Page 11 of Druid Dreams

“Ms. King,” I bit out with anger in my voice before I could take a deep breath to calm myself, “And I are none of your business.”

“I see,” he sneered at me, “So there’s nothing going on between you two.” He nodded his hollow skull at me as he pretended to think about his next words, “It sure seemed like you were gone for an awfully long time, but nothing happened. What a pity. A fine woman like that needs someone who can seal the deal, if you know what I mean.” His cheeky grin set me off. This dirty dick fucking bastard.

Oh, I knew what he meant, and I was seeing red. My jaw muscle ticked as I rolled my neck to the right and then the left to stretch my tense muscles. I let loose an inhuman growl, fully intending on knocking his ass into next week, but not killing him yet. It was swallowed up by a guttural whinny sort of sound just as a big ass black horse came from out of literally nowhere and kicked him square in the chest. Taylor sailed through the air and slammed into a light post. What was that? Twenty? Thirty feet away?

Where the fuck did the horse come from? The shadows? I must have been seeing things.

I looked over at the horse, wide eyed, but didn’t dare move another muscle. Yep, it’s a huge godsdamn horse. I heard Taylor moan painfully, sadly confirming he was still alive despite how badly I wanted to kill him with my bare hands. Thick, black smoke began to morph around the horse until Jack stood before me, in his dress pants and nothing else. If I thought it was funny when he was pissed earlier then maybe he’s right and I am a bit dim witted.

Jack is livid now. He was breathing heavily through his anger and walking barefoot across the gravel lot, with what I could only call a determined gait, towards Taylor. “Jack.” I softly called out, trying to steady the raging beast. He didn’t stop or say a word until he made it to Taylor. With all the menace pouring from the male, I started to think this motherfucker might die today. I hated the man, but Jack, he looked like he was ready to tear his spleen out through his throat. It truly wouldn’t have surprised me if he did. It certainly wouldn’t hurt my feelings, and I’d definitely help him hide the body.

He dragged Taylor up off the ground by the collar of his thousand dollar dress shirt and brought him to eye level. Taylor’s feet dangled nearly a foot off the ground as Jack held him so close their noses almost touched. Jack stared at him for a solid minute. I could hear Taylor swallow from where I stood. He was terrified. I was so fucking ecstatic about it that I wanted to cheer Jack on. I was also a little jealous that it wasn’t me doing the terrifying. I still had to lay low around the people who thought I was human. That means not scaring the dipshit with my powers.

Slowly and calmly, oh so fucking calmly, Jack whispered “If you value your life you will keep Sloane King’s name out of your mouth. You will not come near her, or her friends, again. The next time I see you, or hear that you have uttered her name, I will personally hunt you down. When I find you I will rip your still beating heart from your chest so quickly that your last vision will be of me taking a bite out of it. Do you understand me?”

Holy fuck. I was quite frightened myself, but I almost laughed as Taylor’s face went completely white and he started to piss himself. Jack’s nostrils flared as he gave Taylor a good once-over, and then he tossed the man twenty feet in the opposite direction. He took a visible breath, trying to even his anger out, before turning to me. “So, that’s the creep you were talking about, yeah? If Sloane catches him stalking her then she’ll kill him herself.” He grinned a little too big for comfort as his long strides ate up the distance between us. “No need to worry about that bitch. She’s way more bite than bark. You’d be surprised to know how many ways she can kill a man with something as simple as a spoon.”

I was going to save that information for later. Right now though, “Are you okay, mate? Do you need a ride to your car or something?”

“Nah man, I’m good. Sloane sent me. Apparently she saw him and didn’t think it was important to tell me until someone other than herself was in danger. I know you’re a High Winter Fae, but iron bullets are iron bullets and that guys got a gun.” He casually tossed his head in the direction of an unconscious Taylor Caplin. “Uhm, had a gun,” he corrected himself.

I nodded my head while I processed what he’d just told me. Sliding some more information away for later, I looked over and noticed a gun laying a few feet from where Taylor landed. Huh, he wasn’t lying. I never saw the gun.

