1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Walking and waiting. Walking and waiting. He walked everywhere he went, unable to save enough money for a decent car of his own. His last one died all of two months after he’d purchased the thing before the engine seized, and he was stranded five miles from his apartment.

The waiting part? Jack Pengrove wasn’t what he was supposed to be, and he waited for the moment someone would discover that.

You see, Jack was born into one of the most powerful witch families in the world. They were heads of state, ambassadors, CEOs of corporations, and all had gotten that far with the help of their powers. When Jack didn’t come into his powers by thirteen, the cutoff for powers in his family to blossom, his family had all but given up on him. Until he was eighteen, well, he was their dirty secret, kept home from boarding schools, as his siblings attended, kept out of parties, and in the care of nannies when they traveled.

Tired of being treated like the freak of the family, he’d run off soon after his eighteenth birthday, looking for things he figured he might never find.

His powers, for one and another, were simple acceptance. He had only found the latter when he found Valleywood. Even so, it was only those in the dark recesses of the well-cloaked city for all things supernatural that accepted him. He was an outsider, after all, no matter his family name or reputation for breeding powerful witches. He was a powerless witch.

A fucking poser, a freak, an odd man out, a liar, and a closet mundane mortal.

He didn’t advertise the fact, in fact, he tried his best to hide it. Funnily enough, no one had ever asked him to use his powers. For that, he was thankful, but that was about all he had to be grateful for.

The storm had dumped tons of snow throughout the city and surrounding areas. It had come in waves until it finally broke, and he sloshed through the remnants of it, his simple, cheap sneakers soaked through with the dirt-blackened snow he walked through.

He caught his reflection in the window of an abandoned storefront, stopping to check his appearance. The only thing he had gotten from his family was his good looks. Not that he looked anything like them, no. They were dark-headed and dark-eyed, while his hair was on the blond side of brown, and his eyes were a crazy hazel that turned from green to gray depending on his mood. Keeping up his muscled frame wasn’t hard with the line of work he had had to take. Handyman/hooker. He got workouts from both, and what they didn’t provide, a cheap set of weights in the studio apartment he shared with two other men did.

On the corner of Twenty-Ninth and Peacoat Avenue. Right on the corner. The windows were blacked out with paint. The door was covered with decades-old flyers, and the annoying buzzer that sounded when the door was opened could be heard for a block or more.

There was, of course, a reason for that. Usually, Colin Avery, the owner of Handy-Men or what was secretly known as Handsy-Men, was in the back playing grab-ass with the secretary, Lois Hanoverian.

Lois was a shifter, and Jack had often walked in to hear her whinnying in the back while they were doing…something. He didn’t want to know.

She was dressed when Jack walked into the place, the tattered couches and chairs of the waiting room empty of humans and supes alike, as usual. “Jack, how are you?”

“Better since you called with a job,” he said with an edge. He wasn’t Lois’s favorite person, and he suspected she was suspicious of him, but he was paranoid. Everyone that didn’t seem to like him mad him think they were catching onto him being a fake witch.

With her pinched nose up in the air like she had something to be high-and-mighty about, she got onto the computer and brought up the current jobs. “Yes, here it is. Maltin Grave. He needs a roof to be patched in the industrial district.”

“Roofing, cool. I figured I’d get a few of those after that storm.”

“Three others have gone out for them, three with much better experience,” she said snidely. She handed him a card with the address and information, and he knew he was dismissed.

He snatched the card from her and trudged along the street after leaving the office, the buzzer still ringing as he crossed against the light.

Waiting for the bus, he watched a couple walk hand in hand across the street. The woman had her hair done in big bouncy curls, and her male friend covered his hair with a black hoodie. They laughed as their hands swung together, making Jack turn away from the scene.

He’d never have that. The biggest obstacle was if his family knew about him. No, not about being gay. They didn’t care about that so much as the children that he’d have. To have a Pengrove that had no powers giving their precious last name to a new generation of embarrassments, well, they’d use all their powers on him to take him out of the world altogether.

Not that he had any plans to or an opportunity to have kids. He was a hooker. No one of quality would have him for more than a regular screw on Wednesday or an all-nighter when they came to town for business.

It paid the bills, though. He had almost enough saved for a car, even if it would have to be a junker.

It seemed like hours before the bus arrived, mostly because it was so cold. He hated the cold. Jack’s dreams were of lying on a beach in the tropics. When he stepped on the bus, he immediately smelled cheap perfume and stale beer and had the misfortune of sitting behind the lady wearing both.

