Dying Dreams (Book 1 of Dying Dreams Trilogy) (21 page)

“You pinched my ass, you pervert. I thought you were a lonely old man, so I didn’t slap you. Now, I realize I should have. And the things you said about my… Ew, what is wrong with you?”

He shrugged, his expression amused. “You can’t expect me not to take advantage of the liberties allowed an old man, can you?”

“But you said I can see through glamour. I saw your horns, so why didn’t I see you as you are?”

“The glamour to hide the horns is a simple magic all the fae use to hide themselves in the human world. What I use to make myself look old is much more complex. You would have had to
try
to see through my aging glamour and, since you were unaware of it, you didn’t. Very few have the ability to see through the more complex glamours, and we don’t yet know if you have that ability.”

“Huh,” she said. “You’re a jerk.”

He laughed loud and long at that, and she resisted the urge to reach across the desk and throttle him. “Not the best way to start a conversation when you’re the one who requested a favor,” he said, sobering quickly. “Why don’t we go speak somewhere more comfortable?” He waved a hand and the wall to her right slid open revealing a roaring fire, a single loveseat covered in a leopard print material, and a king-size bed, with a leopard print bedspread, behind the loveseat.

“I’m fine right here, thanks.”

He shrugged, waved his hand again and watched as the love nest vanished. “What is it that I can do
for
you, Liza, since it seems you won’t let me do anything
to
you?”

She did her best to suppress the shudder that threatened to overtake her as she imagined his hands on her. Good-looking or not, he was a pervert who’d taken advantage of her sympathy for an old, lonely man. “What do you know about something called a bond?”

Arty leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. The stretched out length of him before her, his gaze hot, made her forget for a moment that he disgusted her. Instead of feeling attracted to him, she thought of Sloane and wished he was there before her, stretched out like Arty. What the hell was wrong with her? She had no commitment to Sloane, and Arty was a good-looking man who wanted her, even if he might be a jerk. She focused on Arty and tried to feel something for him. He dropped his hands and leaned forward on the desk. “You know, I usually don’t have to work very hard to seduce a woman once I have her in this room, but you aren’t interested are you?”

She wanted to be interested. Wanted to prove that Sloane didn’t have any hold over her. She really, really did, but she felt nothing. Shit, shit, and triple shit. “I didn’t come here to be seduced. I came to talk.”

“You can’t blame a man for trying,” Arty said. “I have… appetites, and it’s harder than you might think to convince women to come here and let me show them this side of myself.”

“How do you do that?”

“Old Arty excuses himself and his grandson comes out to play.”

“Why not just go out in public as Arty’s grandson?”

He sneered. “Because this is a small town and people remember that Arty was never married and never had any children. I should move, but I like it here. So I’ve damned myself.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? In all the commotion with the climate crisis Arty’s grandson couldn’t have just shown up and taken over? I doubt anyone believes you’ve lived a celibate life, so it wouldn’t be difficult to convince them.”

He smiled. “Perhaps, I just enjoy the game.”

She tried to bite back her grimace, but wasn’t sure she succeeded. “And the women you bring here, they don’t tell anyone about Arty’s grandson?”

“They’re mostly tourists, or I fog their memory so they think they just came here and talked with Old Arty.”

“That’s…” She swallowed hard to prevent bile from rising. “That’s disgusting.”

He shrugged. “Everyone has fun, and no one gets hurt. What’s the harm?”

“You erase their memories. You don’t see anything wrong with that?”

“As much as I’m enjoying this moral debate, sweet cheeks, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

She was no longer sure she wanted advice from Arty, but she didn’t have any other options. Her mother, father, and sister had vanished and no one seemed to have any idea where they were or how to reach them. And she didn’t know any other fae. Except for Sloane’s partner, Fulsom, and talking to him was sketchier than talking to Arty. “I need to know about some bond thing that happens between fae when they sleep together.”

He studied her, his gaze distant. “In my experience, the fae are no more inclined toward bondage games than humans.”

She pushed the chair back and stood. “You know what, I’m done. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

Arty laughed as she turned and stalked out.

