10. Hiero

Chapter ten

Hiero

“ Y ou thought it was a good idea to hire your fuck buddy?” Enid asked the next time she was at Church during one of Skylar's shifts. It was Tusks and Tails night, and Enid was tending bar alongside me, not because she needed the money but because she wanted to get out of the house. Two mates and a litter of pups in addition to her clan responsibilities meant that tending bar at Church was more like a night off.

I cringed at her question. My sister had never been one to mince words. “We’re not fucking. Not anymore,” I informed her.

“Not for the last five days, huh?” she snarked.

I shot her a withering look and said, “We’re friends.”

“Uh huh. I always stare at my friends like I want to throw them over my shoulder and carry them back to my den. ”

Apparently, the attention I’d been paying to the handsome fae hadn’t gone unnoticed. Having Skylar at the bar was definitely a distraction, though not an unwelcome one.

“Am I that obvious?” I asked.

“You couldn’t be more obvious, Hiero.”

We might not be fucking, but my fascination with Skylar hadn’t diminished in the slightest, especially after he’d opened up to me about his past. His upbringing had been rough, and he didn’t have many people down in Emrallt Valley he could count on, only his tattoo artist friend Monica and his ex, the latter being a useless piece of shit as far as I could tell.

I also knew he had an eye for fashion and enjoyed dressing up for the occasion. One of his indulgences were the silk garments he wore, the creations of a fae designer with the singular name Oleander. The only way to launder his fine silks was to hang them up outside overnight and allow the morning dew to cleanse the delicate fabric while spiders restitched the webbing, using the sticky threads to trap their prey. Skylar told me that if you weren’t diligent in offering the spiders their blood meals upon parting, they would shred the clothing to bits.

He was wearing one of those garments tonight, a skin-tight number that matched his eyes. The shimmering singlet showed off his bare shoulders and plunged to his waist in the back, allowing his wings the space to breathe, though he kept them folded up while he was working. Across his chest, the points of his nipples pushed against the fabric, a tantalizing tease. I’d made the mistake earlier of asking how he was meant to use the bathroom, and he’d told me there were hidden slits for that purpose and “other things too.” The last bit he’d said with a saucy wink. Now, it was all I could think about, tugging the luxurious fabric aside to get at his shell-pink hole, licking him like he was a field of sweet clover and sinking into that silken heat.

He’d look good with a collar, I thought absently, something lightweight and elegant, to highlight the long line of his neck, with a drop pendant jewel that matched his eyes. Amethyst, perhaps? But that was the sort of gift reserved for a much deeper commitment, and Skylar and I were just friends .

“We should make a wager,” Enid was saying. I’d somehow forgotten we were in the middle of a sibling heart-to-heart, Enid’s version of it anyway.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” I asked.

“I’ll bet you a night of babysitting that you don’t last another week before you bed him again.”

“A whole week, huh?” I chewed on that for a spell. “How many of your pups are we talking about here?”

“All of them.”

Enid and her mates had a half-dozen pups, all of them wonderful and wild in their own way.

“And what do I get outta this?” I asked.

“I won’t bug you about your questionable taste in men for the next six moons.”

“It’s not my fault none of these cads want to settle down,” I lamented .

She laughed and held out her hand so we could shake on it. Having to confess my weakness to Enid might improve my willpower.

“Hiero,” she admonished a moment later. “You can’t even look away from him for the duration of this conversation. I feel bad taking advantage.”

I doubted she felt bad about it at all, more like smug.

“I’m just making sure no one bothers him. Folks around here like to get handsy.” I’d noticed a few patrons letting their hands linger a little too long on his bare shoulder or the small of his back. If I caught someone touching his wings…

“You’re playing with fire, little brother. What do you always tell us about having our significant others at the bar?” she said.

“It’s a headache nobody wants.”

“Exactly. Ahem,” Enid said and nodded to a waiting customer.

I took their order, and while mixing their drink, I thought about the cocktail I might prepare for Skylar at the end of the night. He liked clear spirits with herbal infusions and fruit spritzes. He had a sweet tooth too, and nabbed cherries when he thought no one was looking. But beyond garnishes, he hadn’t stolen anything from the bar. In fact, he was a hard worker with a good memory for drink orders, and I hadn’t had anyone complain about him yet. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was nice to look at. A lot could be forgiven with looks and charms such as his .

