CHAPTER THIRTY
Yael
“Incoming!” Sasha yelled into the kitchen before the maelstrom mermaid came storming through the doors covered in pizza sauce—or blood.
Ravi glanced up from the line. “Is everything all right, Myra?”
Muttered curses from his office were the only response before she reappeared with something black in her hand and stalked toward the alley door. “I’m taking my break before I kill someone.”
The heavy door slammed behind her, and I looked around the kitchen to find everyone carrying on as though this were a normal occurrence.
But there had been something in her eyes as she escaped the room that I couldn’t ignore—something buried beneath the anger and malice. A sadness that couldn’t be denied.
I’d often found the same expression in Jemma’s.
“I’m going to take out the trash,” I announced before tossing my finished plates up on the warming shelf. “I’ll be right back.”
Before Ravi could object, I ran over to the bags piled by the door, slung them over my shoulder, and stepped out into the alley.
The little mermaid stood huddled next to the dumpster in her bra, scrubbing whatever was on her arms and neck away with such force that I wondered if she’d still have skin when she was finished.
“You need some help with that?” I asked.
She looked back over her shoulder with murder in her glare and pulled what looked like a clean shirt over her head.
“Here you go, fairy boy,” she said as she threw the soiled one at me.
“Wouldn’t want to do your job for you.” I caught it with my free hand, then walked over and tossed both it and the bags into the dumpster.
“Feel free to jump in too, since you’re taking out the garbage.
” A wicked smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she walked away to lean against the adjacent building.
She pulled a clove cigarette out of her pocket and lit it up.
Inhaling deeply, she lifted her eyes to the sky and exhaled slowly.
“That’s a terrible habit you have there,” I said, gesturing to the smoke billowing from her puckered lips.
“Takes the edge off being here… with people like you.”
Wiping my hands clean on my pants, I walked over to her and plucked the cigarette from between her fingers. “Well, in that case…” Annoyance flared in her eyes as she watched me take a drag before handing it back.
“The kitchen’s that way, in case you’ve forgotten,” she said, gesturing to the door behind me.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” When I didn’t move, she put the cigarette back to her lips and turned her head to look down the alley at the street beyond. The angle of her jaw had a red smear she’d missed, and I reached over to wipe it away.
The second she realized I was about to touch her, she sidestepped me in a panic. “Do you have a death wish?”
“You have a little something on your face.”
“And you will too if you ever try to touch me again,” she countered, taking a final drag before flicking the butt toward the dumpster. “I’m not stupid; I know what you’re trying to do. Believe me, I’ve had my fair share of experience with your type.”
“I bet you’ve had experience with many types working here.”
Her eyes went wide with fury. “Are you calling me a whore, trash boy? Because I know you have a death wish if you are—”
“I’m saying you have encounters with a variety of people in this business, and I’m sure you’ve learned a thing or two in order to survive.”
“Or maybe I’m just insane enough to keep them on edge and at bay.”
I quirked a brow in challenge. “And how’s that working out for you?”
Her arms folded under her chest, forcing her breasts to peek out the top of her shirt. “About as well as being loyal to the fae king worked out for you, I imagine.”
“And what landed you here, I wonder—horrible pun totally intended. Given how bitter you seem to be to every male in a five-mile radius—Ravi excluded, of course—I’m guessing your heart must have been involved.”
Her scowl in response was a fearsome thing. “Looks like my break is over, fairy boy. Good talk.”
She turned to leave, but my words stopped her short. “I also wonder what it would take to get you over that.”
Lightning fast, she stormed over to me and thrust her face in mine. “Let’s make something abundantly clear right now, asshole: me not falling at your feet because you deigned to speak to me and tossed me a lazy smile doesn’t make me bitter, it makes me smart. Too smart for you.”
“Which makes me curious as to what happened to help you wise up.”
“It doesn’t take a lot of trauma or brain power to see through your bullshit, Yael.
Maybe the fae aren’t as clever as their reputation suggests, or maybe they’re just easy to bed, but I think you’ll find the women of the Playground much harder to charm out of their pants—unless you pay them, of course.
If you’re looking for a sure thing, I recommend the girls down on my corner. ”
“But where’s the fun in that, little mermaid?”
