Chapter Nine

 

 

 

Caroline somehow found the reserve strength to lift her arms. She steered clear of Comedy’s parted mouth to stroke the orange mohawk above her. Just to know what it felt like. It was softer than it looked, like frayed chenille. Something with more than two rows of piranha-like teeth shouldn’t have hair that soft.

But Comedy leaned into her hand, the only acknowledgment of her gratitude before he abruptly withdrew out and away from her. He stood at the end of the chaise, tucking himself back into his trousers despite the mess. Maybe it didn’t bother him. Or maybe there was magic involved, like there had been when he’d taken her.

She turned onto her side to face Tragedy, the author of this scene. Tragedy closed her mouth like a clam closing its shell. It was amazing the difference it made, the transition between monster and human nearly seamless. Now Caroline knew the line of the mouth was there, but how many patrons of the circus would ever get close enough to see it themselves?

The ones who probably don’t last the night, was the sobering answer to that thought. With the most surreal of the afternoon’s strangeness behind her, Caroline couldn’t believe she’d done this with them, that she’d accepted the gift, mind-blowing though it had been. But all she could manage to process was what the clowns had been like with her, which wasn’t such a bad thing.

Tragedy took her hand as Caroline propped herself up. Then, moving like a hesitant, disjointed marionette, she slowly encircled Caroline’s shoulders with her arms in an unsure embrace. They tightened when Caroline returned the hug. Murphy and Comedy took their place behind the chaise, waiting for the third of their trio. It was almost time for everyone to be in place for the pre-opening. Since Madoc hadn’t stopped them or told them to hurry, she assumed they weren’t going to be docked if they were late.

The trill in Caroline’s ear was like the coo of a mourning dove. When Caroline saw Tragedy’s face again as the clown stood up, she tried to see it as though for the first time. It was uncanny. Tragedy really did look like her, an older her, an edgier her. It was unsettling to see herself that way.

Comedy slung an arm over Tragedy’s shoulder and nuzzled her neck, and Murphy squeezed Tragedy under the petticoated skirt. Caroline experienced an odd sense of déjà vu that was hard to pinpoint until the three clowns were silhouetted against the sun on their way out. Two men, one desiring to please, the other surly but willing, yet still bound to the woman between them.

Caroline didn’t know how to feel about that.

“As promised,” Madoc said, sitting next to her again.

Caroline rolled onto her back from where she had been watching the clowns leave. She started putting herself back together. At least this time none of her costume needed to be repaired, although she’d have to find a new pair of underwear and hope that she had it on before Comedy’s cum dripped out of her—otherwise she’d have to add her leather skirt to the list of things that needed to be cleaned, leaving her costume choices somewhat narrow.

Madoc held out her panties from his finger. Good as new.

“That’s useful. Thank you.” Really, could this day get any stranger?

She shouldn’t have thought it loud enough for him to hear, because when she pulled her underwear over her legs, the wetness on her nipples and between her legs disappeared, leaving her as comfortable as though her encounter with the clowns had never happened.

Caroline pushed her skirt back down then pulled her corset up over her breasts again. Madoc hadn’t made the place where the wire had pushed into her skin stop hurting. Caroline didn’t mind. It told her she hadn’t been hallucinating, although she might have lost her mind.

She wrapped her arms around her legs. Madoc just waited, not pressuring her to get to the carousel to resume business as usual.

“Is that why you hired me for Arcanium?” Caroline finally asked. “Because of how much I’m like Tragedy?”

“My dear, you’re practically begging for me to take advantage of the metaphor,” Madoc said. “The answer is no. It’s an amusing coincidence. I hired you because you wanted to be a part of us. I like it when people want to be a part of Arcanium. I know it was a whim, a whim that you didn’t expect would yield any fruit. But you came to me anyway. You asked, even though you were afraid. And though you’re angry at me for my necessary deception, you still serve my carousel to the best of your ability. What more could I have ever required of you than what you are and what you’ve done?”

He tilted her chin up. She wasn’t the psychic one, but she knew what he was going to do as he leaned in. She could have stopped him. She didn’t.

Of all the things that the clowns had offered to her, one of the few things that they couldn’t was a kiss.

After everything that had happened, the kiss could have been an afterthought, a forgotten sigh at the end of the climax, but it wasn’t. His lips on hers were soft. The kiss, closed and uninsistent, was almost chaste, but not quite. He lingered, caressing her, stealing her breath before she knew how powerful the gesture was. Madoc spoke in riddles, but he kissed without mystery. Caroline was the one who had to break the kiss. It was too undiluted, too much honesty all at once, as though he had for the moment stripped away his mask for her as so many other demons in Arcanium already had.

When she pulled back, he was still Madoc, the fortune teller, the puppetmaster behind the curtain—and to her eyes, just a man.

“You should go,” Madoc said, slowly releasing her. “Geoff will have the pretzel you wanted ready on the carousel. The gates are opening any minute now, and I have to return to my tent.”

