Zephyr Ranch 1:

SEA CHANGE

Nessa Vincent

www.loose-id.com

Zephyr Ranch 1: Sea Change
Copyright © October 2012 by Nessa Vincent

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the
original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part
of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or
distributed in any printed or electronic form
without prior written permission from Loose Id
LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage
piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the
author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

eISBN 9781623000561
Editor: Tamzin Mitchell
Cover Artist: April Martinez
Published in the United States of America

Published by
Loose Id LLC
PO Box 809
San Francisco CA 94104-0809
www.loose-id.com

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference

might be made to actual historical events or
existing locations, the names, characters, places
and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.

Warning

This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and
adult language and may be considered offensive to
some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale
to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the
country in which you made your purchase. Please
store your files wisely, where they cannot be
accessed by under-aged readers.

* * * *

DISCLAIMER: Please do not try any new sexual
practice, especially those that might be found in
our BDSM/fetish titles without the guidance of an
experienced practitioner. Neither Loose Id LLC

nor its authors will be responsible for any loss,
harm, injury or death resulting from use of the
information contained in any of its titles.

Dedication

For Megan, though you may not remember why.

Chapter One

The music pounded in Ben’s ears, so loud he

thought he might be damaging them. The club was
dark, hot, and packed. The lights on the dance floor
and the beer he’d drunk were giving him a
headache. His sweaty shirt clung to his back.

He’d never been so happy in his life.
Strobe lights on the dance floor revealed

snapshots of men dancing together. It still felt
vaguely forbidden to even be here in a real, live
gay bar, much less to have come with a date.

The thought of Grant made Ben grin again,

even though he was sure he looked crazy standing
by the bar, by himself, smiling at no one.

A new song began, and a cheer went up from

the dance floor. To Ben’s left, a couple abandoned
their drinks and ran out, pulling at each other. Just
then, Grant reappeared, already reaching out for
Ben. Grant pulled him close to call in his ear, “I
love this song! Let’s go!”

The bar cleared out as people crowded the

dance floor. Everyone seemed to love this song.
Only under torture would Ben admit he’d never
heard it before. It didn’t matter, anyway. He was
happy following Grant, dodging through gaps in the
crowd as they opened, feeling the pressure of
Grant’s fingers on his hand.

When they were somewhere in the midst of

the dancing, Grant turned back to him and tugged
him closer. The crowd pressed them together so
that Ben had to tip his head back to look at Grant’s
face. Grant was six-three if he was an inch, broad
shouldered, with thick brown hair bleached paler
by the sun, and when he turned on the dimples, it
was all over. Ben still couldn’t believe his luck.

He let the music and the beer fill him and pick

him up. Ben wasn’t a good dancer, but he’d
stopped caring about that hours ago. The exertion
of dancing in this heat had given him a kind of
runner’s high, pricked only by his arousal every
time he set eyes on his date.

He inched a little closer. The way Grant’s

shirt stuck to him gave Ben a tantalizing idea of the
ridges of his abs and hard, flat muscles of his
chest. Neither of them could stop touching each
other. Ben wasn’t brave enough to let those teasing
touches, disguised as dancing, venture past Grant’s
shoulders and arms.

Grant was bolder. He brushed his hands

down Ben’s shoulders to his waist, caught Ben
there, and turned him around. He pressed one palm
flat against Ben’s belly, agonizingly close to his
erection. Grant had enormous hands that seemed to
encompass most of Ben’s hips, and Ben’s thoughts
automatically went to what they would feel like
everywhere else on his body. Every beat of his
pulse pressed his cock against the zipper of his
jeans.

As Grant eased him back, their bodies

brushed—shoulder blades to chest and, more
importantly, Ben’s ass to the hard swell of Grant’s
cock.

Ben sucked in a breath. Grant kept himself

positioned against the cleft of Ben’s ass, clearly

telegraphing his desire. Ben’s stomach trembled as
Grant stroked the plane of his abs, rucking his
shirt.

Then Grant’s chin was tucked close to his

ear. “I want to take you home,” he shouted.

Ben nodded. He didn’t think he could make

himself heard from this position, and God knew he
didn’t want to move, so he pressed Grant’s hands
against his belly, drawing them closer together.

“Great,” Grant yelled. “So why are we

wasting time?”

The song ended, segueing seamlessly into

another. Grant began to pull away. His fingertips
brushed the front of Ben’s hard-on, taking a little
too much time there for it to be purely accidental.
A promise, a kind of code for what would happen
next. Ben felt dizzy, lightning-struck. He let the
pressure of Grant’s hand tow him off the dance
floor.

* * * *

Ears ringing, Ben emerged onto the street

behind Grant. The San Diego night was humid and
overcast, but it felt twenty degrees cooler out here
than it had in the club. When the doors swung shut
behind them, the bass was muffled. The street
seemed impossibly quiet.

Ben and Grant both stopped and stared at

each other for a moment. “It’s like coming up from
diving or something,” Grant said.

“Or going underwater.” Ben thought he might

be talking too loud. He realized his throat was
sore.

Grant held out his hand again, and Ben placed

his palm in it. “Car’s this way.”

They’d driven down together. That had been

the first item in a growing list of things Ben had
never done before and normally wouldn’t do—
normally he’d drive his own car for safety.
Normally he wouldn’t agree to go home with a
man he’d only met once before.

He didn’t want that kind of normal. That Ben

was a virgin, still a little bit scared to be out of the
closet. That Ben felt astonished at the fact that

Grant was holding his hand on a public street.
True, it was one in the morning and there weren’t a
lot of people around to see them. The old Ben
would have been scared, though.

New Ben wasn’t scared. He wanted Grant to

hold his hand, and he wanted to go home with him.
It had taken him long enough to be able to admit to
himself, much less other people, that these were
his desires, and he felt like he’d earned the right to
enjoy them.

