by Holley Trent
Asher set the bag on the table and began to unpack the contents. His vegetable lo mein. Her shrimp fried rice.
She pulled her container closer and worried at the corner of the aluminum bottom. “If Muriel wants to get Nadia to try that, I’m not going to say no. I don’t know if she’ll be able to see any more than I can, but her magic tends to be a little more reliable than ours. Maybe she can give us more info. I’ll send you a text when I’m settling into bed. Tell my kids to text me. All right. Bye.”
She disconnected and lifted the plastic cover from her food. Grinning, she said to Vic, “You first.”
“Sure. The news is that my pop saw a stranger in recent security footage. She was walking with Lora downtown. We checked the logs from that time period, and we think the woman came into the community using the credentials of an approved florist.”
Asher furrowed his brow. “So, she wasn’t a florist.”
Vic grunted. “Doesn’t matter. Whether she is or isn’t, we have good reason to believe that Lora left the community with that person. Our logs say the florist left about four hours after arriving. A young woman with fair hair. Darius was at the gate that day. He says her hair was gray, but he might be remembering wrong so he won’t swear by it. The odd thing is that Lora looked right up at that camera for a good ten seconds as if she knew we’d be studying the video.”
“Did she try to say anything? Any gestures or lip motions?”
“Actually, she nodded once at the end before she walked away with that lady.”
“Did she look distressed?” Asher asked. He worked pretty closely with Lora at the mansion. He wouldn’t have dared called them friends, but she’d always been kind to him and had taken great pains to ensure that he was acclimating well amongst the Afótama.
Vic made a face and then shook his head. “No, but we’re talking about Lora. Even if she was afraid, she probably wouldn’t have shown that she was.”
“I imagine Jody is trying to track that floral company van now,” Mallory said.
“Yep. When they get a lead, they move fast. Tell me about your news.”
Mallory raised her brows and let out a ragged exhalation. She’d put her fork down without having scooped up any food. That wouldn’t do. She hadn’t eaten all day. Asher placed her fingers over the utensil and wrapped them around the stem.
“Multitask,” he said.
She laughed and speared a shrimp. “I’ll try. Anyway, Marty and Erin are holding vigil back in Norseton with some help from Erin’s boyfriend, Will. I guess they’re trying to come up with any tidbit that might possibly help. Will suggested we let Muriel do a dream walk.”
“A what?” Vic asked.
“One of her dominant gifts is the ability to slip into people’s thoughts when they’re asleep and use their bodies as though they were her own. Will thought that if a psychic of her ability could get into my head—”
“You’d be able to extend your connection to your brother,” Asher said.
“Exactly. Unfortunately, Muriel probably won’t be available. The last I heard, she was trying to talk Lachlann out of forbidding Ótama from running off on adventures with Jody, but Nadia’s available. Her talent isn’t quite the same as her grandmother’s, but close enough that trying won’t hurt.”
“Would Nadia actually be able to locate you psychically from this distance?”
Mallory shrugged. “We’re going to try and see what happens. She’s hoping that if she’s holding Marty’s hand, she can target me better.”
“And between the three of you,” Vic said, “you oughtta be able to pin him down pretty good.”
“In theory.”
He grunted and shifted his food bag to his other arm. “Well, let me know what happens. “I’m going out to the van. I have to check in with my pop and scarf down this food, and then I’m going to patrol for a bit. Send me a text if anything happens. Lock the door behind me.”
“Will do.”
Vic left.
Mallory locked the door as he requested. She then settled into the chair that Asher pulled out for her in front of her food.
“What time are you supposed to sleep?” he asked.
“We didn’t lock down a time. Nadia’s on standby. I think she was going to be up for a while, anyway. It’s not so often she has both of her mates at home at the same time.”
“Mmm.” Asher tore a notch into a packet of soy sauce and drizzled some over his noodles.
“That was a curious-sounding mmm. What are you thinking?”
“Nothing serious. I’m just intrigued by the fact that there are three power trios so close to the top of the Afótama food chain.” He furrowed his brow again. “For the fairy royal food chain, too, I guess, since they connect.”
“From what I hear, each side is blaming the other for that.” Her laugh was resonant as wind chimes: rich, melodious, and lingering somehow even after she’d stopped. It was like a pill that needed time to metabolize, dissolving and spreading through him. Warming him from his core on out to his extremities and up to his face.
He put his fingertips against his tingling lips and slid them down his neck. It was prickling with the same energetic heat.
How odd.
“Nadia claims there’s no known precedent for trios in the Afótama.” Mallory chewed thoughtfully as she looked at the water-stained ceiling. “But something about the nature of the magic makes it more stable when it’s shared with partners. I guess both Tess and Nadia need more than one. Makes sense seeing as how the Hall branch of their family tree has more magic than pretty much anyone.”
“Mmm.” He passed his hand over his racing heart and down his belly, catching his thumb on the waistband of his jeans, wanting to undo the button and give his heaving belly more room to contract. His private parts were starting to ache for some damned reason.
