Alpha Devotion: Paranormal Romance Collection

by Lola Gabriel

  On the chair where he had placed his clothes, they sat unkempt and monstrous. The charm Lyric had put on them was halfway through wearing off and so they were a Frankensteinian mix of the grad-student costume she had put him in and his usual smart, appropriate clothing. Except two-days dirty, obviously.

  Archibald pushed the duvet off his legs and swung them out of bed. Instinctively, he cupped himself in a hand. He usually slept in pajamas, but there was no one in the room. That was stupid. Still, he felt weird sitting there naked, especially in some stranger’s bed.

  He pushed his hair back from his face, his usual nervous tick, and then touched his lower lip. Sore, from her teeth. Stop thinking about it! He lifted the duvet, searching for his underwear, but the pants were nowhere to be seen, not on the floor either when he stood and circled the bed to look. Archibald sighed. Looked once more under the duvet. Nope. Maybe they were under the bed. Maybe…who knew? He turned to the clothes, which were still slowly detransmogrifying on the chair.

  Archibald looked at them for a while. He tried to remember a spell for transformation and it just wouldn’t come. Maybe he had been spending too much time on paperwork. Then, finally, he recalled the words his tutor had taught him when he was first in training for making his quill into a hopping frog. He muttered them under his breath, directing his magical energy at the chair.

  The frog was massive. Chair-sized, actually. And his clothes were on its back. It managed three hops, and an otherworldly noise, before Archibald’s sense returned to him and he shouted a transfiguration charm, waving his hands somewhat wildly. The chair was a chair again, and on top of the chair were three smaller chairs; these were his trousers, shirt, and jacket. Archibald pushed his hair behind his ears. And then the door opened.

  Lyric was wearing jeans and a t-shirt now. She still looked beautiful. She was smiling, and she looked pink and warm.

  “Oh shit,” Lyric said. “Sorry.” And she turned around.

  Archibald realized his hands were shielding his genitals again. He had been surprised to hear the door. He sat on the bed and pulled the duvet around him. She had seen it earlier. More than seen it…

  “Sorry,” he said, “I was just…”

  “No,” Lyric said, and she stepped forward and the door swung closed and made both of them jump.

  “Fuck!” Lyric muttered. “I just heard some noise and I assumed you were… You know… Well, we’ve made dinner, so if you…”

  Archibald had a split second in which to decide whether or not to swallow his pride. “So,” he said, “I’ve had a little charms problem. I, uh… my clothes…” Pride swallowed, then, he guessed.

  “Oh!” Lyric said, her smile wide again. “Don’t worry.” She shimmied the retractable wand from her pocket again, shook it out, and in moments, the chairs on the chair were a fresh set of clothes. This time, blue jeans with cuffs and a black t-shirt.

  “Were those—” Lyric said, looking at where the clothes now were and the chairs on chairs had been.

  “I…I had a little issue,” Archibald said. He could feel his cheeks going red. He didn’t look at her.

  “Okay!” Lyric said, too quickly. “We made food! Get your clothes on.”

  He heard the door swing shut behind her.

  Was he that disgusting naked? He let the duvet slip from his shoulder and stood up, rolling his shoulders and stretching. He grabbed the clothes and pulled them on, no trousers but that would have to just be okay today, wouldn’t it? Why had she freaked out like that when she had opened the door and seen him naked? They’d just been more intimate than he had often been. He’d slept with people, of course, regularly, but there had been a vulnerability…or maybe he had just been tired.

  A little blonde girl up a tree. He did remember a little blonde girl up a tree, newly grown wings outstretched, and looking at him with hope. He remembered nodding.

  Archibald took a deep breath and then looked for his shoes. She seemed…unstable? Not exactly. Maybe she seemed like she was playing with life. Just having fun. But he didn’t have time for fun, did he?

  And then, Archibald remembered what she had said about their mothers. Was she playing games?

  He could hear movement outside. The four people he barely knew, the three humans and…whatever Lyric was to him. Archibald took another deep breath and opened the door.

  It was a big, run-down flat with high ceilings. Several doors branched off the hallway Archibald found himself in, and barely remembered from last night, he’d been so tired. Archibald followed the noise and, pushing open a door, found himself in a warm kitchen bathed in golden light and full of the smell of dinner.