They walked in silence. Ben glanced up at

Grant now and then, still taken aback by his good
luck. They’d met at a party two weeks ago—a
friend of a friend of Ben’s was a good friend of
Grant’s, and she had introduced them.

The connection had been instant. They had a

lot in common despite the fact that Grant was a
surfer who more or less arranged his life around
wind and tide while Ben was neck-deep in
academia as he got his PhD. But they lived within
spitting distance of each other, at least in Southern
California terms, and they had books and movies

in common. Both of them liked to swim, though
Ben confined his time in the water to the pool at
UCSD’s gym. When he’d admitted his fear of the
ocean, Grant had immediately said he was taking
Ben surfing for their first date.

Fortunately they’d ended up going downtown

instead. New Ben was interested in getting laid,
not dragged out to sea by a riptide.

It seemed like he was getting what he wanted.

As the prospect of the night unfolded before him,
giddy excitement rose up in his stomach. “You
don’t have to get up at four a.m. to get eaten by
sharks, do you?” he asked Grant.

He was rewarded with Grant’s smile. Was it

possible for them to have a running joke after only
one date and a party? “Come on, Ben, everybody
knows sharks don’t get up until six.”

“Oh, right.”
Their hands slipped apart as they reached

Grant’s car. “The riptides are the early risers,”
Grant said, walking around to the driver’s side. As
he unlocked the door, he grinned over the roof of

his hatchback at Ben. “So you want to get up and
surf in the morning, huh?”

The locks popped, and Ben opened his door.

“I can stand on the beach and wave to you.”

After he’d slammed his door shut, he glanced

over at Grant. The smile on his face had faded
slightly. The look he wore now was harder to
describe—interest? Affection? Lust?

Ben’s heart jumped. He had always assumed

sex was easily accessible to someone like Grant—
someone who looked like him, for one thing, but
also someone who seemed at ease with his
sexuality, someone who’d done this many times
before. He’d assumed that what was a huge fucking
deal to Ben would be just another night for Grant.
But the look on Grant’s face suggested otherwise.
He looked every bit as into this as Ben was.

Grant put the car in reverse and flung his arm

around the back of Ben’s seat to maneuver out of
their parking spot.

“If you hang around me long enough, you will

go surfing,” he said, teasing again.

Ben liked the thought of being around Grant

longer, even if it meant bobbing in freezing-cold
water full of things that bit.

Grant lived in Leucadia, about thirty minutes

from downtown San Diego. They made it in
twenty, blazing past the exit to Ben’s apartment in
Cardiff. Grant’s clunker sounded like the engine
was about to fall out of it, but he pushed the little
machine fearlessly. Ben figured his impatience had
something to do with the bulge in Grant’s lap. He
sneaked covert looks at it, appreciating its size and
trying to guess other characteristics of his cock.

About ten minutes out of town, Grant put his

hand on Ben’s knee and kept it there the rest of the
ride. Ben’s arousal grew mercilessly at the feel of
Grant’s fingertips creeping toward his inner thigh.
He had never wanted someone so much in his life.

But once they left the 5 behind and began

creeping through dark residential neighborhood,
Ben’s nerves began to compete with his desire.
After wasting valuable minutes trying to think of a
graceful way to introduce the topic, he gave up and

blurted, “You know I’m a virgin, right?”

Grant glanced over at him. His eyes returned

to the road, and his hand stayed where it was. “I
didn’t know that.”

Well, why would he? Ben had no idea what

he was doing and assumed others recognized that
about him, but he was twenty-three, for God’s
sake. People his age should’ve had plenty of
lovers by now. He turned his face toward the
window in case Grant could see him blushing.

“I just wanted to let you know,” Ben said.
Grant’s fingers squeezed his thigh, sending a

pulse of lust to Ben’s cock. “I’ll take care of you,
babe.”

The promise filled Ben with both trepidation

and need.

With a lurch, Grant hit the brakes and pulled

the car in to park. “This is me,” he said and
practically leaped from the driver’s seat.

Leucadia was silent at one thirty in the

morning. Ben could smell the beach, but he was
too turned around to have said reliably which way

it was.

Grant’s building was a two-story walk-up,

shabby but appealing. Its moss-green paint was
blistered by salt and wind. Grant bounded up the
stairs,

sorting

through

his

keys.

Feeling

uncoordinated, Ben followed. He stopped beside
Grant at the farthest door down the walkway. A
wet suit was hanging over the railing outside, limp
in the windless night.

The sight of the front door—Grant’s front

door, entrance to where he would lose his virginity
at last—got his heart going again.

The apartment was dark inside. Grant shut the

door behind them, and Ben stood still. There was a
window somewhere, but he had no concept of how
big the place was.

“Let me get the light,” Grant said, and Ben

felt him move away. The loss of the other man’s
warmth was disappointing.

As if reading Ben’s mind, Grant asked, “Is it

cold in here?”

“No.”

The light came on overhead in an old,

unattractive fixture. Grant’s apartment was an
efficiency—kitchen in an alcove on the right,
bedroom on the left. Against the back wall stood a
small table and two folding chairs, along with a
pair of surfboards—one big, one small. It was a
little depressing as apartments went, but Ben’s
place wasn’t any better.

He realized Grant was watching him from the

kitchen. As their eyes met, he dropped his hand
from the wall and began crossing the apartment
toward Ben. He’d taken off his playfulness in the
same way he shed his shirt, casting it aside as he
walked. His expression was intent now, and
serious.

Ben

swallowed,

feeling

his

heart

accelerating. The body that had been rubbing
against him all night was even better than he’d
imagined. Grant’s undershirt was filmy and half-
transparent with sweat, clinging to the ridges of his
abs. His chest was a broad plane, strong and sun-
darkened. Ben’s palms itched to run over the

curves of Grant’s muscles. He made himself form
fists to keep from reaching out. There was less he
could do about his cock, which pressed toward
Grant through Ben’s jeans.

