Chapter Thirty-Three #2
“Thank you,” I say, allowing myself to look him up and down as well. I can’t lie to myself. I definitely like what I see, but butterflies swirl in my stomach, and even though all the movies and romance books make it seem like butterflies are good, I know they’re just a bit of anxiety.
But they settle down the more we walk around and talk about what food to get. By the time we order from a mediterranean style food truck, I feel much more comfortable.
We find a quiet section of the festival grounds with a grassy area, shaded by nearby trees. Grim’s brought a blanket. He unfolds it, whipping it out in the air so it settles gracefully across the grass. We each give it a few tugs at the corners to smooth it out and sit down with our food.
“So, Bliss is your given name?” Grim asks as he spears a bit of meat with his fork.
“Yeah,” I reply, a smile coming easily to my face. “I think my mom was a bit high on drugs when she delivered me. Thought she was being funny.”
“So your parents knew you’d be a succubus?”
I stop myself from laughing, remembering that sometimes Made fae don’t always know the ways of Born fae. “It’s part of the prenatal care. Fae parents have a test performed to see what type of fae they’ll be giving birth to.”
Grim nods thoughtfully and laughs. “That actually makes a lot of sense. Same as finding out the sex, I suppose.”
“Um, so what are you?” I blurt out then hide my mouth behind my hand. “Sorry, I just haven’t been able to place your scent, and Taser won’t talk much about you.”
Grim smiles at me, a mischievous look in his eyes. “Promise you won’t freak out?”
I raise my brows at him. “I’ll try my best.”
“I’m a hellhound.” I breathe in sharply but remain quiet as he continues.
Hellhounds are created by lesser wraiths, considerably less powerful than a song wraith or a dream wraith, but still nasty things.
“Stormy, Casper, and I were all turned together. We went hiking and got lost. A mountain wraith got to us.”
“Wow, no wonder I couldn’t figure you out.” I’ve never met a hellhound. I’ve not met a lot of Made fae, I realize. And I’m also realizing a lot of what Born fae learn about them isn’t right.
“There’s something else I should tell you too,” Grim says, turning a bit more serious. “At one point the fae council approached us, wanted us to hunt down wraiths for them. Hellhounds are sometimes able to track their magical signatures.”
I nod. I don’t know much about his species, but I do know that. “So what? You hunt wraiths and in your off time you play in a band?”
“Sort of. The band is actually kind of a cover for us.”
“Us?”
He nods, laughing. “Not everyone of the Phantoms is a hellhound, but we all are contracted with the fae council. We got into the metal scene because we love the music, don’t get me wrong, but fae flock to this community.
Haven’t you ever marveled at just how many metal bands are actually fae?
And where fae go, so do wraiths.” He winks at me.
I’ve no doubt he can see the gears turning in my head as I process this.
“How many wraiths have you—?” I struggle to remember the right word. Caught? Defeated? Killed?
“Three,” he says proudly. “It might not seem like much, but it takes a while to find them, then some really complicated magic to banish them.”
“How do you banish them?”
“It’s different for different wraiths. And it depends on how strong a foothold they have here in this realm.”
I nod along as he tells a story about how the Phantoms defeated a river wraith they encountered playing in Brazil.
“We were able to track it by finding the fae that summoned the thing. A water elemental that wanted to try use it to become more powerful. Anyways, we should have been able to banish it without too much trouble since it had only been summoned to this realm once.” I nod, recalling some of the random facts I learned in school a while back and also my more recent research.
A wraith can only come to this realm first if they’ve been summoned, then they can come and go as they please, but depending on how they’ve been summoned they’re usually controlled by the one who summoned them.
“But this one was possessing someone, so that was tricky. Hard to banish a wraith while it’s inside a fae’s body. ”
“Why would a wraith need to possess someone?” I can’t help but ask. I didn’t even realize that’s a possibility.
“Each time a wraith is summoned back to this realm, they gain more of a foothold, right? Well, until they have a really good foothold here, they aren’t fully corporeal. So when a wraith can’t physically interact much they’re known to possess fae.”
I think back to shaking hands with the song wraith. He certainly seemed corporeal. So how many times has he been banished and brought back, then?