  “Hello, sleepy head!” Lilly shouted, and the boys, sitting around a table with Lyric, whooped.

  Archibald raised a hand in greeting.

  “Dinner’s ready,” Lilly said, grabbing a baking dish with tea-towel-covered hands and taking it to the table. “Grab the salad, will you, Archie?” she asked.

  It occurred to Archibald that Lyric had called him that last night. And that, actually, Lyric, the little blonde girl he was just starting to remember again, had always called him that. Archie. Like his mother had. Of course she had, because he had been a child and she had been his best friend, and their mothers had also—

  Lilly took the salad bowl from his hands and leaned in close to him. “My room is next to yours, sounds like you two were getting on…” and she swooped away with the salad and plonked it on the table, then turned back and grinned at him and patted the seat beside her, the one in between herself and Lyric.

  Lyric was serving the lasagna and barely seemed to have noticed him entering the room. She tucked in before it had even reached Archibald, which seemed like the done thing here as everyone soon had a full mouth. Taking the big spoon and hefting pasta and sauce onto his plate, Archibald realized it had been a long time since he had served himself. Was that…embarrassing? He wasn’t sure, really. Certainly, he didn’t feel proud of it now, among these strange, self-sufficient humans. He understood, after a few days of running around their cities, why some immortals got so damn obsessed with the creatures. They lived for a blink, but without magic, they managed to have shelter and heat and vehicles and, Archie found as he ate his first forkful of lasagna, excellent food. Around the table, everyone was laughing at something Archibald had missed. He tried to catch Lyric’s eye, and she smiled at him but then she looked away again and her smile had been tight and brief. Archibald felt himself wilt a little, which was stupid. Why did he even care? He was here to do a job and if anything, the fairy sitting next to him was hindering, not helping him. The humans loved Lyric, after meeting her just days ago. He could see it; they hung on what she said and laughed at her jokes. She was brilliant, wasn’t—well, that kind of thought wasn’t going to help!

  “You all right, Archie?” asked Hamish from across the table. “You’re staring into space. You’d better line your stomach, pal!”

  Archibald barely registered the nickname. He looked down at his fork, the second mouthful of supper that he had been holding still in midair for some time.

  “Right,” Archibald said. “Sorry, I was thinking about…work. What do you mean line? For what?”

  Lyric leaned closer to him. “Archie,” she said, putting a hand out to touch his sleeve very briefly so that afterwards he was left looking at said sleeve and wishing her fingers were still on it, “is a total workaholic. He runs a whole…software company by himself and refuses to delegate. Drives everyone around him mad. Right, Archie?” she asked, and she smiled at the humans.

  “Uh, yeah,” Archibald managed. “Well, Lyric always says I’m…but yeah…thinking about work. Why am I lining anything, though?”

  Allan laughed, “Mate, you’re the only one with a real job around this table! But eventually Hammy over here will be a doctor, so he has to have his fun now.” Allan ruffled Hamish’s hair affectionately, and the shorter, broader Hamish shook him off. “Didn’t Lyric tell you we’re going out tonight? Gr
eat night on at a club in town, it’s a bank holiday weekend, baby!”

  Lilly shook her head, “Like bank holidays matter for you, bozos. I’ve got two seminars to teach Tuesday. I’ll be totally destroyed still.”

  Allan raised his eyebrows at Archibald. “She whines now, but wait and see how off it she is later. No one to blame but herself!”

  Archibald felt like he was supposed to laugh, so he did, though it came out, he was afraid, more like the whinny of a young horse.

  He pushed the food around his plate between bites, and occasionally tried to get Lyric’s attention using only his eyes. She wouldn’t look at him. What had he done that had been so terrible? She hadn’t wanted to see him naked earlier, had pretty much recoiled…and now…

  “What kind of a club?” Archibald asked, realizing he really didn’t know what he was in for. A debating society? A club for some game he was unaware of the rules for? Something political?

  Lyric coughed violently. “Sorry!” she said. “Drink went down the wrong way. Uh… Lilly, did you say techno? The club?”

  “Yeah,” Hamish said, and then he looked at Archibald. “That’s cool, right? The DJ’s great.”