It seemed to take a long time for Grant to get

to him. Long enough for Ben to notice every detail.
Long enough to wonder what would happen when
Grant got close enough to touch or kiss. And
meanwhile Ben stood there like an idiot, probably
gaping, as Grant came right up to him and stopped.
It would be great, he thought frantically, if he could
find some reserves of suaveness right about now.

Ben’s gaze was level with Grant’s chin. He

found himself entranced by Grant’s pecs,
unbelievably firm looking and muscular.

“I’m up here.”
Ben snapped his gaze up to find Grant smiling

at him.

Ben opened his mouth, reaching for something

witty and coming up with, “Hi.”

He felt a blush rising, but Grant grabbed the

front of Ben’s shirt, tugging him forward.

Lowering his face, he growled, “Hi, yourself.”
Then he planted his lips on Ben’s.

Grant’s tongue pressed his lips, and Ben

opened his mouth to him. His knees felt watery; it
was a good thing Grant was holding him up. Half
consciously he leaned his chest forward. Grant’s
fingers unlocked from the material of Ben’s shirt,
instead reaching around his ribs, coasting down his
lower back, hugging him closer.

Grant nipped Ben’s lip. He half gasped, half

groaned.

He wanted to focus completely on this kiss.

Each time Grant touched him was more staggering
than the last. But the journey Grant’s hands were
taking down Ben’s back was distracting. His
concentration shattered when those big hands
reached his ass and squeezed.

Ben shifted even closer. The other man’s

cock pressed urgently into his hip bone through the
fabric of both their jeans. Ben’s own hard-on
throbbed in answer. Grant bit his lip again, and
Ben’s hips pumped forward with need.

Grant pulled back for a moment—Ben took

his first deep breath in over a minute—and smiled
again. “You like that, huh?”

“Wh-what?” What didn’t he like about this

moment? Grant’s hands were still cupping the
cheeks of his ass, threatening to pick him up off the
floor entirely and driving their hips into each
other. Ben shifted experimentally and brought his
cock into contact with the hard ridge inside
Grant’s jeans.

Grant’s eyes were bright, his gaze intense.

“That thing where I bite your lip,” he said, and Ben
remembered that they were talking about
something. “Like this.”

Grant took Ben’s lower lip gently with his

teeth. Shivers rose on Ben’s neck and coursed
down his back and shoulders. The delicious
sensation pooled at the base of his cock. He was
starting to feel annoyed at the clothing they were
both wearing.

He only started breathing again when Grant

let go and lifted his head. Ben felt too staggered to

answer. “You do like that,” Grant said. His voice
was low, almost a whisper. Ben tried to swallow
in preparation for answering him, but his mouth
was too dry.

Grant didn’t seem to be expecting a reply

anyway. “I bet you’ll like this too.”

The stubble on Grant’s jaw abraded Ben’s

cheek, and then his right earlobe was consumed in
heat. Grant nipped him. This time the tingling was
hotter, more instantaneous. Ben let out an
involuntary groan and realized there was a serious
danger of him shooting off before they even got
naked if Grant kept this up.

Grant showed mercy and released Ben’s ear,

his expression intent. “Good?”

He wasn’t sure he remembered how to talk

anymore, but he managed to say something that
sounded like “good.”

“Great.” Grant slipped his hands under Ben’s

shirt. He heard the metallic jingle of a belt buckle,
but he didn’t quite realize it was his until Grant
shoved down his pants and boxers a moment later.

Ben hugged his knees together too late to stop

his pants from falling. The belt buckle clattered as
it hit the floor. Ben’s cock sprang free. He hissed
in a breath at the near pain of the cool air touching
his overheated skin. The swollen flesh bounced in
the air, and then Grant closed the distance between
them and pressed him close again.

The friction against the fabric of Grant’s

jeans was almost too intense, but when Ben tried
to step back, his own pants caught him around the
ankles. He wobbled. Grant caught him, strong arms
holding him close.

“I gotcha,” he said in Ben’s ear. His breath

was hot. “Let’s get rid of the shirt too.”

He had to wait a moment for Ben to find his

balance again. When Grant pulled back this time,
Ben was ready. He caught hold of Grant’s hands
before they could reach the bottommost button of
his shirt. In a voice that sounded nothing like his
own, he squeaked out, “Wait.”

Grant’s lashes lifted. The hands at his button

stilled.

Never mind that he was naked from the waist

down and that Grant’s hands were bare inches
from Ben’s pulsing cock. He needed to say what
had to be said now. In another couple of minutes
he might not have the chance.

Now if only he could figure out what he

wanted to say. “I— It’s… I told you, right, about it
being…my first…?”

He couldn’t get the words my first time out of

his mouth. Grant already knew that, but it seemed
important to say it now, for some reason.

Grant was nodding, in any case. “Yeah, I

know.”

Grant released the bottom button and moved

to the next. Ben tried to grab his hands, but he was
hampered by his inability to look away from
Grant’s face. His lips were darker, plumper than
they were before—because of their kiss? He liked
the idea of having an effect on Grant, of marking
him.

Focus, Ben. He stilled Grant’s hands on the

third button up. “I mean, I just… I don’t know…”

He stopped, unsure how he intended to finish

the sentence. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t
know if you’ll want me. Ben kept himself in good
shape, but he didn’t look like that when he was
naked. I don’t know if I can please you. I don’t
know if I’ll be any good at this.

Grant only smiled. The effect was instant and

devastating. Those full lips were now bracketed
by dimples. “I know, Ben,” he said, and with a
flourish he ripped Ben’s shirt off.

Stunned, Ben listened to buttons ping off

furniture and onto the floor. He turned his head in
the vain hope of finding at least one of them, but
Grant took him firmly by the jaw.

Turning his hand over, he stroked Ben’s

cheek with his knuckles. His voice low and sweet,
he said, “I want to admire you before I fuck you.”