When he stood from the chaise, he made no attempt to conceal the level of his arousal. Caroline had no way of knowing whether he had been like that before or after the kiss, but he appeared unaffected by it. Caroline didn’t offer to relieve him. She was sure he understood why.

Demon clowns, an ex-demon and a man trying to atone, these were people she could yield herself to and people she could take. They were flesh and blood, down-to-earth real to her. They were grit and nail scratches and good new wood, solid, carnal, comprehensible, accessible.

From just a kiss, Madoc was not. He was so much more, so much bigger, she couldn’t hope to hold him down without him crushing her, couldn’t hold onto him without being taken somewhere she didn’t know she could survive. The scariest part was that she didn’t know whether it was good or evil. Just that it was powerful beyond her measure.

The new rumble of fear she felt kissing him didn’t mean it wasn’t nice—more than nice—only that she was out of her depth. The fact he liked her didn’t change that. It was a great and terrible honor. Caroline saw that now.

And her respect for Maya had just gone up a couple of thousand points.

He helped her to her feet from the chaise then led her with a warm hand on her back to the exit.

Caroline blushed again when she heard the big cats in their cages. They had seen everything. But then she thought of what more they had seen backstage because everyone ignored them when they were in animal skin.

“Sir?” Caroline said. “Not that I’m not grateful, but can you tell Tragedy to run all future gifts through you first?”

Madoc looked away but couldn’t quite hide his mirth. “Yes.”

 

* * * *

 

Caroline lay with Riley in her cabin. She didn’t know where Colm had run off to, especially since she’d thought that after last night he’d warmed up to her, but he’d disappeared almost as soon as he’d emerged from his place on the carousel. She was a little hurt, but maybe the man needed some alone time to think. Caroline had her own heavy thoughts to process. She thought it best to let him alone, no matter what bug was up his butt.

Even though on a personal level she wished Colm had stayed, physically Caroline was glad she’d only had Riley to satisfy and to satisfy her. After the clowns that afternoon, she didn’t know whether she could take two again. The sex demons could make her as horny as they wanted, but without any additional magic, a girl still had her limits.

She had to say, though, Riley was showing more initiative than before. She would have thought that after the terror the clowns had unintentionally put her through, Caroline wouldn’t have wanted to be approached so aggressively. But underneath the surface roughness Riley had demonstrated, he hadn’t quite been able to overcome his meeker disposition. He could pretend, and they could both enjoy it, but Riley just didn’t scare her.

Caroline couldn’t imagine someone like him willingly risking lives through arson because he didn’t value the lives of the strange ones inside. Four or five years spent as a mount on the carousel must have truly changed him. Or maybe he hadn’t been that terrible of a person in the past—groups sometimes brought out the worst in a decent person. Whatever the cause of who he had been and who he was now, she felt completely safe in his arms, letting the air conditioning dry the light sweat off their skin as their breathing slowed.

He closed his eyes and dozed lightly, but Caroline, who should have been exhausted from everything that had happened that day, was a little wired. She crawled from the bed to her bag for her tablet. She settled against the wall bed cushion, her bare skin bathed in the cold blue light.

She had called her university earlier that week to let them know she was taking some time off. Caroline thought about messaging her groups of friends to let them know too. But every time she went to contact them, she kept having the pervasive sense that she’d be a disappointment, as though she were dropping out or freaking out instead of taking time off to work through her wished servitude to an ambiguously moral jinni.

It was one thing for her father to threaten to kick her out. She had to leave the nest at some point. But for her friends to wash their hands of her because they thought she was flaky or shallow mortified her. They hadn’t done it yet or anything. In fact, Kari had posted on her wall asking why she’d been so quiet, and Mickey had asked if she wanted to get a cup of coffee while he was visiting another friend in Caroline’s hometown.

But she couldn’t shake the fear that keeping her as a friend would just be too much trouble, that not being able to settle in one place had made her disposable because she hadn’t made strong enough attachments.

She still couldn’t tell them.

She logged off Facebook and went to email.

Her father had written her back.

“Oh crap,” Caroline whispered. She got up so quickly that she startled Riley out of sleep. He jerked awake as she scrambled to get some clothes on.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He scratched his chest and watched her, bemused.

“I need to talk to Madoc,” she said. She didn’t bother with a bra or pants. Her panties and shirt would be enough in the dark, especially since Madoc had seen more of her by now. It was a little late to be modest. “I’ll be back, but it’s an emergency. Sorry.”

She took a moment to kiss him then climbed out of the cabin and ran barefoot to the caravan.

Caroline paused when she noticed the RV was rocking.

Was this really such an emergency that she needed to interrupt, or could she wait until they were finished? She didn’t know how long that would take. She thought Madoc needed to know about this now, but ‘now’ was within the hour, not right this second. She stood in front of the door, unsure how to proceed or what to do with herself. It wasn’t like they had a chair outside for someone to wait, and it was awkward for her to just stand there watching the RV shake.