What’s wrong with me?
“And Prince Heath said that trios aren’t at all the norm for fairies, but I suppose if you’re going to mix a powerful fairy with an Afótama royal, you’re going to need a third to neutralize whatever magic the other two have.”
“Yeah,” Asher said noncommittally as he released the button of his jeans from the hole.
Gods, he throbbed.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and set down his fork.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re not looking so good.”
He gave his head a quick shake. “Uh, it’s— It’s fine. I just need to…” He pushed his chair back and abruptly stood, clasping his hands over the tumescent bulge forming at his crotch.
“Asher?”
He hurried to the bathroom and shut the door before quickly yanking down his pants and briefs.
For seventy-six years, the thing between his legs had been just an afterthought when he dressed. He only concerned himself with it when he needed to piss or bathe. He’d had no interest in it otherwise, but now it was hot to the touch and stinging with engorged blood, and he didn’t understand why.
He stared down at the angry pink thing, clenching his fists at his sides and trying to will to it to stop doing that.
Why is it doing that?
Mallory rapped gently on the door. “Are you all right? Are you sick?”
“No, I—” Gritting his teeth, he pulled his briefs back up over his cock and had to stifle a shout. “Damn, that hurts,” he whispered. Louder, he said, “No, I’m just…”
Wrong. Something’s wrong.
He took a deep breath and decided to tell her that. Mallory was reasonable. “I…don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Can I open the door?”
“I… Well, yes, I suppose.”
She was a nurse. Out of anyone, she’d understand the most about bodies.
He was grabbing his pants from his ankles when she nudged the door open.
Has she been wearing that shirt like that all day?
Her form-fitting flannel shirt was splayed open at the top, creating a long vee that framed three gol
d chains of differing thicknesses, each with a pendant that dangled into her cleavage.
He dragged his tongue across his dry lips as gaze focused on the shadow between her breasts. One more button and he could learn what was propping her up so perkily.
He wondered if her breasts were soft or firm.
Soft, probably.
The way they pressed together at her neckline captivated. He wanted to press his face against the crease and—
“Asher, did you hear me?” she said, tilting her body leftward a bit toward the counter and looking up into his face.
Her mouth was…red. Had been red all day, but he hadn’t been paying as much attention before. Her lips were glossy and red like one of the candy apples he’d had during the street fair in Norseton.
Were they as sweet?
He wanted a taste.
He leaned in, stopping at the bombardment of her scent. Like oranges and cloves and…
Moaning quietly, he leaned in for a deeper whiff, putting his nose against the warm brown skin at the bend of her neck.
“Um. Asher?” She laughed in that black magic way again, and his stupid instinct was to hook his arm around her waist to hold her still against him, but that meant dropping his pants.
“Oh. Wow. Uh…” She arched her torso back and put her hand to his belly, putting some distance between them. “That might have been the slickest come-on I’ve ever witnessed.”
“Come-on?” He heeled off his boots and kicked his pants to the corner. All that fabric was making him feel choked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
She put her fists on her hips and, smiling, shook her head at him. “You know, I always assumed you were the kind of guy who liked guys. That’s what I get for stereotyping.”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“You’re kinda twinky. You know that?”
“I don’t know what that means.” He pointed down to his briefs and groaned at the damned protrusion behind them. “And I don’t know what that means.”
“You’re joking.”
“I assure you, I’m not.”
“That’s…an erection. You know, caused by sexual arousal?”
“I don’t— Arousal?”
“You’ve never had an erection?”
He shook his head and shoved his hands through his loose hair. “I… No. I didn’t know that’s what they were. My father didn’t explain this very well before he got sent away.”
“Most men start having this problem when they’re, like, twelve or thirteen.”
“I’m a fairy.”
“Are you telling me that fairies don’t mature the same way?”
“Well, the parts are all there.” He poked at the stubborn erection and expelled a pained groan immediately after. He wasn’t sure if touch hurt or helped. “We just don’t…have attractions to others until we mature.”
“Apparently, you’re mature now,” she said softly.
And apparently, he was attracted to someone. Her.
Gods, she was…
He didn’t know.
She was just…
Well, she made his cock erect, apparently.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” he whispered. “It hurts.”
“Chances are good it’ll go away on its own if you leave it alone.”
He doubted that would happen the same way he doubted he could make the deranged fairy queen pardon him for his perceived crimes. Some things were immutable.
“Alternately, there’s…” She pulled in a breath and raised both eyebrows. “Manual stimulation. You know. Masturbation.” To the side, she muttered, “I thought I’d be having this conversation with Vann soon, not a grown man.”
In a nutshell, Asher was no better off than her pre-pubescent son.
“Don’t make fun of me,” he said, pouting. “I can’t help that of all possible times, this happens now.”
“I’m sorry to laugh, but…” She bent at the waist, laughing uproariously, and put up one hand. “Oh, God. What were you even thinking about to make that happen?”
