Chapter 14
I’m grateful at least that I have enough time to shower and change my clothes before I’ll need to hustle out the door to get to her multi-floor penthouse condo in Pacific Heights.
(I do check the window in the bedroom. Looks just as intact from the inside as it did from the outside.
I don’t even feel a breeze. There’s definitely residual magic, but I can’t tell whether that’s a glamour or if he fixed the glass outright.
Guess I’ll find out if it suddenly wears off!)
Collin disappears the moment I step out of my pants and into the shower, which in some ways I’m also grateful for.
I’m still hurt, so having more sexy time together to recharge my healing powers probably might make a lot of sense, but I’m already having to concentrate to keep the incubus hunger at bay.
I don’t want to do anything to encourage it.
And anyway, I don’t even know what to make of what happened the last time we “got physical.” Even thinking about it makes my stomach vibrate with emotion. What emotion, I’m not sure.
So, I go with my standard operating procedure and embrace denial. I have enough upcoming drama that I don’t need to add any more to my plate.
The shower wakes me up. I’m not exactly a new man, but I do feel better.
Once I dry off, I wipe clear a slash of steam off the mirror and check out my face.
I can’t do anything about the cuts and bruising around my nose and mouth, which look days healed but still visible.
But I can at least fix my hair and wear a shirt that matches my pants and shoes.
(Mom cares about that kind of stuff. Deeply.) I go with yet another polo (navy) and my only clean pair of beige khakis, slipping the watch into its back pocket.
Collin appears next to me as I put on some brown penny loafers I haven’t worn since high school.
“You don’t need to do this, Alvin,” he says, his expression downright mournful, but there’s an undercurrent of anxiety. “I know a way to contact the elf. If you hand me over to him, you’ll be free.”
I ignore him. In part because the old me might have agreed.
Between the Obligation crushing my insides and the murderous glare the elf gave me just an hour ago, I am feeling pretty overwhelmed.
But at some point you have to decide if you have what it takes to be who you want to be.
And for better or worse, now-or-never looks like it’s still now.
Collin stays quiet in the rideshare over to her building and also as we ascend the elevator to the 49th floor of the Pacific Pinnacle Tower. The whole way, I try to focus on keeping my breath even—and not just because I’m fighting the Obligation.
The elevator doors open directly into the polished white marble foyer of the first floor of her condo. My mother is standing there, waiting for me. She gives me a serene smile. “Alvin. My darling son.”
“Hi, Mom.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “What happened to your face?”
“It had a little disagreement with a steering wheel. The wheel won the argument.”
Her brows knit, baffled. “You were driving?”
“Yeah. And that’s literally the least interesting thing that’s happened to me in the last twenty-four hours!” Her eyes light up, so I know I’ve truly piqued her curiosity. (Which gives me at least a fighting chance to maintain control of this conversation, if I can make her work for it.)
I push past her. “You said something about pancakes?”
She smiles, immediately on to me and my attempt to keep her in suspense, but she looks more impressed than pissed. “I did. Batter is already made.”
She glides effortlessly toward her high-end stainless-steel chef’s kitchen, which gives me a chance to take in her current appearance.
Before I was born, Mom wasn’t just a strong and alluring succubus.
According to her, she was the strongest and most alluring succubus on the entire planet.
And yeah, I’d question the source, except that she can still do things that supposedly no other succubi can, like completely change her form.
Most sex demons who feed can make some minor alteration to their looks to attract prey—more luminous skin, slightly bigger muscles, maybe a change of eye color.
But when my mother met my father, she was in the guise of a stunning Filipina TV star with inky black hair, brown eyes, and a rich, dusky complexion.
Now the woman approaching her $30,000 quartz island is blonde with green irises and flawless ivory skin.
Wearing pink slippers and peach-colored lingerie—perfectly draped over her supernaturally perky breasts—she appears years younger than me.
The term “barely legal” immediately comes to mind.
(Her OnlyFans account is one of the top ten earners worldwide.
Before the Internet, she could only “date” a few lonely, rich men at a time.
Now she can bilk thousands.) And this is a pretty standard look for her.
To say it was confusing growing up is an understatement.