The rocking stopped, although Caroline hadn’t heard anything to indicate a definitive end to their activities. The door opened. Madoc wore a pair of cotton trousers, and his hair was tousled. Caroline didn’t feel right seeing him this unsettled. It was as though she were seeing him naked. Maya came up behind him in the living area with a sheet wrapped around her.

“What’s wrong?” Maya asked.

“I wasn’t going to interrupt,” Caroline said.

Madoc shook his head. “I could sense that your purpose for being here was urgent. It’s okay.” He held out his hand for the tablet. She gave it to him without another word.

 

Caroline,

Enough is enough. I tried to be patient. I tried to give you whatever space you think you need, in spite of the fact that I’ve been more than accommodating. But I think it’s high time you stopped being so childish. What I ask from you is perfectly reasonable, not some Herculean task or cruel abuse that necessitates something as extreme as running away from home.

I’m going to be rational and hope you were kidding about joining a circus and that you’re hiding out with one of your little friends somewhere. If you make me look for you, I will go to the police and form a search party. I am not above embarrassing you, missy. But if you really did go and join a circus, I’m horrified that you would do this to your mother.

I’ve checked the circus’s schedule online. If you’re really there, I will be coming to get you there on Sunday, and you should thank your lucky stars that you’re too old to spank. I can guarantee there will be a car titled in my name that you won’t get to drive again until you’re mature enough for me to sign it over to you. You are not leaving school, and you will come home and grow up for once in your life. You’re not a teenager anymore. If you want me to treat you like an adult, start acting like one.

Dad

 

“Well, that’s inconvenient,” Madoc muttered. He handed the tablet back to her. “Not insurmountable. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention as soon as you received it. I understand your concern, but it’s not something that you need to worry about.”

“But he’s coming. Here. He’s coming here to make a scene and yell at me in front of strangers and possibly drag me out by my hair before he cuts it off with his electric razor,” Caroline said.

“Really?” Maya asked, a little shocked.

“No, I’m exaggerating about the dragging me out by my hair and shaving it off. Maybe not on that last part. I don’t know. All I know is that he’ll try to take me away.”

“And neither you nor I will let him,” Madoc said. “He’s just one man, Caroline.”

“I don’t want you to hurt him!” Caroline exclaimed, panicking.

“We will remove him from the circus legally. If he insists on making a spectacle of taking you away, we will make a spectacle of kicking him out, but it is in Arcanium’s best interest to avoid legal attention. As long as he doesn’t harm you, we will not have to pass retribution,” Madoc said. “He’s just being your father. I don’t believe he’ll harm you to try to save you, no matter how little he thinks of you.”

Caroline lowered her head.

“Bell,” Maya murmured.

“You’re his daughter,” Madoc said, lifting Caroline’s chin. “You will ever be his child. He thinks little of you because you are still little to him. We will take care of this. Okay? He will not make you break your promise to me. Only you can do that.”

Caroline nodded. “Sorry to bother you,” she said, addressing both Madoc and Maya.

“You didn’t,” Madoc replied. “You did exactly what you should have done. You did well.”

Caroline bit her lip, remembering the kiss. He inclined his head to her as he gently closed the door.

She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but she dreaded it. She dreaded her father seeing her here. Causing a scene. Returning her to the time when she’d been three feet tall, back when carousels had been something much simpler.

 

* * * *

 

Caroline supposed she could count herself lucky that he hadn’t invaded Arcanium on a day when she wore the kinky leather dress. The steampunk corset wasn’t the most revealing thing she’d ever worn, and the skirt covered her legs to her knees, but there was no mistaking the exhibitionist intent behind the design, which would explain her father’s state of apoplexy when he got onto the carousel and saw her in the cage.

There was a reason she’d saved the more salacious of her Halloween costumes for when she’d gone to college. Her father had been disapproving that her prom dress had been strapless. He would have lost his mind if it had been a sweetheart neckline like her corset today.

“Caroline Marie Barrett, you are putting on a jacket and coming with me right now,” her dad said. He kept his voice down, loud-whispering through the brass gears of the cage. The laughing and talking around them drowned his barely contained fury from the rest of the riders, but Caroline heard it loud and clear.

“No,” she replied. She wished she could properly lock the cage, but the lock was mostly for show, since a person could just reach through and undo it if they wanted to. She could, however, make it harder for him to do so.

She started one of the programs, and the ground beneath her father’s feet moved him away from where he had been holding onto the gears.

“That is not funny,” her dad said, stumbling before grabbing onto the poles of one of the horses—with the one with the alligator tail and face.

“I’m just doing my job,” Caroline said. “You know, the one you insisted I get?”

“Joining the circus is not finding a job.”

“They were the only ones who took me in. The application’s been accepted and the contract’s been signed. The job is secure. I’m getting paid. What more do you want?”

“You just didn’t try hard enough,” her dad said. “I made it a little too comfortable for you to stay home and watch the TV that I pay for all day, eating the things that your mother buys, using the allowance we’ve given you for years to buy your luxury coffees and laze around with your friends when you should have been pounding the pavement. When I was your age, I was working and going to school in the summer. I worked my ass off to get to where I am. I guess that’s the price of upward mobility. The next generation doesn’t understand what it takes.”

