Chapter Six

Zac knew leaving the Fae at the hair salon was a dick move. He put it down to shock. Demons knew about Fated Mates. His parents were fated – his mother was a demon and his father a sprite she’d met and rescued on one of her shopping trips on earth. Zac certainly hadn’t expected to meet his mate in a hair salon in some tiny town that he truly believed didn’t have any paranormals in it at all until Rat and then his brother set him straight.

That ass is like a peach, he thought with a sigh as he followed the grinning Fae into what was a nice, normal, comfortable house. There was nothing about the décor that screamed stuck-up or even well-off. The couch was worn, although it did feel like the cushions were greeting his ass like a friend when he sat down on it. The rug was brightly colored over a tired wood floor. Television. Bookcase. A couple of pictures on the wall that Zac wouldn’t mind taking a closer look at, but for now, he had a deal he had to complete.

Zac absolutely didn’t welch on deals. As a demon, it wasn’t done.

“I got told to find you. You’re being hunted.”

Blunt works best. Blunt was the best Zac could manage when his cock was threatening to split his pants, it wanted out so bad.

“I was going to make coffee. Did you want some?”

Pointing at the coffee table, Zac zapped up a coffee pot and two mugs.

“It’s going to be like that, is it? Okay.” The Fae sat on the chair across from him, crossing slender legs at the ankle. “Is it you that has the contract on me? Am I allowed to ask who paid you to find me?”

“No.” Zac winced as the Fae’s face fell. “Yes. I mean yes you can ask and no, it wasn’t me who got the contract. Look, what do they call you here?”

“Locryn, and you’re Zac Byron, the new tattooist in town, and apparently a demon bounty hunter on the side?”

“Yes. No. Damn it, you’re getting me all flustered.” Zac tugged at his hair, trying to divert his focus from the needs of his dick. “Yes, my name is Zac on earth. No, I’m not a bounty hunter, but my brother Taric is. He visited me this afternoon, and I got him to agree to leave you alone in exchange for me telling you to your face that your father has sent hunters after you.”

Locryn’s head tilted to one side. “My father’s actions aren’t unexpected. A bit extreme, perhaps, considering he told me he was disowning me a week ago, but that’s not important. You said you got your brother to agree to leave me alone? When we hadn’t even met yet? Did you know we were mates, and you were avoiding me? Only I have to tell you, Appleton is not that big. We would’ve bumped into each other sooner or later, most likely in a public setting.”

“I didn’t know we were mates when I came to see you.” Zac might have rethought the whole keeping his brother out of town business if he had known… although no. He would’ve still wanted to protect the pretty Fae. At least my instincts make sense now. “My brother’s an annoying, pretty boy demon and I just didn’t want him messing with anyone here. I’ve not been in town for very long. If someone noticed you missing, they’d blame the new guy with tattoos.”

“Ah, so it was self-preservation. Got it.” Locryn clicked one of the mugs of coffee from the table and into his hand and took a cautious sip. “Nice brew. So, you left my salon because you hated the idea of a Fae being your mate, is that it?”

Locryn’s eyes were a very pretty shade of blue. Zac mentally cursed himself for noticing. “I’ve not had a very good history with Fae. They take one look at this,” he raised his hands at his face, “and usually find something scathing to say about my appearance before disappearing to laugh about the encounter with their equally stuck up friends.”

“Ouch. I genuinely feel sorry for you.” Locryn laughed. He actually laughed. “You’ve just described almost every member of my family. Honestly, it would take a nest of termites to shift the sticks up their asses.”

“Faes say asses?” Shut up. Shut up. You’re making a fool of yourself again.

But Locryn just laughed. Again. As if he was really happy. As if he didn’t have an ugly demon cluttering up his couch. “Look. I should probably go.” But Zac couldn’t shift his ass off the couch. He could blame the couch cushions, but his dick and demon half wouldn’t let him get up either. “The deal with my brother was that I had to tell you to your face that your father sent a bounty hunter after you. I’ve done that. The story my brother had been given is that you’ve run out of an arranged marriage and have to be returned to maintain family honor.”

Snorting, Locryn shook his head, causing his gray and pink locks to flow around his face. “I haven’t lived on the Fae realm for more than two hundred years. I visit once a month, or I used to, to keep my father happy, and to touch base with my sister, Jessica. I never stayed longer than two hours. When would I have time to arrange a marriage with anyone, even if I wanted to?”

“You made a deal with your father? Is that why you kept returning to the realm? Or is that something unmated Fae have to do?” The knowledge Zac had about Fae beyond them being universal snobs was minimal.

Locryn was considering what he was saying. “I guess you could call it a deal of sorts. I upset my father greatly with my behavior on the Fae realm…”

A Fae behaving badly? Zac’s eyes widened. “What did you do that was so bad?”