Murder flashed in those endlessly blue eyes as her whole body went tense. “Call me that again and I'll dunk you in the fryer. It’ll make these games you like to play a lot harder without that pretty-boy face of yours.”
“You’d better toss the rest of me in too while you’re at it, then,” I said, leaning in closer to her. “The pretty doesn’t end at my face.”
She took a step back and eyed me up. “You’re too big to fit—but a freshly sharpened meat cleaver could make quick work of that.”
“Always with the blades,” I replied, biting my lip. “Makes me wonder if that’s a fetish of yours, or a coping mechanism to compensate for having no real power—nothing to wield, other than your equally sharp tongue, of course.”
“Oh, I have power,” she said with a smile that promised pain, “and you’d better pray I never decide to use it on you.” She leaned in so close I could smell the faint scent of the salty sea, and I forced myself not to inhale it deeper. “I would ruin you with it.”
“Sounds intriguing… tell me more.”
“I don’t tell anyone anything, ever. Especially not you.
” She turned to walk away, but I caught her by the arm to stop her because something about the way we went back and forth was intoxicating, and I wasn’t ready for it to end.
But instead of more lively banter or a ‘fuck you’ in response, I found myself pinned to the brick wall with a knife at my throat.
“Touch me again and you won’t live long enough for me to ruin you. Got it?”
I raised my hands in slow surrender as a rush of blood surged through my veins at the thought of her unleashing all that fury on me. “Got it.”
Glaring at me for a moment longer to drive her point home, she tucked the blade away, then retreated to the door. Ravi appeared a moment later, eyes narrowed as he assessed the situation. “Your break’s over, Myra.”
“I was just coming in,” she replied as she walked away, looking over her shoulder with murder in those piercing blue eyes. “We’re all done here.”
I returned to my slum of an apartment hours later, exhausted and angry.
Ravi had made the rest of the evening absolute hell on me, and it was clear as to why.
My little conversation with his favorite waitress had gone against his warning, and it was an overstep I’d likely pay for during my entire stint at his pub unless I showed him I could abide by his rules.
Ready to rinse my body of The Riff Raff’s oily stench and everything else about that place that made me long for the good graces of the fae queen, I stepped into the shower.
Perpetually cold water pounded against my flesh, but even the icy chill of it couldn’t cut through the heat roaring through my veins when I thought of Myra holding a knife to my throat—of the steel blade biting into my flesh as she smiled up at me wickedly with those full red lips.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I’d been truly surprised by the actions of another.
But it was the way my cock had twitched in my pants at the sight of her ready to cut me down that had surprised me most.
Despite her claims, I knew she was all bluster and no bite when it came to power, but there was a fierceness to her that even I had underestimated, and it, combined with that feral nature, was wrapped up in a body that called to me like a siren, leaving me equal parts fascinated and frustrated.
And that mouth…
That sharp tongue…
I braced my palms against the cold tile as the water ran down my back and my cock sprang to life yet again.
Images of those big blue eyes looking up at me, filled with rage she couldn’t sate, flashed in my mind, making me harder by the second.
She was raw emotion and violence with no outlet, and a part of me wanted nothing more than to be her target just to see what she’d do.
Because I knew exactly what I wanted to do to her in return.
With a frustrated growl, I pushed off the wall and grabbed the soap, hoping I could wash away my strange obsession with the surly mermaid before it got me cast out of The Riff Raff.
But the more I tried to push her out of my mind, the more I saw the swells of her breasts bouncing out of her shirt as she stormed toward me, the pout of her lips as she scowled, and how murderous she looked every time I dared to speak to her.
My hand wrapped around my cock and stroked it as my mind replayed every interaction we’d ever had in vivid detail, until all I could think about was her on her knees with that violent mouth wrapped around me, blue eyes staring up through midnight lashes.
Braced against the shower wall, a feral cry tore from deep inside me as I came, quickly followed by a string of curses.
What had initially started as a morbid fascination with the landlocked mermaid had quickly become something else entirely; something far more dark and dangerous. Something I didn’t fully understand.
But what I did know was that she was rage incarnate.
And that I was in trouble.