Page 33

Chapter 29

Guests, I Guess

~DOLLY~

Current Day

“Is anyone going to release me? Or shall I live in chains for the rest of my life?” Beckham calls obnoxiously from across the hall. Jeb’s apartment has two bedrooms and a study. Beckham is currently chained up in said study. Without a soul balance to draw from, it seems he plans to use annoyance as his only weapon.

Meanwhile, Jeb is festering in his own bedroom, slapped with a calculator-like object from Arrik and tasked with figuring out a way to break the wishes that keep him from telling us what else Alex wished for. I stand alone with Arrik and Velis in the spare bedroom, feeling particularly aware of what’s written on both their hearts.

Both show signs of a fistfight: Velis with a bruise forming on his eye and blood on his lip, Arrik with similar blood on his knuckles and nose.

“I wish you’d heal yourselves up.”

“Stop!” Arrik throws a halting hand out at me, and at the same time, Velis casts a spell in his direction. In an instant, Arrik is in front of me, gripping my shoulders, his injuries mending from the spell Velis just cast. “Unlike Velis, I have no balance to pull from except yours. While he can grant your wishes without cost, every wish you make for me chips away at your soul. Don’t waste it.”

I would argue that healing him isn’t wasteful.

“I feel like this is a little like asking a vegetarian to survive on rabbit, but... regarding borrowing from the estate, Arrik, do these count as desperate measures?”

His eyes slip away with his usual secretive energy. “Whether or not they do, it’s irrelevant. It isn’t only a matter of not liking to borrow from the estate. I can’t. I broke my link to the estate years ago.”

“Why would you do so voluntarily?”

He doesn’t answer, but I already know the reason.

Conviction. That’s why.

I feel a beat in my chest, and Arrik’s eyes fall to it, his hands on my shoulders softening, almost like they’re melting, as they begin to smooth over the curve of my shoulder. Suddenly, it’s like his skin is calling to me, like it would feel extremely good and extremely wicked to set my cheek against him.

“Velis!”

In a flash, Velis is between us, like he’s defending me from a wolverine about to attack. “How about no touching for a while, yeah?”

“She’s not only your master anymore, Vel.”

“But she is only my wife, Arrik.”

Arrik rolls his eyes in a dramatic arc. “She is not your wife, okay? You can’t just go out into the garden and say, ‘Well, we’re married!’ Show me the book of mates. Or better yet, show me your Earthen marriage certificate. This is nothing more than you trying to stake a claim. What are you so afraid of, my laird ?”

“Excuse me?” I lean around Velis. “Who’s claiming anyone? Despite what you might think, Arrik, I committed myself to Velis, and when I make a commitment, I honor it. Always.”

Arrik’s silence speaks volumes, though his pursed lips seem to say, Keep telling yourself that .

This isn’t the same Arrik who was ready to let me go. There’s something different in those cold djinn eyes—small, soft, fluttering, and foreign.

Like that time on the rooftop when he first learned it.

Now that he’s confirmed I’m written on his soul, he might’ve given up on giving me up. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

“ Shall we go in the closet and figure out how you feel about it? ”

Vel casts a look that could kill when he feels my stomach tense. “Enough with the secret telepathy, Arrik. And for your information, you do have access to borrow from the estate. Meaning you have no reason to even think about touching her soul.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Try.”

“Try what?”

“Try pulling from the estate.”

This time, Arrik’s brow furrows with something new—tepid curiosity. He flicks his wrist, summoning a cigarette, staring at his own fingers in surprise as they grip the cigarette in the aftermath.

“I found your severed line when I went to restrict Beckham’s account, and I repaired it. Oh, and by the way, I never would have let you go off alone with Dolly if I’d known it was severed in the first place. Thanks for the transparency, dick .”

“Did you ask?” Arrik challenges, but it’s half-hearted. He closes his fist, opening it to reveal a pile of cigarettes that fall through his fingers and onto Jeb’s floor, marveling, “Fuck.”

Good job, Vel.

“So, what did you two... discuss, while you were beating the shit out of one another?” I prod.

“Plan remains the same,” says Velis. “We visit Mayree tomorrow. She said something strange at my coronation that I want to follow up on.”

When you re-tether her, don’t you ever let her go again. I told your father—

“I remember that. She was worried about us being untethered. We never figured out what she meant.”

Velis nods.

“What else?” I press.

“We get my mother’s journal from Beckham,” he says, while Arrik flicks magical light off his fingertips like he’s experimenting.