“I made it rain.” Locryn chuckled, nodding at Zac’s disbelief. “Honestly, you’d have thought I’d committed the worst of sins. I got so sick of it always being bright sunshine, but never too bright, warm weather, but not too hot, and never cold, and it absolutely never rained. There were no seasons, nothing different at all, one day after the other. It was all so bland.

“So I set up wards right around my house and made it rain. It was so amazing, listening to the rain on my roof and seeing the water droplets run down the windows. Oh, boy. My dad had a major fit. It was hilarious. And after that, I told him I was moving to earth.”

Zac chuckled despite himself. It sounded like the sort of thing he would’ve done. But then he remembered why he was sitting with a Fae in the first place. “So you didn’t have a deal with your father as such? When you left, I mean.”

“Not a deal, no. It was more like an understanding. My father was more than happy for me to leave the Fae realm. That rain incident is still talked about today, so that shows how little actually goes on there. He was worried about how it would look, my living life among humans, but he said if I showed up once a month, then we’d all be fine. I never questioned it at the time, until this last visit.”

“What happened? It had to be a major if my brother was involved.” Zac leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as Locryn explained about the Friday night before, which was apparently the last time he’d been on the realm. His frown deepened when Locryn said his father was going to disown him. That was a big deal among any species.

“He never said he had someone specific he wanted you to marry?”

Locryn shook his head, and then added, “It’s all moot now anyway because I’ve met you, so if anything, my father did me a favor. A Fated Mate comes before a bonded mate under paranormal law, and even my father can’t go against that.”

“You’d consider me as mate material?” Zac fell against the back of the couch in shock.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Locryn seemed to think he was asking a serious question, so Zac did his best to pull himself together. Damn it, dick, stop leaking down my leg. “Aside from the fact that Fae, as a rule, can’t stand anyone from the Underworld, including Lord Hades himself, I don’t even look like a regular demon. Look at me.”

“I’ve been looking at you since you sat down.” Locryn’s smile widened. “I’ve got to say, I love those tattoos. How on earth do you get them to stay in your skin? Is it special ink?”

“Yes. I’m one of the few people who can tattoo paranormals.” Zac brushed off the compliment. “But what about my face?”

“What’s wrong with it?” Locryn peered closer. “I’d probably want to tidy your scruff, but that’s just me being a hair stylist. My fingers are itching to fiddle with your facial hair.”

“Are you sure you’re full Fae?” As soon as he said it, Zac realized that could be considered an insult, but Locryn nodded.

“Yes, unfortunately. Very rare now, I know. My mother left my father, must’ve been four hundred years ago now, but they were both Fae in a bonded marriage. It’s weird in a way. My sister married the man my father chose for her a few years back, another Fae, too, and she’s just had a child as well.” Locryn shrugged. “Must be in the genetics. Not that it will happen to us, of course. Children, I mean, unless you want them.”

Putting both his hands up on his temples, Zac rubbed them. “I must’ve fallen into some kind of alternate universe. Maybe I’m in the Underworld, and that damn Taric has spiked my drink.” Dropping his hands, he glared at Locryn who seemed to be concerned about him if the expression was anything to go by. “You do realize I’m the ugly brother, don’t you?”

“Who said?”

“Everyone.” Zac flung his arms open wide. “Demons are known across all realms as being sexy enough to tempt an angel, except for me. My face is bland, my eyes aren’t wide enough, but my neck is too damn thick. I’m built like a tank, and I have the grace of a donkey.”

“I’m going to guess that you come from a big family.”

“Four brothers and two sisters. How did you know?”

“It was just a hunch based on what I see in human families. Siblings seem to like dissing each other.”

“Dissing each other? Do you know what my brother is doing right now? I’ll tell you,” he said quickly as Locryn opened his mouth. “I’ll tell you. You need to hear this. He’ll be sitting in a pub in the Underworld, right now, surrounded by my other brothers and all their friends, laughing about me because I made a deal with him to talk to a Fae, and he knows I would go through with it. They will be rehashing what they think happened last time I met up with one, and the whole night they will be laughing because they believe you’ll be humiliating me in the same way.”

“Well, the laugh is on them. Are any of them true mated?” Locryn chuckled. “I’m guessing not. But what happened the last time you met up with a Fae? Might I know the person concerned?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, and I hope not.” Zac folded his arms across his chest.

“Mates shouldn’t keep secrets from each other, especially if there’s a possibility I might know the Fae concerned… it’s not like there’s a lot of us.”

Zac groaned. “This is what being mated to you is going to be like, isn’t it? You’re going to be all reasonable and sensible and ask me things. As for me, I’ll take one look at your beautiful ice blue eyes and tell you everything.”

