by M. J. O'Shea
Things never work out like you plan, though, at least rarely for me. When I got back from class, it was to an apartment full of people. Xan shot me an apologetic stare, and I sank down on to the couch and kissed him hello. It was obvious we weren’t going to slip away, not without too many vampires with very good hearing knowing exactly what we’d planned.
Instead I watched another movie, this one in English with lots of explosions, and thought about what I’d be doing to Xan if we were in fact in my room naked instead of in the middle of movie-night with all our friends—including my brother. Like I was going to have sex of any kind with him in the next room. I finally pled exhaustion around midnight and flopped, frustrated and horny, onto my bed. There was a good chance that the vamps and their too-perfect ears would be there until dawn. I wasn’t getting anything that night except for a few kisses. Xan followed me a few minutes later, and I satisfied myself with kissing and touching, cuddling up to his warm chest in the tiny bed.
“Love you,” I murmured before I fell asleep.
Xan kissed the top of my head and pulled me in closer. “Love you too, babe. Sorry about tonight. I wish we had our own place.”
“Me, too.” Too bad my parents would never go for that.
XAN MANAGED to last until the weekend in the city, but he looked pale and really tired by the time we left New York behind for his bedroom in the trees.
“Xan, I’m worried about you. I don’t think you can do the city more than a day or two at a time. You look sick.”
He sighed. “I do feel sick. But I’ve hated hardly seeing you. I don’t know what to do.”
I didn’t know either. But I did know that I was excited to spend the weekend in his tree room. Alone. With no nosy vampires. Naked. It was past time.
“We can go to bed early tonight,” I told him with a smile. “You’ll feel rested in the morning.”
Xan chuckled. “Rested. Sure.” I couldn’t help but notice that he smiled as we tramped under the waterfall from freezing cold winter into the lovely warmth of the Forest. I had a new bottle of lube that was burning a hole in my backpack. I felt like every dryad child and woman saw it as we walked through the clearing toward Xan’s tree.
Most of them waved happily, long familiar with me. I told myself I was being paranoid, but I knew what we were going to do later, and it seemed they all knew too.
WE WAITED until after dark, which although it was warm in the trees, still came fairly early. Although we’d been together naked countless times before since we were kids, and even quite a few lately, I still felt shy as I undressed and climbed into the bed that I now thought of as ours.
“Hey,” I muttered before reaching up and tugging on Xan’s hair.
“Hey,” he answered quietly. Then he laughed. “So this is weird. I always thought it would just happen, you know? Not be so… premeditated.”
“Yeah.”
Yeah. God. What a dumb answer. Just kiss him, get this awkward crap over with. So I did. I leaned forward and kissed Xan, the same kind of kiss we’d been sharing all week except it was really going to go somewhere. I tried not to be scared—scared it would hurt, scared I’d hurt Xan, scared it would ruin a million years of friendship and togetherness. I decided to quit being a wuss and just go for it.
I ran my fingers down his back, the smooth skin of his thighs. Nothing new there. I’d been doing that for weeks. His shudder wasn’t new either. Xan always reacted to my touch like that.
Xan touched me too, more hesitantly than usual, like he might be a bit nervous himself. I needed to remind him, or maybe myself, what we were doing and why.
“I love you.” It got easier every time I said it. I needed him to know the touches were love, everything we were doing was love, not pressure, not because we felt like we had to—just because we were showing each other how we felt.
“I love you too. I never get tired of saying it.” Xan smiled at me and kissed me, and no matter how nervous I was, everything felt right.
“Can I taste you?” I felt like I had to ask, like every step we took that night would somehow be sacred.
Xan nodded. “But don’t make me come. I want to wait until you’re inside of me.”
“Me?” I’d assumed I would be the first to let him in.
“Yeah. This time.”
“O-okay.” My nerves were back, strong and biting.
I kissed my way down his body, like I’d done before, hoping to find solace in the familiar taste of his skin. My mind raced, wondering if I wished I’d had sex before, just so I knew what I was doing. I knew I didn’t. It was fitting that I’d saved this for Xan even if I never knew I was saving it, or even that I loved him as more than a friend until so recently.
When I took him in my mouth, and he arched and cried out, my blood raced. I loved how he tasted, how he felt writhing under me, hand clenching on my shoulder.
“So beautiful,” I murmured, licking and tasting, caressing his chest. “Love you.”
Xan grasped my hand and pushed it between his thighs until my fingers were brushing his entrance. “Touch me.”
I gulped and leaned over to my bag for the lube that had been there, flashing like a sex beacon, the whole trip in from the city. I slicked up shaking fingers and leaned back over him. We kissed long and hard as my finger pushed slowly in. Xan’s gasp gave me pause, but he rolled his hips and moaned “Keep going” and “More” until I’d added a second finger, then a third.
“Are you okay?” I asked when he grunted around my third finger. The last thing I wanted was to hurt Xan.
“Yeah. I’m ready, babe.”
It took a while, with lots of stops and starts, but eventually I was buried all the way inside him. He was so hot and so very tight. I could barely breathe. All I wanted to do was kiss Xan forever. And move. I needed to move.
“You okay?” I asked again.
