Monster Garden

  He hasn’t made a single noise, not a single movement or a sigh like the others. He just sits, and suddenly I get nervous I’m doing it wrong, too fast, so I slow down even more, letting my fingers explore under his jaw, over the ridge of his Adam’s apple and up to his ears, faintly pointed and long. Nothing. No groan of approval, just heated silence.

  The second my fingers slide into his hair I’m the one who makes a noise of surprise - it’s so incredibly soft. Nothing like Quinn’s or Altair, but soft compared to how it looks, always messy and spiking up every which way. I expected it to be straw, but it’s silk.

  “Something wrong?” He asks, voice weirdly quiet, yet still echoed by the room.

  “No, it’s just - it’s so soft.”

  “I’m not a cactus like that dog of yours,” He drawls.

  “No - you’ve definitely got more of a tumbleweed situation up here.”

  He goes quiet again, and I stop faintly laughing at my bad joke. Maybe I’m just pissing him off. Feeding isn’t supposed to be like this - the fae are supposed to relax, not get more rigid. I can feel him tighten as I slide my hands back down, the heat of my palms pulsing into him and his own heat pulsing back to me in a constant feedback loop.

  “Now would be the perfect time to get revenge,” He says. “If you wanted to choke me.”

  My fingers stop at his neck, barely fitting all the way around. I squeeze experimentally and feel his throat make a hoarse, low laugh.

  “Such small hands. So delicate.”

  I squeeze slightly harder and lean in. “Don’t you dare make fun of me.”

  “Hmmm,” His whole voice rumbles thoughtfully against my palms, but he doesn’t say anything more. Nothing to indicate if I’m doing it right or not, nothing to give away where his sweet spot is, if he has one at all.

  I’ve stalled long enough. I have to face the music. It’s just food. Damn it, May, it’s just food!

  With a deep breath in, I slide my hands down to his chest. His collarbone is so elegant and prominent, like two mountain ridges leading down to the generous slopes of his pectorals. Is his skin getting warmer or is this me losing it? He’s built so well it’s almost unbelievable - a perfect slight showing of his ribs just before his abs begin to weave their way down his tapered stomach. I try to keep my hands open but the urge to run my nails down them is too incredibly strong. These abs, good God in heaven almighty what I wouldn’t give to…to do anything on these abs. Sit on them and grind my brains out, pour something sweet down them and lick them clean, kiss them one by one as I work lower -

  As I pull back, my hand brushes something molten hot and long and far away from his stomach like it’s standing straight up and it can’t be his leg because it has a velvet tip and this is it, this is the end, this was my worst fear and my most desperate desire, this is where the world ends and I have to go bury myself in seven hundred feet of dirt and mud before I combust and level the entire mansion but the instant my hand brushes against that core of heat the sound of water abruptly sloshing fills my ears, and the softest moan cracked down the middle resounds loud in the empty room; “M-May -”

  I snap-freeze, pulling my hand away. We both snap-freeze, like a flash blizzard, like two deer in the same headlights, and then comes the cascading sound of water as Dane surges out of the tub. I hear the frantic metallic clink of his buckle as he grabs his clothes and makes for the door and I jump to my feet unsteadily. He called my name - he called my name like he meant it and I lunge like a madwoman in the direction I know the door to be in and my body collides with his back, with his wet, hot skin seeping into my shirt, the hard lines of his shoulder blades pressing against my blindfold and the scent of his bare flesh flooding me.

  If I make the wrong move he’ll break free and run. I know that with a certainty, I know that by the way he’s gone rigid beneath me. Carefully, so slow I barely move at all, my hand wanders around his waist, skirting the v.

  “Little beast,” He pants. “If you do this, there’s no taking it back.”

  “I know,” I murmur against his skin.

  “If you do this, I -“ I find him, harder than steel and swollen and he sucks in a hiss. “I’m a fae, and you’re a human.”

  I know that. He knows I know that. Wordlessly I slide my hand up, to the velvet head and back down and his hips buck himself into me.

  “This isn’t,” He struggles, his breathing ragged. “This isn’t you. This is my glamor. You deserve better than -“ I stroke once, hard, and his spine goes stiff against my cheek. “ - than being fooled into touching someone you hate.”

  My heart’s beating so fast I can’t hear myself think anymore - my brain swimming with him and only him, his smell, his smoothness, how hard and hot he is. He’s right - faintly in my brain I know he’s right, I can’t tell what’s the glamor and what’s my own desire anymore. Was there ever any difference?

  “Would it really be so bad if I gave in to it?” I murmur, squeezing him rhythmically. His hips buck again and his whole body trembles.

