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“The beginning,” Fetch said.
“The beginning,” he mumbled, considering how to condense the two hellish months into mere minutes. He pulled his hands from his pockets, setting them like guard rails before him. “I’ll start from themomentshe learned about the Fate Dice and summarize the eight weeks that followed.” He held up his thumb. “Week one.Hellfireand brimstone. She rained it down for a solid seven days straight. And I took it. I rolled thosefuckingFate dice for her—I’m guilty—go ahead and give me your worst, make me pay.” He jammed his hands back into his pockets. “Turns out handing my balls over worked like pissing in the devil’s eye. The next week was hellfire, brimstone, and a set of Farkle dice that she rolled to determine anything and everything relating to handing me my ass.”
Traps wished he could appreciate the snigger that escaped Rowan.
“Thirdweek,” he said. “She brought in this storm ofeeriesilence. I mean not asingleword or sound. I literally did not exist,” he said, still amazed and pissed with that one. “Some days I wondered if I’d died and was a ghost. But was she done?” He shook his head. “Not even close. Fourth week, she visited a pretend sick sister. And when I say pretend sick sister, I mean the sister was actually anunsick withthejoyof helping swamp folk. That little lying vacation lasted seven holy days. I got a little fridge note about it.” He drew his hands from his pockets and placed them on his chest. “I’m fine with that. Go play MotherTheresa to spiritual relatives half dead with joy, whatever makes you feel better.”
“I actually heard about this from Scarlett,” Rowan giggled. “Did it help?”
“Oh, it brought anangelback to me on week five.”
“Geeze louize,” Rowan said, sounding genuinely relieved.
“Geeze. Louize,” he articulated dryly. “It was anamazingseven daysexactly. Then came thesixthweek.”
“Oh boy.”
“I imagine she looked over at Satan and said, ‘Let’s have a little fun. Hold my tea.’ She’s got this obsession with every known tea that exists,” he explained. “Makes my obsession with rope look cute. Well, she made meruethe day I was stupid enough to believe a fucking thing that came out of her mouth.” He shoved his fists deeper into his pockets, shaking his lowered head. “That one got me. It got merealfucking good. I learned my lesson like a good boy and dragged my remains off her sick little battlefield. Andlastweek?” he said, thumbing the air behind him. “She’s back to an angel of light,” he said lightly. “Only this time she’s packing alotof heat. My little high collared, toe covered cloistered nun is now bearing cleavage, ass, and thigh.” He spread his arms. “Seduction then slaughter. That’s what’s on her menu for me. And here I am. Standing before you at my wits-fucking end, down for the count.”
“Wow,” Rowan marveled, looking at Fetch then back at him. “You’re officially the Patron Saint of hormonal hell holes.”
“How was she before she learned about the dice?” Fetch asked.
“Oh, the week of bliss,” Traps recalled. “Feels like a fever dream now. At first, I honestly wasn’t happy with Fate’s choice and then I met her officially at a swamp ball they’d thrown so we could get to know each other.” His entire body recalled every detail with painful clarity. “She was the stick in the cornerwearing a black funeral dress as if she was coming to marry death. And then when I stood before her and forced myself to actually see her, I realized she was stunningly beautiful. And she had a personality that matched. Sweet, intelligent, funny as hell, sharp as a whip.”
“Full-blooded librarian,” Rowan said.
“All her life,” he’d learned. “She was everything I could’ve wanted in a woman given the kind of hook-up we’d proposed and everything I didn’t ever realize I needed. Craved. She had no demands of me, no expectations, she was easy to talk to, easy to understand,veryeasy on the eyes, and… submissive in every way I could dream of for a wife.”
“And then those damn Fate dice happened.”
The sadness in Rowan’s words shredded his guts and other invisible things in him.
Traps recalled, “Before that… I feel stupid using the word perfect but that’s what everything was. Not that I have anything to compare such things to, she’s the first woman I’veeverattempted to be with.” The far-fetched idea had him rushing to explain. “I was barely nineteen when I signed up to become a member of The Twelve. Before that, my passion was a thousand percent in working with my father and two brothers. We had a family trapping business and worked from sunup to sundown every day until we were called to fight in the Noctambule war. It was the only way of life I knew andcaredto know,” he remembered. “And…” His entire being returned to Gretchen and as usual, the massive trap she was went off in his chest, teeth piercing all the parts of him until it radiated in his blood and bones and lungs.
“Oh boy,” Rowan lightly marveled at seeing what he couldn’t hide. He didn’t know how and he realized he didn’t care as he paced before them, heaving for air.
Fetch suddenly met him on the fiery path of his crossroad. His hand touched down on his shoulder, sucking the air from him along with his whispered confession. “I’mlostbrother.” The reality cut everything loose inside him. “I’m so lost in her, I don’t… I don’t even know how this happened.” He grabbed hold of the strong shoulders before him, desperate for salvation. “She invaded everypartof me and every fiber of my being istrappedin her.My purpose for pulling air into my lungs isher. I’m bound so tight, I can’t move, I can’t hear or see my way through.”
“She’s burning,” Fetch whispered to him, angling his head. “The fires of her past rage in her soul and you must enter it and let it consume you. Become one with it.Entrapit.”
A new panic rose inside him along with a hope.Shewas in trouble? “Tell me how. There isnothingI will not do for her.”
“You sense things in her. A darkness. Tell me of it.”
“Hold the bloodyhellup,” Rowan cut in suddenly, pushing them apart.
They both eyed her, but her green gaze was narrowed on Fetch along with the little finger aimed at his face. “You best be Fetch, Fathom, and Finishing what I’ll do to ye’ royal balls if ye’ try and have a threesome right here in front of me bloody eyes.”
A threesome?
Traps looked at a laughing Fetch who attempted to kiss her but met her palm instead.
“He gets off to hearingmorbidity,” she said, her little accent twisting the syllables as she eyed Traps.
“Myhuman,” Fetch said between rolling chuckles. “It is onlyyourmorbidity that I getoffon as you call it.”
She snapped her angry gaze at him, a deep furrow on her brow. “What ye be meanin’?”