“I don’t know whether you noticed, Dad, but I was barely able to find jobs back in high school, and they all seemed to dry up when I went to college. I tried, okay? You weren’t there. I drank those luxury coffees while I was walking through outlet after outlet, mall after mall, getting carpal tunnel syndrome from filling out applications.”

Now that the program had started, she didn’t need to do anything but turn around in her chair as her father went in circles around her.

“And it was more than that. The digital age isn’t about pounding the pavement anymore. I was filling out applications online, too. When I say Arcanium was the only place to take me in, I mean it. So I thought outside the box and I got this job. Lots of kids take a gap year. I think the promise of employment is a good reason to take one.”

“You call the circus ‘employment’?” her dad scoffed. “It’s a joke. It’s a juvenile joke.”

“I beg to differ, Mr. Barrett,” Madoc said, seamlessly weaving through the mounts without so much as losing his balance.

Caroline wished she’d seen him get on with the outer part of the carousel moving so fast. It wasn’t safe, but she bet it was a sight to see.

And now the three of them were getting some outside attention by the riders. She was sure her shaking hands and her terrified expression added that something special to the scene.

Caroline knew in a second what her dad thought of Madoc when he looked over the bare-chested fortune teller with unconcealed disdain. Cotton trousers, beaded leather belts and brass bracelets were hard to take seriously in her dad’s suit-and-tie world.

“Who the hell are you?” her dad asked.

“Bell Madoc, the owner and co-manager of Arcanium,” Madoc replied. He didn’t offer his hand. It wouldn’t have been accepted.

“So you’re the one who roped her into this dog-and-pony freak show,” her dad said.

Caroline winced.

“I’ve heard of men like you. What have you been doing to my daughter? Whatever it is, you won’t get away with it,” her dad said. He tried to intimidate Madoc with his greater height. But Madoc could not be intimidated, and her dad didn’t want to get too close to Madoc’s bare chest, as though it was diseased.

“Come on, Caroline. We’re going home right now. You don’t have to stay here.”

He thought she was being forced to stay here by Madoc? Well, that wasn’t too far off the mark, actually, but not in the way that he thought. It wasn’t like she’d become the carousel engineer against her will. That part had been legit. It was the rest of the circus she hadn’t signed on for.

But as she got used to the demonic side of Arcanium—as much as a person could, anyway—she didn’t want to leave anymore. Maybe two weeks ago and in a normal circus, she would have exulted at her dad coming to save her, but not now. And not like this, his insistence that she didn’t know what she was doing or what she wanted or what it took to get it. He wanted her to be an adult, but when she made a decision he didn’t like, he thought he could just waltz in and demand that she be an adult on his terms.

Caroline might have made a mistake becoming a part of Arcanium. There were things she could admit she liked, but it was wreaking havoc on her moral compass, and she was not going to get used to occupying the same space as predators who preyed on humans.

But it was a mistake she was going to have to live with. She’d deal with the consequences. And wasn’t that what an adult was supposed to do, not let their parents bail them out at every turn?

He’d wanted her to be less comfortable. Here she was in a leather corset in the middle of summer—he had no way of knowing that Lady Sasha’s leather was the eighth wonder of the world—running a carousel like a boss, sleeping in a pod cabin away from home, and touring the country for a year. Plus there were all the things that had happened behind the Arcanium curtain that she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—tell him about.

She wouldn’t call this comfortable. She called it committed.

“Your daughter came to me and asked if I had an opening,” Madoc explained. “I didn’t force her to take it, and I certainly don’t require anything else from her in return for the job. I’m insulted at the insinuation.”

“I can’t think of any other reason a man your age would accept a child like mine at the drop of a hat, someone with no circus ambitions or skill,” her dad said.

“The position was open,” Madoc said. “She was fortunate that she arrived before it was filled, nothing more.”

“Dad, he didn’t do anything to me,” Caroline said. Technically true. If she had said ‘hasn’t done anything’, that might have been closer to a lie. “I wasn’t coerced into sending that email to you or to join Arcanium. That was my decision.”

“Caroline, let your father take care of this,” her dad said. “I’ll get you out of here and back home where you belong. You’ll find a job for the rest of the summer and go back to school in the fall, like you’re supposed to.”

“I already contacted the university,” Caroline insisted. “I’m out for the year now, and I’m staying here.”

There was no pretending that the rest of the carousel wasn’t watching anymore, especially since the program was reaching its end. There was Oddity Row. Then there was family feuding. Both were excellent ways to indulge train-wreck syndrome, which was why all these patrons came to a freak show circus in the first place.

Caroline was mortified, but she stood her ground and clutched the edge of the control board for a lifeline. She never talked back to her father. Not like this. The only thing that kept her legs strong was the fact she’d faced far scarier things than him just in the last twenty-four hours, and she’d survived intact.