“Okay, good. And what about the guy coming to kill you in two days?”

I wait for Velis to answer.

Silence.

I look to Arrik to answer.

More silence.

THAT’S KIND OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF THIS WHOLE ORDEAL.

“Well, I know one option.” Arrik pretends to study his nails.

Deadly fumes leak off Velis.

I have approximately zero time for their rivalry.

“If he’s a Celestial, and we think he snuck into the Célesteen guard, do we want to attempt speaking to the prince, Lyrian? He owes you for what happened at the treehouse cottage, and he upped our travel privileges. If I go with you to the palace, Arrik could summon himself to my side to join us. Maybe we could see if he knows anything about that bow Alex was using.”

“Maybe,” says Velis. “But Celestial lore is classified. As predators, we aren’t allowed to know it.”

“I really don’t understand how they are even considered prey,” I argue. “Having a weapon that takes the blood out of someone and being able to ‘correct fate’ feels like a top-of-the-food-chain power.”

“That would be because they aren’t prey,” says Arrik. “Technically, they’re mesopredators.” Two of his cigarettes are now lit, one between his lips, the other between his fingers, filling the room with smoke like a ’70s office and staining Jeb’s curtains.

“What is a mesopredator?” I ask.

“Is the translation magic malfunctioning? ”

“No, some of us just don’t read encyclopedias in our spare time.”

Arrik pretends to replay the slight in his head before speaking into mine, “ Excuse me for being educated. ” And then out loud, “They’re omnivores. Hunted and hunters.”

“I didn’t know that,” says Velis.

“I wouldn’t expect you to know much.”

“Arrik,” says Velis tiredly.

I sort of hate the way this new ‘soulmate’ discovery has put a damper on their camaraderie. I was enjoying the energy between them before.

Neither acknowledges they’ve heard the thought.

“Celestials are all but prey now,” says Arrik. “Supposedly, they evolved out of any predatorial tendencies. But clearly, some didn’t. So yes, we hit up that nutty djinn reader, we get Beckham to cough up the journal, and we visit your prince friend.”

“We have less than a day to do so,” I say.

“Good thing we know how to freeze time,” says Arrik, fully committed now to wasting the manor’s power, apparently.

“ One-time thing ,” he whispers in my ear. “ Desperate measures . Apparently .”

A one-time thing that involves copious amounts of smoking, apparently .

“Why do you care, apparently ?”

Velis is staring in an unamused sort of way.

FUCKING HELL. I can’t stop my wit from meshing with his when he basically lives inside my brain. And I can hide none of it.

“You don’t have to,” sighs Velis with clear annoyance, though not directed at me. “I know you don’t want this. And to be frank, I’m happier to know fate has something to do with your affections for him. We both know you’ve been resisting it for a while now.”

“Do we ?” says Arrik.

“Get out,” says Velis, pointing to the door. “I’m exhausted, and you’re pissing me off. ”

Arrik hesitates. Usually, he’d be telling me to guard his vessel for the night, but his vessel is in pieces on Jeb’s kitchen counter.

I wonder how that feels for him.

He holds my gaze, and as he leaves the room, he does something unexpected. Placing a hand on Velis’s shoulder, he lowers his voice and says, “Thanks for the souls. But you should know—” He leans in closer to Vel’s ear. “Magic or not, I never would’ve let harm come to her. Plans E, F, and G.” He then raises his voice again. “Goodnight, Master.”

His tone is more genuine than anything we’ve heard from him in the last several minutes, leaving me to wonder if all that was an act or just energy he didn’t know how to direct.

He hits the button on the wall to close us in, and Velis turns to me, his mouth stern but his eyes conceding. “He’s experiencing a lot of new emotions right now,” Velis says. “It’s concerning. Are you okay?”

“Considering. But I’m worried. Are you not? About Alex, the psycho angel?”

He shakes his head, determined as ever. “Last resort, I’ll turn to my father. But I still think he or one of my brothers is behind all this. Let’s see what tomorrow brings. I can promise you one thing, Master—I don’t plan on dying this week.”

His words hang between us, coated with the truth of everything that’s been revealed. For a second, we just stand there, the enormity of it all settling around us.

“Come here.”

He coaxes me gently, and I curl into him as if drawn by an unspoken need. The worlds feel so vast now, and there are very few places where I feel sheltered.

One of them is here, wrapped in his warmth. He holds me close, swaying gently, as if trying to absorb everything I’m feeling. His fingers spread through my hair, guiding me closer, while his hand presses firmly on my back. With him, it’s as if I’m a bouquet of wildflowers he clings to, even as the cyclone approaches.