I could go on for a long time about how totally alone and isolated I felt as a boy, with everyone assuming I was Pinoy but having zero actual connection to any history or culture I could identify with.
Until we got to San Francisco a few years ago, we’d move all the time, and Mom seemed to delight in choosing the most backwater, least diverse places in the U.S.
to settle down in. I was always “the new kid,” so both the white and Black students at school kept me at arm’s length, and because I didn’t know anything, I couldn’t talk to the few real Filipino kids about even small-stakes stuff like food or holidays without sounding like a complete idiot.
I felt like a fraud and, on top of that, to have a sexpot Mom who didn’t look anything like me—and who wouldn’t ever, even once, acknowledge to another living person that we were blood relations— (!)
Yeah, I could say more. A lot more.
But I don’t have time for that.
I take a seat on one of the hard, silver-plated stools at the island, and she slides three perfectly shaped golden pancakes onto my plate, followed by three strips of crispy bacon.
She lovingly pours the artisanal maple syrup on top while rounding behind me and humming something chirpy from Snow White, completing her pose as Mother of the Year.
Then she takes the stool opposite of me, and rests her chin on steepled fingers, doe eyes wide with anticipation of me taking my first bite.
You see, I hate sweet breakfasts. And she knows it.
But I need to play my part here, so I shove in a large mouthful. “Mmm. Yummy,” I say with zero enthusiasm.
She winks at me. “It always was your favorite.”
You might ask why she even bothers with this low-rent form of torture. But then you don’t know my mother. The chance to savor someone else’s pain is literally why she wakes up in the morning. And she’s made an art of walking up to the line without crossing it.
Collin is in the room with us. He’s leaning against the stainless-steel SubZero fridge, lips pursed, looking like he wants to be anywhere else. (I feel you, bro.)
“So,” she continues. “What could be more interesting than your very first car crash?”
“Mm,” I say, taking another bite. (In fairness, the pancakes are spectacularly made—gently crispy on the outside, light and fluffy inside, just a hint of vanilla—and I am actually legit hungry.
It just makes it all the more frustrating.) “Well, I was actually running from someone at the time. So, that’s kinda interesting. ”
Her eyes narrow, her blithe expression sobering. (Good. Looks like I’ve got her attention.) “Running from whom?”
“An elf,” I say, as casually as I can. “Elven royalty, in fact. Shining armor. Magic sword. The whole deal.”
Her face darkens further, which is not exactly the eager, give-me-the-deets look I’d been expecting from a woman desperate for entertainment at my expense. But at least she’s engaged. “And what did he want?”
“That’s a long story. But it started yesterday, with him putting me under an Obligation to steal something.”
I choose to lead with the part of my story most likely to piss her off: me making a deal with a fae.
My hope is that she’ll be so eager to hear the rest of my little tale, we’ll be able to move past that pretty quickly.
Still, I figured I’d at least get a brief lecture about how stupid I am, how I need to listen to her, etc. etc.
But I don’t. She just gets even more serious, sucking in a breath. “And did you get it?”
I glance over at Collin, who folds his arms and glances meaningfully in the direction of the elevator. My mother’s odd reaction doesn’t seem wholly unexpected to him. And he really wants us to go.
But now I can’t. Because she’s acting like she knows something about this. And I need to know what she knows. (Without tipping her off that she has any leverage on me!)
“I did,” I say, cooly. “That’s why I’m here.”
She realizes. “You didn’t give it to him…” A smile slices up the side of her teenage-dream face. “Clever boy.” She holds out her palm. “Can I see it?”
I cock my head to the side, willing my expression to appear neutral despite a growing sense of danger. “It sounds like you might already know what it is, Mom. Why would that be?”
“Because I’m your mother, and I know everything,” she non-answers. Her fingers twitch. “Now, can I see it?”
“That depends,” I say. “I’m still under the Obligation, and I need a way to get out of it without giving the elf what he wants and without dying. Is that something you can help me with or not?”
The old Alvin would never have dared to engage his mother in an actual negotiation.
(I mean, the old Alvin wouldn’t have willingly stepped into her Martha Stewart lair for anything.) But it’s been a whole day of firsts.
And the glimmer in her eyes lets me know that she’s actually digging my quid pro quo, for whatever reason.