Ben let out a shaky breath and decided he

couldn’t argue with that.

Grant pressed Ben’s ass again, cupping and

kneading the flesh. Calluses on Grant’s palm
brushed over the delicate skin. Ben felt the hand at

his chin slide between their bodies just before
Grant closed his fingers around Ben’s cock.

Ben let his forehead drop, resting it against

Grant’s shoulder. He groaned as Grant began to
stroke him. The movement was gentle, but Ben’s
cock throbbed dangerously when he let himself
sink into the sensation. He tried to distract himself
so he didn’t come right now, but the only other
thing to focus on was the hand at his ass. Grant
trailed his fingertips into the crease between the
cheeks. A spasm of still-stronger lust made his
hips jerk forward.

“Oh God,” he muttered.
He glanced up. Grant was smiling. Ben felt a

moment’s annoyance that he was so relaxed when
Ben felt like it would take everything he had to just
make it to the bed. But as he pulled back, Ben
realized he wasn’t relaxed. Grant’s breath was
coming just as fast as Ben’s. His lips were parted,
his face slightly flushed.

He looked down at Ben’s cock. “Nice

equipment, buddy.”

Grant palmed the underside, stroking up and

pressing it closer to Ben’s belly. Ben bit down on
his lip to contain another groan. He eyed the bulge
in Grant’s crotch and managed to speak. “Do I get
to see yours?”

Grant looked up at him and blinked. He

looked down at Ben and at himself as if realizing
the inequality in their nakedness. His hand hadn’t
left Ben’s cock, and he caressed the underside of
his cockhead. Ben’s knees almost gave out.

Grant’s grin reappeared. “Yeah, I guess

you’ve earned it.”

Instead of getting naked, though, he wrapped

his arms around Ben again. As much as Ben
wanted to see Grant naked, there was something
exciting about his bare chest rubbing against
Greg’s clothed one. The cotton of Grant’s
undershirt rasped over Ben’s nipples and the
tender skin of his stomach. Their cocks were
mashed close again, so much so that it took Ben a
moment before Grant’s words made any sense to
him.

“Lose the pants, babe.”
With a little wiggling, Ben shucked both his

shoes and his pants and boxers. Finally, actually
naked, he straightened, only for Grant to pick him
up.

Ben automatically locked his legs around

Grant’s hips and looped his arms around Grant’s
shoulders. Strong muscles moved underneath his
hands

They were eye to eye. Grant, grinning, didn’t

seem to be exerting any effort.

“You’re r-really strong,” Ben managed to

comment.

“You’re really gorgeous.”
Ben was too fixated on Grant to register the

compliment. Grant’s lips, his eyes, the feeling of
his belly, hard as granite, against Ben’s cock. Then
somehow he was lying on the bed without any
understanding of how Grant had gotten them there.
He carried me?

“You have to let me go for a second, though,”

Grant said. Ben realized his legs were still

squeezing Grant’s hips. He was practically
humping the man’s abs.

Chagrinned, he let his legs flop onto the bed.

His calves and feet hung over the edge. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Grant stood. “I want to feel your

legs right there again in another few minutes.”

He stripped off his undershirt at last. Ben

sucked in another breath. His cock throbbed in the
cool air. Grant tossed aside the shirt without
looking. Every movement made muscles bunch and
flex under his skin. Pecs, abs, even those delicious
little muscles framing his hip bones and pointing
downward toward his cock—there wasn’t an inch
of Grant that wasn’t perfectly defined.

Ben had second thoughts about his aversion to

surfing. Clearly battling the Pacific had done
wonders for Grant’s physique.

Unself-conscious, Grant shoved down his

pants. His boxers were tented by his cock.

He ran a teasing thumb under the elastic at the

top of his shorts. Ben felt like he might be
salivating.

“I should play with you more,” Grant said,

“this being your first time and everything. But I
can’t stand it.”

He shoved down the boxers and stood. Ben

had a brief glimpse of a gorgeous, heavy, and
extremely erect cock before Grant was kneeling on
the bed over him. He lowered his head and
pressed his lips to Ben’s again. Without thinking
about it, Ben flexed his hips. Their cocks touched,
a fleeting sensation of heat and hardness that hit
Ben like an electric shock. They pulled their lips
apart with near-matching groans of desire.

Desire. That’s what it was. Grant wants me.
This idea was still sinking in when Grant

said, “I want to fuck you through the floor, babe,
but I promise I’ll go easy. I won’t hurt you.”

“I know.” He did, somehow. He’d known this

guy, what, a week? But he did trust him.

And frankly he didn’t care. Grant could say

they were going to screw over a tank of sharks and
Ben would probably agree. Anything to relieve
this suspense and put an end to this mind-

consuming need. “Please,” Ben said. “Fuck me.”

In reply Grant disappeared from above him.

Ben felt him flop over to one side of the bed. As he
was getting his elbows beneath him, a drawer
opened and shut. The crinkle of tearing foil sent
anticipation looping through Ben’s stomach. He sat
up to find Grant rolling a condom down his cock.

That’s going in my ass . As obsessed as Ben

had been with that idea since, basically, the
moment he met Grant, it was a little intimidating
now. Grant was not a small man in any department.
His latex-sheathed cock looked almost menacing,
though at the same time Ben wanted to touch it, lick
it, wrap his lips around it. He wanted to bring
Grant the same intense pleasure that he wanted to
feel himself.

Grant had plans, though. “Lie back,” he said.
Ben complied, scooting up the bed so that his

legs weren’t hanging off. He wanted desperately
for someone to touch his cock, preferably Grant.
Instead Grant shouldered apart his legs. Ben lifted
his head, looking down his own body and past the

flagpole of his dick. He found Grant crouching
between his knees, looking intently at his ass. He
was tossing aside something—a bottle, Ben
thought, feeling a thrill of excitement—and then
Ben felt fingertips at his asshole. Grant slicked
lube over his flesh, making him clench in reaction.