Grim continues with his story, explaining how they basically exorcised the wraith from that poor fae. I sip on my lemonade, completely enthralled. He reaches over and takes my hand in his. “Any other questions?” he asks.
I think for a moment and smile. “Does everyone call you Grim?”
He laughs and presses a kiss to my hand. “Not everyone. Some people do call me Hayden. Though I’ll admit, it’s unusual.”
I laugh too. “Dericia would probably end up calling you Hay Hay.”
“She calls Taser Tay Tay, right?”
I nod.
“I’m surprised he lets her.”
“There really isn’t a let her when it comes to Reese,” I explain.
Grim grins widely at that. “I can totally see that.”
“What happened with you and Taser?” I ask, the smile falling from both our faces.
Grim sits up straighter, letting my hand go. His mood seems to darken a bit and I mentally kick myself for having brought it up.
He looks out at the crowd that’s formed around the food trucks as everyone tries to grab food before the first bands of the day start their sets.
It’s the last official day of the festival, and usually the busiest from what I’ve heard.
More of the bigger headliners are playing today, including the Phantoms.
“Taser used to be our rhythm guitarist. Pinkie and him were best friends. I’m not sure how they met, but they were practically joined at the hip.
They started this band. And Taser and Bell, they fell for each other, and fell hard—” he looks at me before continuing, “—and then everything fell apart when Bell’s bond was activated.
She’s an air elemental. Anyways, her and Taser swore they wouldn’t let the bond get in between them.
They were in love.” As he tells the story, I picture Taser with Bell, the two of them gazing longingly into each other’s eyes. It’s heartbreaking.
“But then she met her bondmate, right?” I prompt.
He lets out a sigh. “Yup. She fell in love with her mate, and even though she loved Taser, it wasn’t anything compared to that bond.
We tried everything to make sure Taser felt like he could stay with us, but he left the band.
Pinkie never really forgave him for leaving him, you know?
There was some other stuff too. A couple of the guys wanted to use a fae as bait for a wraith, and Taser didn’t agree.
I didn’t either, for the record. But anyways, it all got a bit fucked after that. Things were just never the same.”
I lay my hand on his forearm. “That sounds really hard to go through. We had a similar issue with Goddess’ Trance, minus the wraith-hunting part,” I add.
He nods knowingly. “That old lead guitarist you guys had. Your ex. I never really liked him.”
I laugh. “How come?”
He pushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “I read an interview with him and your sister—when I was stalking Taser online to see how he was doing—and I dunno, his answers just seemed really narcissistic.”
“I’m not at all surprised,” I reply.
“I asked around about you, after that scene he made.” He gently strokes a finger along my jaw.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that. And I know you have a true bond waiting out there for you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have something special just for a little while, if that’s what you want,” he adds at the end.
I let out a breath. I don’t know what to say to that. Mostly because I don’t actually know what I want. I want to feel powerful. I don’t want to keep walking through life starving, but I look at his runeless eyes and can’t help but think what’s the point?
But just because it won’t last forever, doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. And I like him. He’s nice, caring, but also fun and sexy. “I think, maybe, that doesn’t sound so bad,” I say with a tentative smile.
He returns it, leaning in closer and running his thumb along my lower lip.
I make no move to stop him and he leans closer still, his lips brushing against mine.
My fingers find his forearm and trail along his arm to his chest, where I plant them.
Grim moves his hand to the side of my face, angling me so he can deepen the kiss.
Warmth spreads through me and I kiss him back, winding my fingers into his shirt.
Awareness that we’re in public comes flooding through me and I break the kiss, a little breathless. Pink colors my cheeks. I look down at the picnic blanket, catching my breath.
“If you want to take this somewhere a bit more private, I definitely won’t mind,” Grim says, chuckling as he smooths down my hair.
I glance out at the grassy area we’re sitting at. It’s still relatively quiet here, most of the festival goers down by the stages and food.
But my gaze lands on a tall figure, dressed all in black from head to toe.
Pisces.
He’s looking at Grim and I, but before I can even really register it, he’s turned and walking away.
I almost get to my feet, some weird tug in my stomach pushing me to go after him. But to do what? Say hi?
Thank him for the hoodies?
Slap him in the face for being an ass when we first met?
Slap him so hard he cries and I can steal his tears and run off?
“Do you know him well?” Grim asks, his gaze traveling over to me.