“Why did you call last night?” I asked, the question having been driving me to crazy town and back again all night long. He hadn’t really said much at all, and phones were for speaking and saying stuff, so why had he not done those things? Had he misdialled, gotten confused? Or had he meant to say something but then I’d rambled on about my Betty Boops for so long that he’d gotten bored and hung up?
“Because I knew your voice would stop me goin’ on a killing spree and fucking up everything,” he said, but his face flickered with regret like he wished he hadn’t said it. Or maybe like he was sad he hadn’t gotten to go killing.
“Why would my voice do that?” I asked as my nose wrinkled in confusion.
“It don’t matter,” he growled, striding past me and yanking his shirt off as he went. He kept stripping until he was down to his boxers and I was drinking in every tattoo and scar on his muscular body, then he whipped the covers back and got into bed.
My heart did a twisty thing as I backed up to the door, guessing he wanted his sleep time to dream about his bride’s milky mangoes.
My back hit the door and I fumbled for the handle, still staring at him through the gloom as hurt struck a match against the inside of my ribs and set my whole chest on fire.
“Do you love her?” I asked, the words coming out of my voice box like a tiny ant had put them on his back and carried them out for me. Because I definitely hadn’t meant to say that, but my tongue was on puppet strings and the treacherous ant was in control.
“She’s my duty,” he growled.
“You can still enjoy fucking your duty,” I whispered, the accusation right there for all the room to hear. The lamp was definitely leaning closer to listen to what Niall had to say and the pillows’ ears were pricking up as he shifted onto them, rolling in my direction to face me.
He pushed the covers back beside him, patting the empty space there.
“I don’t much like talking when the dark days come, love. If you wanna stay, then you’ll stay in my bed beside me. Otherwise, go and don’t step a foot inside this room again until I find my way back outa this abyss and come for you.” His voice was a dominion in itself, ruled by a heartless king who sat upon a throne of death and madness. It should have made me want to run, to flee his kingdom to the safety of another land, but instead I was drawn deeper into this man’s power and I found myself walking towards him.
I dropped my sweatpants, kicking them away from me so I was just in my panties and tank top, and he held my eye as I unclipped my bra, shimmied the straps off of my arms and yanked it out from under my top. I tossed it away and climbed into bed, his hands seizing me the moment I got close. And I was his captor in an instant, drawn into the heat of his chest, the beast who housed his body binding me in chains and promising me a bloody end if I tried to escape.
My body went slack so I moulded easily against the hard muscles of his chest, hooking my leg over his and sliding my arms around his neck. He stiffened like he’d expected me to fight, but I was content in the company of monsters, especially those who inhabited this house.
I nuzzled against his stubble and his heart drummed furiously in response, our lips nearly brushing as I coiled up with this huge man and he folded himself around me like his body was turning into a cage.
It was morning but I hadn’t slept much last night anyway, and I got the feeling he hadn’t slept at all, though I didn’t like to focus too much on what might have been keeping him awake. Right now, it was just me and him, and there was peace between our chaos, dragging me away.
Perhaps when I woke again, Niall would have turned to iron, never to let me go, and perhaps I didn’t mind that at all.
***
Three days passed while Niall was lost to the dark, and I stayed with him while he rode the black tide and his demons tried to drown him in a bleak sea. Mateo made me food, though I had to cart it all out to him from the kitchen because his collar went all zappy if he tried to go in there, but even when I tried to push cherry tomatoes between Niall’s teeth, he wouldn’t eat. Not even the extra juicy ones. Sometimes he stared at me and I swear I could see a whole world in his eyes. There were tiny people in there working on a mountain, rolling huge boulders up its hills only to lose their grasp halfway up and watch them crash all the way back to the bottom. It was an endless loop of unfulfilled need and it pained me that I couldn’t crawl in there and help with his boulders.
I’d never looked after anyone before - except a little matchstick man I used to keep in my pocket. He was really just a single matchstick with a leaf wrapped around him, but one day he’d fallen out of my pocket and blown away on the wind, his little leaf coat left behind. That was the day I found out that I was no good at protecting little creatures, and Niall wasn’t little, he was a huge beast built of muscle and fury. How could I look after him if I couldn’t even save my matchstick man? So I did the only thing I really wanted to do, and tried to make him laugh, desperate to see the smile of my madman drawing his lips into that sinister grin which made my stomach flutter.
Niall sat on the couch with a blanket on his knees which I’d put there as well as a snuggly woolly hat on his head. If he couldn’t be happy, at least he could be warm and fuzzy. Brutus lay at his feet, gnawing on a shoe and wagging his stumpy little tail.
Mateo stood to one side of the room, a dark shadow always watching from afar. He had barely come near me at all since he’d touched me in the swimming pool, and sometimes I caught an expression on his face that was so murderous, he looked like a vampire in desperate need of blood. But we were in the boring people world and if there was a place out there where magical beings roamed, then I was yet to find it. I’d sure as hell looked too. I’d once spent a night hooting to an owl in a tree just in case he might be hoarding my letter to Hogwarts. And don’t get me started on the time I’d stolen a kid’s pot of glitter and thrown it in my face just in case it would whisk me away to Zodiac Academy. I was an Aquarius – obvi – but I wouldn’t have just had air magic if I lived in that world, I’d have had the whole bunch of elements, earth, fire, water, everything. I’d have taken over the entire kingdom too, stolen the throne from the Celestial Heirs while shaking my ass in their hot, preppy faces.
I’d have been an evil Pegasus queen, a villain to be feared and revered, and I’d bring Mateo and Niall and Angry Jack with me too, and together we’d be an unstoppable band of villains. Mateo could really be a vampire then and Niall would be a basilisk, feeding on others’ pain while I rode Angry Jack across the land whenever he shifted into a white dragon and burned all the people we didn’t like, especially the stinky ones. Yeah, that was the life for me. Queen of everything, all powerful ruler of a magical world where not even the stars could stop me-
“Mi sol,” Mateo’s voice cut through my wild daydream and my head snapped towards him.
I was still standing on the coffee table, my arms poised above my head in a ballerina pose and I realised all the blood had drained from them.
“Oops sorry, I got lost in a fantasy of world domination,” I said with a shy smile and Mateo twitched a dark smirk at me.
“Your audience is distracted,” he muttered icily and I realised Niall wasn’t sitting in front of me anymore. He’d moved to the window with his blanket draped around his shoulders, staring off into the mist which clung to the ground outside.
“Niall, I was just about to do a circus show for you,” I huffed, jumping off the table and grabbing his hand.
He looked down at where our skin connected, energy sparking into my limbs as I looked up at him. And he did the starey thing again, gazing directly into my soul and weighing it in his palm. Did he find me wanting? Was the rust that clung to it off-putting to him, or did he like the roughened touch of it?