The Elfbitten Trilogy (3 page)

“Do you want your shirt back?” I asked, quirking a brow at her. Not that she would stand out topless, not in this club anyway.

“Oh!” she glanced down, only now becoming aware she was topless. “Yeah, probably should, huh?”

“It’s there,” I nodded towards the discarded garment a few feet away and she hurried to scoop it up before anyone stepped on it. She shook it out and examined it for floor nastiness. Finding it unharmed, she pulled it back on.

“So why didn’t you kiss him?” I asked when she was situated and sitting across from me at the table.

“Huh?” She glanced at me, taking a moment to hear my question. She obviously wasn’t trying to saddle the magic she’d absorbed to save for later. Letting it remain feral inside of you was dangerous; it could overpower you with its own will and use you as it saw fit.

“The fairy, he tried to kiss you?” I prompted.

“Oh, eh,” she shrugged. “I don’t really like to kiss strangers, it’s really intimate. Don’t want to give them the wrong idea.” I blinked at her, my mouth gone slack with confusion.

“You just fucked him in the middle of a crowded dance floor, Roxy.”

“No, we danced,” she corrected me. “It’s practically a business transaction. What if I run into him again sometime and I gave him the wrong impression by kissing him like we’re a couple? He’ll always expect something of me. Now he knows it wasn’t personal.”

“No, nothing personal about what you just did.” I shook my head, but I could tell there was little point in arguing with her about it. I didn’t see how one kiss after a dance like that would convey the wrong message to a guy. But Roxy was far more experienced in these things than I was, so who was I to tell her she was wrong?

“Oh, Taryn, you have so much to learn about men,” Roxy teased.

“I am not a child, Roxy,” I shot back. “I know plenty about men.”

“Not in the way I mean. You are a serial monogamist.” She shifted in her seat to look at me. Her eyes were still shimmering with magic, but it was softer now. “You need to learn to get what you need, but not be saddled all the time. Live a little!” I huffed at her. Roxy tore through men like a tissue box. What did she know about relationships? Clearly she saw the look on my face as she tsked at me and shook her head.

“What?” I demanded.

“You just don’t know what you’re missing. Wouldn’t you, just once, like to get what you need from a man, but owe him nothing in return? Not need to check in with him whenever you wanted to do something?”

“Well,” I started to say, but Roxy pushed on.

“And what about when you want to just be alone? Hm? Or what if we had come here tonight and that Hunter had asked you to dance? How would it feel to have had to say no to him?” She fired the questions at me so fast I couldn’t get my answers straight. But that last question, about the Hunter, made me stop and think. That was the most fun I had had in a very long time. Just thinking about rejecting him irked something inside of me.

“Maybe you’re right.”

“And what about the rest of the night?” Roxy pressed. “What if some other tasty treat approached you and that Hunter had the impression you were his property now and said ‘No, you can’t do that.’ What then, Tare?”

“I just met him!”

“Yes, but it’s all the same thing. Me kissing that fairy after we were finished gives him the impression we had more than we did and I am obligated to him.”

“I guess I see your point,” I finally conceded. “I’m just so used to being in a couple.” I shrugged lamely.

“I know you are,” Roxy reached out and patted my hand reassuringly. “We’re gonna fix that tonight.”

“Not like Cillian’s sitting at home worried about being promiscuous,” I muttered.

“We’re not talking about him tonight, remember?”

“Right, so what now?”

“Don’t suppose you want to dance again?” Roxy arched her slender eyebrow at me and grinned devilishly. I laughed lightly and shook my head. The elf was insatiable! “Fine then, let’s go outside and get some fresh air, they have a roof top patio.”

“Uh,” I glanced down at what we were wearing and back up at her.

“Don’t worry about it, there are fire pits up there,” Roxy jumped off her stool and held her hand out for mine. I slid off my seat, catching the hem of my skirt and tugging it back into place before taking her hand. She led us through the mix of tables, chairs, and warm bodies to a door in the back I would’ve never noticed.

A doorman held open the door for us. We climbed a spiraling metal staircase, making me doubly happy for the stolen, flatfooted boots. Once at the top, we pushed open a metal door and stepped out onto the tiled roof. A biting wind swirled around our exposed legs, snaking up the meager skirts, sending chills all over. I stepped closer to Roxy, still warm from the feral magic she was letting run freely through her body.