“Wait, Liza. I’m sorry. I’ll behave, I promise.”

His tone had changed to a level of serious she’d never heard from him before. She turned and walked back to her seat, but didn’t sit.

“Please forgive me. I know a good deal about bonds between fae. I can help you.”

She sat, desperation overriding her better judgment. “What do you know?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you know first?”

When she’d decided to speak to Arty about the bond thing, she’d planned to tell him the whole story. But young Arty was an asshole and she no longer wished to share. “No,” she said. “I’d rather not.”

He sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “Won’t you ever forgive me, Liza? It is in my nature to seduce women and to tease and play games. I am really not a bad person.”

“So you were joking about sleeping with women and then making them forget it ever happened?”

He looked confused. He had no idea why such a thing would be considered bad. “No. I do that.”

She’d never been one to hold onto a grudge. “Fine, I’m willing to call a truce, if you don’t try any of your tricks on me and you promise to stop erasing women’s memories.”

“The first I can promise, but not the second.”

It was worth a shot. “Fine. I forgive you. I slept with a fae and now I’m sort of… stalker-level obsessed with him.”

Arty’s eyes widened in surprise. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have enough fae blood for that to happen.”

“Yeah, well, it did.”

“So why are you here? Why aren’t you with your mate?”

She sputtered. “My what?”

Arty’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Oh, I see. You’re one of those feminists who wants to be independent from a man.”

She raised her eyes skyward, wondering how the hell she got herself into these situations. “I’d just like to not think about him every second of every day. I’d like to not feel like my heart is exploding because I want to see him so bad it hurts. I’d like to not want to rip his clothes off when I see him.”

“I don’t see what the problem is,” Arty said, taking a drinking of some dark liquid. “Does he not also feel the pull of the bond?”

“He feels it.”

Arty’s brow wrinkled. “Then why are you here?”

“I sent him away. I told him I don’t feel it.”

“You lied to your mate?”

His accusation stung, and when Liza felt guilty she got defensive and angry. It wasn’t one of her better traits. “He’s not my mate! He’s just some guy I slept with.”

“You don’t like him?”

“He’s okay.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No,” she said, her eyes going wide in shock and anger. “He would never hurt me. He’s surprisingly gentle for such a big guy, and he’s got the… but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he’s Prince Charming. I don’t want to feel this way.”

Arty’s expression softened and he sighed. He took a deep breath and young Arty was replaced by old Arty. Even though she knew it was fake, the glamour relaxed her. “Sweetheart, the mating bond is a gift. It is extremely rare and happens between only one in a thousand fae couples. You should be happy. You have met your soul mate, the other half of yourself, and you never have to be alone again,”

Her vision tunneled and the room spun a little bit. “I like being alone sometimes. I don’t want this bond. Can you tell me how to make it go away?”

He muttered to himself, then chuckled. “I’m so very tempted to tell you that to break the bond you must let me bring you to orgasm until you no longer feel the pull, but we are friends, so I will not lie to you. There is no way to break the bond other than death.”

She dropped her head in her hands and tried to hold back the tears. A gentle hand on her shoulder, Arty’s lecherous hand on her shoulder, helped to distract her. She sat up and pushed him away. “I can’t live like this.”

“It gets better,” he said. “Or so I’ve heard. I’ve never been blessed with such a bond, but I’ve heard that as long as you stay close to your mate and satisfy the urges, the pull gets less demanding over time.”

“Great.” She was pretty sure she was going to throw up all over his hooves. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”

“You could kill him, but that would likely destroy you as well.”

“I can’t kill him… Wait, what do you mean it would kill me, too?”

He sat down in the chair next to her. “You’re bonded at a cellular level. If he dies, your body and your mind will suffer. You are so connected to him that his loss would cause an ache a thousand times worse than what you feel now, and if you survived that, it’s likely your body would begin to decay and deconstruct with the loss of your connection. Of course, the longer you’re bonded the more likely that becomes. If your bond is only recently discovered, you could very probably survive his death.”

