Chapter Ten Kion #2
For fuck’s sake, they need a real coach. He’s sick and tired of pretending he can adequately fill those shoes. He’s no coach. He’s barely even an adequate captain. The purple armband he wears over his leathers has only gotten this team to the brink of being dissolved.
So Kion just stares down into his cup, neck itching. He doesn’t want to tell a fucking lie. Where’s silver-tongued Cho when you need her?
“Kion,” prompts James, sniffing in disdain. “What’s really going on with you and that awful girl?”
Cursing everything and everyone profusely in his mind, Kion opens his mouth.
And he lies.
By the time that the match against the Cockatrices rolls around, James is the only person who’s not completely convinced that Kion and Taissa are dating—and shagging.
The latter is entirely Cho’s fault.
They’d been urged by Niamh to go out on another date, this time on a “romantic” evening stroll during which they’d done nothing but bicker through fake smiles while the paparazzi clicked away at their Baboobie Formation.
The seeds of Niamh’s plan had already taken root: More than a few times they were stopped by people wanting photos with them.
Yeah, sure, so they’d all made quips about the losing streak or Cho’s scandal, but still, progress was progress. And none of them suspected that Cho had actually joined the team.
When Kion and Taissa returned to the Nexitory, they ran into Knox, who was coming in from some club or another. With the way he drunkenly winked at Kion, it was pretty clear he expected him to follow Cho into her flat so—for the sake of the scheme—he reluctantly did.
“Did you know,” Taissa asked, slipping off her bunny slippers, “that Bronte came up to me during practice and asked why, exactly, she hasn’t heard any mattress squeaking through the wall?”
Kion was staring at those atrocious shoes in disgust and making a mental note to burn them. Somehow. “Why are the two of you jabbering during practice?” he snapped.
“Not the point,” Taissa fired back, hands on her hips. “Look, I share a bedroom wall with her. She has a point. Come here.”
“Cho, for Merlin’s sake—”
But she’d already grabbed his wrist and was tugging him into her bedroom. For a moment he was startled by how plain and bare it was in comparison to his own room, but then he remembered that she’d only brought two suitcases with her from the cottage.
“On the bed, Locke,” demanded Taissa.
“What?” asked Kion, not liking how the muscles in his stomach had suddenly tightened.
Taissa had climbed onto the bed and was looking impatiently down at him. She was standing on the mattress, her hands back on her hips. “Don’t make me do it by myself. It’ll be much better if you join me. This type of thing usually is, you know.”
“You’re ridiculous.” He shifted uncomfortably.
“And you’re a wee prude.”
“Fuck off, Cho, no, I’m bloody not—”
“So just when it comes to me?”
“Merlin’s teeth—”
She scowled at him. “Your loss.”
And then she was…jumping. Up and down. On the mattress.
She was also making some of the most disturbing noises he’d ever heard in his life.
“OHHH, MMMM,” she groaned with an alarmingly deadpan expression as Kion stared in growing horror and realization. Fuck, so this is what she’d been planning? He’d thought…
He’d…
Never mind.
“OH, MORGANA, YES. RIGHT THERE!” Taissa was jumping with more and more fervor. The bed was squeaking in terror underneath her. As she jumped, her unruly curls became a dark cloud above her head and her baggy Banallan shirt lifted up enough to show the barest flash of tan stomach.
Why the fuck was his mouth drying out?
Get on the bed, Cho mouthed, staring at him accusatorily, still violently jumping.
No, he mouthed back.
Somehow, he could read each word her lips silently said next. I’ll say you have a teeny-tiny tadger.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he snarled, not liking the vindictive look in her narrowed eyes.
“OO, IT’S SO SM—”
That was how he ended up jumping on the bed with Cho, the headboard slamming against the wall while she emitted the strangest grunts and groans he’d ever had the displeasure of hearing.
“It’s odd that you’re so silent,” she panted. “You need to make some kind of noise.”
And then she was jumping toward him on the bed with her hands outstretched.
Menacingly.
Kion, dreading her approach, bounded backward just as Cho launched herself toward him, evidently with the goal of tickling him or some ridiculous shit like that.
His foot caught on some of her sheets, and he went crashing down just as Taissa made contact with him.
Kion bit the inside of his cheek as he landed on the mattress, and as she landed on him.
This was happening too fucking often. She smelled like thyme and sage and honey, and she was straddling him while something in his stomach tightened.
