by Lyra Evans
The moment he turned the key, the car purred to life, like a big cat with a barely contained roar. The steering wheel also morphed from its traditional wheel shape to a set of curved grips shimmering blue. Niko reached out to grab them and the shimmering blue area molded perfectly to his hands. He pressed his foot down on the pedal gently and the car eased forward. Grateful at least the pedals worked the same way as a regular car, Niko made his way to the edge of the parking lot and finally onto the road.
Heads turned as he passed by, pedestrians stopping to admire or observe the car, but thankfully the windows had tinted themselves enough to block them from seeing his face. The windshield had also adjusted itself to refract the light of the lowering sun, so Niko didn’t have to pull out his sunglasses as he usually would.
When he pulled up to the front of the boutique where he’d left Cobalt, he realized with surprise that he’d actually very much enjoyed the drive there. He tried not to get too accustomed to the feel of the car, though, knowing there was no chance in all the worlds he could ever afford a ride like this one.
Cobalt emerged from the store, followed by a valet carting a suitcase behind him. He was no longer wearing what he had been when Niko dropped him off. Instead, he wore a pair of fine, khaki slacks fitted to perfection, a pale pink dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and a pair of brown leather dress shoes. Over his shoulder, he held the collar of a sport jacket of such expensive fabric it looked as though it weighed nothing at all while still holding its shape. From behind new sunglasses, Cobalt nodded to the man, standing at the edge of the sidewalk and looking pointedly at the car. Niko emerged from the driver’s seat and went to the back of the car to open the trunk for the suitcase. Now the car was on, all Niko had to do was touch the edge of the trunk for it to open for him. Which was rather lucky as Niko realized when he got there he had no idea how it worked.
The valet struggled to lift the suitcase into the remarkably roomy trunk, so Niko reluctantly helped him. When it was safely stowed, the valet turned away from Niko, saying nothing at all, and went to Cobalt’s side again.
“Anything else I can do for you, Sir?”
Niko stared, mildly miffed. Cobalt was, meanwhile, watching Niko.
“No, thank you,” he said, and without hesitation, he held out a hand to the valet and dropped what looked like quite a lot of money in his hand. “For your trouble.”
“Thank you, Sir!” the vale squeaked before disappearing back inside. Niko wasn’t sure where Cobalt picked up the cash, but he seemed to be taking to the wealthy persona quite well.
Niko closed the trunk and walked over to Cobalt, taking him in. “Looks like you had little trouble with your part of the to-do list,” Niko said in an undertone. Cobalt smirked from behind his sunglasses. They were chrome and ultra dark, and Niko was certain they cost more than his car.
“Shall we?” Cobalt said, and immediately he and Niko both made for the driver’s side of the car. Niko stopped, looking confusedly at Cobalt, though shielding his expression from the windows of the boutique.
“What are you doing?” Niko whispered.
“It’s my car,” Cobalt said, his words pointed.
“You don’t have a license,” Niko muttered.
Cobalt leaned in to Niko. “I think you’ll find I do,” he said. “And how would it look for my pet to be driving my car while I sit in the passenger seat?”
Niko did not move for a long moment, his brain working to find a way to justify doing just that, but no matter how tightly he held his jaw, he couldn’t think of anything. With extreme effort, Niko gestured toward the driver’s seat door, causing it to open.
“There you go,” he said, biting every word out. Cobalt’s smirk grew as he graciously took his place behind the wheel.
Niko forced himself to walk back to the other side of the car to open his own door and fall into the passenger’s seat. He found the button for the passenger safety rune and pressed it without a word. The moment the doors closed, Cobalt stared at the controls ahead of him. He pulled off his sunglasses and set them in the designated spot above the rear view mirror.
“Not quite sure what to do with your car?” Niko asked with venomous sweetness.
Cobalt shot him a look. “It really would look strange, no?” he said as he found his own rune button. He pressed it and reached for the steering. The grips immediately readjusted themselves to his hands. “Oh, this is nice.”
Niko rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest in what was definitely not a petulant way. “What’s with the suitcase, anyway? How much did you buy?”
