Lucky Between the Sheets: An Anthology of Stories that Get to the Point

by L. A. Boruff

  Riley walks beside me for a long while in silence.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” he finally spits out.

  “I didn’t think jealousy was an issue,” I tell him, honestly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “No, you didn’t-“ he starts, then cuts himself off abruptly. “You didn’t hurt me. It’s not about you sleeping with someone else. Gods know that was always gonna be part of the deal with you.”

  “It’s because he’s a fae?”

  “Of course it’s because he’s a fae. He could have killed you. He could have sucked your life force or used it to get mind control. He could have driven you insane or stolen you to another realm.”

  “He didn’t.”

  Riley sighs. “Thankfully. But something still could have happened. Something bad.”

  “Something did happen,” I say. Riley’s face grows angrier. “But, nothing bad,” I say quickly, and his eyebrow lifts. “I’m luckier. For just awhile.”

  “Luckier?”

  “Yeah, like... It’s exactly what it sounds like. I just have better luck. In fact, I bet if we wandered into the forest looking for Sally, we’d find her long before Connor finishes those shoes.” I’m not actually sure of this, but it seems likely.

  “Is that in our best interest? Don’t we want him along?”

  “I didn’t think you were Team Connor,” I hedge.

  “I’m not,” Riley says, “but I’m Team You-Not-Getting-Yourself-Killed.”

  I shrug. “She’s... what? A forest sprite? Should be simple enough. We captured those before we were ever members of the so-called elite team. Plus,” I say, “I have a feeling this is gonna be my last mission with you. Something about pursuing an actual relationship we don’t have to hide? I’d rather do it with just you, for old time’s sake.”

  His mouth tilts into a side smile. I knew I’d win. After all, I’m lucky, right? “So that’s what you decided?” he asks.

  “Sure did. You in?” I hold a hand to him. He actually laughs before embracing it, shaking it once, then pulling me into a full body hug.

  “Of course I’m in.”

  * * *

  This part of the woods isn’t easy to navigate. Gone are the thin trees and cleared paths; it’s a tangled mess. Without much in the way of struggle I’m able to find an easier path to walk, and Riley follows close behind me, his skepticism of my newfound luck notwithstanding.

  He doesn’t say anything as I walk what seems like a completely random path through the woods. I catch him marking our way back, diligently, but since I don’t know how long this luck is supposed to last I don’t actually blame him.

  We meander for ages, and I pass an assortment of creatures I have only seen in books, mostly variations of fae that are native to Ireland. I wave at some and ignore others based on how they approach me or don’t, and for the most part none of them pay us much mind. The few that do follow us for awhile, and when they find we pose no threat and are acclimated to existing in spaces with magic, their attention wanes and they leave us be.

  We finally make it to a clearing where bluebells and lilacs grow. Fireflies twinkle in the long grass, visible despite the bright sun above us, and my breath catches in my throat.

  "It's here."

  I stretch my hands upward and feel the air. Spaces where the fae have weakened the wall between worlds often look fantastic to the human eye, but beyond their beauty or wonder are tangible auras. It took me years to learn how to find the seams between our realities, and while Riley can do it in a pinch, he's the muscle of the two of us for a reason.

  The wall here is solid, and it pulsates with a frequency unlike that I've felt before. It's lower pitched, somehow, but almost like it has a melody overlaid, and I follow the flowing vibration until there's a break. It's almost like a curtain, and I can feel it overlap itself. I place my hands down one seam and, ever so carefully, pull it back to reveal the other world.

  I hold it open for Riley, and he steps forward. I follow after him with a deep breath and a purposeful relaxing of my shoulders.

  I'm not afraid of Faerie. But I'm wise enough to know to be wary of the place.

  Here, there's a pub. It's old-fashioned, the kind of thing you might see in a movie set in the eighteenth century, but it could have been built yesterday given how good of repair it's in. Its clientele are lively, inside and out. A few cyclops are arguing over some beers, pixies and sprites are laughing with otherworldly high-pitched noises, and all around, the daytime doesn't seem to prevent the fae from getting completely wasted. Riley and I keep our eyes ahead, our vision practiced to watch our periphery without appearing like we're suspicious of those around us.

