“Yeah, you do. This lube’s gonna cost ya,” the other woman quipped.
“What price for broadening your horizons?” Jen said with a shrug and a grin.
“So, are you sure you want to hear about this?” I asked once we’d decimated a ridiculous amount of the food.
“Neither of us are allergic to dick,” Jen said. “So spill.”
“Yeah, I’ve worn a whole lot. Pink ones, curved ones, ones ribbed for your pleasure or with vibrating cores…” Her words trailed away when she saw she had our rapt attention. “Just saying, whatever Hartley’s packing ain’t gonna scare me away. Just don’t ask me to touch it.” She snatched up a sausage and bit a chunk off with a wink.
“Right, so I kinda jumped Johnno last night. Liam said I could leave court, and when we were out in the carpark, I dunno. He wasn’t him, he was just a guy and I…” The two of them laughed. “What?”
“You watched a girl getting it good from a couple of dudes with massive dicks, and saw your sub-in-waiting do naughty things to a girl who probably looked just like you,” Jen said.
“I’ll give it to Hartley. They know how to pull your strings,” Vervain said.
“You were turned on, Ki. It might have been weird or alien or whatever, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a turn on. Jake offering to do anything, absolutely anything to please you. Billy guiding you through all of it. This was a scene. An elaborate, complex one, where everyone was totally into what was happening, but still.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“They want you, that much is palpably true. Even we could see it the few minutes we were on the bus. How Marlow’s going to find his place in this…” Jen said with a shake of his head. “But this, this was all designed to turn you on, make your introduction into court as hot and as enticing as possible. It’s what we do.”
“So you’re saying they set me up?”
“Not really. Imagine some human guy asked you out. You like him, he likes you, so he borrows a nice car for the night, buys pretty flowers, dresses nice, puts on cologne, takes you to a nice restaurant. Is any of that spontaneous?”
“Well, no.”
“Of course it isn’t. No one’s who they are in the first few months of a relationship. You’re partly buzzing on the pheromones of being with someone or someones you’re into, and the other half is trying to make the best possible impression, until the bond settles. A human guy’s trying to show you he’s safe, that he cares, and is respectful.”
“Fae want you hot and wanting,” Vervain said, tracing circles on the table top. “We fall, sometimes harder than humans, but we live a damn long time. If there’s no fire, no spark, that’s a bloody long time to be tied to someone who’s little more than a friend.”
“So, anyway, you jumped Johnno.”
“Um…yeah. I dragged him back to the bus and it was…” I glanced out the window, looking for something reassuringly normal to hang onto, but it was different here too. “It was like… With Marlow, it was intense and sweet and hot, and it felt so good but—”
“But you were in control,” Jen said with a soft smile.
“Sort of. Like he was directing what we were doing, but at any point, I could take that control from him. I didn’t want to. I don’t want to, but—”
“We trip on power,” she replied. “Marlow is Marlow. You’re lucky to have him, I say that with my whole heart, but he isn’t ever going to run his own court. That’s not who he is. You’ll get so much from being with him…” Her words trailed off as our eyes met, she nodded slightly. We both knew what she was saying. “But he isn’t a threat to you. The Hartleys, they have power. They’re dangerous—to each other, to you. You’re still finding your power, but they know what theirs is. They grew up on the other side of the court system to me, surviving anyway they could. If you decide to do this with them, they will always, always be working an angle. It’s part of who they are. So what was it like?”
Jen and I had dissected our sexual encounters before—me more than her, for obvious reasons I saw now—but this was odd for me. I felt like I was taking something small and fragile, and staking it out on the table before them, using precise, cutting words to describe something indescribable. They seemed to sense this, falling silent as I got through it, all of it, including this morning.
“Fucking Hartley in love.” The silence had stretched out for some time before Vervain shook her head. “If I had a dollar for every crying girl’s cunt I licked better after those guys had kicked them to the curb, I would be sitting on my own throne of gold.”
“Love?” I choked on that, reaching for a drink to wash the lump in my throat.
“What else is it? They’ve been dream stalking you for what? Years? Rolling around in your sex dreams of their fearless leader, getting oh so close, only to get caught in their own honey trap. Knocking back bids from rival courts for a night between your thighs.” I hadn’t specified exactly what had been offered, not wanting that tidbit to get back to Jen’s dad. “They’re all touchy-feelie this morning, and they looked like they would’ve fought the world to keep ahold of you. You’ve formed a bond with one brother, Liam is a hair’s breadth from chomping on you and claiming you as his next. You’ve got Billy guiding you to become a baby Dom for Jake in the group. You watch tonight. You’ll be put through your paces at court, led into situations that just happen to trip your trigger, and they’ll be there with arms out all around you to catch you when you’ve drenched your knickers.”
Vervain’s words hit me harder than she intended, I was sure. I felt like my brain was on some kind of rack, continually being stretched wider and wider. I just sat there, staring at the bright white plates covered with the remains of our meal, and startled when the waitress came to take the food away.
“Send me the bills for the men behind us and those next to the door as well, please,” Jen said to the waitress.
“Look, this is obviously a lot to take in, but this is good, Kira. You’ve stumbled onto something powerful with Johnno,” Jen said. “That’s what I always wanted for you, to take your place within the highest of our kind. People are going to see you’re a force to reckon with, but I think what they’ve overlooked is that you need to find yourself in all of this. Come to court with us tonight.”
“Bring your sub. He’s as likely to get into trouble, trying to get your attention,” Vervain said. “You may as well control that.”
Jen nodded. “Come with Jake and explore away from the Hartley games. Everything’s on offer in faerie. Find what you want without them guiding your hand.”
I agreed, because what else could I do? There wasn’t any going back. I hadn’t understood the court system before, but I did now that I’d seen those suited guys last night. You used the collective to protect yourself, while you protected them. If this was going to be my world, working out which parts of it I was going to choose to engage with was important.
“I’ll introduce you to some people as well,” Vervain said. “If you decide to take Jake on like this, you’ll need some training. Safe, sane, consensual. It doesn’t have as much traction as it should in fae. He’s dangerous the way he is, just left to roam.”