Cobalt pressed slightly too hard on the pedal and the car rushed forward faster than he expected. He recovered quickly, however, braking just enough to slow down but not stop dramatically. Then, with more care, he eased the car back to the street. Niko, meanwhile, tried to force his heart back down into his chest cavity from where it had leapt into his throat.
“You know this car is borrowed, right?” he snapped. Cobalt pursed his lips.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” he said. “And the suitcase is for appearances. Also for practicality. If I’m to play a Wizard come from Nimueh’s Court, I should have brought some things with me, no? Where’s the hotel?”
Niko’s expression flattened, and he guided Cobalt through the streets to the entry ramp of the Red Lotus, Maeve’s Court’s most expensive hotel. They left the car at the entrance with another valet, who removed the suitcase from the trunk without any difficulty at all. He handed the case off to a bellhop and took the car to the parking lot. Cobalt walked in, Niko trailing behind him and trying to affect a simultaneously submissive and arrogant demeanour. He wasn’t quite sure it was working, but the clerk at the front desk didn’t seem suspicious seeing Niko approach next to Cobalt.
While Cobalt saw to getting them an appropriate room, Niko took in the lobby. It was vast and sprawling, adorned in shining marble with bold red flower sculptures climbing the main feature wall. The lighting was soft but effective, the chandeliers hovering in crystal and chrome, no piece seeming directly attached to the ceiling. The furniture and décor was modern with a slightly organic twist, the simplistic designs altered very slightly by natural shape patterns or made of natural fibers. A table in the centre of the room, surrounded by white couches, seemed to be made of a single, massive lily pad. The stem of the table was not touching the floor, as though it actually floated on invisible water.
“Wonderful, Sir, here are your room keys, and if you’ll follow Ylli here, he’ll show you to your suite,” the clerk said. Cobalt took the keys, which were really circular cards bearing a gold symbol of a lotus with the hotel name beneath it.
Ylli, the bellhop, took them to an elevator bay and directly into a lift so lavish it had a sitting area. Cobalt elected to stand, and Niko followed suit. They climbed up to the thirtieth floor, the elevator moving without any indication it was doing so. When the door dinged open, Ylli led them down a tastefully decorated hallway with plush blue carpeting and frosted wall sconces. He stopped at the end of the hall, at room 3030, and Cobalt reached forward and swiped his circular key card in front of the lock. It shone green, and the bellhop pushed inside, carting the case with him.
The room was massive, made up of a main living area, a dining room, a glass-enclosed bathroom with a soaker tub overlooking a view of the ocean, and a separate master bedroom. A balcony was accessible off the living area, and Niko stared out at the sparkling waters of the ocean in the distance. For miles and miles, all he could see was blue.
“I hope it is to your liking, Sir,” Ylli said, setting the suitcase down in the master bedroom.
Cobalt nodded. “It is indeed, Ylli,” he said, offering the boy a handful of money as tip. The boy’s face lit up at the offer, and he bowed deeply when he took it.
“Thank you kindly, Sir! Please let me know if there’s anything else you need. You can call the front desk and just ask for Ylli, and I’ll hop to it!”
Cobalt smiled at him as
he left the room, and Niko found himself more uncomfortable than he’d possibly ever been.
“This is almost offensive,” Niko muttered. Cobalt came to stand next to him, taking in the sheer luxury of the room. From the designer furniture to the real artwork on the walls, to the marble floor to the massive flat screen television hanging on the wall above a fireplace decorated in cracked geodes, the entire suite was just…too much.
“It does seem excessive,” Cobalt said. “But at least one thing is worth it.” He walked to the glass doors to the balcony. The door slid out of his way without him touching them, and he leaned against the railing, breathing in the ocean.
“You miss it,” Niko said, his chest tightening.
Cobalt looked back over his shoulder. “I miss the water,” he said. “But it’s not as though I’ll never feel it again.”
Niko’s throat closed momentarily. He nodded roughly, turning to go check out the master bedroom but mostly to escape the moment. Cobalt was going back. He would leave in what might be only a matter of days. Maybe even less. This was a visit, and not for a pleasant reason either. Why did it even matter to Niko? When Cobalt left, he could go back to—what? To late nights alone in his empty apartment? To barely remembering to eat, to masturbating quickly, roughly, in the dark of the night? To tamping down everything inside of him?
