by Karen Mead
She frowned, letting the warmth from the mug soothe her nerves. She used to be a lot more concerned about being compelled to do things; she’d even had nightmares about it. But she just didn’t believe that Sam would ever force her to do anything against her will without a very good reason. The few times he had done it, it had been in the attempt to save her life. He’d never said so directly, but she got the distinct impression that he found the very idea of it distasteful. Whether that was on moral grounds, or just because he considered that particular kind of magic beneath him, she was relieved that she didn’t really have to worry about it anymore.
Much.
Still, the idea reminded her of what she and Sam were ostensibly going to do that night, which she’d done a good job of ignoring for the last hour. As she sipped her tea, her thoughts briefly settled on the time she had thought a demon was going to rape her. West coast demon lord Bennet Marcus had kidnapped her, had even had her bathed and dressed and delivered to his bedroom (in that order, fortunately) but had been entirely unprepared to commit actual violence against an underage girl. Still, at the time she had been resigned to it, less afraid than simply sad.
Was this the same? Not really. There was an obvious element of coercion, since she and Sam wouldn’t even be doing this if it weren’t for the Western Court, but it wasn’t just her; Sam didn’t want this either. If there was any violation, really it was both of them that were being violated by the court in general. But did Sam really count as a victim since, well…he was a guy getting sex? All her life, television had been telling her that men always, without fail, wanted sex, but how could it possibly be that simple?
Sam sipped his own tea and reached for the remote, turning off the show right when they were getting to the Holy Tower of Cupcakes challenge. There was silence for a few moments after the screen went dark. The light of the day had long since faded, and without the blue glow of the TV, there was very little light in the room.
“You probably hate dumb reality shows like that,” she ventured finally. He was sitting on the other side of the couch from her, around an interior corner, so he was pretty much facing her. In the dim light, she could still see him, but the rest of the room had faded to black.
“Less than you might think. Sometimes I leave them on in the background these days. The sheer stupidity of it is kind of comforting, in a strange way,” he said, not looking at her. He sipped his tea quietly.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” she said.
Silence.
Cassie flushed and looked at the floor. They were supposed to talk, that had to have been Sam’s intention when turning off the TV, but about what? They’d used up all the good Daily Grind-related topics over dinner.
“Hey Sam, can I ask you something?” she ventured after the silence had grown intolerable.
He gave her a tired smile. “You can ask—”
“—anything I want, but whether or not you choose to answer is a different story, blah blah blah,” said Cassie dismissively. “I’m used to your whole literal-Nazi thing.”
“Then go ahead.” He put his mostly empty mug down on the coffee table, stretched and leaned back into the couch, putting his arms behind his head. The fact that he finally looked comfortable lessened the awkwardness a little, Cassie thought.
“Why do you work at The Daily Grind anyway? I mean, not DG specifically,” she said gesturing quickly with her hand, realizing he might misinterpret the question. “I mean, why do you only work minimum-wage jobs? You went to college, right?”
Sam thought for a while before he answered, looking at the ceiling instead of her. “You’ve met my mother,” he said finally.
“As if that explains everything.”
“Doesn’t it?” Sam chuckled softly and took a deep breath. Cassie figured that he was gauging how much he cared to reveal. “Helen, I think she was always disappointed in the world…that she couldn’t have everything she wanted from it. I think she wanted to use me to fix that; to create someone who could have the world as their oyster,” he said. He squinted, as though trying to see through to the core of his mother’s soul in his memories.
“She planned for me to have everything. That’s why she summoned a demon to father her child; just being human wasn’t enough for what she wanted for me. I think she wanted to make me King of the World, or as close as someone can be to that.”
“That seems like something she would do.”
“It was stifling,” he said, shifting in his seat. “I hated it. I just wanted to know why the other kids in town were scared and wouldn’t play with me, but she was too busy trying to mold me into this…this monument to perfection, that she didn’t care how I felt. She started teaching me calculus in the third grade,” he said, eyes glazed over with reminiscing. He took another deep breath. “I was so bored in school, but she wouldn’t let me stop going, because I still needed ‘proper socialization,’ as she said. The other kids resented me, started to bully me. I fought back once, and the kid nearly died, so the bullying stopped, but then they wouldn’t even talk to me.”
Cassie exhaled, trying to imagine what the horror of a childhood like that was like. To her surprise, it hurt to hear it, not so much for Sam’s sake—although she did feel sorry for him—but because it made her think badly of Helen. She hadn’t consciously realized it, but she had seriously idolized the older witch. Cassie herself so often felt powerless, yet Helen ordered Lords of Hell around like it was no big deal, and even better, they listened to her.
Of course, it made sense that a woman like that would have a dark side, but that didn’t make hearing about it any easier. Cassie hugged her shoulders, though it wasn’t cold.
“So…did you ask her to stop? To let you have a normal life?” she asked, although she felt she knew the answer already.
