Fable
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I wake up the next morning tangled in him.
For a moment, I don’t remember where I am or how I got here.
There’s a warm weight against my back, an arm draped possessively over my waist, breath stirring the hair at my nape in slow, steady rhythm.
My body is pleasantly sore in interesting places, and there’s a smell, pine and something deeper, something wild, that makes me want to burrow closer before I’m even fully conscious.
Then memory floods back.
The bookstore. The creep. The door exploding. His mouth on mine. His mouth on…
My eyes snap open.
I’m in my apartment, on my couch, and Orion is curled around me, a very large, very warm parenthesis.
At some point during the night, we migrated from the awkward arm-perch to actually lying on the cushions, his back against the backrest, my back against his chest, our legs tangled together in a way that should be uncomfortable but isn’t.
His face is relaxed in sleep. Softer than I’ve ever seen it. The hard lines of his jaw have smoothed out. His lips are slightly parted.
He looks younger like this. Peaceful.
He’s three hundred years old and he looks like a man in his thirties and last night he made you come so hard you forgot your own name.
The thought makes heat flood my cheeks.
What are we doing?
What am I doing? Falling asleep in the arms of a supernatural creature I’ve known for two weeks? Letting him touch me like that, make me feel like that, when I don’t even know what we are to each other?
You’re temporary, my anxiety whispers, right on schedule. You’re a novelty. He’s three hundred years old, do you really think you’re the first human he’s done this with?
He said he’s spent most of his life alone. He said he’s been waiting.
For WHAT? He never finished that sentence. He never explained.
He’s a…
I don’t have a word for what he is. Wolf man. Lycan king. Supernatural stalker. The person who broke down my door to save me and then worshiped my body like I was something sacred.
None of those are relationship categories. You have no idea where you stand. You have no idea what this MEANS.
My heart rate picks up. I can feel it pounding in my chest, can feel the familiar spiral beginning, the thoughts chasing each other faster and faster, each one sharper than the last.
What if this was a mistake? What if he regrets it? What if he wakes up and realizes you’re just a messy human with ADHD and anxiety and nothing special…
“Your heart rate just tripled.”
His voice is sleep-rough, barely awake, and it sends a shiver down my spine even as it startles me.
“What’s wrong?” He’s more alert now, pulling back just enough to look at my face. “Nightmare? Pain? Talk to me.”
“I’m fine. I just…” I struggle for words that aren’t pathetic. “I don’t know what this is.”
“This?”
“Us. This. What we did last night.” I gesture vaguely at our tangled bodies. “I don’t know what it means.”
“It means I want you.” His hand spreads across my stomach, warm and grounding, and some of the spiral quiets. “It means you want me. That’s all it has to be right now.”
“But I don’t understand…”
“You don’t have to understand everything.” His thumb strokes a gentle arc below my navel. “We can figure it out as we go.”
“That’s very zen of you.”
“I’ve had three hundred years to practice patience.”
He’s leaning down to kiss me, I can see it in his eyes, the intent, when three sharp knocks echo up from the shop below.
We both freeze.
“What…” I start.
“Stay here.” His voice has changed. Harder. More alert. He’s already pulling away, looking around for, right, he’s still naked. We’re both still naked, actually, which is information my brain files away for later panic.
He grabs a towel from somewhere (the bathroom? when did he go to the bathroom?) and wraps it around his waist.
“Orion, wait, you can’t just…”
“Stay here,” he repeats, and then he’s gone, bare feet silent on my stairs.
Oh, for the love of…
I scramble for clothes, grabbing the first things I can find, his shirt, inexplicably, must have materialized overnight, and wrap it around myself. It falls to my thighs, big enough to be a dress, smelling like pine and him and last night.
I creep to the top of the staircase.
The back door has been replaced. When did that happen? The one Orion destroyed yesterday is gone, and there’s a new door in its place, sturdier, actually, with a better lock than the original.
He opens it now, and I see three figures standing in my stockroom.
The first is massive. Shaved head, kind eyes, the general dimensions of a refrigerator with feelings. He’s wearing flannel and work boots and an expression of careful neutrality.