One look around and I saw that the roof was almost as popular as the inside of the club; there were plush couches and chairs situated around fire pits and heat lamps and a full bar up here. But up here almost everyone was fully clothed, talking to each other more than anything, so the few who were otherwise engaged stood out all the more. The sounds of light laughter mingled with whispered moans and clinking glasses. Roxy pulled on my hand as she started forward, angling – unsurprisingly – towards the bar. I had only ever been at this club once before when Cillian and I had first started dating and I had never been on the roof. Because it was so much more subdued up here than inside the club, I couldn’t help but stare at those engaged in some carnal act. There was a woman laid out by a fire pit completely naked, her head thrown back in pleasure and her perky breasts reaching for the sky as a man knelt between her legs, his face lost from sight between her thighs. All the while another couple sat and watched, idly sipping from cocktails. I could tell there were a few humans in the mix, their presence a magical void amongst the pixies, fairies, and elves. I nearly collided with the bar top when I spied a vampire hidden in the shadows of a corner.

“Roxy,” I whispered urgently, pulling her close. “There’s a vampire over there!”

“Yeah, okay?” She blinked her confusion at me.

“‘Yeah, okay?’” I repeated.

“Oh, you’ve never seen one have you?” She smiled at me in such a way that it made me feel like a child and that more than anything else made me blush.

“No,” I said, trying very hard to keep my voice even. He was merely sitting in a chair, a brandy glass balanced between his long fingers, his eyes glowing faintly as he watched the crowd. He was far paler than Roxy and me. His face was all sharp angles, drawing the attention to his full, red lips. I wondered if they were so red because he had already fed for the night. But what made him stand out more than anything was how much clothing he was wearing. The only skin he had exposed was what showed through the gaping V in his shirt from a few unbuttoned buttons. He caught me staring, locking eyes with me before I could look away. I saw him lift one eyebrow and his nostrils flared subtly. I looked away.

“I’m sorry, Tare. I thought you’d seen one before.” For once, she sounded sincere. We slid onto the stools at the bar, turning to people watch. “I should warn you then.”

“Warn me about what?” I was afraid to ask.

“There’s a shapeshifter over there.” She nodded to another cluster of couches and chairs. I didn’t need her to tell me which one he was. Among the petite pixies, skin shining in the moonlight, was a tawny colored man with shoulder length hair that foamed around his face in a honey cloud. His back was a crisscrossing of scars, muscles, and tattoos. He was also totally naked. There was no mistaking that for a Fae.

“Wow,” I gulped.

“I know, right?” Roxy snickered, ogling the shifter.

“What kind of shifter is he?”

“No idea,” she shrugged. “Don’t see many, so I never figured out the tell tale signs.”

“Something big I guess.” We both laughed.

“May I help you?” I turned in my seat to face the bartender and found myself regretting the club’s strict rule about employees not fraternizing with the clientele. He was a Shadow Elf from the North. With jet black hair, left long on top to drop into inky spikes around his face, and near translucent skin, his blue eyes glittered in the firelight. He was just a few inches taller than we and, rather than having big curving muscles like the fairy inside, he was long and lean, all taut lines. I sighed sadly and shook my head.

“I wish you could,” I propped my chin on hand, unable to look away. Shadow Elves didn’t venture south very often, not being accustomed to our warmer climates, so even to ones as fair as Roxy and I, he was quite exotic.

“Let me make it up to you with a drink, shall I?” He grinned and went about pouring various jewel colored liquors into a shaker before pouring us each a glass of his secret concoction. I picked up my glass, eyeing the deep purple color with a little measure of suspicion. I swirled it and took a light sniff.

“What’s in it?” I asked.

“I promise, you’ll like it.”

“I don’t drink that much, that’s her scene.” I tilted my head towards Roxy before I realized she wasn’t sitting next to me anymore. I turned to look for her and saw her in the middle of the group of pixies, smiling up at the shifter we had been admiring.

“She’s a quick one,” the bartender said.

