s pet. Let Dain discipline him.”
What now? Were they all together or was this some sort of dissension in the ranks? It really made them seem more like a gang, and I could definitely picture Dain as the leader of his surly followers.
“You left Orin alone with Dain?” Eloden asked, ignoring the rabid growling.
Kheelan grabbed my hand, supposedly to tug me towards my apartment building. I dug my heels in and tried to shake him off. The open parking lot was still safer. They could all get into a fight and I would escape in the melee.
“Don’t touch me. I’m nobody’s pet,” I grouched. “And I bite,” I warned him, trying to twist away.
Falin laughed.
Kheelan grabbed the front of my hoodie like he was holding a puppy by the scruff of its neck. He pulled me up on my tiptoes. My heart was going to come through my chest.
“Wait,” I said, quickly thinking of an excuse to get released without looking like a wimp. “I need to lock up my car.”
I could be back inside Baby and slam the locks shut before any of them realized what I was up to and wait for Jackson down here. I had my phone to text him.
No Faerie Tale Love (Faerie Series Book 1) Page 7
