Page 71 of Clubs

Laila propped her hands on her hips. “I’m surprised you can’t smell it.”

She smelled… peculiar. Unlike anything I had ever smelled before. Like a delicacy from some strange corner of the universe.

“Elite Fae, a quarter Guardian, and half Angel. A bit of a mutt, I am.” Again, she smiled. She seemed to do that quite a bit. It wasn’t just friendly, not only familiar and familial, but almost mothering. Not like my mother, but that was the only word for it. Somehow playful at the same time. “And, as established, we can catch up later. Let’s get the duct tape off him and clean up you guys’ mess.”

Shit, Elite Fae. That was rare. It meant she was descended from all five blood lines and had power over all five elements. Fire, water, air, earth, and spirit.

Just as I started toward them, Jeremy landed on the other side of the room. And the moment he did, I watched his breath stop in his chest. He wasn’t looking at the detective tied to a chair, or at me, for Brooke, or at his wife. He was looking at Ria. And I swore, for half a second, there were tears in his eyes. His eyes, those bright blue eyes, stayed locked on her for far too long. Far longer than I would’ve been comfortable with if not for the fact that when his eyes turned on Emory, they did the exact same thing. A hint of a smile even pulled at the corners of his lips.

And it didn’t take long to put it together.

He knew them. So did Laila. From another lifetime, another world, they knew them, just as they knew Brooke and me.

Were Emory and Ria like us too? Were the two of them also paired souls? That was all that made sense, and I planned to ask it. Later, when we had that drink, I planned to ask so many questions.

“Oh, good, you’re here.” Laila looked at Jeremy over her shoulder. “You got any recommendations on how we should keep him in place while I heal any marks they left without causing any more?”

Blinking a few times, Jeremy turned to me. “You got any bondage equipment?”

My brows creased. “Excuse me?”

“You were into that, once upon a time,” Jeremy said. “My kinks stayed the same. I’m assuming yours did too. And the safest way to bind someone is using bondage equipment. The least likely to leave any marks.”

Brooke laughed.

I did not, but I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t sorta fascinated. Starting toward the door, I said, “I’ll be right back.”

* * *

It was hard to believe how quickly they worked, but over the next five hours, our problems were solved.

Every single one of them.

Sure enough, Jeremy was right. We tied up Tyler in my fuzzy bondage straps, Laila healed him, and then she wiped his mind.

That was on the most accurate descriptor. She didn’t erase it all. She just… warped it. At least, that was my understanding. I didn’t know many Fae, nor how their abilities worked. Actually, I’d only met a few in my life when they were guests here at Spades.

They were the rarest race for us to encounter on earth. They had their own realm. There was beef between them and the Angels, and the Angels operated the supernatural world on earth. So, for the most part, they weren’t around.

But, after spending some more time with Laila, I wished they were. Not only because I was dying for a sip of her blood, but because they were fun to be around. Lighthearted. Odd. Funny, yet serious. The way they communicated, the fact that they read our minds every two seconds, their bubbly nature, was amusing. By the end of the day, I was feeling just as safe and at home in her company as Brooke felt with Jeremy.

So how did she solve so many of our problems so quickly? Simple. Or at least, Laila made it seem that way.

From my understanding, this was what Tyler would remember:

A body was found at Spades. I was brought in for an interview, and although he played the bad cop, he knew I didn’t do it. He busted my balls a bit, but ultimately concluded that I was telling the truth. While my father had been involved in morally questionable business, he agreed that the apple had fallen far from the tree. That I was a better man than my father had been.

But what about the CI? That, he would have no memory of. It wasn’t like when Brooke cast a spell to alter someone’s memory. Those perceptions could be altered, the strings could be pulled, as Brooke had said.

No, the only person who could undo what Laila did was another Fae. Or an exceeding powerful Witch. His brain would draw connections where there were none for the bits of information that didn’t quite add up. If, at some point, some piece of the puzzle surfaced, like more miles on his car than he thought there were because he drove to Spades this morning, he would somehow rationalize it away, because that was what the human mind wanted to do.

Apparently, according to Laila, our perception of reality was vastly different than reality itself. The brain constantly pushed out the irrelevant information, and that was how Tyler would see any missing pieces from the last few days.

Oh, he left yesterday morning to speak with Brooke at her home and discovered Oliver outside, which led Mason to become his informant? No, no, no. All he remembered was going to Brooke’s, but she wasn’t home. Then, he got stuck in traffic. That was why it took him so long to get back to the office. It certainly wasn’t because he’d confronted a Vampire who revealed the secrets of an underground supernatural bar to him.

“People don’t want to believe in things like us,” Laila had said. “The power of disbelief is stronger than you might imagine.”

And that, I couldn’t completely disagree with.

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