21. Cry Wolf
“No crashing in on me this time!” Cara joked, as she kissed them both goodbye in the car park. “This is a huge deal and I don’t want any more drama!”
Shandy didn’t need to be back at The Rock Tavern until late afternoon, so Fred had asked her to keep him company while Cara was working. This time the apartment was near Carnaby Street, so Fred had agreed to take Shandy shopping.
“I don’t know why she doesn’t just take the tube!” Shandy said, once Cara was out of earshot. “Surely that would be better than forcing you to drive her all the time!”
“I don’t mind though,” Fred said. “It’s not as if I have anything else to do here!”
“What did you do back home?” Shandy asked, as they headed towards the shops.
Fred hadn’t been planning on telling her. His plan had always been to go incognito. But he’d expected his portal pill to land him in some remote village on the other side of his own world, not here. Maybe it was time to come clean with both of the girls, if this was going to be a longterm thing.
“I was a Crown Prince, so a lot of the time, I didn’t do all that much,” Fred answered, checking around him first, in case anyone was listening.
“You what? A Crown Prince?”
“Yup. My father is King, and as his oldest child, he expected me to become King in his place someday.”
“But you didn’t want to?” Shandy asked, wide-eyed.
Fred stopped walking, and turned to face Shandy, taking her by the shoulders so she was forced to look him straight in the eyes.
“You saw what happened at the checkpoint! That was happening in my father’s name, with his full knowledge. I don’t want that happening in my name.”
“If you were King, it wouldn’t have to be that way, would it? Surely you’d change things!”
“Do you know how long we live? My father wouldn’t have waited until he died before making me take on his role, even if he was still King.”
“Oh… we do that here too! Couldn’t you just abdicate?”
Fred released her shoulders and they began to walk again, Shandy linking her arm with his.
“Abdicate?” he asked. “How?”
“Well, I think here they just kind of… say they don’t want to be King anymore, and then they don’t have to do it?” Shandy shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I do know one of our Kings abdicated because he was in love with someone who he couldn’t marry.”
Fred fell silent as he mulled this over.
“That’s a good point!” he said, squeezing Shandy’s arm tight. “Now that I’ve got you and Cara, there’s one more reason I can’t be King!”
“Really?” Shandy asked. “Throughout history here, powerful men have had harems, even if they didn’t call them that. Do elves not have harems?”
“More than one wife? No! Never!” Fred said, shaking his head. “You’re expected to find a wife when you are both young and ‘pure’, and I was already failing at that!”
“Do you think your dad is looking for you?” Shandy asked, looking around them. “There are plenty of magical immigrants around, could one of them be following you now?”
“I thought he would try to track me down,” Fred answered. “But if he was, I reckon he’d have found me by now. Maybe he’s relieved that I’m gone? He never seemed to like me anyway.”
“Who wouldn’t like you?” Shandy asked, smiling up at him.
“I was never quite as bloodthirsty as my brothers,” Fred mused. “And they’d have been queuing up to fuck that poor woman, rather that standing outside feeling guilty. He always said I was my mother’s son, as if that was something to be ashamed of.”
“Well good riddance then, I say!” Shandy said. “And if you ever see him again, just tell him you’ve abdicated!”
Fred chortled at the thought of ever saying such a thing, but he felt like a load had been lifted.
He had almost convinced himself that his father must have lost all interest in him by now, and sharing his worries with Shandy made him feel less alone.
He decided he would tell Cara that evening, just before they had their Mind Merge Wank Off.
“Now… this is where you’re taking me shopping!” Shandy declared, stopping outside a dark wooden doorway. “Liberty’s! I can’t afford anything here on Bob’s stingy wages, but I’m sure you could buy me a little something… How about we start with some lingerie?”
Fred spent the next hour trapped between boredom and bliss.
What felt like forever waiting would be rewarded by a quick glimpse of Shandy in something so sexy that he wanted to knock her to the ground there and then.
Unfortunately, she would then disappear for another interminable and indeterminate length of time, before reappearing in something equally stunning.
He was then meant to explain which was his favourite and why, when as far as he was concerned, Shandy naked was the best of all, so the skimpier the better!
Shandy had finally narrowed down her selection to two favourites, and they were heading to the checkout to pay, when Fred suddenly grabbed her arm.
“Cara’s in danger!” he gasped. “I know she is!”
“You knew the same thing yesterday,” Shandy giggled, “and we know what happened then! Let it go! You know Cara doesn’t want you rescuing her from every lech in London!”
