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Magic.
Is he going to sleep naked?
Please don’t think of my canine form as naked. I will hardly be able to handle the shame.
I have slept in the same bed as a naked man for a year.
I have never felt both this scandalous and this calm at one time before.
I have lived with a man for a year, and he’s not once done anything that makes me feel uncomfortable now that I know the truth. No accidentally in the bathroom while I’m showering. No weirdly watching while I get changed. No licks, period, not just none in inappropriate places. None at all.
This explains so much about why he’s never been very cuddly. He’s been polite about my space. Like he said before, he hadn’t intended to approach me that day in the woods. He never intended for me to become his “owner.”
Things just sort of happened, and he stuck around so I wouldn’t have to lose him.
Clearly—assuming his friends’ intentions of getting us together imply an absence of forbidden romance—he’s insecure about whether or not I’ll accept him. If that’s kept him from telling me the truth, I can work with it. I can show him that I don’t care if we’re different, that I don’t feel stuck with him, that I’m ecstatic to be with someone as sweet and loving and gentle as him.
The idea makes me bubbly inside.
So bubbly I’m hardly paying attention to the receptionist at the hotel’s front desk until she says, “I’m sorry, Ms. Page. It says your reservation is for a two bedroom, but it seems we only have a one bedroom available.”
“Whoa,” I say, pushing myself up against the counter to look at her computer. “Really?”
The woman eyes me funny. “Um. Yes?”
“Crazy.” Take that, negative reviews claiming my fanfiction isn’t realistic. This is like five tropes happening in real life.
Assuming, naturally, this is real life, and I’m not in a coma caused by an overdose of ketamine during a kidnapping that occurred while I got my oil changed at Walmart.
At this time of night, anything is possible.
She looks past me, scanning, then asks, “Was there any reason you needed a room with two beds?”
“She can’t see me, sunshine,” Ollie says. “I have to put effort into dropping my glamour enough to be seen and then more effort into dropping it enough to be remembered. If I don’t exert that energy, normal human perceptions don’t pick up my presence, and given the energy I expended this afternoon, I’m not strong enough to make myself known again right now.”
“Fascinating.” I turn, gaping at him. With that explanation, Willow and Zy must be incredibly powerful if they’ve had the energy to keep their glamours from affecting me for hours on end. While some things surrounding them have been fuzzy, I recall both of them perfectly.
If not everyone is a shifter, I wonder what type of faeries they are.
Ollie coughs into his hand, covering a smile, then nudges his chin toward a very, very dazed receptionist.
Standing straighter, I smile brilliantly. “The room with one bed is fine. Thank you so much.”
“Oh…okay…” She comes out of the daze and taps her lilac purple nails across the keyboard. After she’s set everything up, she hands me a key card and lets me know the general location of the room.
Once Ollie and I enter an elevator, I say, “So you’re invisible to everyone else for the foreseeable future?”
“Yep… The only time a regular human might catch a glimpse of me without my intentionally undoing the glamour is if they’re caught in a state between wake and rest or if their usual brain functions have been upset in some way. More often than not, faeries are the hallucinations that appear if someone hasn’t slept for days or if they’ve had too much to drink or if they’ve been doing drugs. Although, in many of those cases, more of the unfriendly sort of fae tend to congregate.”
“Unfriendly?”
“Not all faerie creatures are kind. It’s important for you to understand that now that you’re claimed.” Lifting his hand, he pins a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Don’t worry, though. Mountain Vale is protected, and you are protected. I may not be among the strongest, but nothing would stop me from keeping you safe.”
Blushing, I fumble through unlocking our room to find the singular bed, the pale blue walls, a minuscule bathroom, and a modest window framed by teal drapes.
Ollie sets my luggage by the bed, runs his fingers through his hair, and closes his eyes, as though he’s in pain. “Are you…still comfortable being in your pajamas around me?” he asks.
Be still my quivering heart. Dumbly, I nod.