“Please tell me you just made that up as part of some elaborate scheme to get into my pants.”

He just stared at her for thirty seconds, she counted, then shook his head. “Nope, I can’t think of a single way what I just told you would convince you to take your pants off, and believe me I can be incredibly creative when it comes to getting women’s pants off.”

She took a few deep breaths to get control of herself. “Okay, so I’m now irrevocably bonded to some man I barely know and if he dies, I might die, too? Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You slept with a guy you barely knew? I didn’t think you were that kind of girl. If I’d known I would have…” He looked longingly at the wall that hid his love shack.

“Focus, Arty. You lost your shot with me. Please, tell me…” What she’d just said sunk in. “Oh, my god, are you saying he’s the last man I’m ever going to want to sleep with? I’m really never going to feel attracted to any other man?” Her chest felt tight. “Bring young Arty back.”

He obliged and she looked him over. “Nothing. I feel nothing. Kiss me.”

He leaned in and put his lips to hers, he nipped and nuzzled, he pushed her lips apart with his tongue and expertly seduced her mouth, and she felt nothing. He leaned back, looking quite pleased with himself, which only pissed her off more.

“I felt nothing, Arty. Zero attraction or desire. So why do you look so fucking smug?”

“You’re a very good kisser, and I’m hoping you’ll ask me to test the bond by fucking you.”

She shivered, feeling nothing but disgust at the idea of another man’s hands on her. In fact, Arty’s kiss had only made her longing for Sloane more intense. “Bring old Arty back, right now!”

Old Arty reappeared and Liza leaned back in her chair. “No, no, no, this can’t be happening. I’m young. I have my whole life ahead of me. A lot of potential good-looking men in my future. I’m not ready for this.” Even as she mourned the loss of future sex, she couldn’t work up any real sadness. All she could think of was Sloane. She didn’t want any of those imaginary lovers. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Arty cleared his throat. “Do you have any idea what I would give to trade places with you?”

She smirked at him and gestured toward his den of iniquity. “And give up all of this?”

“It’s a lonely life, sugar. Don’t ignore the gift you’ve been given. Love this man and let him love you. The bond links you in many, many ways and it will help you both to be more powerful and to achieve more than you ever could have alone.”

That all sounded very good, but she couldn’t shake the fear that was surging through her, threatening to leave her a quaking, stammering mess. “Is that the way it always works? Does the bond ever make someone lose sight of everything else? Even their own children? Even good sense? Does the bond ever lead a person to follow her mate down the wrong path to her own detriment?”

Thankfully, Arty seemed to take her question seriously. “I have known a very few bonded couples, and I have never seen the bond do anything but enhance their relationship with others and the rest of the world. I have never known it to be anything but a gift, but I suppose it could go the other way. Though what you speak of sounds more like a dangerous human obsession than a true bond.”

“But it’s possible?”

He frowned, but nodded. “Anything’s possible.”

She felt so very, very tired. “Thank you, Arty. Your next meal’s on me.”

He shook his head. “The first rule of fae is to never, ever thank them for anything. You will now owe me two favors, instead of the one we’d agreed upon.”

She remembered Sloane stopping her from thanking Mellita, and she wished he’d explained why he’d done that and saved her from owing Arty anything. “What kind of favors are we talking about?” she asked, unable to keep her gaze from sliding toward his pleasure nest.

“Not the kind you’re thinking. I’ll let you know when it’s time for them to be called in.”

“Good night, Arty. I’ll see you around.”

“My driver will take you home.”

“Tha – Good night.”

“Liza, it’s five in the morning,” Ellison said, when he answered the door. She should have gone home and gotten some sleep, but she knew nothing would be okay until she’d talked to her best friend.

“I know, I’m sorry. I just really need to talk to you. Is Marcy here?”

He nodded. “She’s sleeping. Come in. What’s wrong?”

She sat down next to him on the couch. He looked adorable in his ratty blue robe, his hair mussed from sleep, sheet creases on his cheek. “I love you, Ellison, you know that right?”

“Li, what’s going on? You’re starting to scare me.”