I missed him .

And I feel guilty.

I press my heart against him. Saying nothing, thinking everything, feeling so much love and desire for him and yet unable to close that door in the back of my mind and heart, and I feel awful, terrible, gross—

“Stop.” He’s inches from my face, his hand holding my jaw, his tone firm. “Look at me.” It’s hard to look at anything else. And then he’s kissing me, and I kiss him back, swirling in a cloud of love and other delightful chemicals as I think of him showing up outside my church as a kid, kissing me in my dorm room, locking me in that onesie.

A cloud of shared memories spins around us.

Him buckling my helmet on the backseat of his bike, eating grapes like Dionysus, sampling my breakfast. The night he got his glitter all over our dance before letting Arrik sweep me away.

Mr. Alien.

Genie boy.

“My laird.”

I push him against the wall, bossy as he likes it, and force his shirt off his body as I hungrily kiss his neck. “Velis,” I say between tastes of his sweat. “Can I wish Arrik wouldn’t be able to feel this?”

“Already taken care of. We’ve got a barrier put up from both sides.”

Awkward conversation that must have been, but thank god.

Because inconsiderate and potentially cruel as it may be to Arrik, I need to stow that whole situation in a locked drawer until morning and do this with my husband. I owe it to him, me, and our communion—however illegitimate Arrik may perceive that communion to be.

My resolve toward our commitment incites a fire in Vel’s chest I can almost feel burning through his pheromone-tacky skin, and his hands pull at my waist, my clothing, while my fingertips map out the flexed ridges of his abs.

His hands slide under my loose clothing, gathering both my breasts in one hand beneath my sports bra, his other slipping beneath my sweatshorts while I nibble his neck and move to kiss down his stomach, breathing hotly along the way as I pull his joggers down with me.

He’s plumped up in a state I particularly enjoy because I have something weighty to work with, but I also get to feel his body’s response in real time.

Like magic.

“ Ungh .”

I always get a vocal reaction each time I take him in my mouth. His Adam’s apple tenses as he lets his head fall back against the wall, his hand resting atop my hair because he likes feeling the motion of my head.

I don’t know, I think it’s reaffirming—as I play with him with my sliding mouth. He tells me how sexy I look. And then he calls me naughty. Things I never would have known how to receive when we first met. Being around him has been healing. My soul feels better being in Vel’s light.

I complete that thought with a deeper hold, feeling his thigh muscles flex, his grateful hand at the back of my hair. I give it as long as I can, and then I pull away completely and tease him with a thin, cool stream of air.

With his chin lifted, his chilly gaze meets mine as he cups my cheek, gently guiding me to stand. He gazes at me a long moment, first my eyes, next my mouth.

And then in a hyperspeed zip, he’s got me at the edge of Jeb’s guestroom bed, tearing my pants off in another magician-like motion and throwing them over his shoulder so that they land on Jeb’s dresser. Jeb’s.

I cannot believe we’re about to bang at Jeb’s. Oh, how the turn-tables have turn-tabled.

Pretty sure that’s the saying.

A grin unlike any I’ve seen from him in far too long brightens his perfect, lost-boy face.

“Spread your legs. ”

He’s the one issuing commands tonight. I’m cool with it.

I’m wet enough from that blowie that there’s not much prep needed, so it’s with pleasure that I moan as he inserts two fingers without much warning at all. He pushes them deep once, twice. Seconds later, his tongue warms me, and I throb against him with tension where his tongue flicks.

“Oh my god.” This time, it’s my head to drop backward, my elbows pressing into the cushion of the mattress.

No bedbug checks required. I’m pretty sure any bug setting foot in this place is put into a jar and slowly suffocated under Jeb’s own bed. I have to remind myself he’s not really that psychotic. Just horribly racist and with parental issues like the rest of them.

“Master.” Velis stops what he’s doing but keeps his fingers distinctly in place. “Not that I’m actually worried about this one, but... Jeb ?”

I think I may have ADHD.

“ I don’t know. I kind of like it. But not right now. Shhh. ”

As he shhhs , that single point of pleasure radiates through me, one giant contraction spreading across my body.

“Superorgasm.”

There are superorgasms? My fingers clutch his hair.

His smirk returns, but he goes back to what he was doing, his fingers hooking inside me to intensify the sensation from both sides.

How many other magical sex things is he hiding from me?