  Archibald was about to ask another question, but then he felt Lyric pinch his leg. She was shoveling food into her mouth, and only a few moments later she said, “Right, well, I’m going to get ready.” And she stood up, before turning to Archibald and saying, “Coming?”

  He had only eaten half his plate of food, but the fairy, as small as she was, didn’t look like she wanted to be messed with.

  10

  Lyric

  This always happened. Every stupid time she got close to someone, every time she managed to duck her father’s controlling rules and enchantments (as if he could out-enchant her) and get close to someone, to a man, they turned out to be stupid, emotionally inept babies.

  Archibald was following her to the bedroom, and she didn’t even know what she was going to say to him. Maybe he was just stupid. Maybe that was it. She had misjudged him as damaged and deep and all that crap, when really he was just a fool.

  Lyric almost stomped into the room, and behind her, Archie closed the door softly.

  “Why are you—” he started, and Lyric wheeled around before he’d had time to even get a sentence out.

  “Why are you being so stupid?!” she whisper-yelled. “I like these people, and you’re making us look weird as hell. And…they heard us last night. For fuck’s sake. Ugh. I just needed a weekend being normal, Archibald, and my stupid father sends you to fuck it up.”

  Archie looked shocked. He was wide-eyed and had stepped back so that he was nearly leaning on the door.

  “I just wanted to have fun. Can you understand that?” Lyric was on a roll. On an angry roll, the kind she knew she would regret later, knew she wouldn’t be able to pull herself back from easily. “I’m not sure,” she continued, “that you can. Do you know how to have fun? Do you? It seems like you might be dead inside.” Lyric walked up to him, poked a finger hard into his chest. His lovely, warm, solid chest. His heartbeat. “You certainly don’t bloody know how to play along. What sort of club? Jesus, did you think we were going to play lawn bowls?”

  Archie’s face was stricken. “I don’t get out much, Lyric,” he managed.

  “I can tell,” she said. “Just go and shave, you look like a wild man.”

  Archie rubbed his chin and sighed. “After this,” he said, “whatever this not-bowling club is, I am taking you home and we can sort whatever the hell is happening out there in safety and without this drama. Okay?”

  Lyric just turned away. She was shaking, and it was the thought of going home… What was she supposed to tell him? Clearly, he agreed with her father, that her magic was uncouth on a woman. Then the lights started sparking. Shit.

  There was silence and then, “Lyric, are you doing that?”

  Lyric turned around quickly. “Just go and shave!” she shouted, properly shouted this time. “You’re a mess!” And the lights kept sparking, and Archibald went quickly out of the room backwards.

  Lyric was crying now in that way that felt like it would never stop. She couldn’t breathe. She could hardly see. Why had she let herself have feelings? Let herself imagine that a friendship two hundred years ago between two children, a friendship between their mothers, could have anything to do with now? Anything to do with another idiot lackey of her father’s, under her father’s control, coming to grab her and take her back to the hellhole that was the castle she was usually trapped in? But she had to go back. For her sister. She had to. Just one more night of fun.

  The thought of this, of bucking up and having fun, gave her just enough time to breathe. So she did. She took a deep breath and straightened up and wiped her eyes. She looked in the mirror over the dresser. She looked like shit. She could enchant some clothes, sure, but where was the challenge in that? Again, she wiped her face, this time on her sleeve, and again, a deep breath, and she walked over to the wardrobe. On her way, she found the tank top she had flung off earlier, just before the...nap. She picked it up.

  After stripping and throwing the clothes she had borrowed from Lilly earlier into the corner, Lyric pulled on the sports socks and tank top she had found. Well, borrowed without asking. Requisitioned? Whatever. She put them on. And for a belt, the tie of a trench coat that was hanging in what seemed to be the formal and semi-formal half of the wardrobe.

  Lyric looked in the mirror. The tank top/dress covered her butt, so that was good. And the socks came halfway up her calves. If she did just a little charm for warmth, she would be fine and no one would question it. She needed makeup, though.

  “Hey!” Lilly opened her door and greeted Lyric with a wide grin. “Need some lippy?”

  Lyric nodded, hoping the tear stains had faded from her face by now.