It was nearing closing time when I noticed Skylar hadn’t visited the bar lately. I scanned the room and saw him trying to make his way through the dance floor with a tray of empty glasses. The bar was less crowded than before, but the patrons were well past tipsy and bordering on sloppy. It seemed the ogre brothers had detained him. Skylar was trying graciously to refuse their advances, but they weren’t getting it through their thick skulls.

I circled the bar and made my way over in five seconds flat. “Is there a problem here?” I growled.

“No problem,” Skylar said, pushing one of them aside to join me where I stood.

“Skylar, go help Frito,” I said tersely.

He shot me a worried glance but obeyed while I looked the ogres up and down. “The fae is an employee now, not a patron.”

“Still as slutty as ever,” the one-tusked brother said with an obnoxious guffaw.

I gripped his arm roughly. “You will treat him with respect, or you will find another watering hole to frequent.”

“Or I’ll fuck him if I feel like it,” the ogre boasted. “I heard the fae are flexible down there. He can probably take us both at once, eh brother?”

My grip on the ogre tightened as I attempted to quell the gathering mist of red. My horns pointed downward, poised to skewer the bastard’s rib cage. His brother interceded, carefully unshackling my fingers from the offender’s mossy green bicep .

“Now, now, bull, no need to charge. Just tell us he’s your bitch, and we’ll keep our hands off him.”

“Your hands, maybe,” the other one said.

“He’s not anyone’s anything, but you will respect him as you would your own mother,” I snapped.

“Ma didn’t have an ass like that,” the one-tusked ogre practically shouted, then said with a lascivious grin, “Have you bedded him yet? I’d bet his hole is tighter than the fae queen’s girdle. I’d pay good money to see that puppy whine. Might even let him come if he begged for it hard enough.”

The ogre’s fantasies hit a little too close to home, making me feel like an absolute brute myself. Had I taken advantage of Skylar’s precarious situation?

“I think it’s time for you boys to go home,” I said. I grabbed them both by their upper arms and steered them to the door so Frito could take it from there. “Have a good night, gentlemen, and remember, you lay hands on my staff, I’ll break your fingers.”

“Cucked already,” one of them muttered as they stumbled off into the night. The rest of the patrons filed out soon after and then it was just Skylar and me cleaning up. I’d told him before that he didn’t have to stay for closing, but truthfully, I liked having him around, and I didn’t want him to walk home alone. He was still a stranger in town. Messing with me meant calling down the entire Wolfsbane Clan, and until I could offer him the same protection–as a friend, of course–I wanted to keep him close .

I dragged the couple of chairs from outside into the bar and locked the front door. When I turned back around, Skyler was dancing with his mop to a song that was a little sad and a little bit sweet too. It reminded me of the fae himself. When he saw me watching, he grinned sheepishly. “Monica and I used to sing this one whenever we were feeling some kind of way.”

“I might make for a better dance partner than your mop.”

He set the mop aside and held out his arms. I went over and embraced him, feeling strangely settled in my spirit and grateful to Enid for the dance lessons she’d given me years ago so that I wouldn’t embarrass her at her wedding.

We swayed to the music, and I was nervous at first, palms sweaty, heart racing, but then we sort of sighed into the movements. He felt natural and right in my arms, so willing to be led. Skylar drew nearer and rested his head on my shoulder, his soft hair brushing against my cheek. One of my hands migrated to the small of his back while the other held his hand. We danced through the end of that song and the next one too. Was it foolish to imagine a time when we might dance like this at our own wedding?

“Thank you,” he said, when he pulled away at last. “I miss being held.”

I nodded and cleared my throat while thinking there was nothing I wanted to do more. “It’s not a hardship,” I said.

“You’re a good man, aren’t you, Hierophant Wolfsbane?”

I shrugged. I tried to be, though Lord knows, I’d done my share of sinning, especially when my temper got the best of me. The simple fact was, I liked this fae… a lot. And I wanted to get to know him better. It was a full moon tomorrow night, which meant the bar was closed so that my kin could run with the other shifters and conduct clan business. I planned to go riding in the daytime, but it might be nice to have some company.

“You want to go riding with me tomorrow?” I asked before I could overthink it.

Merriment danced in his eyes. “What will we ride, my good sir?”

Heat crawled up the back of my neck at his innuendo. “My motorcycle.”

“Ah.” His head tilted in a sprightly way. “I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before.”

“I’m a good driver. We can take it over the mountains and down to the coast, have a picnic by the beach.”

“I haven’t seen the water in so long,” he said wistfully.

“So, you’ll come?”

“It’s a date,” he said, then quickly corrected himself. “A date between friends.”

“Friends,” I said softly, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more.