The lube was cold. Instinctively Ben tried to

hug his knees together and encountered the
immovable strength of Grant.

His eyes bright, Grant looked up. “It won’t be

cold for long.” He continued to move his fingers
over Ben’s asshole, massaging in little circles.
Ben’s knees drifted apart again without any
command from his brain. He let his head fall back
to the mattress. Grant’s fingers were magic.

He started to say, “You’re right, it’s warming

—” but at that moment Grant slipped the tip of his
index finger neatly into his ass, and the rest of the
sentence was lost to a gasp.

“Shh, babe,” Grant soothed. “It’ll only burn a

moment.”

Ben couldn’t say so, but he hoped that wasn’t

true. He hoped it kept right on burning. As Grant’s
finger slowly advanced, Ben could feel his
muscles stretching. It felt incredible. His dick
throbbed harder than ever.

“That’s going to be my cock in a moment,”

Grant said. His voice was low, taut. Grant
sounded as if he were as close to the edge of his
control as Ben was. Heartened by that idea, he
squeezed experimentally around Grant’s finger.

“Jesus,”

Grant

muttered.

The

finger

disappeared. Before Ben could protest, Grant
replaced it with two.

Hissing through his teeth, he grabbed hold of

the base of his cock. His intentions were to head
off the possibility of coming too soon, but Grant
smacked him on the wrist. “Not yet. Let me take
care of you, babe.”

Ben curled his fingers into the comforter

underneath him. It was a poor substitute, but what
he wanted was out of reach. He lifted his head to
eye Grant’s cock, huge and thick between his
thighs as he knelt at the foot of the bed. “I’d rather

take care of you.”

Grant rewarded him with one of those

stunning grins. “I appreciate that. But first”—he
slipped three fingers into Ben, eliciting another
strangled groan—“I’m going to fuck this ass.”

His fingers stretched Ben perfectly. He felt

full but wanted to be fuller. He tried to pump his
hips and draw Grant’s fingers deeper. “Please.”

Grant uncapped the lube again, this time

slicking his own cock. Ben pushed himself up on
his elbows to watch, but then Grant stood. He
grabbed Ben by the ankles and slid him down to
the edge of the bed. Chest expanding and
contracting rapidly, Grant aimed his cock carefully
between Ben’s legs. Ben wanted nothing more than
to tell him to hurry up and do it. There was a buzz
of anxiety in his head. He’d waited so long for
this, and it was finally almost happening. The last
moments of anticipation seemed to stretch out
forever.

Grant’s cockhead slipped into Ben’s ass. As

slow as Grant was going, the burn was much more

intense than his fingers had been. Ben flopped his
head back on the bed, trying to breathe.

“Press out, babe.” Grant’s voice sounded

strangled, as he was speaking through his teeth.
“Press against me.”

Ben obeyed. The burn, which moments before

had bordered on too intense, almost painful, at
once transformed into a slick, stretching heat.
Grant slid deep inside him in one long, slow thrust.
Something tapped Ben’s ass—Grant’s balls, he
realized.

“How’s that feel?” Grant breathed.
There were no words. Ben felt completely

full of cock. His own dick was burning up. He’d
never been so hard in his life. The only answer he
could give was to snake his legs around Grant’s
hips again. Grant’s cock slid another fraction of an
inch deeper.

Grant leaned forward on his hands, his face

above Ben. “That’s it, babe,” he crooned. He drew
his hips back and shuttled them forward again.
Ben’s thighs quivered with a premonition of

orgasm. “Take all of me.”

“Yes,” Ben gasped.
Grant’s pace accelerated. Ben found himself

using his hips, his knees, anything he could to help.
He reached up to touch Grant’s chest, hot and
sweat-slicked again. Every touch felt electric.

I never thought it was like this. He couldn’t

say it, but he thought it over and over. I never
thought it felt like this as each breath leaving his
lungs came out, “Yes yes yes.”

“I want you”—Grant took a shuddering

breath, not breaking his rhythm—“to come.”
Another breath. Ben passed his thumbs over his
nipples and thrust his hips harder. “Grab your cock
—Jesus, fuck.”

The touch of Ben’s hand around his own cock

had felt blindingly intense before. Now it was part
of a sea of sensation, interconnecting, drawing him
closer and closer to his edge.

Two strokes and his balls began to tighten.

Grant fucked him harder, his balls slapping against
the flesh of Ben’s ass. Between breaths he kept up

a stream of dirty talk. “Come for me,” he bit out.
“Pull that big, sexy dick while I fuck you. I want to
watch you come. God yes. You are so—fucking—
tight.”

Grant shifted position minutely, and a hot

white spark of pleasure erupted deep in Ben’s
body. It jolted him, and he tightened his hand
around his cock. He stroked once more and let out
a shout.

Neck arched, vision blurred, he was barely

aware of his own cum hitting his stomach. Grant
said, “Jesus,” again and thrust so hard Ben felt
himself scoot an inch across the bed. The springs
screeched, and the legs of the bed ground against
the floor. He hardly noticed.

As his vision came back, he looked up at

Grant’s face. His expression was at once intent
and distant, his skin flushed and shining. Every
inward stroke still touched that deep effervescent
spark inside Ben. He squeezed his anal muscles,
trying to hold on to the sensation, and Grant
erupted with a cry.

Ben watched him come. He thought how

beautiful this man was. At his most vulnerable
moment, he looked angelic.

He would have liked to appreciate it longer,

but there was a metallic fizzling sound and the
lights went out.

Grant stopped moving and hung over Ben. It

was absolutely dark in the room. No light even
came through the windows. The effect, combined
with Ben’s orgasm, was disorienting. If not for the
feel of the comforter sticking to his shoulders and
the pressure of Grant’s hips against his ass, he
might have thought he was floating in the dark.

