Chapter 7
“ D amn, you’re quite the bombshell, aren’t you?” the furry asshole who’d strolled into my shop looking like he’d just stepped out of a Billabong catalog commented as he watched the swish of Effie’s frilly skirt.
I already didn’t like the man who’d come to respond to the ad that we’d put up months ago and this comment sealed my opinion of him.
It had been enough to walk into the lobby to see his eyes raking up and down the length of my mate, taking in the frilly, floral dress she was wearing and her green hair piled high on her head, but it was another thing for him to actually comment on it.
Effie was mine and I knew for a fact this pussycat could smell my scent on her, and yet he still had the audacity to try and flirt with her regardless. Lion beastmen were the most notorious flirts of the supernatural animal kingdom—it was one of the reasons why the lioness beast women ran the show. Nothing would ever get done if these horny cats had control.
Stepping between Byrne and Effie, I cut off the man’s view of her rear end as she huffed and mumbled under her breath about how stupid we men were. At this point I couldn’t even really argue that point.
“If you want an interview here, then I suggest you watch yourself, Simba,” I growled, crossing my arms over my chest as I stared him down.
Or tried to stare him down. Much to my displeasure the guy stood a head taller than me.
Eons ago the Cthulhu race could grow to be as tall as the tallest trees in the forest… but evolution affected us all and thousands of years of crossbreeding left us relatively human sized.
Bryne looked down his flat nose at me and I was half-tempted to see if I could kick his ass even if I was shorter than him.
Then Effie slipped her hand into mine and I could feel her discontent with the situation through the tentative edges of the mental bond we shared.
The same one I still had yet to tell her about. All Cthulhu had some level of mental magic, but it usually required a strong relationship between me and the other person. Effie was the only person who I could sometimes speak to with my mind, though Cash could feel my emotions if I stood close enough to him. My control over it had been slipping as of late, my mind slipping into Effie’s for a flash while we made love allowing me to talk to her but also feel the turbulence of her indecision about us actually being together. It was why I didn’t force the issue of it last night when Effie had stopped me mid-confession.
“Just leave it, Dall, we need a piercer,” Effie whispered in my ear, making me shudder from the closeness of her lips and chasing away the anger and my thoughts about our special mental connection.
“Do we need this one?” I asked, my voice almost a whine.
“Yes,” was her simple reply as she led the way into the back office which, to be fair, really did need a good scrub down…
And maybe some new furniture.
And potentially a fresh coat of paint.
I hadn’t really done much with it upon buying the shop and all of the decorations were original to when the building had been built.
Effie gestured for Byrne to sit at the old leather couch that I sometimes used to nap when I didn’t want to go down to my grotto and then she settled into my desk chair, leaving me to either sit next to the cat on the couch or stand.
I chose the latter, going to hover behind Effie like some kind of sentinel watchdog as I continued to glare at the lion man who was making himself far too comfortable on my couch.
No one spoke for a long time and we all stared at each other until Effie reached back and gave my hand a pinch, clearly telling me that I should be the one to do the interview.
“So,” I began, clearing the growl out of my voice. “What is your experience with piercing supernatural creatures?”
We needed someone who could pierce supernaturals more effectively than we could, and if that meant pushing my petty possessiveness out of the way, then so be it.
“As I said before the Leonidas family values body modifications so we’ve developed several methods of piercing that help slow the healing of supes so that their piercings don’t reject—I also worked at O’Malley’s while I was in university in London and pierce everything from fae wings all the way to dragon’s nostrils when they’re in dragon form,” Byrne sat back, his arms crossed proudly over his chest. “You won’t find a better piercer than me that isn’t already attached to a shop.”
I recognized the name O’Malley almost immediately. That shop was run by an ancient, grumpy troll that had been alive since the bronze age and had also been tattooing about as long—though he’d long since moved on from the original stick and poke method. I had been lucky enough to study under him when I first became interested in body art in the late 1700s and if Byrne had worked for O’Malley, then I knew he was worth his weight in gold.
But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that the lion beast man sitting in front of us was going to bring even more chaos to our already chaotic lives.
Frowning at him, I repeated my earlier question about his family. “You’re Leonidas, your family has more money than they know what to do with. Why do you need a job here? We certainly don’t pay that well.”
“I’ll say!” Fiero, who had a nasty habit of eavesdropping on every conversation that was had in the shop, chimed in from somewhere in the back.
Effie grimaced before snapping her fingers, and at first, nothing happened. Then we heard a yelp from the other room before the sound of hooves on the hardwood floor echoed down the hall and the bell over the front door tinkled as it was opened.