“Stop being stubborn,” her dad said. As soon as the carousel stopped, he reached over the gate and grabbed Caroline’s arm. “Now let’s go.”

“Let go of me!” Caroline shook him off and stepped back.

“Hey, man, if she doesn’t want to go with you, get your hands off!” some guy yelled from one of the horses. Despite the urgings of the staff from the ground, no one was disembarking.

“I’m her father,” he shot at the one who’d interjected. “I have a right to protect my daughter, even if it’s from herself. Now come on, Caroline.”

“Your daughter signed a contract,” Madoc said, as calm as her father was not.

“I have lawyers,” her dad replied. “Consider this her notice.”

“I’m staying here, Dad.”

“Dammit, you are not twelve years old anymore. Your rebellion isn’t cute or productive.”

“I’m not rebelling,” Caroline said. “I’m making a decision. I’m honoring a contract, a promise that I made. I’m earning a living. I’m flying the nest. You’re right, I’m not twelve years old anymore. I’m twenty. I’ve been a legal adult since I was eighteen. I’m old enough to make these decisions. You can’t make them for me anymore. You can decide whether I live in your house or use your car. That’s your property. But you can’t control me.”

“This is insane!” her dad yelled, his face red. “I will pull your tuition, young lady. You won’t get another cent from me. And there certainly won’t be a place at home for you, if you’re so keen to leave it.”

“Do whatever you think you have to do, Dad. I can’t stop you,” Caroline said. She took a deep breath, but God didn’t strike her dead, so she figured she hadn’t done something unforgivable.

“Goddammit, Caroline!”

She knew she’d hit a nerve when he added blasphemy to his cursing, since he had very strong opinions about that.

“I wish you’d just face up to reality, stop acting like a stubborn, petulant child and get a real job like a goddamn grownup.”

Her world froze.

Not literally, although that wouldn’t have surprised her. It seemed like a dramatic, Hollywood thing for Madoc to do, to hear a wish and stop reality to grant it with a menacing, inhuman glow in his eyes.

Her father had made a wish in front of a jinni. A jinni who she’d been warned not to make a verbal wish in front of. A jinni who twisted wishes by removing limbs. A jinni who she knew better than to consider predictable. She knew from personal experience that liking her didn’t mean not playing with her.

Was this the get-out-of-jail-free card that she no longer wanted, the jinn way to breach a contract?

More importantly, was Madoc going to let her go that easily? If not, what did this wish allow him to do to her? What did it allow him to add to her sentence?

Her world froze, but really it was just her—and Madoc knew.

“And your wish has been granted, Mr. Barrett,” Madoc said deliberately, staring into Caroline’s eyes before returning his attention to her father. “You might not like the job that she’s chosen, but it’s a real one, and she accepted the responsibilities that accompany it like an adult, not a child. I know you’re not happy, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave Arcanium at this time. You’ve caused enough of a disturbance today, don’t you think?”

“What do you think you’ve done to your mother, Caroline?” her dad accused. He shook Madoc’s hand away from his arm. “She was worried sick when you up and left like that.”

“How do you think she would have felt if you’d kicked me out of the house like you said you were going to do?” Caroline asked, her stomach a writhing knot.

“That’s cold, dude,” someone still on the carousel said.

“This is none of your business!” her dad shouted.

“You kind of made it their business,” Caroline said.

“I’m coming back for you,” her dad said, pointing at Caroline. “If I have to, I’ll call the police and report an abduction. You’re holding her here against her will, displaying her like a piece of meat at the market, and you think being polite is going to make me just walk away from my daughter?”

“Dad, I’m fine,” Caroline said. She’d never witnessed her father acting like a conspiracy theorist, and she was more than a little alarmed. “I really joined a circus—of my own free will. I’ll be back next summer and back in school and everything. It’s just for a year.”

“So help me, I’ll do it. I’ll call them when I get to my car. I don’t believe you, and I don’t trust him.” Her dad glared at Madoc like he was a bare-chested, bohemian pimp.

“If you call the police, they’re going to ask how old I am, and when you say I’m an adult, they’re going to ask if there are any signs that I’m here against my will, and there aren’t. If they get as far as coming here, they’re just going to be pissed you wasted their time when they see I’m perfectly fine. I’m sorry I didn’t get the respectable job that you wanted, but I would have had to wear less at some of the restaurants I was getting dangerously close to applying to—or the strip joints that I would have had to dance for if you’d kicked me out. Okay?”

Her father shook Madoc off his shoulder again and pulled his sports jacket down to try to regain a little dignity. “You disappoint me,” he said.

“That’s okay, Dad,” Caroline said. “You disappoint me sometimes too.”

She wondered whether this time she’d gone too far. She hadn’t intended to say it, hadn’t even known she’d been thinking it until she’d spoken. But apparently it was what her dad had needed to hear, stricken as though he’d been slapped. Finally, he squared himself and walked off the carousel of his own volition. He didn’t let any of the carousel staff help him. He didn’t look back.

Caroline’s chest hurt.