“Only a million times. But my opinion on the matter was not considered relevant,” he said, with a cold bitterness that seemed to slice the air between them in two. “Eventually, I realized the only way I could get back at her was to fail. I tried failing my classes, but the teachers passed me anyway because they were scared—more of her than of me, I think—so that didn’t work. When I took a job at a gas station though, that’s when I really started to get to her,” he said, smiling at the memory. “The lower the job was on the social scale, the more it bothered her. It became my perfect revenge: take everything she’d given me, and do nothing with it.”
Despite the wonderful meal, Cassie felt slightly nauseous. Helen turned him into this, because she’s crazy. He’s had a horrible life because she never let him just be himself. This is sick, this is just so sick.
She cleared her throat, trying to find a way to phrase what she wanted to ask next without offending him.
“So, even now...even though you haven’t lived with her in years…you’re just living to get back at her?”
He cocked his head as though the question intrigued him. “That would make me pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said quickly.
“No, it isn’t just about her. I find I’ve adapted to this…lifestyle.” He said, moving to lean forward in his seat. “Never having a secure job means never being tied down to any one place…I can leave at a moment’s notice. Which is just common sense for me, really. Everyone knows I don’t belong, so they mostly leave me alone, and I can keep to myself with my books and be reasonably happy.” He finished with a shrug, as though daring her to contradict him.
She didn’t though; she sat back in her chair, awestruck. After a moment’s pause, he broke the silence again.
“Do you want to run out the door screaming now?” he said with a weak smile.
“No, I just…I mean, I thought my Mom was bad,” said Cassie looking at the floor. He laughed then, but there was no real humor in it.
She was about to speak again, to talk about how Annette put so much pressure on her to do well in school that she could relate to Sam’s situation at least a little bit, when he su
rprised her by interrupting.
“It’s not an excuse,” he said, looking down again. “What she did to me isn’t an excuse for how I treat other people, how I treated you when we first met. That’s a choice I made. But…” he said, finally looking at her again. “…maybe you can see why it’s so hard for me to be what other people want me to be.”
“And what is that?”
“Someone…reliable. Someone who can be trusted with other people’s safety. All I ever wanted was to be left alone,” he said, so quietly she could barely hear.
Cassie didn’t remember her eyes welling up, but before he had even finished speaking, hot tears were running down her face. She was sad for him, true—but as he said, how he lived was his choice. She believed that. It was more the idea that someone could have so much, yet be rendered completely incapable of enjoying it, that made her cry. She wiped her eyes on her sweater, even though she knew it would just make her eyes itch.
Through her blurred vision, she saw Sam stand up. “Let me get you some tissues,” he said. When he came back, he knelt in front of her place on the couch and began wiping her face himself.
Acting on a sudden impulse, Cassie put her hands on the back of his head and pulled him close so she could kiss him. It felt strange, tasting the saltiness of her own tears as well as his mouth, but her heart started pounding as she felt that queer mix of nervous excitement that she only felt around him. She had surprised him, and his obvious surprise only made her heart pound more. The fact that she could feel him breathing, so close to her, seemed dangerous somehow.
It was a long kiss, but eventually, he pulled away. “No.”
She couldn’t talk without sniffling now, which made her feel ridiculous.
“Why *sniff* not? That was the idea of inviting me over *sniff* right?”
He put his hand on her knee. “But I don’t want it to be because you pity me.”
“It’s not pity,” she said in a reedy, wavering voice. She hated the way she sounded when she cried. “It’s just, I wanted to do something to show I understand….”
His hand tightened on her knee. “That’s called pity.”
“No, it’s not,” Cassie started, then gave up. Maybe it was pity, she didn’t know what she felt anymore. Everything seemed crossed, confused.
A strange sensation came over her and then she remembered the last time she and Sam had been in this position, with him kneeling on the floor before her. It had been at court, the night before proceedings where they’d had a big argument that led to him throwing something at the wall.
“Hey, remember that fancy hotel in New York?” she said, barely knowing what she was saying. “You were in front of me just like this, telling me why you didn’t like me.” Even out of the corner of her eye, she could see his eyebrows shoot up at that.
“Cassie—”
“That I would be nothing if I didn’t have magic, that I was shallow, that I was just an average girl who wanted an award just for being av—”
She stopped talking then, because his mouth was on hers. While her kiss had been tentative, exploratory, his seemed hard and desperate, to the point that it almost hurt. He moved closer to her, and faster than she would have thought possible, they were both on the couch, with him on top. She struggled for breath when he broke the kiss.
“No,” he said again, his dark eyes searching her face. “Too soon.”
He moved quickly again, and somehow, she was in his lap, facing forward. He pulled her close to his body so her back was against his chest, and began to caress her arms and shoulders. Even through her sweater, she felt vibrations in her skin. She shivered, and found that the shiver made the sensations more intense.
Then she gasped as she felt him kiss the nape of her neck. The kiss, light and gentle as a feather, sent ripples of sensation down her back. Slowly, carefully, he began to shower her neck with gentle kisses, all the while continuing to caress her arms and shoulders. She kept waiting, breathless, for his hands to move and touch her in a more intimate place, but he continued; almost innocent in the way he handled her.