I shot a confused look at Effie who looked just as surprised as I was. I didn’t know what she’d done to him but Effie’s magic had never been sophisticated enough to work when the target wasn’t in her line of sight—and even then the spells tended to fizzle out quickly. I hadn’t even heard her mumble whatever spell she’d cast on the satyr.
Byrne, oblivious to our shock, just shrugged. “My mother has more money than she knows what to do with and has now turned to managing me—her only child. I’m not okay with that so I’ve decided to strike out on my own.”
That was a surprisingly naive answer from the man and I couldn’t help but wonder just how old he was.
Effie on the other hand, seemed to be falling for his family sob story hook, line, and sinker because I could feel the sympathy practically rolling off of her in waves.
“You aren’t going to bring your shit into my shop are you?”
Byrne shook his head. “No, she doesn’t even know that I’m in the country. She thinks I’m still in London.”
I turned to look at Effie who was glancing between the two of us before she finally settled on me, her green freckle covered nose scrunching as she weighed the pros and cons in her mind.
What I did next was probably a bad idea. Reaching out with the cool threads of my magic I connected with hers the same way it always did when we made love and spoke in her mind .
‘It’s up to you if you want to hire him,’ I told her silently, watching as she jumped and her eyes widened.
‘Are you talking in my mind right now?’ she paused and frowned. ‘Wait, am I talking back?’
Then before I could answer her she continued, ‘Oh my god, I wasn’t going crazy and you have been saying things in my head when we’re having sex. Dallan! Why didn’t you tell me we could talk mind-to-mind?’
I could feel her spiraling down our mental connection so I gave her magic a little yank. ‘Remember, we’re still with company, Effie, do you want to hire him or not?’
Effie’s green eyes narrowed at me before she turned to look at Byrne who seemed to realize that there was some kind of conversation going on without him.
“If it makes you all feel better, you don’t even really have to pay me a ton…”
“You’re hired,” Effie jumped up from her seat and held out her hand to the man who took it and gave it a firm squeeze that lasted just a hair longer than I was comfortable with.
“There are ground rules,” I growled, reaching out to shake their hands apart. “You don’t flirt with any of the women in this shop, you show up to work on time, and you’re on a probationary period. Step a claw out of line and you’re out of here.”
Byrne nodded though his flat nose scrunched slightly at my tone.
“Fiero,” I barked, knowing the satyr was just outside, still eavesdropping despite whatever punishment Effie had just given, and within seconds the door opened and a dripping wet Fiero stepped inside.
“Yeah, boss?” he asked, shooting a baleful glare at Effie.
“Take Byrne to the old storage room at the end of the hall and help him clear it out, he’s going to be our new body piercer.”
Truth be told, there was one suite already cleaned up and ready to go… but I was a petty man and I wanted him to work to be comfortable in my shop, not the other way around.
Once the door shut, I turned to Effie who’d been silent since hiring Byrne. “What did you do to Fiero?”
“How long have you been able to read my mind?” Effie countered just as quick, her green eyes flashing with a temper that I knew better than to stoke any hotter than it already was.
“I can’t read your mind per say, Lass,” I began, holding my hands up defensively. “But I can sometimes talk to you with my mind.”
“Like when we’re having sex?”
I nodded. “That’s because my control sometimes slips.”
Effie crossed her arms over her chest. “Why can you do that? Can you do that with others?”
“No,” I said, trying to figure out how to explain our connection without making the woman panic. I was fairly sure that blurting out that we could hold full conversations with our minds because she was my mate was exactly what she asked me to wait to say last night. “You have to be close to the other person for a Cthulhu’s magic to work like that.”
Effie didn’t look like she believed me .
“I can sometimes feel Cash’s emotions,” I threw out, hoping that the swelling panic in Effie’s green eyes would go away.
“But you can’t talk to him with your mind?”
I grinned half-heartedly. “I don’t have sex with Cash, Lass.”
Effie’s cheeks flushed a green-tinged pink as she abruptly began to gather her laptop and other items. “I see—well I need to get going—there’s still a bunch of tax stuff to go over with Daphne before I spend the afternoon enchanting ink.”
The desire to stop her and force her to face the fact that she was my mate was almost overpowering and my fingers twitched with the urge to reach out for her and call her my Anam Cara in my home tongue.
But then I remembered her asking me to wait, finally acknowledging what we’d both spent a ridiculous time dancing around for years.
So, instead, I just let my hands drop to my side and watched her head for the door, her skirts swishing around her pale, freckled legs. “If you need anything for the taxes, let me know.”
“I will,” Effie called over her shoulder before the door to my office clicked shut and I sat down in my desk chair. It was still warm from her sitting in it only moments ago.
We were definitely making progress, no matter how small, so why did it feel like Effie was starting to slip out of my grasp completely?