  Most importantly, we avoid making eye contact unnecessarily.

  Where the fae in the woods mostly left us alone, here we attract stares, our training and we-belong-here struts aside. Fact is, we don't belong here, and it doesn't take the smartest fae to figure out some humans wandered into their turf.

  I walk to the doors and tilt my head at a hobgoblin who serves as the bouncer. He gives me a toothy smile and gestures with his axe for us to enter.

  Inside it's dark and loud. I can't make out much of what's going on, but there appears to be a band of succubi and incubi onstage dazzling most of the crowd and I make it a point not to look despite the flashing light effects trying to pull my attention that way. Riley is close behind, and I put my hand behind my back. He takes it, and together we navigate the crowd, move our way to the bar, and talk to no one until we get there.

  The bartender's a huge guy. I'd guess a leprechaun, based on what I know of Connor, but there are subtle differences that make it such that I can't quite place him. He's scrubbing glasses, his back turned toward us, and we glance over menus in a language I can't read while we wait on him.

  He turns and breaks into a huge smile. Where Connor's is charming, his is nearly creepy, and there's something about him that's just off enough that it takes me a moment longer than usual to find my words.

  "What'll you be havin'?" He asks, slinging his drying towel over his shoulder in what has to be the most cliché bartender move ever. "Don't often see your kind 'round these parts."

  "I just wanna know where Sally is," I say, coming back to my senses. He's still smiling at me while mostly ignoring Riley, and there's something about the whole exchange that's making me more on edge than I usually am in Faerie.

  "Just one drink," he says. "It'll be on the house. Anything you like. Our best wine?" he tries to convince us. Well, me.

  It's a trap, and not a highly original one. I'm not falling for his bait. "Sally," I say.

  But as my luck would have it, we don't need to wait on him to answer me, because at that moment, she turns and faces me.

  "Looking for me?" she asks, too sweetly. She's the most beautiful fae I've ever seen, with alabaster skin, a white lace dress that makes her look like she's floating, the most beautiful long red hair, and the brightest green eyes. She looks like a porcelain doll and moves like an actual angel, which is enough to convince me she is absolutely terrible news.

  "We have some questions to ask you about your relationship with Connor. The leprechaun," Riley tells her.

  She laughs in clearly feigned discomfort. "Oh, you mean that wretched murderer? That one you were sent to bring in by your org? How did that go, anyway?" she asks.

  I feel Riley's hand tense in mine as he catches what she's telling us. She knows who we are and why we're here.

  I was right. That makes her bad news.

  "We were unable to find him," Riley lies. "I was hoping you'd be willing to come with us. Answer a few questions where there aren't quite so many... eavesdroppers," he says, dropping his voice to sell it.

  "Why, of course!" She hops off her bar stool and motions to follow us, her smile massive. "I never turn down opportunities to tell people about my brother."

  I freeze but cover it. I don't do so well enough, though, because she says, "Oh, I see. He didn't tell you
, did he? Just said a wretched forest fae framed him? Figures. He never did like being open about us being related. Anyway, lead the way!" she says, recovering, nearly dancing on her tiptoes as she follows us from the bar, through the doors, and outside.

  It's still bright, but it's gotten quieter. I feel the eyes of the fae around us on me, and I do my best to ignore them as we lead Sally to a far corner of the crowd.

  When we get there, she turns and faces us, a broad smile on her porcelain face. She's gorgeous and for a moment I'm dazzled, then she looks away, and I find my words again.

  "I know Connor is innocent," I start, "so what I'm curious about is who you think would have a reason to frame him."

  "What I'm curious about, in turn, is why you're here questioning me about this when your directive was not to determine Connor's guilt or lack thereof, but to bring him in regardless," Sally says, one hand on her hip. "It's almost as if you've forgotten what your job as bounty hunters employed by ASBH actually is."