He crawls over me, pushing up one thigh and slipping his warmth into me, deeper than his fingers could ever hope to reach. It feels like I’m swelling. Because I am. He slides his hand to my belly, his thumb pressing in just a little to feel the rise of him inside me.

“ Fucking hot. ”

“Mngh!” I squeal delicately as he slides his hand up my disrobed side, his rough fingertips grazing my armpit as he guides my arm above my head. He pulls nearly all the way out, then slips in just over the head and pulls back before slipping deeply back in .

“Vel, fuck .”

The light falls to something dark and romantic, the air around us freshening from a window open to the night, where the distant hum of city djinn and others can be heard on the streets far below. Velis rolls into me slowly, allowing us both to feel every part of every slip in and back out. It feels like it goes on for eternity and yet I suck a deep breath and experience every second of every time he enters anew. It’s so good. This must be what they mean by resonance. I didn’t realize it would go both ways.

I can feel him fucking me too.

“Oh shit, you can’t think things like that, Master,” his words growl against my throat.

My skin is prickled all over, my nipples hard and in his mouth.

I come on him.

I come on him hard, clenching my body around the girth of him and watching him look down at me with that in-control gaze he only has during his deepest plunges into desire. In this moment, he’s a feasting djinn. I’m going to come again.

I do.

This time, he kisses me through it, coming along with me and leaving my heart pattering like a caged moth in the aftermath. For a moment, the world feels suspended, every sound, every thought muted as we catch our breath together.

After, he lets his cheek fall onto the mattress over my shoulder, his face a little smooshed, his body heavy, and his dino bone wet against my leg.

“That may have been the hottest one yet,” I say.

“They’ll only get hotter.”

“How can they?”

“Strategy.”

I don’t think he puts that much strategy into anything else in his life.

Not a complaint.

He eases his weight off me but leaves one arm draped over my waist, as if anchoring me to the bed. After a few moments of quiet, he curls into me, pulling me closer to his warmth. His breath grazes my ear, stirring me with its gentle rhythm as he whispers, “Quit worrying, Master. Between you, me, and Arrik, we’ll figure something out. We always do. And this isn’t going to be one of those situations where you love me enough to give me up—because that doesn’t even make sense.”

“You already know I’m disgustingly into you,” I murmur, gently stroking his knuckles. “Too much to give it up.”

Sounds like someone’s been running through theories. I have too, but I’m not coming up with anything good. And there’s no way I’m even remotely considering Alex’s ultimatum. Whatever my feelings for Arrik, I’m not okay with being forced into them.

“You’re free to leave anytime. But I’m not letting you be stolen by another djinn, least of all my brothers, least of all Arrik ,” Vel affirms.

We both know that last part, laced with derision, is a lie. Arrik, of all people, is the most deserving of his heart’s greatest desire. If it were anything other than me, Vel would give it to him.

“As your master, truth oath temporarily revoked,” I say, just as his mouth begins to fight him.

His eyes flicker. “Kind of pointless if you already know it’s a lie.” He shakes his head and cuddles me closer. “Look, I feel bad for him. It’s not even pity, because he’s done a shit ton more for me than anyone else in my family, and I don’t find him pitiful at all. He’s my brother. If he asked for my lairdship, I’d give it to him. After we kill this cupid, maybe I’ll offer it to him.”

I blink, sure I’ve misheard. Firstly, that offhand profession of brotherly love, but secondly—

“Did you just say cupid? Cupid ? You’ve never used that word before.”

“Yeah? So? It’s slang.”

“Slang for what?”

“Celestial?”

No fucking way. I rise like Frankenstein come to life from the bed as something clicks in my mind and a theory rushes at me from all sides.

“This whole time I was thinking angels ,” I mutter to myself, eyes undoubtedly wide. “Celestial realm, Celestials, wings... But the word cupid means something else in my world! I mean, technically, a cupid is a kind of angel, isn’t it? Or a cherub?”

I realize I’ve been looking at this all wrong, too many preconceived notions clouding my mortal view. “In my world, cupids are like fat baby angels with wings who shoot arrows of love. They make you fall in love.”

“I’ve never heard that before.”

“Wait.” I gather my shirt, the pieces clicking into place. “Arrow-pointed lovers. Cupids.” And I repeat, arrow-pointed lovers. Cupids. Alex was shooting arrows. They were all shooting arrows, but his were different. He made sure Arrik’s special vessel reached me. He was there to make it happen every step of the way. If he hadn’t refused to use his wishes, would Arrik and I even have had anything to barter to Jeb for Sarah’s soul?