The second is a woman, maybe fifty, with silver-streaked hair and a face that suggests she’s seen everything and finds most of it disappointing.
The third is a younger man, mid-twenties, who looks like he’s trying very, very hard not to laugh about something.
They all look up at once.
They all sniff.
Oh no. Oh no no no.
They can smell what we did. They can smell me on him. They’re going to know that we…
The younger one’s lips twitch.
My face goes nuclear.
“Theo.” Orion’s voice is flat. Controlled. Giving nothing away. “This is unexpected.”
“Apologies for the intrusion, my king.” The massive man, Theo, inclines his head in what is almost a bow. “But you weren’t at the house. Weren’t answering the bond. There were concerns.”
“My whereabouts are my own business.”
“Of course.” Another subtle sniff. “But you’ve been absent from… duties. And given the circumstances…”
“What circumstances?”
Theo’s eyes flick up to me, then back to Orion. “You haven’t marked her yet.”
Marked her?
I set it aside with everything else I don’t understand about whatever Orion is.
“That’s none of your concern,” Orion says, and there’s a warning in his voice now.
“With respect, my king…” The severe woman steps forward, spine straight as a rule. Her voice is clipped, formal. “…it is. You’ve been absent for two weeks. There are protocols. Expectations. Those who question whether…”
“I said it’s none of your concern.”
The younger man is practically vibrating with suppressed glee. He glances up at me again, at the shirt that’s clearly not mine, at my bare legs, at the general state of just rolled out of bed after a night of…
“So you two haven’t…” He catches himself. “I mean, you’re not mated yet…” He winces. “Marked. I mean marked.”
The woman elbows him. Hard.
Mated.
He said mated.
And then he corrected it to marked, but he definitely said mated first.
My brain seizes on the word, turns it over, tries to find meaning. It sounds significant. It sounds like something I should understand but don’t.
It joins the rest, and the rest is considerable.
“Our apologies for the intrusion.” Theo bows his head again, and this time he’s looking at me. “My lady.”
“My lady?” The words escape before I can stop them. “I’m not… we’re not…”
“The king’s chosen is always treated with respect.” The woman’s voice is formal, but her sharp eyes are assessing me. “It is tradition.”
“Chosen?” I’m lost. Completely lost. “I wasn’t… nobody chose me…”
“Perhaps some tea?” The younger one interjects, clearly trying to smooth things over. “To welcome you properly? It’s customary when the king takes a…”
Another elbow, harder this time.
“We should go.” Theo’s voice cuts through the awkwardness. “Apologies again for disturbing you.”
They’re filing toward the door when I hear it, low, sotto voce, not meant for my ears:
“The king’s been alone three centuries and this is who finally…”
Another elbow. A hissed reprimand. And then they’re gone, the door closing behind them.
Silence.
Orion stands very still at the bottom of the stairs. His shoulders are rigid. His hands are clenched at his sides.
I come down the stairs slowly. One step. Then another.
“Orion.”
He doesn’t turn around.
“They called me ‘my lady.’ They bowed.” My voice is steady even though my heart is racing. “They talked about marking and mating. They said you’ve been alone for three centuries.”
“Lycan customs.” His voice is controlled. Blank. “Old-fashioned. Not relevant.”
“They seemed to think it was extremely relevant.”
“They were overstepping.”
“Were they?”
He turns, finally. His expression is carefully neutral, but there’s a flicker in his eyes, one that looks almost like fear.
“There are things I want to explain to you,” he says slowly. “Things I will explain. But not like this. Not because my people showed up and started throwing around words you don’t understand.”
“Then explain them now.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” He stops. Starts again. “Because I need you to know that whatever’s happening between us, whatever you’re feeling, it’s real. It’s not because of anything else. It’s just us.”
“Why would I think it was because of something else?”
He doesn’t answer.
The silence stretches. I think about the word mated, about the deference, about three centuries of aloneness ending here, in my cramped apartment above a bookstore, with a woman who can’t even write down phone numbers correctly.
“Orion.” My voice is steady even though my hands aren’t. “What aren’t you telling me?”