  “Y-Yes,” He manages. “I want you lucid, I want you, I want you but without the glamor you’ll never look my way and I know that -“ I speed up and his deep moan resonates in my chest. “You deserve to choose. You, of all the humans I’ve met…you d-deserve to choose your own happiness, and it’s not -“

  He rips away from me, leaving me cold and unsteady in an unseeing void.

  “ - with a fae who forces you into this.”

  I hear the door slide shut, and then, nothing.

  Nothing but my own confusion and a rapidly cooling series of regrets.

  -13-

  Me and Jasmine’s lunch date is at three pm and I’ve never been happier to leave the manor than I am now. I call for a fae knowing there’s no way in hell Dane will answer it, and he doesn’t, Quinn instead showing up at my doorstep. We walk out together, and as the world blurs and we leave Monster Garden behind Quinn clears his throat.

  “Are you alright?”

  I blink at the question coming from him of all fae. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  “You’ve been digging your nails into your palms for seven minutes, now. Doesn’t it hurt?”

  I look down at my clenched fists, and slowly unclench them, the moon-shape indents there aching. The world melts back in around me, from the vivid greens of the garden to the dull expanse of gray cement that is the city. I check my phone quickly - he’s dropped me off a few blocks from the Korean barbecue place we agreed to meet at, which is nice. I can just walk there, maybe walk off some of the intense shame before I meet Jasmine and she reads it on my face.

  “ -ay? May!” Quinn’s voice, and I jump and turn to face him.

  “Y-Yeah?”

  “Flushed face,” He mutters to himself, inspecting me like I’m a pinned butterfly under a microscope. “Listless gaze. You’ve fed all of us, except Dane, which means you fed him today. Probably this morning, since you’d want to do your work before going off to meet a friend.”

  “So?” I frown, pushing into the crowd on the sidewalk to get away from him. He follows insistently, easily ducking and weaving through the people to catch up with me. We stop at a crosswalk light, Quinn hanging on the traffic light pole just behind me.

  “Did something happen during his feeding between you two?”

  The avalanche of pure shame crumples in on me, and I put my head down and dash across as soon as the light turns green. But Quinn doesn’t give up so easily, trotting beside me with easy stamina.

  “Let me guess - his glamor won out over your willpower.”

  “Can you please go psychoanalyze someone else?” I snap. “Someone who needs it?”

  Quinn laughs, faint and cool. “Oh you definitely need it. You and him both. It’s a miracle your mutual insecurities haven’t made you kill each other, yet.”

  “When did you get so chatty?”

  “When I realized our brave leader was smitten with you.”

  He??
?s spouting nonsense, but even so I ask; “Leader?”

  “Obviously,” Quinn frowns. “No one likes to admit it, but Dane’s the one with the best leadership skills out of the eight of us. Even if he’s harsh about it.”

  “I thought you and him don’t get along.”

  “We don’t. Just like you and him don’t.”

  I’m quiet, walking around the corner beneath a giant neon nail salon sign.

  “That was a test, of course,” Quinn seems to bounce with every step - too chipper almost. He’s enjoying this. “To see if you refuted it or agreed. You did neither. That means you’re still deciding whether you do or don’t.”

  “He’s a fae,” I say patiently.

  “True.”

  “Sexual attraction and sexual attraction only isn’t exactly the building block for a healthy relationship.”

  “Even less when one side is influenced in that regard by magic,” He agrees.

  “I don’t sleep around.”

  “Clearly.”

  I ignore his jab, even as it makes my eye twitch. Just what about me screams ‘clearly’? “Which means I don’t want just sex.”

  “From him?”

  “From anyone,” I glare at an innocent passing fire hydrant. “That’s not my style.”

  “Then what is your style?”

  I flinch and hesitate at my own next words. “Love, I guess.”

  “And you think that isn’t Dane’s style?”

  “No, of course not. He just wants to sleep with me like he does every human woman.”

  “If he ‘just wanted to sleep with you’, he could’ve done that already,” Quinn muses. “When he put you in the bed that one night.”

  My lungs deflate. “How do you know about -“

  “You’ll argue that he’s not a total monster to take advantage of such a weakened woman, which is fair. Not completely accurate, but fair.”

  “Why -“

  “The real question,” He barrels on past me with one finger raised. I’ve never heard him this talkative before. “Is why did he reject you this morning?”

  “Okay, that’s it,” I reach the restaurant and bat at him. “Get out of here, Sherlock, before I Swatson your ass.”

  “Bad joke,” Quinn’s lips purse. “But good talk.”

  He walks away, and I watch him incredulously until his blue curls disappear around the corner.

  The Korean barbecue place is nearly empty, and Jasmine waves me over with a perfect freckled smile. I’m stiff at first, this morning lingering with me until Jasmine talks about school, about work, and the mundane things start to fill in the yawning chasms of confusion. We sear meat on the little grill and dip it every type of sauce imaginable, and Jasmine orders me an awesome Korean soda that instantly becomes my new favorite - bright green, and tasting like vanilla and strawberries.