Maybe. Maybe it was for the better. Yes.
The master bedroom was walled in windows, much like the bathroom, but Niko didn’t notice at first because thick, richly coloured curtains hung around the entirety of the room. Behind the bed and along one wall, they were drawn closed, blotting out any light at all. Along the windows where they were pulled open, natural light streamed in and illuminated the massive king-sized bed, fitted with a green duvet with gold detailing. A full closet was tucked to one side, and another large flat screen television hung facing the bed, framed by curtains that could be drawn to cover it. Below that was a dresser in sharp, clean lines. The drawers contained several different menus for room service. Only some of the menus were actually for food, the others offering an assortment of other in-room activities to satisfy almost anyone’s hunger.
The light fixture was the most interesting part to Niko in that there was no light fixture, exactly. The ceiling looked decorated with a smattering of leaves and branches, like the canopy of trees in the jungle-forest. When Niko moved the switch along the dimmer on the wall, the foliage on the ceiling either increased in density or dissipated, the trees being culled back to show sunlight coming from nowhere. The effect of the room as a whole gave Niko the vague sense of sleeping in a grand tent, in the style of the ancient royals. He spent a moment musing on the feeling, almost willing to let himself fall into the sudden fantasy it conjured, then remembered why he was here in the first place.
Bringing Cobalt the restaurant menus from the other room, Niko pulled out his phone.
“You should get the room service,” Niko said. “Starla wants steak, but they do have a pretty varied set of options if you aren’t in the mood for beef. I’m going to call her with the hotel info.”
Cobalt nodded, taking the menus. His eyes lingered on Niko. “And what would you like?” he asked, his voice low. Niko felt his body respond immediately, a fluttering, bubbling lightness in his stomach yielding to a growing heat somewhere lower.
But back to the mission at hand, Niko shook his head. “You probably shouldn’t get anything for me,” he said. At Cobalt’s questioning brow, he added, “I’m your pet, not your partner. Like a toy. You wouldn’t waste expensive room service on me.”
For a half-second, Niko thought Cobalt had gotten distracted by something, not even listening to Niko. A sharpness came to his eyes, his jaw tight, locked, and anger vibrated beneath his skin. Niko glanced around himself, wondering what upset Cobalt so, and realized a beat too late that Cobalt was staring at him.
“You are not a toy,” Cobalt said. His tone was even, calm, but Niko felt himself winded by the sheer force of the anger hovering just underneath.
“I know, I just mean—”
“I don’t think you do,” Cobalt said. Again, he spoke quietly and calmly, but Niko could not help but yield to his words. The look on the Selkie’s face was ferocious, fierce, and Niko braced himself inwardly. A tick of annoyance emerged along Niko’s spine.
“Yes,” he said back, his own tone edging along frustration. “But for the purposes of this assignment, I am a toy. And you’re my owner.” Cobalt’s expression flashed again, but Niko cut him off. “You are. You own me. And you have to act like it. Ordering me room service might seem like a meaningless detail, but to someone watching us, it would be like ordering room service for a dog. It doesn’t make sense.”
Cobalt was silent, but it seemed more like a cat poised to pounce than a wolf yielding to calm.
“Are there not pet owners who value the wellness and happiness of their pets? Who love them and spoil them?” he asked.
Niko hesitated. “Well, sure, but—”
“Then that is what I will do. You may be a pet, but you are my pet,” he said, claiming Niko with a word and a look. And Niko did feel owned, in that moment, and his heart felt strange. “And if you think, for one moment, that I would treat my pets as anything other than royalty, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of who I am.”
Niko stood dumbstruck, stymied by the point. It took a full ten seconds of Cobalt perusing the menus with a satisfied look on his face for Niko to gather himself.
“But you aren’t you,” he said. “You’re—” He consulted the forged identification again. “—Cobb Snyder.” Niko blinked at the name, pursing his lips. But that was a different issue. “You are the kind of man who keeps a Fae as a pet and is in the market the purchase a living person for the purposes of torturing them. Maybe even killing them. The point is—you aren’t you.”
