Page 67 of Forget Me Not

“Protective, more like, if they knew you at all,” Cal grumbled. “Which, of course, they still don’t.”

They’d known enough to hurt him this way, but Ray didn’t say that. He tried a smile. “Once, when I was assigned to crowd control—it was a fairy parade but humans and everyone else were there too—I attracted a lot of attention.”

“I bet you did.” Cal wasn’t quite lofty. He was still too sad for that. “Much like the humans, fairy attitudes toward the police are… complicated. The fantasy of a savior, mixing with fear, turning into a sort of a uniform fetish for some—not going to go into that now. Regardless of all that, you’re hot and you shine. They would have been all over you if you’d been in sweatpants. Possibly more, honestly. Sweatpants give more away.” He leered a bit.

Ray didn’t bother to glower. “Do fairies shine?”

Cal scooted up on the bed, then sat with his legs under him. “No. Well, yes, according to some theories. But not like others do. Anyone can see it.” He swept his arm back and forth a few times, leaving trails of vanishing glitter behind. “Why?”

Ray shrugged. “At that parade, I thought I saw a fairy that glowed. An impression of one, really. I was at a distance. It might not even have been a fairy. Maybe it was an elf, dancing with the fairies. They did have clothes on—a purple tutu.” Ray didn’t remember seeing wings or any hint of them. “Then they went still, whoever it was, and got very bright. They were looking ahead, maybe to the parade itself, or to something behind me. I don’t think it was at me. They couldn’t possibly have made out any detail at that distance, except my height or the uniform. I only saw them because I’m a were, and they were more a shape, and color, and sparkles, than a person. It was… they were… captivating, for a moment. I’d never seen anything like it. Then I got called elsewhere.”

“What?” Cal said faintly. “You…”

“Are you jealous?” Ray carefully sniffed the air. “I thought fairies didn’t get jealous.”

“Jealous?” Cal practically howled it. “I could see your shine. It was absolutely incredible and I couldn’t look away. You were too far away for me to know who I was looking at, but there was this massive shape and this… color. This silvery, intense light.” He exhaled. “Then it was gone.”

Ray stared at Cal and his radiant glitter as it fell to the bed and only after several seconds remembered to blink. “That was you?”

Cal did not lose his air of joy although he swallowed as if his mouth had gone dry or he had a lump in his throat. “I told my mom I’d seen my happiness that day. Such shine. Suchcolor. It had to be for me. I even realized who it was, who you were, sort of, a few days later. This big, tall figure in a uniform, which was… So tall, you had to be the werewolf my dad liked. The one the city was so proud of; the dumb department’s dumb beings hire, oh my God.“ Cal straightened and covered his mouth with his hands only to keep talking. “Oh my God, Ray, that was me. You saw me! And you didn’t know it was me, so that memory was spared.” He blinked rapidly several times, new sparkles sticking to his eyelashes. “Excuse me, Ray Ray. I need to… I need to….”

Ray reached out. “Come here.”

A shiver tore through Cal. Then he was kneeling next to Ray, regarding him with a furrowed, displeased brow. He wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand.

Ray pushed Cal’s hand away so he could do a gentler job of it. “I haven’t been good to you.”

“What?” Cal croaked. “That’s the second most ludicrous thing you’ve said in five minutes.”

“At the station, they blame you.” Ray couldn’t make it nice, because it wasn’t. “Not all of them, but enough of them. The others disregard you. If I were a better m—wolf, I would have left and gone somewhere you could feel safe.”

“Two kingdoms,” Cal told him in a tone that said this was a joke. “I’m half-human,” Cal added, as if that helped. “Always stuck between.” He turned his head so that his cheek was cupped in Ray’s hand. “What you are, even when it hurts you. Raymond has to protect, and, for some reason, he has chosen Los Cerros. I think possiblybecausethere are so many being here. It’s what you came here looking for, if I had to guess.That’syour real pack, Ray, not them. I think my dad realized that within months of meeting you. This was your city and woe to anyone who tried to stop you. He tried to tell me—always with his talk of the village and heroes—honestly, I should have known then he was a storyteller—but I wasn’t in the mood to listen. I rarely am, with him. And, of course, I didn’t know you then and I didn’t know what a fluffy badass you are.”

“Hero?” Ray snorted and dropped his hand. Cal picked it right back up, so Ray stroked his cheek with his thumb. “Heroes aren’t real. Not like that.”

“A hero, Ray,” Cal echoed him. “Penn too, of course. She is a trailblazer and asskicker, but you, you sing to me, like, only to me. Okay, that’s not true. So many people want you. It’s easier to believe in good things when they can see the evidence of them in someone like you, even with your flaws. The fairies know. The dragons know. Even some of the humans… fuckingRoss. If we live in two kingdoms, then you have been serving an extremely tarnished crown, but you would still give your life to save someone, without hesitating. You might, someday.“ He curled both of his hands around Ray’s wrist. “Hiding things from me for years would never have made that hurt any less, by the way. So no more of that this time around.”

Ray forced himself to look up from the shimmering tracks of tears on Cal’s skin to Cal’s fierce stare. “I wouldn’t…”

“Yes, you would, my love. And it shows.”

Ray had always been led to believe the bond was more on the were’s side. But Cal had his own, of a kind. This mysterioushappiness.

“The bond isn’t something I understand,” Ray answered at last, although it wasn’t really what Cal was talking about.

Cal took Ray’s palm and kissed it. “That’s more than clear,” he said, without evident sarcasm, because he added, “I wonder if any were does. Anyway.” He tossed his head. “You need to sleep, not worry about this right now. I can do that for both of us. You rest and heal and… and… rest. I’ll be right here. I won’t leave.”

He’d said that before. It probably meant something. Something about their first attempt at this, which Ray didn’t remember.

Cal slipped off the bed and went to the door, only to turn back. He was smiling. “You saw me, and you didn’t know it was me, so that memory stayed.”

He was out the door the next moment, leaving Ray to inhale a complex perfume of anger and sadness—no, grief, but muted. There was happiness with it, the most confounding part.

Cal returned within moments, laptop and phone in hand, and ordered Ray to lie down. Then he turned off the lights, turned on the lamp on the side of the bed that must be his despite how little fairies slept, and got comfortable seated against the headboard.

After a while, his scent grew less bitter, or Ray imagined it did, half-asleep with his nose pressed to the outside of Cal’s thigh.

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