“You don’t even know the half of it.” I turned back towards the bar and lifted the drink to my lips, taking a tentative sip. The purple drink slid down my throat like melting candy. Instantly the chill in the air receded as it swirled in my belly. I blinked up at the bartender.

“Told you.” He winked at me before moving down to help another customer. I thought about turning to watch Roxy again, but something about the size of the shifter made it seem obscene. I was close enough to everyone that I could feel the magic and power they were raising. I couldn’t imagine there were enough people here to contain it all.

I lifted my hand in front of my face and snapped my fingers, watching the spark flash between my fingers.  I hadn’t been able to do even that much just this morning. Ever since Cillian and I had broken up – well, since he dumped me really – I had been on a total self-pity spiral. Roxy had come by every couple of days to make sure I was eating and showering, which of course I was. I was probably eating too much, but I hadn’t bothered to change into real clothes or leave my apartment. The plants around my place had started to die since I wasn’t tending them anymore and I couldn’t ask Roxy to waste perfectly good magic to bring them back to life for me.

This morning, six weeks to the day after my break up, Roxy had lost all patience with me and my pity party. She’d nearly ripped the door off the hinges when I wouldn’t roll out of bed to answer her demanding knock, her power ripping through my apartment, effectively knocking me out of the bed. Her eyes shined with magic and anger when she stormed into the bedroom, her hair floating on the waves of power emanating from her core.

“That is it, Taryn Malloy!” she yelled, stalking around the bed and grabbing me by the back of my nightshirt. “Cillian Moran is not worth this!” she dragged me across the floor until we reached the bathroom, I spun on my back when she let go so she could reach in and turn on the cold water tap of the shower. I tried to scramble to my feet, but because it had been so long since I had raised any power, she was faster and stronger than me by far and she simply grabbed my ankle and dragged me back. She picked me up around the waist and nearly tossed me into the shower, the icy water shocking me and stealing my breath in a gasp.

Roxy slammed the glass doors shut and held them there until I got to my feet and banged against the panel demanding to be let out. She slid one side open just long enough to rip the soaking shirt off of my body and push me back in.

“Wash!” she commanded, sliding the door shut in my face, cutting off my protests. Eventually I conceded and took the shower, if only to keep from freezing. When I got out, she gave me a towel and a robe and took to combing out the mess of tangles my hair had become.

“We’re going out tonight,” she said, pulling the brush through my hair as I sat at my vanity, cupping a mug of coffee between my hands. “You should’ve been able to fight back, or at least resist me, and you were as weak as a human, Taryn.”

“I know,” I muttered.

“Do you think he’s sitting at home wallowing in pain that you’re gone?”

“I wasn’t the one that left, Roxy.”

“Exactly. You’re giving him too much.”

“He doesn’t know what I’m doing.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she argued, setting the brush down on the tabletop. “You’re still acting this way for him; he doesn’t deserve that. How long did he say he’d been seeing the fairy whore?”

“Six months,” I whispered into my mug.

“And you were together for three years.”

“I know, Roxy!” I yelled, throwing my cup against the wall. It shattered into hundreds of ceramic pieces, the coffee splattering the wall, dripping to the floor. I had sprung to my feet without realizing it. My fists were balled so tightly my ragged nails were cutting into my palms. The scent of blood wafted up, making my mouth water. “You don’t think I know he’s been humiliating me for six fucking months? I know, Roxy!” I screamed. “He’s been fucking her all over town and everyone fucking knew but me! I’ve been here! In our home! Cooking for him, cleaning up for him, paying our bills, and he’s been out fucking her!” I was panting in my rage, my body was shaking with the effort to contain my pounding heart and Roxy stood there, calm and smiling.

“Good. It’s about damn time you got angry.” She turned away from me and walked into my closet, disappearing from sight. I blinked, coming back to my senses, wondering what she was doing, so I followed her in. When I got there, I found her laughing.

“What?”

“Oh my gods, Tare, are these crotches from his pants?” she asked, holding up a handful of fabric.

“Yes, they are,” I said simply. The night Cillian had told me about his affair, after I had thrown him physically from the apartment and locked the door in his face, I had gone on a rampage destroying anything of his I could find. I spent about an hour on the floor of our closet cutting out the crotches of all the pants he hadn’t packed, crying my eyes out like an idiot.