She was glad he couldn’t see her face, because her eyes were rolling to the back of her head and she was open-mouthed, greedily taking in air like she would never get enough. She wanted to lose herself, to stop thinking and just feel what she was feeling, forever if possible, but an unwelcome thought burst forth from somewhere and made her eyes flutter open.
He’s good at this. Someone taught him how to do this.
It was another moment before she trusted her voice enough to speak.
“Sam.”
He shushed her gently.
“No, Sam,” she said, wriggling forward so he couldn’t continue distracting her so easily. “Did someone teach you how to do this? Was it Miri?”
His hands stopped suddenly, shocked. “She told you?”
“No. I guessed.”
He moved his hands so they were at her waist. He pulled her close to him again, but didn’t continue caressing her. “Why are you only really smart when it’s inconvenient?”
She giggled at that, but then stopped herself, afraid the giggling would turn to tears. What was with her and crying tonight?
“Does it matter?” He asked finally.
She leaned back against him, wondering if it should. It wasn’t like she had any kind of exclusive claim on him; she’d never treated him as her boyfriend, or expected him to act like it. She could admit that she was jealous, but did she really have any right to be?
She knew that Miri took a pretty casual, shame-free view of sex, so if the vampire wanted Sam, she would have no problem letting him know about it. What surprised her, she realized, is that she never believed he would agree to it.
Not until the evidence was all around her.
“Were you guys ever going to tell me?” she asked finally.
“I don’t know,” he said. He sighed, and she shuddered at the feel of his breath on the back of her neck again. “It’s not…romantic…with us. It’s functional. I don’t know what the etiquette is for that; I don’t know if there is any etiquette. This is all new to me.”
Cassie leaned back against his chest. She could chew him out all night for keeping his relationship with Miri a secret from her, but frankly, she didn’t know the etiquette either. She was pretty sure he should have told her, but their relationship was too strange for there to be any clear guidelines. What did “functional” mean, anyway? Did she want to know?
“Is she more your type?” she asked finally.
He rested his chin on her shoulder. “Do you really want to spend tonight talking about her?”
“Don’t dodge the question.”
He tightened his grip around her waist. “You’re my type.”
She felt a surge of excitement in her belly, and wondered if he could feel it too. “When we met, I thought you hated me. Did you act like that because—”
“—the opposite was true? More or less,” he said softly. “I was angry at myself for being attracted to you, and that manifested as anger at you. And I knew how stupid that was, and that just made me angrier.” He began tracing the contours of her ear with his index finger, and she shivered again.
Still, her mind was working furiously. So he says he’s been attracted to me all along, but why? What’s there to be attracted to? I’m just a short, chubby girl…I’m kind of pretty I guess, but I’m not beautiful like Aeka or sexy like Miri, and he’s so….
“You know better than that,” he said quietly. “Either you’ve noticed how men look at you, or you’re blind as Vladmira.”
She very nearly jumped off his lap, but his arms restrained her. “Hey! No fair!”
“I’m sorry. When we’re this close, it’s a lot easier to read your thoughts than usual.”
“Yeah, well, stop it,” she said. She furrowed her brow; she was missing something. There was something important she had to know, and she would likely never get a better chance to ask.
“So you like me, but w
hat is it about me that you like?”
He began fondling her again with gentle hands. “Do you need me to draw you a map?” he said. He ran his middle finger over the chain of her amulet, coming dangerously close to the top of her breast. She swallowed.
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, is it me that you like…or just what I am?”
His fingers stopped cold. “I already told you. I liked you before I had any inkling of what you were.”
“But you could probably sense it,” said Cassie, filling in the blanks in her mind while she talked. “You’re a demon, I’m an angel—at least, sort of. Like Helen says, magic calls out to magic.”
“I know where you’re going with this and I think you should stop,” he whispered. She continued, undaunted.
“If I was just me—without being an angel, without the magic, would you even care? Or does who I am not even matter?” Awkwardly, she turned so she was facing him, sitting sideways on his lap. “And don’t give me a copout answer, like ‘You are you,” or something.”
He looked angry, though not necessarily at her. “How do you expect me to answer that? How could I know how I would feel about you in an alternate universe where everything was different? It’s a nonsensical question.”
But she wouldn’t be deterred; somehow, she felt she had to get a straight answer out of him, even if it was something she didn’t want to hear. “Does it even matter what my personality is like? I mean, could it be Madison Clarke’s brain in my body, and it wouldn’t make a difference?”
“Who the hell is Madison Clarke?” he said through partially gritted teeth.
“Just a dumb girl.”
She felt brave, looking him in the eye for so long without looking away. In the dim light, his dark eyes became inscrutable pools of black. She almost wished he would drop his disguise spell so she could see his expression better, but it would probably hurt to look at his natural eyes from this close.