The irritation in Fred’s back was so intense that he couldn’t stand still. He kept flexing and wriggling his shoulders, unable to shift the feeling of dread that was sinking into his brain. The checkout girl raised her eyebrows at Shandy, as Fred struggled to pay.
“He’ll be okay,” Shandy reassured her, as she led Fred away from the checkout. “Let’s go get a coffee and help you to chill out a bit.”
Walking helped reduce the tension a little, so Fred was loathe to stop when Shandy pointed out a sweet little cafe.
“It looks like you’re going to have to learn to live with this feeling,” Shandy said softly, “so you may as well start now.”
Fred went to sit at a sofa by the window.
It was a beautiful spot, filled with flowers and quirky paintings, but Fred felt nothing but annoyance.
He was meant to be rescuing Cara! His whole body knew it, and most of his brain agreed.
It was only the experience of the day before, and Shandy’s soothing presence, that was stopping him from charging off to find her.
“Maybe I need to train as an Estate Agent too,” he said to Shandy when she came to sit down, carrying their coffees. “Then I could do the viewings with Cara and I’d always know she was safe!”
Before Shandy could respond, the tension disappeared. It didn’t fade, rather it stopped, like a switch being tripped or a tap being turned.
“She’s okay now,” Fred breathed. “I can’t feel any danger anymore.”
“That probably means she’s finished with the client, and any second now, she’ll send a message, asking what we’re up to,” Shandy said, squeezing Fred’s knee. “See? I told you there was nothing to worry about.”
They both took the first, hot sips of their coffees, and settled down to wait. Shandy profited from the time to quiz Fred about all the jobs he could or couldn’t do.
“You could join the army?” she suggested. “Though I wouldn’t want you heading off, far away from me and Cara. Or how about becoming a body guard? You could use your magic to help stop famous people from getting shot!”
“Can you imagine how Bob would hate that,” Fred guffawed. “He’d have me trapped in The Rock Tavern for all eternity if I went around using my magic like that!”
“I guess so… but I wouldn’t mind that! I could come and ride your cock every time I had a break!”Shandy ran her hand up Fred’s leg, her fingers lightly grazing his ever-ready erection. “But right now I think it’s time for a back alley blow job!”
Fred took out his phone. Although the physical sense of threat was over, he hadn’t forgotten about Cara completely.
“Why don’t I check where Cara is first?” he suggested. “Maybe, if she’s nearby, we could do something together.”
Fred turned on the tracking app.
“It looks like she’s back at the car! Funny she didn’t tell us,” Shandy said, peering at the screen. “Maybe she had some emails to write so she went back to the car for some peace and quiet.”
The two of them walked back, chattering about the window displays.
“It’s nearly Halloween!” Shandy explained. “We’re going to have to find you a costume! You could be the Incredible Hulk with just a bit of body paint, and not too many clothes. You’ll love it! The Halloween Party at The Rock Tavern is wild! We might pull a pretty vampire or two!”
Fred wasn’t really sure what Shandy was going on about, but he enjoyed her enthusiasm.
Walking straight back to the car didn’t take long.
As they neared the car, Fred’s heart leapt at the thought of being with Cara again.
He loved his time with Shandy too, but there was a need deep inside him that had only every been answered by Cara.
She excited him, challenged him, and he loved their growing understanding.
Fred climbed into the driving seat, expecting to turn his head and see Cara there, but her seat was empty. In the back of the car, Shandy was equally surprised.
“Where is she?” she gasped. “The tracker showed she was here!”
“Call Cara!” Fred told his phone, stepping back out of the car, his heart racing and a wave of nausea rising in his throat.
The first bars of “I’m Too Sexy for my Shirt” by Right Said Fred began playing from underneath the car. Fred crouched down and swept his hand under the car, soon making contact with, and pulling out, Cara’s phone.
“She never goes anywhere without her phone!” Shandy said, grabbing Fred’s arm. “Something must have happened to her!”
“Why didn’t I come back?” Fred wailed. “I shouldn’t have listened to her, or you!”
“You couldn’t have predicted this, Fred,” Shandy said, stroking his arm, but he flinched away.
“Where could she be? Could someone have taken her?” Tears began rolling down Fred’s face. “What shall we do?”
“At moments like this, I call Bob,” Shandy said.”Let’s get back in the car, and I’ll call him while you drive us back to The Rock Tavern.”