His hands had landed on her hips, out of pure instinct. Somehow they’d slipped underneath her tee, fingers brushing against her warm skin. Taissa was staring down at him, her lips parted, her eyes dark with what was probably surprise at the consequences of her own bloody actions.
He hated the feeling of her, on top of him. He hated it. He…
Oh, no.
Merlin, no.
Quick. Think about disgusting things. Hair in the shower drain. óríon’s gory injury from a few seasons back, his eye almost hanging out of his socket. Knox’s gym socks…
Too late.
Ah, fuckkkkkkkkk.
Taissa’s eyes had gone wide. But she hadn’t moved.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” snapped Kion, ears beginning to burn. “It’s a natural reaction, Cho.”
“Right,” she finally rasped, seemingly coming back to herself with a start and rolling off him.
She wouldn’t look at him and her cheeks were strangely flushed.
Probably not as red as his traitorous ears, though.
Merlin’s hairy balls. Kion slid off the bed, fighting the urge to hide the evidence of his arousal behind his hands. He was a man, for fuck’s sake.
And with appropriate manly dignity, he stormed—fine, hobbled—from her flat and into his own, where he eventually took care of business in a perfunctory manner and absolutely did not think about Taissa fucking Cho while doing it.
He didn’t. He didn’t.
It was only because it’s been months since he’s had a proper shag. His cock had a mind of its own.
So there.
Now, on the train that skims through the clouds bound for Dunanaird, Scotland, Kion pointedly does not look at Cho. She’s sitting across from him in the compartment, disguised by a midlevel Glamour glyph to mask her presence from any prying eyes.
The others on the team, although they believe Taissa and Kion to be an item of some sort, understand the importance of hiding her as a secret weapon. Just as nobody—save James—questioned their relationship too thoroughly, nobody questioned Taissa’s glamour.
It’s turned her unruly hair temporarily pin-straight and blonde, her eyes a murky gray, and her skin a pasty white.
But bits and pieces of Taissa still shine through, at least to Kion.
That annoyed twist to her mouth as she furiously crochets is purely Taissa Cho, as is the way her nose is crinkled, and the sharp, quick movements of her hands.
Kion prefers her without the milky skin and brittle blonde hair.
But at least this Taissa is somewhat silent.
Ever since the now-infamous Stiffy Disaster, they’ve avoided all contact aside from badmouthing each other on the pitch.
Yesterday she wished for his next jobbie to be a porcupine, you dobber.
He also fixedly does not look beside her at Niamh, who’s flipping through a copy of Wily Witch and marking up the pages where Kion and Taissa appear. So far, five pages have been marked with cheerful pink Post-its. It’s only a matter of time before the money starts coming.
A stack of other trashy magazines sits beside her.
Seelie Spectator this week features a familiar-looking bare-chested dryad singer winking at the camera.
Court Chatter boasts a glossy photograph of the Unseelie royalty—King Puck and Queen Pike—the dark elves smiling gleefully, the headline something about “expecting” a changeling.
Fucking ominous, that. Unseelie Weekly’s front page is of a púca, the dark-furred creature smiling genially.
This shapeshifter’s taken the form of something like a jackal-rabbit-hybrid.
Its golden eyes, which never change, seem to be laughing at him.
The bright yellow headline reads, Get Lucky Fast!
Make a Deal with Púca Púca LLC…grants Your Wish with a Swish!
! *Púca Púca LLC makes no warranties and/or representations to the accuracy of the advertised deals; terms and exceptions will definitely apply, Púca Púca LLC is not responsible for any apocalyptic disasters that may ensue, including but not limited to: Armageddon, End of Days, Ragnarok, et cetera, et cetera. *
Kion rolls his eyes. Púcas and their schemes.
Deals with one of the Unseelie creatures never end well.
Especially considering that he’s heard it whispered from a dullahan friend that Púca Púca LLC is actually the blatant front for the notorious púca syndicate: the Withers.
Only an absolute idiot would make a deal with them.
Instead of flipping through Niamh’s mags, he’s running through his worn playbook. óríon sits next to him, looking shifty. He always does whenever they go out in public. Like he’ll be assassinated on sight.
Not for the first time, Kion wonders what the fuck Magnússon did to upset the Icelandic government, who has so few enemies it’s honestly bloody astounding.
Bronte has a handful of theories. So does Adriel, who’s convinced that óríon is actually a prolific jewel thief masquerading as a carriwitchet player.
óríon hasn’t exactly denied the theory. He seemed, in fact, to greatly enjoy it.
As much as óríon Magnússon can enjoy anything.