In her hand was a can covered in a paper bag, and she slurped loudly as the bus started rolling. Jack wished he could have a beer or a shot of tequila, anything but working on some roof in the cold. He wanted the money, sure, but if things went like usual, he’d work his ass off on the roof, then work getting his ass fucked for fifteen minutes after by some slimy dude that couldn’t pick up a quicky at the club.

Maltin Graves. What a name. Jack pictured a bloated man in a dirty wife-beater, coffee or blended scotch stains down the front, food stuck in his mangy beard.

No, Jack’s mood wasn’t the best that day. He’d called his parents to check in, as was the expectation. No, they didn’t much want anything to do with him, but if he didn’t call once a month, they acted like he was the one rejecting them.

Hypocrites.

The bus stop was half a mile from the address Lois had given Jack. Once the bus came to a stop, Jack rose to start up the aisle but was stopped by the woman with the beer.

She reached out for him, snatching his arm in her bony grip. “You’re about to find your mate, canine.”

Blinking down on her as her pointy tongue ran over her thin, wrinkled lips, he barked a laugh. “I’m not a shifter.”

She cackled as he wrenched his arm from her and continued up the aisle, hearing her witchy laughter until he got off the bus and the doors closed behind him. As he looked back, she stood, pointing her gnarled finger at him.

“Creepy old witch.”

The cold hit Jack hard, and he pulled his hoodie over his head as he trudged through more salt-melting snow. Hanging a left on Bulworth Street, Jack passed several warehouses before he came to the address he’d been given.

Like any other warehouse, it didn’t stand out amongst the others. Jack could have sworn it was supposed to be where the guy, Maltin Graves, lived.

No big deal, he thought. A business might even pay more. He went up the hill and veered off into the parking lot, seeing only one car parked outside. A big, black SUV. It shined without a speck of dust, no watermarks or mud, unlike all the other cars he’d passed on the way.

There were two huge bay doors, but he went to the small side door labeled Odins in faded orange stencil letters. That was where he knocked, right on the O in Odins.

The door opened, and he tried to see the man standing back from the doorway, hidden in the wall’s shadow. “Maltin Graves?”

“That’s me,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.

“I’m Jack, from Hand-e-Men.”

“Of course,” he said in that rumbling tone. “Come in, please.”

The brightness of the snow outside made it impossible to see before his eyes adjusted after he stepped into the building. That meant the man and the space were nothing but blackness for the first full minute.

Except for the hole in the roof where the light shone in and water dripped loudly, hitting metal.

“As you can see, the roof took a beating from that horrible blizzard. I was only lucky none of the debris hit any of my cars.”

By then, his eyes adjusted enough to see what Maltin Graves meant. Around the vast space were at least forty, probably more like fifty, cars, all classics, all in mint condition, in every color from sea-foam green to bright, cobalt blue. In awe, he stared until Maltin Graves cleared his throat to regain his attention.

“Sorry. They’re…they’re beautiful. Are they all yours?”

“Yes, they are. They’re not to be touched,” he said in a clipped way that told Jack he’d be fired or possibly killed for even considering it.

Even though he seemed to be a real asshole, Jack got a better look at the guy after his eyes had adjusted. Well, he was pretty. Soft features and dark eyes that almost took on a red glow when he peered up at the hole in the roof.

Soft wisps of dark hair kissed his cheeks almost purposely in the tousled style. It was so dark that its shine was close to blinding Jack all over again.

“Can you fix it?”

Jack came out of his reverie to look the man in the eye again. “I…sure, yeah, I can fix it.”

“Good.”

He walked to the end of the warehouse, where there was a loft upper story that usually housed the offices. Jack was at a loss until Graves called, “Are you coming?”

“Oh, right.”

He jogged to catch up to Graves, but it was hard because his head was on a swivel, trying to take in all the classic cars. There was a cherry red ’57 Chevy Bel Air, a silver ’67 Mustang Shelby GT Fastback, a '63 Austin Healey Sebring MX, and those were just the few he could catch as he caught up to Graves.

It was like he died and went to car collector heaven. “Your cars are amazing.”

“Yes,” he grunted.

As much as the guy was a prick, Jack could forgive him anything if he could just stare at those cars all day. They were a perfect collection, but Graves was fussy about them, casting concerned glances back every couple of steps.

Graves led him up the metal stairs to the loft and through a set of heavy metal doors a few feet from the landing. As he pushed them, Graves again warned, “Please, don’t touch anything.”