Madoc looked over his shoulder at her. Then the riders around them started clapping. A few whooped.

“Stop!” Caroline called. “Stop.”

The applause faltered.

“Show’s over. You want to see a better one, the circus performance is at eight.”

Madoc didn’t move from where he stood in front of the cage gate. “The wish had already been granted by you. Nothing needs to change,” he said through the gears so that no one else could hear.

She nodded and sat back down in her chair as the riders finally disembarked to allow the next wave on. Madoc left with them. Caroline leaned over her elbows on the control board, running her fingers through her hair. The cold sickness hadn’t left her stomach. She started the next ride using the autopilot program and just sat there like that. These people knew she had been yelled at by her dad. She would sit up again and smile when this ride was over.

 

* * * *

 

Riley climbed down into the cabin after she didn’t come up to meet them. What surprised her was Colm coming down with him. His gaze darted around as though he didn’t like the confinement, but he didn’t flee.

Colm’s eyes were gray, pale enough to take on the color of whatever lights the carousel had shone into them on the platform. Funny that she’d never seen the gray before until he was under proper lighting. It made him appear much milder than the set of his mouth implied.

Caroline had already changed out of her costume and into the tank top and panties she wore as pajamas. She turned over in the cold—she’d cranked up the air conditioning to cool off the overheating of her emotions—and stared at her two men. They filled up the room. Riley was usually enough to do that on his own, but add Colm into the mix and her cabin was entirely too small for a threesome arrangement.

“Shit,” she groaned. “I forgot you two can hear everything. Well, that just makes this sucky day complete.”

“You know you were right, right?” Riley asked. “I mean, you’re young, but everyone’s young once, and you have to start young or else you never start at all.”

“That made no kind of sense,” Colm said.

“I just meant that there’s a threshold that a person crosses where they break away from the rules and start having to decide which of them they’re going to follow. You take everything you learned and put it into practice, taking what you need and leaving the rest, discovering new things.”

“You’re not exactly the poster child for doing that right, boy,” Colm said.

“I’m just saying that I think she crossed that threshold,” Riley said. “And since I know how badly it goes when a person goes too far, I think I’m qualified to notice when it’s done right. I thought it was pretty badass myself. I could hear that you were scared. I kind of wanted to punch him.”

“He’s my dad,” Caroline said. “He was just doing what he was supposed to be doing.”

“Except the whole letting-go part,” Riley pointed out. “From where I was, it sounded like he’s been trying to push you over the threshold all this time then choked when it finally came to you doing it. Personally, I’m proud. Bell is too. I could tell.”

“I have no stake in this either way,” Colm said.

“Then why are you down here?” Riley asked, glaring at him.

“I think I pushed too hard,” Caroline said.

“Fuck that,” Colm said. “Hard as he was pushing, there’s only so much you can take before you have to push back, so the other one knows you’re not something he can push around.”

“And once again, we’re back in the place where you’re not the best person to be telling me that, considering where you ended up when you pushed back,” Caroline said. She turned over on the bed, facing away from them.

“Hey!” Colm rolled her back by her shoulder and crawled over her, covering her with his shadow. “I may have been trapped as a damn carousel manhorse for almost fifty years, but I don’t regret what I did to get there. Maybe that means I haven’t ‘learned my lesson’ like Boy Scout over here thinks he did. But being bound a few times by beings more powerful than you is part of being an immortal demon. You make enemies. You fight for dominance. You fight for power. I lost fair and square because we were both fighting dirty. I don’t know what it’s like to have a mommy and daddy like a baby bird, but I recognize a fight for dominance when I see it. You fought, and the one used to winning lost. Maybe you played a little dirty, but so did he and that made it fair.”

“I don’t think there was anything ‘fair’ about it, except for the carousel,” Caroline said.

“Fair isn’t good. Fair isn’t nice. Fair is balanced. It’s even. A wicked girl like you should know better,” Colm said.

Caroline laughed with a sharp huff. “Kitty just finished calling me a good girl, and I’m pretty sure Madoc agrees. It’s what I’ve always been.”

“Shows what little they know,” Colm said.

He dipped down and caught her mouth, surprising her with the abruptness of his intensity. He swept her into the kiss, angling to plunder and lay to waste any protest she might have had that she wanted to be alone. Caroline ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders, gripping them as though she were falling. Colm slowly canted his hips, bringing himself closer to her until she could feel the heat against her stomach. The leather encasing his legs rubbed against hers as he shifted. She tucked her arm under his to wrap it around his back and bring him down over her. She felt him smile against her mouth then pull back.

It was odd to see him, really see him. As a man, and not some glittering, colorful demon parading around in a human suit. He was as solid and grounded as Madoc, the same intensity in those gray eyes, but he had none of Madoc’s untouchable endlessness, which might account for why Colm was the one on the carousel and Madoc was still running Arcanium.

“You’re just saying all those things because you want to get in my pants again without me being all mopey,” Caroline said.

“It’s as though you know me,” Colm said with a grin.