Xan squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “It’s weird but I like it. Move, babe. Do it.”
Just the sound of those words, low and kinda dirty, nearly made me come. I pulled out and pushed back in, slowly into the tight heat.
“Oh God,” I breathed. It was so much more than anything I could’ve expected.
Xan cried out, “Again.”
I obeyed, stroking into him again and again, watching the passion play over his face as he bucked his hips and stroked himself impatiently. I felt him coming before I saw it. His face screwed up, and his muscles pulsed hard against me.
“Ugh. Now,” he warned before we were both splashed with his warm release. I barely held on another full stroke before I was coming inside of him, gasping and gripping the pillow as hard as I could.
I froze inside him for long moments before I gently withdrew and flopped my sweaty, sticky body next to his.
“That was….” I didn’t have a word to describe it. Amazing, wonderful, sexy, hot….
“It was. Everything,” Xan whispered.
He was right. Everything was a good word.
WE REALIZED after that first week that Xan couldn’t stay in the city, not unless we managed to build a secret apartment in the park somewhere. I thought the city officials would probably notice a tree house in Central Park eventually, so that was out. I didn’t know what to do. I hated only seeing him on the weekends and as willing as I was, there was no way I’d be allowed to actually live in the Forest full time. We’d gone over that fun fact and it wasn’t going to happen.
Xan came to the city a lot to hang out with me after class, which was a pain in the ass for him. It usually took at least two hours from start to finish just to get there. I hated asking him to do it. I tried it the other way once or twice too—even though my nights in the Forest usually ended with me asking Indigo to take notes for me when I got back on the bus after I’d slept in, comfortable in Xan’s tree bed, after a long night.
Something had to change.
I went to my mom in hopes that she might be able to help. Part of that was telling her that Xan and I were together, which
she took remarkably well other than to remind me that we came from different worlds and it probably couldn’t be serious. I wanted to tell her that it already was serious, but I decided instead to get into an argument I could possibly win—like the one where I ask her to help foot the bill for a car to cut down on the endless bus rides. My Lycan money would make a decent down payment, but not enough for something reliable. She rolled her eyes and told me it wasn’t necessary since I wasn’t coming home that often. I didn’t want to admit that I’d been there every weekend and a few weeknights as well.
My mom was a bust, and Xan and I were getting more frustrated by the day. Our choices weren’t great: see each other only on the weekends, spend hours riding back and forth on the bus, or Xan could get sicker and sicker the more times he stayed away from the trees. It sucked. A lot.
Our salvation ended up coming from an odd place, although one very fitting.
Noah and Zack’s building was one of those buildings in New York that had once housed a rooftop greenhouse. The greenhouse, in fact, was still up there, but it was in such bad disrepair that the building owner had locked the roof access door so no one would get injured. All it ended up taking was a phone call to the landlord, a promise of an extra few hundred a month in rent plus making all necessary repairs, and Xan and I were the new owners of a rooftop greenhouse that we used as a bedroom. It was probably best that the landlord didn’t know that. He’d probably charge way more.
Once the greenhouse was cleaned and the broken glass replaced, it was the perfect size for a bed and a cluster of potted trees. It even had enough room for a nice wood-burning stove that my Lycan money bought. Way better than a car, I thought. Xan looked better just being in there. I couldn’t help but wonder just how long luck would be on our side….
Chapter 16: Something Wicked This Way Comes
IT TOOK a while to get our greenhouse ready to live in, but once we did, it seemed like we had the perfect scenario. I loved our unique little room, with the panoramic view of the stars. Even though it was smaller, the trees and the sky reminded me of Xan’s room back in the Forest. We schlepped my twin from home, tied to the top of my dad’s SUV, and pushed it together with the twin from downstairs so we’d have a decent-sized bed and only be on top of each other when we wanted to.
Things after that were mostly perfect in my view. There was that awkward day when I came home to Xan clearly having some kind of very uncomfortable conversation in his head. He told me that they were giving him grief back in the village for missing out on the lessons with the younglings. I felt guilty about being the cause of that until he reminded me that I was his number--one priority as long as Komarov was out running around. If I was fated to kill him, then we’d end up running into each other somehow, and Xan had to be around to make sure it went well.
No pressure.
As I promised one day in class, I brought my new friend Indigo to meet the others the next time we all went out. It had been hard for her in the dorms to pretend to be just like everyone else. I imagined it would be a relief not to have to pretend for at least a few hours. She was practically hopping up and down on Zack and Noah’s couch until it was time to leave. We went to hang out at PC’s old apartment that night instead of going to a club. I hadn’t been there since that weird night in the fall that seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Who lives here again?” she whispered as we were walking up the stairs.
“Right now it’s two girl vampires named Leila and Amanda, and Leila’s boyfriend Jason. He’s the witch I want you to meet.”
She nodded. “That’s all?”
“PC the lycan used to live here, but he and his boyfriend just bought their own place. The boyfriend is Miles—skinny, brown hair, vampire. He’s really nice. They both are.”
Indigo looked a bit overwhelmed. “Really, don’t worry about it. Everyone’s cool—well, except my brother. He’s kind of a douche. Sorry.”
