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“Don’t worry, it only seems kinky the first time.”
~ Unknown
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Bear nursed his beer and glared at his new guest from across the small dining table. She perched on a matching chair acting as if she wasn’t sending off some serious dark fae sex vibes.
“That’s not nice, you know,” she said, her angelic voice breaking the heavy silence between them.
He tensed his muscles to prevent himself from leaping over the table to touch her. This was ridiculous. She was the one who should stop. “What’s not nice?”
“Glaring. It’s rude. You stole me, not the other way around. I’m not sure what you’re so pissed about.”
“I’m pissed that you keep trying to use your magic on me. That’s what’s not nice.”
She dropped her hands away from her water and laughed. The sound sent blood rushing to his dick. Yup. Ri-dick-ulous. He ground his teeth together and growled. When she didn’t stop chuckling, he drank more of his beer.
“Is this how you deal with women you’re attracted to?”
Bear choked on his drink. “Attra...what? That’s—”
She waved his protest away. “You must have an awful love life.”
“My love life is just fine, thank you,” he sputtered. The memory of Janice’s last phone call flared like a bad case of indigestion. He flinched. Whatever. Chloe had no way of knowing about that.
“Sure...sure...” Her lips twitched.
He wanted nothing more than to smash his mouth against hers and feel that wicked tongue on his skin. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second instead. “Unbelievable.”
Her eyebrows shot up, mocking him with feigned innocence. “If this attraction is so unsettling to you, we could always act on it and cut the tension.” She leaned forward, mouth slightly parted, black irises bleeding out to cover the whites of her eyes. “It would be an enjoyable way to pass the time while you figure out what you’re going to do.”
Bear slammed his bottle down on the table.
Chloe giggled and brushed her white hair back from her smooth skin.
He jabbed his finger in the air at her. “You will stop this act and I will make a plan.”
She flopped back in her chair. The cheap wood creaked. “I’m not actively doing a thing.”
He glared.
“But fine. Let’s make a deal.” She placed on hand over her heart. “I won’t try to improve your love life.”
He snapped his mouth shut.
“And you will feed me. And soon or all bets are off. I’m not responsible for my actions when I’m hungry.”
“I’m starting to realize why someone locked you in a magical block of wood.”
She laughed again and his traitorous body pulsed in response.
Bear watched Chloe inhale the pizza at an alarming rate. It was one of those fancy kinds of pizza, not the regular pepperoni and cheese he normally ordered. The look on her face when he read out the description for this gourmet option made him cave. Who was he to deny a pretty lady who’d been stuck in a magical box for who-knew-how-long good pizza? It’s not as though it had pickles on it. That would be an abomination to the world of pizza and it had no place in his home.
The smell of greasy dough, cheese, chorizo sausage and a whole slew of veggies and herbs he couldn’t name filled the room. But it wasn’t the pizza that made his mouth water.
Chloe licked her fingers and met his gaze. She took her time sucking the grease off the last finger.
He dropped his slice of pizza. It flopped onto his plate with a cheesy splat.
“Stop it,” he hissed, not shaking the feeling of déjà vu.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. You’re so easy to...excite.” She smirked and reached for her glass of water. After taking a long sip, she set it down and met his gaze. “Do you honestly have no idea why you feel the way you do?”
“Oh, I know.”
She pulled another slice of pizza from the box. “Enlighten me then,”
He waved his hand at her. “You’re obviously weaving some sort of dark fae spell on me. I’d have to be a corpse not to respond to the magic coupled with your beauty.”
Her irises bled out again and he squashed the urge to go to her.
She blinked and rested her half-eaten pizza slice on the plate. “I take it you don’t have a lot of experience with dark fae.”
Bear bristled. He was experienced where he needed to be, thank you very much.
Chloe ignored his reaction and continued. “The fae magic that radiates off me is unintentional. It drifts from me just as it does with you. You’re more sensitive to my power because you find me attractive and our magic is compatible. That’s all.”
Bear snatched his beer from the table and took a long drink. “Are you going to dish some fated mate bullshit?”
Chloe laughed again, the sound addictive. A thought smacked Bear in the face. He’d do anything in his power to see her dazzling smile and hear that enchanting laugh again. Anything.