  “Punchy plum, shell sensation, orrrrr…” Lilly pawed through her makeup bag, “this one is gold. No lid on this one. Fuck, where is all my lipstick?” Then she looked up at Lyric. “Okay, so you have plum, which I think would look great on you, shell, which would hundy percent wash you out, or gold, which is a lot.”

  Lyric shrugged. “Plum and gold?” She either asked or suggested, she wasn’t sure which.

  “Whoa, genius!” Lilly trilled, lifting her head as she did so and then grinning charmingly wide at Lyric. She held out her hand, tubes of lipstick in her palm.

  When Lyric had turned to the mirror to apply the makeup, Lilly appeared behind her in the reflection.

  “So,” Lilly said, resting her head on the shoulder of the fairy (who, of course, she did not know was a fairy), “what’s the chat with you and Archie?”

  Lyric shrugged, intentionally bobbing Lilly’s head up and down.

  “Ouch,” Lilly said, “my jaw. Seems like you want to keep it quiet, which means you’re probably in love, right?”

  Lyric rolled her eyes at Lilly in the mirror. “You know, men are always intimidated by women who can do shit themselves. I don’t know what’s happening. We’ve known one another for a really, really long time but I think we’ve both changed.”

  Lilly put the mascara she had been holding back in its tube and passed it to Lyric. “Hey,” she said, “you can be intense, girl. I met you what, seventy-two hours ago, less than that, and here you are in my bedroom sharing my mascara. You could have eyelash mites or something! And yet you won me over so soon. That is intense!”

  Lyric took the mascara and leaned forward to apply it, opening her eyes wide and talking quietly so that she didn’t jog her hand or squint her eyes.

  “I do not have any kind of mite,” she said, “and I will remain intense, so he needs to be able to handle that, right?”

  Lilly shrugged. “Maybe you need to let him handle it in his own way?” she asked. “Anyway, I heard a lot, sounded fun.”

  Lyric elbowed her friend, who was, she supposed, giving irritatingly good advice.

  “We should go,” Lilly said, looking at the time on he
r phone. Humans were so obsessed with those things. Their whole lives in a shiny little block of breakable electronics. But she supposed they had to get around the lack of magic somehow.

  “Don’t let me get too drunk tonight,” Lilly said, standing up. Lyric laughed. “Seriously!” Lilly added, putting a hand out to help the fairy hop up from the floor. “I have to teach on Tuesday. I’ll fail my students if I go in looking like an actual zombie again.”

  The boys were waiting in the hallway, including Archie, who was standing by the door with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking nervously down at his tapping feet.

  “Don’t you look spiffy!” Lilly said, and she tried to nudge Lyric in the direction of the warlock, but she wouldn’t let herself be pushed. Archie looked great after a shave. Great standing there nervously, even, with all the bravado about being perfectly together and in control removed. She wanted to go over and lift a hand from his pocket, take it in her hand, pull him toward her, and give him a reassuring kiss. But what about after that?

  He was still supposed to take her back to her father, her father who spent most of his time trying to keep her locked away, trying to marry her off to some weak-chinned fae from a very distant kingdom, trying to do to her what he had done to her poor, mad mother. So, how could Archie possibly be a good guy? Why had she slept with him? Why was her body made of melted butter when she looked at him?

  11

  Archibald

  Lyric was dressed in the same tank top she had so briefly worn before their…nap. Or at least an identical one. It was tied at the waist and showed a lot of her pale thighs. Archibald wanted very, very badly to touch them. To touch her, pull her toward him and… He couldn’t look at her without getting excited, so he went back to looking at his shoes.

  She had gold lipstick on. Archibald East could not be with a woman who wore gold lipstick, it was unthinkable. Impossible. And she needed to be controlled. That sounded bad. She needed stability, he thought, needed her home and her family. He felt his hands curl into determined fists. He would get her home at the end of the night, because that had to be what was best for her, as smart and powerful and beautiful… Okay the beautiful wasn’t relevant, except it was to him. As smart and powerful as she was, she clearly needed reining in. And disagreements with her father didn’t stop that from being true. His dislike of her father didn’t either. He had all but forgotten about the promised crystal, though that briefly crossed his mind as he stood by the door, in the hallway of the strange flat in the strange city in which, he had to admit, some things had changed for him. Anyway, he knew a bit about family disagreements.