The breathing above him slowed. Ben

unlocked his legs from Grant’s hips, only now
realizing he was still squeezing his heels against
Grant’s lower back. Trembling and exhausted, he
let his legs flop down. A moment later Grant
carefully withdrew, groaning. The bedsprings
wheezed as Grant sat—or collapsed—beside him.

“Did the lights go out?” Grant asked.
Ben started laughing.

“What?” Grant said.
“Yes, they did. A couple of minutes ago.”
“Jesus Christ. Where’s the garbage?” The bed

wheezed as he rolled away. “There.”

Grant flopped beside him on the bed. He’d

been taking care of the condom, Ben realized. He
was filled with a silly kind of delight at the ritual
of tying off and throwing away the condom. That
meant he’d done it. He wasn’t a virgin anymore.

Grant’s hand landed on his chest, huge and

warm. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” More than okay. It was going to take

Ben a little while to muster up the words for what
he was.

Grant’s voice came close enough to Ben’s ear

that he could feel his breath. “I should go to the
circuit breaker,” he said, “but I don’t want to
move.”

Heavy lethargy settled over Ben. Deliciously

sated, he squirmed a little closer to Grant. “I don’t
either.” He smiled in the darkness. The way Grant
had asked if the lights had gone out—it was like he

hadn’t even noticed because he was so caught up
in Ben. In fucking Ben.

Confident that Grant couldn’t see, Ben let his

smile take over his whole face.

There was a sigh and the bed moved. He felt

Grant’s hand on his chest, and then it was gone.
Ben lay where he was, feeling disappointed. He
thought about saying they could just lie in the dark,
but as he moved he felt something cold and sticky
on his stomach. Oh right. He felt this wonderful
because he’d had a mind-blowing orgasm.

A flashlight beam cut a wild arc through the

darkened room. It illuminated Grant’s feet, the bed,
Ben. Ben shielded his eyes. “Here,” Grant said,
and a box of tissues came flying out of the dark at
him.

“Thanks,” Ben grunted.
“But don’t move,” Grant said. “I don’t think

we’re done yet.”

That made Ben feel better. He cleaned off his

stomach and then sat up, his knees tucked to his
chest. Grant moved one of the surfboards to reveal

the breaker box. He whipped the flashlight beam
inside.

“Weird,” Grant said. “Nothing flipped.”
“The lights went off outside too,” Ben

remarked.

Grant went to the little window over the

kitchen sink. “Hey, yeah. The whole block’s out.
Streetlights too. Weird.”

He turned back to the bed, holding the light on

Ben again. It was too dark to see Grant, but Ben
could hear the smile in his voice. “Well, I can
think of a few things we can do in the dark…”

Someone knocked on the door.
Grant’s flashlight beam swooped over to the

door as if expecting to see someone there. Both
men were silent for a moment, and then Ben said,
“Power company?” at the same time Grant said,
“Were we too loud?”

That had never even occurred to Ben. But

Grant just said, “Better find my pants.”

The knock came again as they located their

clothes. Grant shouted out, “Just a minute!” but it
didn’t seem to deter whoever was outside. More
knocking followed, and Grant muttered, “Who the
fuck sends SDG&E to wake people up at two in
the morning?”

“Maybe there’s a gas leak or something,” he

s a i d . Or it’s your neighbors . He didn’t think
they’d been loud. The idea was embarrassing but
also filled him with a certain pride.

Ben’s clothes were by the door, so he was

standing next to it, his pants finally on, when the
knock came again. “Open it.” Grant sounded
irritated now. “See what he wants.”

Ben picked up his shirt before he remembered

that it was missing some buttons. He dropped it on
the floor again and opened the door bare-chested.

The man on the front porch was holding a

flashlight in one hand. Ben looked for a uniform
and didn’t find one—he was wearing a dress shirt
and slacks. Middle-aged, with graying hair and the
kind of reassuringly lined face Ben associated with
benevolent liberal arts professors. And he was

holding a large black cat tucked in the crook of one
arm.

He was definitely not from the electric

company, Ben decided.

“Hello,” the man said brightly. “May I come

in? I’m here, I’m afraid, to ruin your night.”

Chapter Two

Ben wanted to be lying in bed with Grant.

Sleeping or not sleeping—that didn’t matter. But
he wanted to be naked and pressed close to him.
Instead he was sitting on the foot of the bed in a
room with no power at two in the morning,
watching as a weirdo with a black cat dragged one
of the kitchen chairs opposite the bed and sat down
in it. He felt cruelly deprived of his afterglow by
even having to be dressed, never mind dealing
with this.

Whatever “this” was.
The guy had introduced himself as R.C. Irwin.

He’d shaken their hands and gotten Ben and
Grant’s names. Ben had given his automatically
and wondered now why he had. R.C. hadn’t done
them the courtesy of explaining why he was here,
even though Grant had asked that same question
twice. He’d just started suggesting, in a refined,
reasonable voice, that they pull a little light

together.

There had been a moment where Ben feared

Grant might deck the guy or maybe pick him up by
his collar and haul him over the railing where his
wet suit was drying. Instead he’d said, “Sure,” in a
perplexed voice and started digging emergency
candles from under the kitchen sink.

It was like opening the door had started

something so surreal that nothing that followed
could seem weird by comparison, Ben thought.
And this guy—R.C.—made the weird stuff seem so
reasonable, so natural that Ben didn’t feel at all
alarmed.

Or maybe this is just what amazing sex does

to my brain.

Grant appeared at his side, holding out

something floppy and gray. It took Ben a moment to
realize it was a shirt. He muttered a thank-you and
put it on. The T-shirt was emblazoned with a surf-
shop logo that Ben couldn’t read upside down, and
it was at least a size too big. Ben shivered, feeling
somehow colder now that he’d put clothes on. He

touched his hand to the back of his head, feeling
the cool, sweat-dampened hair at the nape.