“Velis, I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but Alex might have had a hand in you and me meeting, and in Arrik and me... becoming friends. Maybe both. Because in my lore, cupids shoot red arrows, have wings, and... make people fall in love.”

I slip out of bed to fetch my underwear, ready to get to work, but Vel pulls me back by the waist. “I’ll send Arrik a message,” he says, his optimism sparking a flicker of relief in me—because maybe these so-called feelings for Arrik are being manipulated by a cupid. “It’s a good theory. It’s the first one we’ll pursue in the morning. But you’re tired, and we’re tired, and magical stamina can only carry us so far. We can’t keep going like this. We’ll retire for the night. Arrik may stay up all night theorizing anyway.”

“Then let’s not tell him yet. Let him sleep. His smart brain doesn’t need anything new to chew on tonight.”

Velis nods in agreement, though he’s still getting dressed as I undo myself. “I’m going to build Beckham a cage and get him something to eat,” he says. “We’ll start with honey and move on to other methods if that doesn’t work.”

Velis looks like he’s hoping the ‘honey’ doesn’t work so he can move on to more ‘creative’ solutions.

I crawl back into bed, which is surprisingly comfortable and normal. The sheets are soft, and for once, I’m not getting any creepy vibes—a big deal for me, considering how I judge people’s beds. “Earlier, Jeb muted his magic, and while he didn’t really change, I didn’t get those bitter, hateful vibes from him. What is that? Do you know? He was still Jeb, but I didn’t feel like he was about to claw my eyes out or peel off my skin.”

“They haven’t told me, but I think it’s the opposite of Beckham,” says Vel, still getting dressed. “One draws you in, the other pushes you away. Arrik’s the most balanced. Makes you wonder if the other two branched from him in the womb.”

I watch him as he pulls on his shirt. “Why do you say that?”

“Triplets aren’t natural in djinn. It’s extremely rare and usually rumored to be the result of dark manipulation. We always suspected Amoira did something to have a better chance at claiming the estate. I don’t think even Arrik knows what it was. But Jeb is fearful, Beckham has no fear. One commands order, the other breeds chaos. Arrik always seems to land in the middle. Just a theory I have that maybe he was the original.”

If it’s true, then fuck Amoira for ruining Arrik’s life even more than I thought. And good on Arrik for becoming a respectable person in spite of her.

“Respectable?” Velis scoffs.

“The most disrespectful respectable person ever.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Velis blesses my forehead with a kiss, twisting an invisible screw as the light dims. “Don’t wait up. Get as much rest as you can.”

“Will you make sure Arrik has somewhere to sleep?”

“I’ll make sure Arrik has somewhere to sleep. And I’ll make sure Beckham’s cage is secure.”

“And that Jeb doesn’t activate some sleeper-agent agenda. ”

“Ridiculous, but I’ll handle that too.” He grins as the sliding pocket door shuts us apart.

The moment he’s gone, the room feels colder, the bed lonelier without his warmth. And then, the most terrifying thought trickles back into my mind—a door I wasn’t willing to open in front of Velis. Stronger and closer than ever before, my deepest, darkest fear returns, and it feels like it may have just been confirmed:

Arrow-pointed lovers. Cupids.

How could I have been so stupid?

Is there a chance Velis was the one shot with a magical arrow that made him fall in love with me? And what if, when that magic wears off...

Doom darkens the world around me. For the first time, I dread the possibility I might relive what I felt that day—when Velis lost his emotion, looked me dead in the eye, and told me he no longer loved me.

And I broke.

At one point, Vel’s weight is beside me again, his breath heavy with the exhaustion of hours and days. I love him for his sweetness. I love him for his strength.

I . . . don’t.

You don’t what?

Love you.

I roll over, trying not to quiver because I don’t want him to hear it. He doesn’t, but someone else does.

“ Hey. ” Apparently, the mind-barriers between us have come down. A smoke-worn voice is in my ear. “ Even if what you fear turns out to be true, it doesn’t matter. People with arranged marriages often manage to fall in love, and neither of us could have spent any significant time around you and not ended up this way. ”

Shadows are comforting in their own way.

And it’s silly, isn’t it, that I’m feeling reassured of Velis’s love for me...

Because of Arrik’s confidence in his own?

I feel a twinge.

I expect it would be easy. I expect loving Arrik wouldn’t be hard at all.

If there were any chance in hell I could ever let myself.