  "And how do you know anything about what our job is or isn't?" Riley asks, but my heart is already sinking. It's clear to me my luck is running out way faster than I expected and there's something bigger at play here than I'd realized.

  "By the order vested in me as a bounty hunter employed by ASBH, I hereby arrest Molly Maeve and Riley Adams for acting outside of their jurisdictions." She snaps her fingers and we're cuffed by some kind of magical entrapment that not only do I have no idea how to escape from, but that forces us to follow her as she leads us back out of Faerie and traipsing through the human realm woods once more.

  We make it to the beach. Or, more specifically, Sally makes it to the beach with us in tow. Whatever the magic bound on our wrists is, it hurts and it's slightly too tight. I feel my fingertips starting to go numb, but there's nothing for me to move against to get more feeling. I grind my teeth together to avoid giving her the satisfaction of complaining, but it doesn't seem to matter; she sees my expression out of the corner of her eye and smirks at me anyway. I do what I can to stretch with whatever the fuck it is still on, then sit down with a hard thump against my will.

  "Stop contorting so much, it's unsightly," she says. "You too," she says to Riley, and he also lands on his ass in the sand, giving her the stink eye while he rights himself from the haphazard angle she thrust him down at. She rolls her eyes at him, then pulls out a small electronic device she speaks into at a volume too soft for me to hear. There’s a scratchy response after a few moments. She replies quickly, flicks off the power, and stashes it in a fold in her dress.

  She crosses her arms and taps her foot, then moves one hand in front of her face to inspect her nails as she talks to us. "You were the best human agents they had, you know," she said, shaking her head. "It's a shame you couldn't stick by the book."

  "Our job is to bring in criminals," I tell her, "not innocent men."

  "Your job is to bring in the fae you're told to bring in, not to play detective because you've decided they don't deserve their punishments." She shakes her head, glancing down at me over the bridge of her nose. I want to smack the smug expression off her angelic face. "But, geez, best gig in the world and you still can't play by the rules. Funny how that works, isn't it?"

  "Imprisoning innocent people isn't worth it. If that's what the gig is, I want out."

  "Oh, honey, don't worry. You're out now no matter what you want. There are bigger forces than you— or even me—at play and they wanted Connor out of the way for a reason. Your spotless record has been tainted, and on your first elite mission, too. Well," she adds with a smirk, "near spotless. I seem to remember them mentioning another time you two let them down."

  "That selkie was innocent too, for fuck's sake," I growl.

  "Shut up, Molly," Riley scolds me. But I'm pissed. I glare at him instead.

  "That's the point," Sally continues, ignoring Riley's outburst altogether. "You didn't follow orders there, either. It doesn't matter now, though. They're coming to take you to their holding cells and they'll figure out what to do with you there. I don't have any interest in doing anything with you. I'm not supposed to, so you're safe with me."

  I sigh. This isn't how I envisioned my career ending, but it is almost poetic in its own way. As selfish of a person as I am, going in for being too honest and having too strong of a sense of justice has a sort of alluring beauty to it, and honestly? If it's going to end on this note, I'm pretty proud of myself. "Can you tell me one thing?" I ask her. It's a stretch—I don't think she'll actually do so—but I want to know. "Who actually killed the humans Connor was framed for?"

  She smiles, and for once, it contorts her face, and she no longer looks beautiful. She looks nothing more than pure evil and far too pleased with the answer she's about to give me. "That's the most beautiful irony of the entire thing," she says, "and to be honest, I can't give you a name. What I can tell you is that it was a human paid for by the very org you work for. Beyond that, it's classified."

  "So the whole thing was a set up," Riley growls, fighting against the invisible bonds again and being thrust into the sand for his effort.

  "And you fell for it hook, line, and sinker," she says as the plane that dropped us off appears in the distance. It comes closer to us, and rather than fight my fate I lay back, rolling into Riley and placing my head on his shoulder.