R.C. Irwin smiled between them. He’d settled

the cat in his lap; it blinked its large golden eyes at
Ben. The cat was only the beginning of Ben’s
questions.

“Good,” R.C. said, and Ben lifted his gaze.

“I’m sorry to barge in like this, gentlemen, but I’ve
found that it’s essential to move quickly when this
happens.”

“When the power goes out?” Grant hadn’t sat

on the bed. He stood beside Ben with his
substantial arms folded across his chest. There
still seemed to be a possibility that Grant would
haul R.C. out of the apartment, Ben decided. It
made him feel better to have Grant standing so
close, though, in an attitude of protection.

R.C. smiled indulgently despite Grant’s cool

tone. “When lánúin meet. By the time morning
comes around, you’re going to be seeing some
peculiar things. If you don’t understand the
situation, well…” A rueful chuckle. “Some people

think they’re losing their minds.”

Ben was starting to think that anyway, but in

the midst of the surrealness he felt a vague
curiosity. It might have just been the accent—
British, as soothing as a BBC announcer—but this
guy was pretty put together for a crazy person. It
seemed possible that, somehow, he was here for a
reason.

Grant might not agree with that, however.

“I’m giving you two minutes to explain, and then
you’re leaving.”

This didn’t faze R.C. “Quite fair,” he said.

“Would you sit down for those two minutes, Mr.
Moody? I find I’m rather craning my neck to look
at you.”

Grant sat. Ben was disappointed that Grant

was just a little too far away from him for their
bodies to touch.

“Thank you,” R.C. said. He looked between

them. “Gentlemen, what I am about to tell you will
sound extraordinary, but I assure you that it’s true.
If you give me time and opportunity, I can prove

everything I say. You have, in the act of meeting
each other, unlocked something rare and powerful.
You are lánúin.”

He paused as if waiting for the two of them to

react. Ben looked at Grant, whose face was stony.
He might be counting off the two minutes. “I don’t
know what that is,” Ben said to R.C.

“Allow me to explain. Lánúin are two human

beings who, in coming together, become
superhuman. Or extrahuman, you might say.” He
paused again. Ben recognized the professorial
manner and knew he was expected to acknowledge
this statement. He nodded, though not because he
understood. “They are part of the supernatural
world as much as our own. You two are now part
of the fae kingdom.” He smiled again. “We are, I
should say. Welcome.”

“Are you insane?” Grant said.
“Are my two minutes up, Mr. Moody?”
Grant hesitated, then grumbled, “No.”
“I’m so pleased to hear that.” R.C. continued,

“I realize neither of you have had even the faintest

supernatural abilities before now—that this sounds
to you like the stuff of fiction. It’s not.

“You two are matched. With no one else in

the world would you experience this connection,
but through good luck or the grace of fate, you’ve
found each other. As long as you are together, you
have access to another world.”

“The—fae kingdom?” Ben asked hesitantly.
“Yes.” R.C. gave him that thank-you-for-

paying-attention professor smile. “That’s one of
the more fanciful terms. Most of us prefer to call it
the invisible or supernatural world.”

Ben accepted no part of this, but he had

decided he could follow its logical path without
believing it. “And lan…?”

“Lánúin.”
“They’re…fae?”
“Fairies,” Grant said flatly.
R.C. smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”
“That’s not funny.” Grant really was going to

throw R.C. out in about twenty seconds, Ben

decided. He wasn’t sure if he wanted that to
happen or not.

“It’s not a joke, Mr. Moody. You won’t

suddenly develop pixie wings, if that’s what
you’re worried about.” Ben didn’t think that was
what Grant was worried about. “One of you,
however, will be able to change form.”

Almost simultaneously Ben and Grant said,

“What?”

“Think of lánúin as two halves of one

complete supernatural being,” R.C. said. “Humans
are so cut off from the supernatural world that it
takes two matched souls to have the complete
powers of one ‘normal’ supernatural creature.
Take, for instance, a brownie: she is a magical
being and a full participant in the supernatural
world. Humans are simply a tiny part of that
world, along with hobgoblins, kobolds, griffins…”
R.C. waved his hand as if to say there were plenty
more.

“As humans,” he went on, “we can have the

ability to see the invisible world, or we can

participate in it as a magical being, but not both.
With a few rare exceptions, everyone has the
potential to become either a seer or an adept, but
unlocking that potential is contingent on finding
one’s counterpart.” He spread his hands to both
Ben and Grant. “As you have.”

“What the fuck is a brownie?” Grant asked.
“A Celtic fairy.” Both R.C. and Grant looked

surprised to hear the answer come out of Ben’s
mouth. Ben shrugged defensively. “I’m an
anthropologist. I took some world mythology
classes as an undergrad.”

R.C. looked pleased. “You may be better

prepared than average, in that case.”

“You don’t actually believe this shit, do

you?” Grant demanded.

“Well, no,” Ben said, annoyed. “And you

don’t have to take that tone.”

“Gentlemen.” R.C. brought their attention

back to him. “As I said before, everything we’re
discussing can be proven. For one of you, it will
take a little more time and effort, and possibly a

trip out of state. But we can begin right now.” He
gestured to the black cat, which had been ignoring
everything around it for the past few minutes.
“What is in my lap?”

Simultaneously Ben said, “A cat,” and Grant

said, “Nothing.”

They looked at each other.
“Mr. Roth”—Ben’s attention snapped back to

R.C.—“could you describe the cat to me?”

“Yeah…” He didn’t understand why he had

to. The cat was right there. Surely Grant could see
it. “He’s big and black, and he has a white mark on
his chest.”

“She’s a she, actually.” R.C. stroked the cat’s

back. The animal half closed her golden eyes in
pleasure. “Nor is she merely a cat, but that’s
correct. And Mr. Moody, what do you see?”

“Nothing.” There was a note of concern in

Grant’s voice now. “Is this some sort of prank?”