Behind his back, Jack made a face, feeling infantile doing it, but he was in a foul mood for such a persnickety client. All he could hope was that the guy didn’t want sex after the roof was built. Money or not, he didn’t want to please him past fixing the roof. And that, he thought, was for the cars. They were too beautiful to be threatened by the roof falling in on them.

When he stepped into the loft apartment, he couldn’t help but stare. He’d been to nice homes before, even into the homes of a few famous men in the city. This place, however, had them all beat.

As much as the rows of cars had been a surprise hidden in the old warehouse, Maltin Graves's home was even more of a surprise. It was a modern, sleek, industrially designed home that felt both warm and rich at once.

It was a big, open space. Long couches made of steel pipe and wood frames held brown leather cushions, long beige and black rugs under them, and shining wood end and coffee tables. Off to the right sat a long dining table made of shining barn wood and steel girders.

The kitchen was tucked under the loft within a loft bedroom that sat above it all. To reach it, a metal twisting staircase was on the side of the kitchen wall.

The walls were concrete on the sides, and the entire back was whitewashed old brick. The huge and paned windows in the back and the side facing away from the street let in light to allow his many plants to grow.

“This place is so beautiful.”

“Yes,” he said curtly again as he strode to a desk at the end of the living area. It was little more than a tall table on steel legs. He wrote out a check and handed it to him. “Here is the money to obtain the materials you’ll need. The home goods store knows you’re coming, and they’ll report to me if you get anything that won’t be needed. They’ll credit me if any money is left.”

Jack stared at him as he took the check. “I’m not a thief.”

“No offense, but I’ve heard that in the past.”

“Not from me. I don’t steal.”

Graves’ eyes moved up his face until they reached Jack’s eyes, and there was a flash of red that made Jack move back a step. “As I said. No offense.”

Jack was caught in that gaze, pulled in like some sci-fi movie with a tractor beam pulling him off the planet and into a spaceship.

Into the gaze, he was taken, a lick of flames showing around the frame of his vision, like Maltin Graves was setting the world afire.

It was gone as quickly as it came, and Jack shook his head to clear it.

“Do you have a truck?”

It took him a moment to regain himself from the strange vision, but once he did, he croaked, “No. I don’t.”

“There’s one on the northern side of the building you can use. I expect it to be returned in the same condition it was taken.” Graves grabbed a set of keys from the desk, holding them out to Jack.

Jack laid his flat hand out, and the keys were dropped into his palm. And, with that, he was dismissed without another word.

Keeping his composure wasn’t easy. Over the four years since leaving his family, his temper had snapped at the worst times, making it hard to control it. The older he got, the less patience he had, which wasn’t great for his current profession.

He left before he could say anything that would get him fired, not only from his present job but future ones. Colin had warned him he was on his last chance, and he didn’t know where else he’d work.

Sure, there were always studio jobs, but between background checks and security bonds, he was afraid he’d be discovered. It’s not like anyone would cast him out of town if they found out he wasn’t a witch. But the stench of it…the embarrassment of it. It was too much for him. Besides, those jobs always went to folks who knew the right people.

No, he had to content himself with fixing roofs and sucking dick.

The truck obviously wasn’t one of the prized vehicles kept in the warehouse. It was a simple pickup with a long bed and a crew cab. He got in and started the engine, letting it warm up a minute or two so the heat would come on before he started the trip. His fingers were freezing, so he rubbed his hands together while he waited for the cold air to stop and the warm air to come through the vent.

A rap on the side window made him jump and yell. His head spun to see Graves standing on the other side of the door, his scowl tainting his overly pretty face.

After rolling down the window, Jack asked, “Did you forget something?”

“No. Why are you just sitting here, wasting all my gasoline?”

The warm air had just started coming through the vents, but having the window down killed that warmth. Not to mention, the man’s cold, dark eyes glaring at him froze him to the bone. “Sorry, I was just warming it up.”

“Fuel-injected cars do not need to be warmed.”

He was not up for arguing that he, in fact, did need to be warmed; he simply apologized. “Sorry, sir. I’ll leave right now.”

“Make sure you do,” he said, then, in a flourish, left without another word.

After the window was back up and he saw Graves rushing back into his warehouse, Jack mumbled, “Make sure you go fuck yourself. Prick.”

He backed the truck out of the drive, and as he got to the street, he looked up to see Graves glaring at him from up in his high loft. Lofty heights, that was him, looking down on the whole world.

Jack settled his mind right then. He’d fix the roof, but there was no way in hell he’d let the guy fuck him. If that was part of the bargain, he’d quit and work street corners.