“Your laugh.”
She stopped laughing and straightened up fast. “What?”
“That’s all I can tell you. You were laughing and I was thinking of…how alluring the sound was, and I…” He raised his shoulders jerkily and turned his back to her. He didn’t want her to see him like that—so pathetic and childlike when he had a good forty years on her.
He might have had age, but she had experience. She had children to show for it and by gods, he hadn’t even touched himself in a stimulating way. He’d never thought to.
Passing his hands through his hair again, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Generally, fairies don’t feel shame about their bodies, and I imagine that carries over to sex as well, but I haven’t been around my kind much in decades. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Tell me what’s right.”
“Asher, I’m not one to judge what’s right from what’s wrong. I can tell you my opinion from a medical perspective and as a friend.”
A friend.
He suddenly didn’t like that word so much anymore.
“I can be discreet and keep this between you and me. But I can’t tell you what you should be doing.”
“I suppose you helping me would be out of the question.” He braced himself for the laughter, for the heckling.
Instead, he got an embrace.
Mallory looped her arms around his waist and laid the side of her head against his back.
He covered her hands with his own, staring down at the contrasts. His large, her small. Her richly hued skin. His nearly translucent paleness. His unadorned. Hers with a variety of golden rings of different styles. Combined with her dark red polish, they made her fingers seem all the more elegant. She didn’t usually wear polish. It entranced him.
He wanted her hands on him all over—wanted to watch the red streak across his skin until he squirmed.
“You don’t want me to do that,” she said quietly.
He forced down a labored swallow, throat tight and unyielding. “Why don’t I?”
“Because tomorrow, you’ll look at me differently, and I don’t want our friendship to change.”
Friendship. Such a timid-sounding word.
“I’ll stay here, but I won’t look.”
“Is looking wrong?” He wanted her to look.
“No. It’s not wrong. Nothing is wrong unless someone says no. I’m not saying no. I’m just giving you time to understand this because I don’t want things to change between us. I don’t want to lose the people I’ve grown attached to. I can’t do that, Asher. Do you understand?”
He felt her put her chin against his spine, so he looked over his shoulder and found her staring up at him, expression serious.
He swallowed. Nodded. He thought he understood.
Looking forward again, he wrapped his fingers around his engorged shaft and bit down hard on his lower lip. “Gods.”
“Slow and easy,” she whispered. “Might help to put some lotion on your hand.”
Nervously, Asher grabbed the small container from the counter and fumbled the cap off.
“Not too much,” she said.
He scraped some of the cold lotion off his palm and back into the bottle. Closing his fingers around himself again, he drew in a shuddering breath and felt his toes cramp from the ache ricocheting from his shaft down his legs.
He stroked slowly, just like she’d told him, while gritting his teeth together hard and trying to regulate his breathing through his nose.
She must have thought he was a fool, losing control the way he as, but he didn’t know what else to do. He hadn’t expected such an embarrassing thing to happen to him. Perhaps it’d been pretty fairy tale thinking on his part, but he’d always imagined that when the time came for him to take a lover, he’d have an innate knowledge of what to do in the same way he knew what his magical abilities were.
He scoffed at himself, cutting off the sound halfway a
s a gasp took over.
His cock prickled in a manner that couldn’t be healthy, so he took his hand away and looked down at it. Besides being an angry shade of pink, nothing much had changed in the past few minutes.
“If you stop,” Mallory said, “you’ll have to make up ground. Don’t stop even if you think it’s too much. What you’re feeling is all a part of the process.” She poked her head around his torso, brown eyes fixed pointedly upward. “Unless it doesn’t feel good?”
“I don’t know how to describe it.” Ass cheeks clenching at her soft press against him, he dragged his tongue across his lips and closed his eyes. It definitely didn’t feel bad, so he started to stroke again—persistently, like she’d said. Her father might have been a villain, but Mallory was an angel. She wouldn’t steer him wrong.
She returned to her previous position behind him, gently clasping her arms around his torso and rubbing her cheek against his back.
He wished he’d had the foresight to take off his shirt so he could feel her flesh against his, but he hadn’t had anyone to teach him these things.
Maybe she could teach me.
He wouldn’t be ashamed with her, his dear friend. No, not friend. He didn’t like that watery word.
The burn low in his belly startled him and made him slow his thrusts into his fist, but then the inkling of euphoria teased at him. He chased it into his clenched fingers, thrusting as he stroked, mouth hanging open because he couldn’t catch breath fast enough. Bollocks tingling and skin so sensitive he thought he’d combust. But he kept going, faster, rougher as Mallory slid her soft hands up the inside front of his shirt and found his nipples. Gentle presses turned to shockingly pleasant pinches that seemed to behave as switches.
His body was bucking into a hand that was wet, and no longer by the lotion Asher had poured into it, but by some other viscous thing. When he stopped moving, it was still coming, and out of him. His belly was spasming and loins tightening again and again as if the stuff was toxic and had to come out.
