Page 55 of Make Me Bee-lieve

ONE WEEK LATER

Iwake to the smell of coffee, a scent I am still unused to but growing rather fond of. Clutching the bedsheets in my hands, I sit upright and wipe the sleep from my eyes. What time is it? When I check Calvin’s bedside clock, I notice the digits say 12:00. Whatever that means. Figuring out how humans keep track of time is still foreign to me, so I climb out of bed and pad over to one of the windows to look up at the sun’s position in the sky.

I’ve overslept.

The bedroom doors swing open, and I whirl around expecting to see Calvin’s handsome face, but instead I’m greeted by … the cat. Bonnet trots up to me, meowing, and hugs my bare, pink, fleshy legs. As a fae, I’m capable of donning whatever glamour I see fit in order to hide amongst the humans, and I was delighted to find this truth still held even in my larger form. Naturally, I picked the guise of a woman in her thirties with curly black hair, crystalline blue eyes, and plush red lips.

But I kept my delicious curves, of course. They are one of my favorite physical attributes of my bee fae self, and I wouldn’t dare slim myself down to fit into conventional human beauty standards.

I reach down and scratch the cat between her ears, tutting softly. “And where is your daddy, I wonder?” I coo at her.

Bonnet chirps at me before trotting back toward the bedroom door, beckoning me to follow her. The scent of something sweet and sticky perfumes the air, and I head out of the bedroom and meander into the kitchen only to find Calvin, nearly naked save for his boxer-briefs, cooking up brunch.

I hug him from behind and kiss his shoulder as he flips a pancake in the pan.

“Hello, my love,” I murmur. “You’re cooking?”

Calvin smiles gently, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Yeah. Thought maybe you’d be hungry when you finally woke up. You want some?”

“Yes,” I say. “But I also want something else from you.”

His hair falls in front of his glasses as he shakes his head, chuckling. “Again? Didn’t I keep you up too late last night?”

The memory of Calvin’s cock at three in the morning makes my mouth water, and I nuzzle the space between his shoulder blade. “Never enough,” I say. “But that’s not exactly what I had in mind, love.”

Calvin turns the burner off and moves the pan away from the heat before turning to look me up and down. He lifts one of his brows and says, “Okay. You have my attention.”

I look up at him and grin. “My maiden flight. I never got to take it.” He continues to stare at me, so I continue. “I am not a proper queen until I take my maiden flight.”

Calvin blinks slowly. “O-Oh. I see. But … how exactly are we supposed to do that when I can’t fly, Po?”

My lips curl into a cheeky grin. “Don’t you worry about that. I am full of ideas. You’ll see.”

He opens his mouth to respond when a knock comes at the door. Considering I’m the only one with clothing on—a silk chemise that barely covers my ass, but it’s better than Calvin’s situation—I pad over to the front door and look out the peephole. Ser Beatrix and Sylvie stand in the hallway, wearing their own human glamours, Sylvie in a yellow sundress and Ser Beatrix in a t-shirt and torn jeans.

Maurice set them up with an apartment here in the building. Recently, he bought the building from Calvin’s elderly landlady and decided to set the apartments up as a place for low-income residents and other people who have fallen on hard times and need a decent place to live until getting back on their feet. A commendable thing to do. He would make for a decent king, but he insists that he cannot run for “public office.” Whatever that means.

My Calvin isn’t low-income, but he’s been “grandfathered” along with a couple of other residents into the building. I’m not sure what that means, either, but so long as he isn’t out on the street, I’m happy.

I open the door and smile at my knights. Sylvie holds up a basket of fresh fruit and grins brightly.

“For you, Your Highness,” she chirps.

I take the fruit basket with a smile and a nod. “You’re too kind. Come in, please,” I say, and step aside to allow them entry.

Bonnet rushes out the front door to greet our visitors and wraps herself around their legs. Ser Beatrix’s face twists up in a way that says her soul has departed her body, whereas Sylvie is already on her hands and knees trying to pet the cat.

As Ser Beatrix steps into the living room, I hear Calvin making a mad dash for the bedroom, no doubt to put on clothes. Beatrix sniffs the air and steps over to the leather sofa, sitting down on it without invitation.

“Are you settling in well, Your Highness? Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?” she asks.

Sylvie steps into the apartment, holding Bonnet in her arms. The cat purrs loudly.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t believe so. Everything here is … perfect, actually. I enjoy sleeping in Calvin’s bed and living amongst the humans for now.”

Ser Beatrix frowns and crosses her arms in front of her chest. I know based on her expression alone what’s coming next. It’s not as though this is a new disagreement for us. “That is all well and good, Your Highness, but what about the hive? What about securing our future?”

After the yellowjackets killed the majority of my subjects, the survivors fled for other colonies elsewhere. This heartbreak will take a long, long time to mend, I fear. Healing is a long and often times lonely road, but so long as I have Calvin with me, I’ll get through anything.

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