“I think I can fix that gun for him,” I offered. As I made my way over to Taylor I fought the urge to kick him in his face. I took the gun and bent the barrel up, then removed the bullets and encased them in ice before I crushed them in my hand. The iron burned the surface of my skin, but a little ice would heal it right up. I'd be left with nothing but a raw area on my palm from the minor iron burns by the time I got home.

I didn’t know if Taylor would understand what transpired here tonight. No one would believe his story either. Not that I gave any flying fucks about him, since it would appear that he was going to try to shoot me. With iron bullets, no less. Did he know I was fae or was it just a guess? That would be more information to think about later. I was going to need to get Novak and Stone to help me do some digging. I already dreaded that conversation.

“Maybe we should call an ambulance for him....” I trailed off as I heard the sirens growing closer. Guess Jack called them before he came from, uhm, wherever the hell he came from. I have so many questions about tonight.

“Time to go, Vaughn. I’ll take that ride around the block to my chariot now.” Jack replied with a wink.

Vaughn

Saturday Morning

By the time I made it home it was after 6am. I was exhausted from all the shit that had happened in the last 24 hours. I really looked forward to falling face first in my bed so I could take a long nap. Maybe I’d dream of Sloane. Her arms wrapped around my neck as she leaned back, leaving her bare breasts on display. Her nipples brushing my chest with each movement we made, long legs locked behind my back as I... FUCK! Get. A. Fucking. Grip. Vaughn. On second thought, maybe I didn’t want to dream about her. That seemed like a sure way to wake up with a raging boner, or have a wet dream.

As I opened the front door of the flat I shared with my friends a few smells assaulted me at once. New smells that weren’t here last night when I came home to change out of my work clothes.

One: It smelled like the gas from the stove mixed with bacon and eggs and orange juice. Breakfast was being cooked which meant Palmer came home early from seeing his family. He must have decided Novak and I had enjoyed enough take out and protein bars in his two week absence. Thank the gods. Novak was a terrible cook and I wasn’t much better. Palmer was a step up from Stone in the kitchen, but none of us compared to Briggs.

Two: The fresh, earthy smell of mud and grass invaded my nostrils as I silently shut the front door and tiptoed through the entryway. That meant Briggs was home too. He’d be cleaning all this fucking mud up, because I wasn’t the one who tracked it all the way from the front door of our building to our door. It then led from our front door to the couch and from there it trailed underneath his bedroom door. He was so sloppy sometimes. It wouldn’t have been hard to take his shoes off at the door. He does this shit to aggravate me.

Three: The smell of ash and burning wood like something was on fire. That could only mean-

Fuck! Something’s on fire!!

I darted through the flat, following the scent, and found... Stone. He was squatting in front of the living room fireplace, poker in one hand and a small flame in the other, teasing the fire bigger like the Devil-damned Demon he was.

“Fuck! You ballbag. I thought the flat was on fire.” I had to take a deep breath to calm my rapid heart beat. He wasn’t supposed to be home from his convention until the end of the week. The fires never caught me off guard when I knew he was home.

“We told you Fae, it’s an apartment, not a flat. I don’t know why that’s so hard for you to understand.” He rolled his bluish black eyes at me like I was the dumbest Fae to walk the earth.

“You’re the second person whose acted like I’m stupid in the past three hours.” I muttered under my breath. I know I’m not a genius like Palmer, but I’m not not smart, you know?

“Make that three in as many hours,” Palmer slid in, “Where’ve ya been?” He gave me a sly look that made me want to roll my eyes. Of course they were going to grill me. “It’s not like ye to come strollin’ in at this hour. Busy night was it?” I thought about ignoring his questions. I wasn’t ready to talk about her with them yet.

Palmer let his accent out when he was at home. When he was working he acted as American as I did. He didn’t have a heavy accent, but you could hear it lightly when he spoke. He’d been in the States longer than I had. I thought that helped him lose the edge of his accent. It was funny when he bounced back and forth between accents while talking to us. He hated the questions people asked him about his time in Ireland. My favorite one that he got was “Are you Irish or Scottish?” It was one of the only times you’d ever see Palmer lose his cool, because he wasn’t from either. He was from Norn Iron. That was what he called his homeland. It’s Northern Ireland. Somewhere near Belfast. Please don’t get him fucking started. We’ll never hear the end of it.