“Colin, right? Will he be here?”
I nodded. “Unfortunately. But his girlfriend is cool. He’s dating the blonde vampire, Amanda. She’s Noah’s cousin from the other side.” I realized how convoluted it must sound to an outsider.
“This is worse than Days of Our Lives,” Indigo moaned. “How am I going to keep them all straight?”
“Well, at least half of us have never been straight.” Indigo punched me in the arm. “Oh, and Miles’ friend Lisa might be here. I’ve never met her. He says she’s cool too.”
“No more!” Indigo covered her face with her hands and laughed.
“Anyway, don’t worry about it. No one expects you to know everyone right off the bat. It’s fine.”
INDIGO WAS a good fit with the rest of the motley crew. Probably better than me, honestly, because at least she had something other than regular kid status to bring to the table. They’d gotten a poker set out, and what started as a game of Texas Hold ’em quickly disintegrated into everyone showing off their magic tricks. I was glad for Indigo that she could fit in. There was a collective gasp of awe and a few murmured “pretty’s” when she turned the walls green. Everyone laughed when her next trick was turning PC’s auburn hair black. He wasn’t very thrilled about the latter until he realized it was temporary and would go back as soon as she wasn’t concentrating. Everything was great until the end of the night, when the humans, the witches, and Xan, who liked his rest, were staggering out the door to catch a few hours of sleep. PC pulled me and Xan aside and made a motion with his head to meet him out in the hallway.
“Listen,” he said. “I didn’t want to get the Avengers in there all worked up, but the council has been getting reports of Komarov sightings. That might not have a damn thing to do with you, just….” He looked at me, and at Xan, who’d gone immediately into protector mode. “Be careful.”
“We will,” Xan answered, his voice serious. He looked like he was about to say more, but the door opened and Indigo came out, still talking to Jason, who’d volunteered to help her develop her skills like I’d hoped, and Miles, who stuck his hand out to PC.
“Ready, babe?” he asked.
“Yep.” PC curved his arm around Miles’ waist and brought him in for a kiss on the forehead. “Let’s go.”
Xan tried to keep up a cheerful barrage of chatter on the way home, but I was too preoccupied to participate, even if I did appreciate what he was trying to do. It seemed like I kept circling around Komarov, that the events of my life were revolving around his actions, to the point that it was inevitable that we would meet. There wasn’t any real basis for the feeling but it was there, uncomfortable and thick in my gut.
I wanted to train more than ever, if not to hunt, then to be able to defend myself if it came down to him attacking me—which seemed way out in left field until I asked my gut, which told me I should be worried. I asked Colin if he’d work with me. I should’ve known better. It was like talking to Mom and Dad with a different face. In fact, that’s what he told me to do. Talk to Mom and Dad. I figured it was futile, but I gave it a try on the next Friday when Xan and I were on our way to the woods. There was always the hope they’d have a harder time putting me off in person than they would on the phone.
“Abso-freaking-lutely not,” was my mom’s answer. Of course. I looked at my dad, but he just shook his head, backing her up silently.
“Why not?” I won’t whine, I won’t whine….
“I don’t want you out there gunning for a fight with a powerful lycan after a few self-defense lessons.” Dad’s voice had never sounded sterner.
I took a long breath and tried to school my voice to sound as rational as possible. “Dad, Mom, I’m not going to go on some wild hero quest to try and take Komarov out. I don’t need to be the Fitzgerald who does it. I just want to be prepared in case he knows about us and he thinks I’m a threat. That’s all, I promise.”
“It’s not a good idea,” my mother insisted. “There’s nothing worse than false confidence. If you think you can take him down, then you won’t run when yo
u should.”
I knew when I’d lost. At least with them. “I understand.”
Xan and I stayed and chatted with my parents for a little while longer while he inhaled a few cookies. But it was hard coming up with things to say to them. We covered classes in about ten seconds, and it wasn’t like I was going to tell them about getting snuck into bars by Noah and Zack, or my amazing sex life with Xan, who I was basically living with. Maybe we could talk about my new friend the witch while we were at it, and then I could help my parents birth the fifty or so cows they’d have.
We escaped to the Forest as soon as possible, where we did the requisite chat with his mothers before we could be on our own. I swear we weren’t in his treehouse more than two minutes before our clothes were off and we were in bed making out.
“You taste good,” I murmured between kisses. “Like cookies.”
“Mm-hm. Kiss me again.”
I didn’t have any objection to kissing him, of course, so I did—until I thought about Komarov, and how much I needed to be at least a little bit ready in case the nutcase went after me.
“What’s the matter, babe?” Xan asked when I’d sort of lost concentration in our kiss. That wasn’t something that usually happened.
“I’m worried about Komarov,” I told him. It seemed silly to say it, but I couldn’t lose that pit in my stomach. Callum only had one kid, a girl, and Colin didn’t have any. I didn’t have any chance of getting rid of that whole Chosen One title for years to come. Until then, Komarov was always going to be at the back of my mind.
“I honestly don’t think he’s going to come after you.”
“Which is why you were guarding me really closely back around Christmas, even when we weren’t speaking.”