  What I did still hovers over me, but talking with a friend about everything besides that helps. Part of me wishes I could, but the collar probably won’t let me tell her about all the specifics, like glamor and the fact Dane’s a fae.

  So I generalize it.

  “Say there’s this guy,” I start. “You really hate his guts, but he’s the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.”

  “Okaaay,” She giggles. “Go on.”

  “He sleeps around like crazy. He’s an ass to you when you first met, but he’s started being civil to you, lately. Nice, even.”

  “Right.”

  “And say things get, um, heated -“

  She giggles and slips putting the next piece of beef on the grill, quickly repositioning it with chopsticks.

  “ - but he walks away from it. What does that, um, mean?”

  She chews some peanuts thoughtfully. “Well, it could mean a few things. Maybe he wasn’t feeling it.”

  “He. Erm. Was. I think.”

  “Okay,” Jasmine laughs. “Then maybe he just didn’t want things to move that fast.”

  “They move that fast with everyone else!” I argue.

  “Maybe he just didn’t want things to move that fast with you.”

  I frown at the beef and take it off. “Because…”

  “You’re so slow!” She practically shrieks with laughter, and I shush her and she leans in to whisper; “Because he likes you, blockhead.”

  Smitten. Because he likes me. Quinn and Jasmine’s words just don’t add up. I’m hearing them, but they go in one ear and I really do feel like I’ve got a block up there, because the idea never settles, never seeps in to form a cohesive image. Dane liking me just….isn’t. It isn’t a thing.

  People keep saying it and I keep denying it because there has to be another answer. But if that’s really the only one…

  “We’ve known each other for like, a week and a few days, tops,” I say. Jasmine smiles.

  “It doesn’t matter how long, if it’s the right person.”

  I stick my tongue out. “I’m not a romantic like you.”

  “I think you are,” She singsongs. “I think every girl is. Just in different ways. Maybe your way is different than mine, but I’m pretty sure it’s still there.”

  Romance? While I’m feeding fae under a contract with maybe-Satan with my freaky-cool magic Brightness in a totally weird land full of it? I ponder this, looking around the restaurant. A man at the booth over has his head buried in his menu.

  “What if I hate him,” I say slowly. “But he likes me?”

  “If you really hated him, you probably never would’ve asked me about him. You would’ve just ignored him entirely in your brain.”

  These are the two sentences of hers that leave me speechless. The waiter comes by with our bill and Jasmine cheerily pays for all of it, saying it’s her treat to help heal my ‘romantic woes’. I thank her but even as we leave I’m only half-aware of the traffic and the crowd on the sidewalk and Jasmine talking to me about her labs she has tomorrow. We part ways at a park, her bus stop in one direction and my fae stop in the darkest alley I can find.

  “Here,” She pulls something bright green out of her bag. “I snagged one of those sodas you like so much. For later. In case you’re feeling down about this guy, or about work or…whatever.”

  I take it reverently. “Is it weird to say this is the first edible gift I’ve ever gotten from someone that I really like?”

  “You mean you really like me?” She teases.

  “No, I mean - the soda, but you too, uh -“

  “I’m just kidding.” Jasmine smiles. “Don’t worry about it. Just promise me you’ll drink it whenever you’re feeling down.”

  I grin for the first time in what feels like ages. “I will.”

  “Promise?” She presses.

  “Promise!” I make a little salute and Jasmine, finally satisfied, turns and leaves, waving over her shoulder as she goes. When she’s gone I duck into an alley behind a tattoo shop and put my fingers to my collar, calling a high fae. I wait. And wait.

  I watch the crowd pass outside the alley’s mouth, businessmen and the homeless and women in comfy sweaters and stylish sunglasses. All these humans, and they have no idea the Bright Place exists. I was one of them not too long ago. Maybe some of them have an idea - and I wonder just how many of the people passing are Brightened. How common is it, to have Brightened powers? And how many people actually figure out they have them? Probably not many, considering Brightened powers only work on fae. You could accidentally use your power if you coincidentally meet a fae, but you might not even realize it.The Bright Place has only been opened for a few years - there’s probably not many fae here on Earth at all. They’d stand out too much.

  Speaking of standing out - I spot a flash of pale green out of the corner of my eye - there in the crowd one minute, and gone the next. What a weird color; someone’s shirt, probably, or a crazy hat.

  Quinn rounds the corner a couple minutes later, and takes me home wordlessly this time, until we get to the very steps of the mansion
.

  “It’s going to be me escorting you from now on,” He says.

  “Just you?” I quirk a brow, and he nods.

  “Just me. Dane and Altair have been commanded by Van Grier to the front.”

  My body instinctually knows the answer to the question my mind asks; “The front…of what?”