“You think I have beautiful eyes?” Locryn’s smile made his whole face beam. “Thank you.”

Gods, he’s so nice, too. At least I didn’t mention his peach butt. Wincing, because it hurt to remember one of the more humiliating incidents in his life, Zac said, “Fine. A Fae came to me to be tattooed. They wanted their mating indicator mark changed – you know, like the one on your wrist, only his was on the top of his thigh. I told him that wasn’t possible – I could tattoo around it, but marks given by the Fates can’t be permanently changed in any way. Even if I tattooed right over the top of it, the ink wouldn’t stick. He offered to give me a blow job, even as I was saying no to doing the tattoo, and me being stupidly horny, which was just my usual state, unzipped my pants, and yes, before you ask, my dick is tattooed, too.”

Zac glared at the grinning Fae. Suddenly he felt as if the beautiful man was sitting too far away. The Fae would probably need a hug after hearing the biggest humiliation in his life… or maybe that was Zac. He hurried to finish. “Things got ugly. Words were said, most of them scathingly rude on his part. My dick does not belong on a donkey, and I don’t resemble cartoon monsters. Then one of my brothers came in – not Taric, but another one. And he heard the Fae insult my dick, my face, my existence, and everything about me right down to my hair.”

Zac inhaled sharply and let his breath out slowly. “I have never been able to live that down, probably because I was so upset with what the guy was saying, I forgot my dick was still out the whole time.”

“Rock hard, and raring to go, I imagine.” Locryn put his hand over his mouth, but not before Zac could see the Fae’s gleaming teeth.

“You can laugh,” he said grudgingly. “I don’t blame you. It was my biggest humiliation, and what was worse, in my eyes, is that my brothers all thought it was hilarious and that the only reason it happened at all was because I’m the ugly duckling in our family. If you hear them tell it, the Fae concerned would’ve gobbled their dicks down without a second’s hesitation, tattoo or not.”

“They sound as big headed as some of my lot.” Locryn dropped his hand from his face. “Who was it? The Fae, I mean?”

“I can’t remember the name. I won’t ever forget the face, but the name I’m not sure about. Simon, Sebastian, something starting with an ‘S.’ It was a few years ago now.”

“Bah, there’s a few of them with names like that.” Locryn waved it off. “What I want to ask, now we know each other’s worst life moments, is how committed are you to staying here in Appleton?”

“I just moved here.” Zac looked away, but just as quickly his eyes were drawn back to the Fae. “Why?” Can’t we be together here? Do I have to be your dirty little secret?”

“No. Geez, you have some weird ideas.” Locryn chuckled. “You hadn’t even set up your shop yet, and I had five women, five of them, all my afternoon clients in one day who were bursting to tell me about the new man who had moved to town and bought a house and a business here. Someone who was single, with lovely hair, and lots of tattoos.”

“That’s nice, I suppose.” Zac had been described in worse ways, so that didn’t sound awful.

“One woman, Mabel, she even suggested I pop into your tattoo shop and give you one of my business cards. You know just in case you need some hair care tips. In her head, she reckoned you’d be so swept up in my eyes, that you’d fumble with the card and drop it. We’d both reach to pick it up, and by doing that, we’d bang heads with each other, and that’s the moment we’d always remember as when we knew we were perfect for each other.”

Zac chuckled. He could see that happening. “You do have lovely eyes, and that story is probably better than what actually happened. But what has that got to do with us staying in Appleton?”

“Well, for us to be accepted as a couple in this town, we have to do things a certain way.”

“What way? More importantly how long will it take? Only remember my not-donkey dick?” Zac pointed to the noticeable bulge he had in his pants. “I’m trying to be decent here, especially when I didn’t know until a minute ago you’d even consider me as your mate. But we are mates, you are truly stunning, and I can’t help demon instincts. I’ve been dealing with this lump since I set foot in your salon.”

“I’m not going to make you wait. You’ll be in my bed tonight, but first, we have to go to The Happy Chappy.” Locryn checked the big clock on the wall. “It will still be open. Come on, quick.”

“But…”

Locryn was already on his feet, and Zac got up, too, making a point to adjust the length in his pants.

“I know. I know. I’m in the same state. How fast can you eat a hot dog and swallow down a milkshake?”

“Damned fast.”

“Great, take my hand. Let’s go.”

“But we’ll be seen,” Zac protested as he took the offered hand.

“That’s the point.” Locryn laughed as he tugged him along. “You’ve got a lot to learn about living in Appleton, and fortunately, I’m just the man to teach you. Now move it.”

A hot dog and milkshake are an Appleton mating ritual? What is it with this town?