He bit her lower lip, sucked on it the way she knew he could suck on other parts of her body. She whimpered, the coldness inside retreating with the blossom of warmth. He was insistent with her clothes. He broke the lavishing of his attention on her only to pull her tank top over her head, sat up only to allow her to push her panties down and so that he could undo his trousers.

If Riley bristled that Colm had taken point, he didn’t make a scene of it. Riley knew she wouldn’t leave him stranded. Just because she liked Colm’s teeth didn’t mean she rejected Riley’s tenderness—or vice versa.

“And what would daddy dearest think if he could see you now?” Colm asked, resuming his place looming over her. His cock bobbed between them, twitching against her stomach and leaving a wet mark on the place it touched.

“God, shudder to think. Probably that he should have kicked an ungrateful degenerate like me out ages ago,” Caroline said. “And that he has two bullets in the shotgun for the two of you.”

“Mmm, I’d like to see him try,” Colm said, covering her again, and this time he gave her no respite, moving over her in a fever as he consumed her every last circling thought of what had occurred that evening. The sensations of the present overwhelmed any pain of the past.

Now was the rasp of his lightly furred legs against hers and the intoxicating sound of his heavy breathing and knowing that it was because of her. Now was the marks he made over her jaw and down to her neck, where he worried the flesh until it stung and sang with pleasure. Now was the heaviness of his scrotum on her thigh, his cock throbbing in her hand as she made him grunt and thrust into her tight, unforgiving grip. Now was the way that he pulled her over him and knocked her legs apart with his own so that his cock parted through her folds to the sticky wetness that he’d inspired.

They both groaned when she pushed down over him. The tight, dark blond curls at the base of his cock tickled her clit. She ground against him, her hips rocking from side to side as he squeezed and slapped her ass. It didn’t hurt, but the noise of it was sharp in the close quarters of the cabin. He made her writhe with his single-minded focus on the taste of her, testing her tenderness, licking away the salt of sweat, tracing the contours of her breasts with his lips. His cock inside her seemed incidental to him in comparison to taking her nipple into the torturous suction of his mouth.

Colm flipped them over so that she was under him again. She whimpered in protest as he unsheathed himself, his cock smearing their combined moisture over her thigh. He laughed cruelly into her chest. He traced the areola of her left nipple with his tongue, reminding her of the two male clowns doing the same. She thought her nerves there would always hold that memory, because the sensation shot down her body like electricity. Her pussy tightened around the emptiness that Colm had left behind.

He took the pebble of her nipple between his teeth and tugged until she scratched his shoulder blades, her free breast quivering as she tried to get away and bring herself closer at the same time.

“There she is,” he said, still worrying the hard flesh. His tongue brushed against the dark, swollen tip as he spoke. “My wicked little girl.”

He growled when he let the nipple snap back, rippling her breast. Caroline rubbed the soreness that did nothing to quell state of arousal. Colm observed the act with unbridled interest, his gray wolf eyes going darker. Then he once again lunged down to take her by surprise—to just take her, period.

He ate at her cunt with his always-hungry mouth, lapping at the juices he’d helped create before working his way up to her clit. As impossibly amazing and unprecedented as Comedy’s tongue-lashing had been, there was nothing better than the full-mouth experience, and Colm had proven often that he was unafraid of diving right in, using every weapon at his disposal to make her surrender.

Caroline turned her head to block her moans against the back of her hand. She caught a glimpse of Riley watching them intently. He had seen Caroline in the cabin’s bright, cool light before, but never quite like this. He was fascinated, his mouth parted and his cock fat and heavy in his hand as he stroked himself to Colm torturing her clit and the soft folds around her cunt. His gaze traveled upward toward her breasts when she moved her hands to them. She plumped them for his delight, kneaded the firm flesh before focusing her efforts on her dark, tightened nipples.

Both Riley and Colm watched from their respective vantage points. She preened under their combined attention, the heat from it spreading in her body like smoke from the fire Colm had built up inside her.

Finally, licking her lips, she couldn’t resist anymore. She beckoned for Riley to come to her. He leaned over to kiss her, but she reached out for his cock before his lips touched hers. She lapped playfully at the corner of his open mouth as she pulled with merciless roughness at the shaft, wringing a strangled moan from him. She did let him kiss her when he’d recovered from the pleasurable assault, a slow caress of their lips and tongues together to contrast with the furious rhythm Colm set against her clit—as though determined to have her come before she could get what she wanted from Riley.

She welcomed a little healthy and hopefully friendly competition—it meant they’d try harder than they already did. So they’d all always win.

“Let me,” she murmured against Riley’s mouth. She tugged his cock by its base in an unmistakable command, one that he didn’t hesitate to obey.

He knelt next to her head, stroking her hair away from her face as she shifted toward him. Colm withdrew to adjust her leg over his shoulder and keep her open for him. While Caroline still didn’t know quite how Riley felt about Colm having sex with her at the same time, Colm appeared unfazed by Riley. Maybe Colm’s lack of jealousy when he wasn’t making Caroline a battlefield for dominance would rub off on Riley. Neither Colm nor Riley could reach the top of the tower with that fight. Madoc had given Caroline the key. She thought Colm, at least, understood that. He probably wasn’t happy about it, but he might know it better than Riley.

