Page 57 of By the Fae

“Mmhmm, discuss the game.” He did air quotes. “Is that what you kids call it these days?”

“Oh, eat shit, Seth. We never fucked. We haven’t even kissed. So, you can wipe that smug as shit smile from your face.”

He did. I secretly thanked Holly for making the No Kiss rule and handing me that perfect little truth bomb. As always, and Seth knew, if I said it, it had to be true. His face dropped. No doubt he was hoping to run straight to August with the sordid news and have me fired on the spot.

“You came, you didn’t get what you wanted, now you can get the fuck out of my office.”

“I have no idea where people get this antagonistic, misanthropic perception of you.” Seth stood, nonetheless, and pulled out that gods-awful pocket mirror of his. He snapped it open and smirked down at his reflection. “Oh, Goldie. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.”

“What do you want with Holly, anyway?” I asked as he made for the door.

He paused, his tongue cresting along his top lip. My stomach did a very confusing swoop. “I want everything you can’t have.” He took a step up to me. In this form, he only came up to my shoulder. “I want to take everything you desire, and parade it right in front of your stupid Oread face. I want to bend that human over the back of my couch and rail her until she’s crying out for her mummy. She won’t even remember your name by the time I’m finished with her.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll leave that for Molly. Give her this, will you?” Seth slapped a business card into my palm. In biro he’d written,“Miss Briar, let’s make some magic.”So, he did know her name. It always baffled me how shadow fae were the only ones who seemed capable of outright lying. Or at least, bending the truth so wholly, it pretty much classified as a lie.

“Summer fae. That’s what she sees when she looks at me. Couldn’t be further from an Oread.” He gave a pitying tilt of his head. If it weren’t for the quirk in that mouth, a quirk he didn’t know how to control, I may have thought his emotions genuine. “And,” he added, yanking the door open, placing one foot in the corridor, “I want to snatch tenure right from under your nose.”

Seth left, and I slumped down onto my couch, tossing his business card into the wastepaper bin. Two weeks ago, I would have gladly handed her over to him. Not anymore. Things had changed. Though I still wasn’t sure which things had changed and in what way.

Perhaps I was just sexually frustrated. Sure, I’d come three times, jizzed all over that soft, human belly of hers — I allowed myself a hot minute to replay the moment. Fuck — but I’d never entered her. Perhaps, if I fucked her, or rather, once I fucked her, I wouldn’t be so on edge. Maybe I just needed to get it out of my system. And as soon as that happened, I could palm her off onto someone else.

She wants Seth, said a voice inside my head.

“But Seth is such a cunt!” I said it aloud, making sure I wasn’t hyperbolising, and feeling unwarrantably gratified by the admission.

As much as I wanted rid of her, I couldn’t foist Seth on her. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved . . .

Stop that thought right there.

Maybe Greyson. Or one of the other less horrific choices. Sure, he was about as interesting as an empty packet of rubbers, and the guy had a pretty substantial praise fetish, but compared with Seth, shit, I’d marry him.

Greyson it was.

I slapped my palms against my thighs and pushed myself up.

Seth knocked on the door again.

“What do you fucking want now?” I yelled, but when the door edged open, it wasn’t Seth. It was August. “Sorry, I thought you were . . . someone else.”

She quirked a brow, stepped inside, and let the door close behind her. “Right-oh, let’s see it then?”

I blinked at her.

“Your game. The one you’ve been cosying up with Holly all weekend over.”

Fuck, how did August find out?

“We didn’t have sex!” I blurted out. I meant to say we didn’t sleep together, but my fae mouth obviously decided to take it literally, and found it was something it couldn’t produce.

“That’s . . . great,” she said, deliberately slowly, like I was a toddler showing her my ode to rigatoni and finger paint. She sat herself on my couch and looked around for my coffee table, stopping when she spotted it in the corner. She gave a slightly confused, “Hm,” stood up, and picked up a controller.

I put the game on for her and took up my usual spot in the swivel chair behind the giant vulva on the back of her head.

“Well . . .” She said, turning to face me after ten minutes. “That was cute. Adorable even. Whose idea was the self inserts?”

“Mine,” I replied. “Wholly inspired by Holly.” Though I didn’t tell August my motives for the self inserts. No doubt she would’ve seen straight through them, as Holly had done.

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