Page 51 of Marcus-stiltskin

“Is it the old people's area?”

“Maybe… but you’ll like them, I promise.”

He laughs. I take his hand and guide him to the bar. “Norm, Atticus, this is Marcus.”

Norm and Atticus stand and shake his hand. “Don’t worry, Steely, we’ll take good care of him for you,” Norm says, elbowing Marcus with a wink.

“More like Marcus will have to help me keep Norm’s wife from having to come get him,” Atticus mutters.

Marcus chuckles. I set up Marcus’s bar tab under my card, give him a kiss and head off into the crowd. Things are already getting a little rowdy as the first dancer comes out, but the Lamars seem to have the crowd mostly under control.

Tables that are normally close to the stage have been moved away to make room for people to dance. Several wolves stand at intervals in front of the stage, keeping an eye on those who come forward to get a closer look and tip, but for the most part the area around the stage seems to be fairly tame. I try and fail not to feel a little jealous as men and women toss so many bills on the stage for each dancer. They spend more time trying to find ways to seductively pick up the cash than actually dancing.

The hobbits, or whatever they are, are a different story. They spend all their time in my section being…weird. I know it’s a dumb thing to say about a person in a strip club at Halloween, but that’s the only way I can describe it.

I circle through the section closest to the bar several times, checking on people sitting at tables and standing near the dance floor. Zander, of course, is nowhere around as the hours drag on, so I’m stuck in the section with the little guys. They sit for a lot of the night, nursing beers and just watching, their giant feet just barely hitting the floor.

“Can I get you another round?” I finally ask on my fourth trip through the section. They look up at me with suspicion in their eyes. A couple heading to the bar scoot behind me, bumping me forward, and I reach a hand out to balance myself. My hands land on the forearms of two of the men. Their skin is incredibly hot to the touch.

“I am so sorry,” I apologize. No one at the table says a word, so I back away and head to the bar. It’s time to refill my tray, anyway. I lean over the bar to give Marcus a quick peck on the cheek, then turn to Norm. Thankfully, the DJ is further away than normal and I only have to half yell.

“Norm, have you ever met a hobbit?”

“A what?”

“A hobbit.”

He shakes his head. “We have some hobbit-looking men over there and they’re being weird.”

“Do you need me to say something? I’ll–” he starts to stand up, swaying.

“No, no, I’m fine. They’re not being inappropriate, they just seem out of place.”

“Maybe they’re related to the fae out back?”

I nod. “That’s probably it. They probably don’t get out much.”

“You okay?” Marcus mouths and I nod. Coming to a bar and being grumpy isn’t a crime.

I finish filling up my tray, give Marcus a side hug and a kiss since the tray’s in the way, and head off back into the crowd. The hobbit-men are just getting up from the table as I make my way back through my section. I pause and watch them melt into the crowd, feeling off about the whole situation, but having no recourse.

They aren’t doing anything wrong. They’re just… weird. I head over to the table to clear it off for the group that’s wanting to take it over, when I see it–the cloak of one of the men is still there, draped over a chair. Hesitantly, I pick it up. It’s incredibly soft and as warm as Marcus’s enchanted costumes were the night before. Using magic isn’t illegal, and if I was going to come across random magic in the wild, Halloween night seems to be as good a day as any.

I drape it over my arm, intending to find one of the guys and hand it back, when suddenly the room starts to spin.

“You okay, miss?” a voice says from my side.

My head feels hot and I feel nauseous like the one time I tried to donate blood in college and nearly passed out. I put a hand out to steady myself, and a pretty girl dressed as Alice in thigh-high lace stockings stands up and grabs me by the elbows. She sits me in her chair, grabs one of the water bottles from my tray and opens it for me. I take it blindly and manage to get some water in my mouth, all the while the world continues to spin.

“Did she get drugged?” I hear a girl ask.

“She looks like it. What the fuck is wrong with men?”

The conversation rolls on over me. The table suddenly looks incredibly inviting. I’d love to put my head against it and just sleep, but the tray is in my way. My body is too heavy, too slow to move it out of the way, so I just lean closer and closer until the tray is cutting into my stomach and the cloak drops from my arms.

All at once, everything returns to normal. The heaviness, the spinning, the nausea…it all stops. I blink in surprise and find four really hot girls staring at me from around the table. “You okay? You looked pretty rough there for a second,” sexy Alice says. She notices the cloak on the floor and leans over to pick it up.

“NO!” I find myself screaming above the noise.

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