Cobalt gave him a cool look. “Why have I kept you this long?”
Niko didn’t move. “What?”
Shaking his head, Cobalt repeated, “Why have I kept you this long? If I’m in the market for someone I can use and dispose of at my choosing for my own pleasure, then surely I could do the same with other partners? Surely I would get bored of the same partner, and I certainly wouldn’t consider bringing a simple ‘pet’ along with me to visit another Court, and definitely not to a bidding event filled with other wealthy and deplorable people like me.” Niko had nothing to say to that. Cobalt nodded at Niko’s silence. “If I’ve kept you, presumably for long enough to insist you accompany me everywhere I go, then there’s a reasonable chance I’ve become attached to you. So attached that I would want to purchase some stranger to kill for my pleasure than just perform those desires on you, an already willing participant.” Cobalt walked up to Niko and rubbed a thumb over Niko’s cheek, caressing it. “If I’m that attached to you, and I’m also this wealthy, I’m going to keep you in good condition. So I’m ordering you a full meal, and you’re going to eat it. Do you understand?”
Niko’s body felt hot and sticky and fluid. He licked his lips slowly, his chest heavy. “Yeah,” he said, forcing the word out. Cobalt could have leaned him back over nothing, guiding him to a backward fall, and Niko would have simply acquiesced, letting himself hit the floor. Cobalt ran the pad of his thumb over Niko’s lower lip, smoothing it out, and Niko felt all the images in his mind send sparks throughout his body. He saw Cobalt on him, devouring him, leaning him back over the couch, his legs in the air and a hand on Niko’s throat. More than that, he could feel it, and the realization that this intrusive fantasy problem had intensified startled Niko right out of it.
“Make your call,” Cobalt said, releasing him and turning back to the menus. Niko struggled to swallow, his breathing uneven. He disappeared into the master under the pretence of quiet to call Starla.
Punching in the number on his phone, Niko lowered himself slowly to the edge of the bed, searching for calm. He counted out his breaths to the sound of the ringing but was no less rattled when Starla an
swered.
“Starla here, ready to get you shooting for the Moon. Talk to me, honey,” she said without preamble. Her voice was husky and low, full of air and clearly meant for her customers. Niko frowned.
“It’s me, Star,” Niko said.
“Oh, shit, Niki, I forgot I gave you my business number,” she said. “You sound weird, love. What’s up?”
Niko shifted, trying to clear his throat without making noise. “Nothing, I’m fine,” he said, but the words came out just as oddly as they had before.
“Oh, Niki,” she said, a long-suffering sigh in her tone. “Has Cobalt been getting up under your skin?”
Niko fought a groan as the words elicited another fantasy in his mind, Cobalt lying between Niko’s spread legs, his tongue pressing inside—“No. I’m fine. Do you answer all your calls like that?” Niko asked, stalling for space to recover.
Starla made a snorting sound. “You’re a goner, Niki, whatever you say.” She paused. “And yes, my business calls, I do. Gotta pay the bills somehow, and clients like a little wordplay sometimes.”
Niko was sure they liked a different kind of play a whole lot more, but he didn’t say it. “Don’t trust me with your personal number?”
As though he could hear the smirk on her face, Starla said, “We’ll see. Meantime, it looks more legit if you’re calling my business line. So are you ready?”
He had known that Starla was smart when he’d met her undercover, but more and more Niko realized Starla was too smart to be on the street, barely making ends meet. And again, guilt assaulted him. It was his fault she was there, doing what she was. Whether she wanted to be a prostitute or not, she had little recourse with the criminal record his case had saddled her with.
“We’re ready,” he said. “Come to the Lotus. Room 3030. You’re here for Cobb Snyder, if anyone asks. But they won’t.”
“Gotcha. Be there in a few. Make sure the steak’s still hot for me, yeah?” she said. Niko rang off and sat there on the bed for a long moment, thinking over her words. Even when he was undercover, playing a role so convincing not even Sade could tell he was a cop when he was torturing Niko, Starla had always been intuitive about things she had no reason to know. She’d known, before he would admit it to himself, that his body reacted strangely to the pain Sade inflicted.