  "I'm sorry," I whisper.

  He shakes his head. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

  "Maybe they'll keep us together," I say, and the idea of being locked up for the rest of our lives, free to love each other, is almost bittersweet.

  "No," he says, "they won't. But don't worry, Molly. We're gonna get out of this mess. I just haven't figured out how."

  "You're braver than I am," I tell him. "You're the one who always has hope. I only run toward danger because I have a death wish. You run toward it knowing you want to live."

  "I run toward it knowing I want you to live, and you're not committed enough to keeping yourself alive for me to trust you won't let yourself die," he says, almost smiling. "But that's okay. You're not going to die now. And we're not going to live the rest of our days in some dark cell, either."

  "So, what's your plan?" I ask him.

  "Workin' on it," he says.

  Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a deep shout thunders over the land. Birds take flight, and the sound causes waves in the water.

  Connor is here. My luck hasn't run out.

  We're just in much deeper shit than I realized.

  * * *

  Connor's first move when he sees me is to kiss me. His second move is to kiss Riley, who at first pulls away.

  "I won't make you kiss me but I can almost promise you the next five minutes are gonna go way better for us if you do, so... fancy some luck of the Irish?" I roll my eyes and Riley rolls his, but in the end he agrees. From my place next to him, I watch the men making out, and for a moment I almost forget this is part of a bigger plan to escape the fae who has us tied up and the plane from headquarters approaching us and not my personal show.

  Sally, meanwhile, is stomping her feet. "You ruin everything," she tells Connor, running over to him and trying to pull him off Riley. It doesn't quite work, and she tugs the air. Riley's hands lurch forward—she's clearly trying to pull him to his feet—but it doesn't work against Connor's strength.

  A long few minutes pass until I'm almost certain the men have been making out longer than Connor kissed me, and it's not until I poke him on the arm that they separate. "Not to interrupt, but uh," I say, "it looks like our time is running out." He nods, and Riley tries to get himself together, tousled as he is by the kiss. Connor picks us both up, setting us on our feet, then hugs and slaps his sister.

  We run.

  It's awkward, especially since she keeps trying to pull us backward. I don't really want to leave Connor with her, but I know when to stay out of conflict, and when two fae siblings are going at it is the definite time for it. Both Riley and I fall multiple times, but we finally make it
some distance away and the bonds on our hands loosen and then release. We turn and watch the shoreline and I rub my hands, willing the feeling to return as I watch the events unfold.

  For all that I'm convinced Connor's more of a lover than a fighter, he holds his own. I can't see what's happening clearly, but he doesn't stumble much, and seems to be getting more blows in than what he's taking. When the plane lands, though, he turns and runs, sprinting towards us at more than twice the speed. We turn and run, doing our best to get ahead.

  "Where are we going?" I ask him when he finally catches up, wordlessly leading us deep into a part of the forest we haven't yet been in. This mission got out of hand very quickly, but then, I suppose that's to be expected from something that was a setup all along.

  "Dunno," he says, "trusting in my luck to get us where we need to be."

  "Is this how your life always goes?" I ask, "You just take off running and hope for the best?"

  "Most of the time I don't have anything to run from," he says, slowing to a quick walk as we begin to navigate foliage, as if making a point. "But y'all gotta learn to work with me as a team if we're gonna be one. None of this sneaking after fae on your own."

  We follow in his lead. "You're part of our team now?"

  He shrugs, holding a tree limb out of the way for us both to pass. "Doesn't seem I can go home until we put away whoever wants me gone, does it?" he asks. "At any rate, I don't think the two of you will survive long in these woods without some added luck, and that's not because you aren't good at what you do."

  "What we did," I correct him.

  He shakes his head. "You were made for that career, love. That your organization is up to no good is hardly your fault. But you'll make a great independent team."

  "Let's just get through this and then we can talk long term plans," Riley chimes in. But he looks at Connor with something a little like awe and my heart flutters at the prospect of a future that might include both of them.