He drank more beer. What the fuck? He didn’t care what she said. Fae couldn’t be trusted and this shit wasn’t natural. She’d woven a powerful spell over him. That had to be it.
“Fated mates?” Chloe’s tone was amused. “No. Absolutely not. Have you been reading your sister’s romance novels again?”
“Again?” How’d she know he had a sister?
She smiled as if she knew some deep secret of his.
“I only read one section one time to see what all the fuss was about.” Raven had practically shoved the book in his hands and told him if he wanted to actually be a “decent fucking human being” he’d read it as if it was a manual to a woman’s heart. Weirdo. Like she was some love expert.
She crossed her arms and smirked again. “And?”
“And it was unrealistic. No man could possibly live up to the expectations set by Joe Roth. Nobody can read minds like that. It only sets women up for disappointment.”
Chloe’s smirk spread into a wide smile. “Struck a nerve, did I?”
He shut his mouth again. Anything he said now would come across as defensive. He had no reason to feel that way.
“Have you never spoken with a fae before? Has no one shown you the root of your power?”
He looked away and squeezed his beer bottle a little too tightly. “My mother strictly forbade us to go into the Underworld and I never had any opportunities for a long heart to heart with a random fae about my inadequacies.”
Chloe cocked her head.
“What?”
She shrugged. “You don’t seem like the type to listen to orders or rules when they’re in the way of something you want. You could’ve defied your mother.”
“You have obviously never met Elizabeth Crawford.”
Chloe laughed. “So, you haven’t met any dark fae? At all?”
“I’ve met some.”
“Women?”
He narrowed his eyes, not sure what she was getting at.
“I’m assuming you’re a heterosexual male fae who’s only met other male fae so there was no attraction involved.” She paused to wink. “At least not from your end of things.”
He opened his mouth to protest and she held up her hand to stop him. “Surely, you’ve met women before where you were instantly attracted to them.”
“Sure.”
“That’s what this is, only our compatible magic emphasizes it.”
“Emphasizes?” More Underworld dark fae bullshit.
“Accentuates, highlights, stresses...Yeah. Emphasizes. It might be potent and intoxicating, but you have free will. You don’t have to act on it.” She leaned over her plate with the forgotten slice. “But it’s more fun if you do.”
“What makes our magic compatible?” He gulped down the rest of his beer, trying not to show her how important her answer was. How could anything be a match to his puny power? Unless it was a yin and yang sort of thing. Her bold, impressive magic of mammoth proportions to his rinky-dink, dawdling power.
Bear swallowed the bitter beer and waited for Chloe to finish studying him like a lab rat.
“You really have no clue, do you?”
“And you do?”
She nodded.
“Enlighten me, then,” he said, using her own words from earlier.
She smiled and leaned back in her chair again, the soft lighting making her skin glow, warm and inviting.
“My power is all about shining light on darkness.”
“Darkness?”
She shrugged. “Literal or figurative. Secrets, lies, hidden truths.” She skewered him with an imperceptible gaze. “Self-made barriers.”
Bear frowned. “Barriers? I don’t have any of those. Surely, I would remember constructing magical walls.”
Chloe cocked her head at him. “Haven’t you? I can sense it. A giant barricade with a wealth of magic behind it, leaking out of cracks and crevices. One day, your dam will break, and it will be magnificent.”
Bear snorted. “Were you imprisoned because of hallucinations, by any chance?”
“I’m quite serious.”
“So am I.”
Chloe frowned and pursed her lips. “Did you experience any trauma when you were younger?”
“Describe trauma?”
“A moment of great pain or sadness, physical or mental.”
Bear sat back and a memory crashed into his mind—a memory full of sadness and pain. The first time Raven shifted with Mom and Dad—Terry—and Bear didn’t. He couldn’t. It was in that moment, Bear realized he would never be able to join them. Not like that. He would always be different and apart from his shifter family. He could call birds to him, but he’d never transform. He’d never join them. He’d never be like them. He’d never be one of them. And he wanted so desperately to belong.
Chloe’s knowing gaze burned. He looked away, wanting to say something scathing or mean. Lash out. Maybe tell her to fuck off.
But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t speak to her like that.
It would be so easy to lie and tell her she knew nothing. But he couldn’t do that, either. Because she did. She saw through everything, even the cloaking ring, and she scared the shit out of him.