Caroline laved and mouthed Riley’s cock, rubbing it against her tongue, feeling its weight in her mouth before sucking off from the tip with a wet sound that made him twitch in her hand every time. Eventually, though, she couldn’t content herself with teasing. Colm’s onslaught against her clit reached a head. He interspersed sucking almost too hard with flicks of his tongue that once again reminded her of the clowns. She’d have to tell him how right he was about her being wicked. After.

Riley moaned, unable to contain himself as her rhythm and intensity on him started to match Colm’s on her. He braced himself against the wall cushion, his thighs sculpted from tension as he tried not to fuck her mouth. She dug her fingers into the muscles of his flank with relish. Taking him in as far as she could pushed her saliva against her hand holding him at the base.

She couldn’t deny how hungry his cock always made her. She didn’t know why, because it wasn’t the loveliest she’d seen. It wasn’t like Comedy’s or even Colm’s. The base was much fatter than the defined mushroom cockhead, and it had a slight bend to the side. Its color was red and angry under his darker skin.

But God, she liked him, liked how he reacted, liked how his cock reacted to her mouth and her cunt. Maybe because, of all her partners in Arcanium thus far, he was the most human—and of all her partners, period, he was the first who was most eager to please rather than just take.

Colm was different. He was more effective at giving her pleasure—probably a consequence of experience, and some of it might have been the demon side of him, she wasn’t sure—but he gave her pleasure for his own. It didn’t bother her that his very selflessness was selfish, because the end result was the same amazing sensations for her either way.

Riley just plain tried. And so often succeeded when he did. Hard not to like a guy like him, even with all the shit from his past and what it said about what he used to be—and what part of him still might be.

But she’d been tongue-fucked by killer clowns, and a man who used to be a demon was about to give her a massive orgasm just from eating her out. Giving an enthusiastic blow job to someone who’d almost killed people seemed like the much lesser of several evils—if it was even close to evil at all, which she didn’t think it was. The thing with the clowns was still up in the air, but these two men in her cabin didn’t make her feel guilty anymore. Not at all.

Caroline moaned over Riley’s cock as cum shot into her mouth. She swallowed as quickly as she could, wincing against the sting of it at the back of her throat but loving the power. Riley shouted helplessly, bucking against her. Only her hand around the shaft kept him from pushing in too deep.

She was glad that Riley had come before her, because it meant that she could fall back on the cushions when he was finished and lose herself entirely to Colm feasting on her orgasm while she screamed at the ceiling. Before she could come down from the trembling shocks of pleasure through her, Colm crawled over her again like the demon that he once had been, jerked her leg higher to open her wide for him then plunged in. He left teeth marks on her calf and growled through his gritted teeth. His hard thrusts extended her climax until she was turning her head from side to side, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

“God, you’re good at that,” Caroline moaned after Colm had seized and slammed into her one last time.

He didn’t collapse on top of her, just settled there before sliding to the side, where he rested his back against the wall cushions.

“I know,” Colm replied.

He dragged her against him, her back to his chest. Riley settled on the other side of her. They were cramped together on the tiny bed, but she curled her leg between Riley’s and closed her eyes. Their bodies surrounded her with their scent and heat, the velvet of their skin and the hardness what was beneath. She focused on what she had with her now and not what she’d left behind, because the people here wanted her and she wanted them. She wanted to stay.

 

* * * *

 

She woke up when Riley kneed her thigh, and his elbow briefly knocked her breath out. Colm shouted in indignation. For a moment, all she knew was weight and prodding from every angle. She was going to have bruises tomorrow.

“Get off, you big lunk. You’re like a gorilla,” Colm groused, shoving Riley off the both of them. “What the fuck is going on?”

Caroline giggled madly in dreamy amusement as Colm embraced her against the moving of their world around them. He held her like a kid holds a teddy bear in a storm, as though he was afraid she was going to be swept away with the rolling of the ground beneath them. Riley, in the meantime, was having an interesting time trying to get his bearings and brace himself without touching Colm, which was difficult when the wall cushions were even narrower than the floor part of the bed.

Oh dear, what is a heterosexual male supposed to do?

“We’re on the move,” Caroline explained. “They’re turning this part of the carousel on its side to transport it. It’ll settle upright in a minute. Just go back to sleep.”

“Like this?” Riley asked. He sounded miserable.

“If you touch my boobs while your arms and legs are touching his limbs, does that make it okay?” Caroline asked, shifting out of Colm’s grasp to settle into the narrow groove between their bodies.

She had no way of knowing whether her question made Riley realize how silly he was being or whether he and Colm would hash out their conflict in low voices later. She wriggled until she got comfortable again, cushioned on their bodies instead of the wall, then slipped into sleep once again.