Ben realized the question was directed at

him. “What? No!”

“One more experiment, Mr. Roth. Could you

please go to the window and tell me what you
see?”

That didn’t seem any more unreasonable than

anything else that had happened. Ben stood and left
behind the pool of light by the bed. He felt his way
toward the window, visible only because the glass
reflected the candles behind him. The kitchen
counter caught him in the hips.

Ben leaned over it, looking out the window.

The streetlights had come back on at some point.
All the surrounding houses were dark, but that
might have been because it was the middle of the
night.

Okay, what do I see? “Uh…cars,” Ben

reported back to R.C. “Trees? The houses across
the street—”

He stopped. Something was moving around

the recycling bins out in front of the house across
the street. It wasn’t a cat or a dog. Ben had
occasionally seen opossums around campus, but
this was too big and it was walking around upright.

A child? No, definitely not. It didn’t move like a
child. It didn’t move like anything Ben had ever
seen.

“There’s

something

out

there?”

R.C.

prompted.

“I don’t know what it is,” Ben whispered.
“Describe it.”
He tried. “It’s, um, maybe a couple of feet

tall. Wearing clothes? Brown clothes. It’s—
climbing into a recycling bin.” He heard cans
rattling from across the street. An empty plastic
bottle of orange juice was tossed out. Another
little brown creature came around the other side of
the bin to inspect it. “There’s another one.”

Movement up above caught his eye. Ben’s

chest seized. “And there’s…” Something in the
sky. A whole flock of somethings. Five dark
shapes swooped close enough for him to make
them out in silhouette. An ear-splitting cry rang
down the street, and Ben flinched. The birds, if
they were birds, scattered, something larger
following after them. The bigger thing had large,

beating wings that showed red and blue and gold
in the streetlight, and a trailing tail like the
streamer on a kite. It reached out a clawed foot and
grabbed one of the smaller creatures right out of
the air.

Ben stumbled a step back from the counter.

His eyes dropped to the street again. The little men
at the recycling bins had heard the screams too;
both of them looked up at the sky. Their faces,
tipped toward the light, were wizened and bearded
and definitely not human.

Not real. But every bit as real as the car

parked next to them.

“Jesus,” Ben whispered. He pressed the heels

of his hands over his eyes and scrubbed hard.
“Jesus, I’ve lost my mind.”

Warm hands took his shoulders. “Hey, hey,”

Grant said. “Babe, what is it?”

Ben dropped his hands. Blinking to restore

his vision, he pulled Grant to the window. “Look
at that!”

The things at the recycling bins had gone back

to their rummaging. Ben’s heart hammered. He
squeezed Grant’s arm as they both leaned to the
window. “And—oh God,” Ben said. “Look.”

“What?”
“Up in the tree. Do you see it?” The giant bird

had landed in the branches of a eucalyptus across
the street. The branch sagged with its weight. The
creature grasped in its claw was bloody but
looked something like a rabbit—except it had been
flying.

The recycling creatures noticed the bird too,

and they burst into activity. They both climbed into
the bin and managed to swing the lid down on top
of them. The bird, apparently not interested, began
ripping apart the thing it had caught. Ben lowered
his eyes, taking deep breaths and focusing on the
light reflecting off the stainless steel of the sink.

“What?” Grant said again. He sounded

puzzled, not terrified like Ben felt. “I don’t see
anything.”

Ben stared at him. “You didn’t see those…

those elf things down by the bins?”

“What elf things?” Grant sounded frustrated

now.

“Well, they’re gone now.” Ben pointed again.

“See that bird up there? It’s eating a—something. It
made a horrible noise.”

Grant wrenched his arm from Ben’s grasp.

His sympathy was gone, Ben realized. In the faint
light from the window, his face was taut with
anger. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he
demanded. “This isn’t funny.”

“Do I look like I’m having fun?” Ben was on

the edge of panic. “There are creatures walking
around your neighborhood.”

He was never coming back to Leucadia, he

decided. This town was too fucking weird.

R.C. cleared his throat. “Gentlemen?” He

beckoned them back to the bed. “Explanations are
forthcoming.”

Grant’s jaw was tight. He wouldn’t look at

Ben. Alone, Ben returned to the bed. He sat down
heavily, his legs feeling weak. The cat stood up on
R.C.’s legs, arched her back as she stretched, and

then leaped to the floor.

“It would seem,” R.C. said to Ben, “that you,

Mr. Roth, are the seer. You stand with one foot in
the supernatural world and one in our own. That
would mean Mr. Moody is the adept. He will in
time be able to participate in that supernatural
world in another form. In time we will find out
what exactly he turns into.”

The cat jumped onto the bed soundlessly. She

regarded Ben with large golden eyes and then
stepped onto his lap. After making a little circle,
she lay down. Her warm weight was comforting
even as Ben said to himself, This is an invisible
cat. Grant can’t see it.

Grant returned to the bed but didn’t sit. “I

want to know what’s going on,” he announced. The
look he shot Ben was furious, like Ben had tricked
him.

Ben looked down at the cat. He put his hand

on her back and stroked her, and she immediately
began purring.

R.C.’s voice was as reasonable as ever. “Mr.

Moody, did you have unusually strong feelings
about Mr. Roth?”

“What?”
“You feel an unusual attraction to him, don’t

you? Almost, one might say, love at first sight.”

Ben didn’t dare look up, afraid of what he’d

see on Grant’s face. R.C. went on, “I can assure
you the feeling is mutual. Mr. Roth has been
experiencing the same sense of attachment to you
since you met.”

Grant still didn’t answer.
“There’s a reason for this. The two of you are

connected at a deep level.” R.C.’s voice was soft
now. “This is something that we, as a species,
have lost. Only a few of us ever regain it.
Whatever you make of the supernatural aspects, the
attraction you feel is real. Is it not, Mr. Moody?”

Grant’s weight settled next to him on the bed.

Ben glanced up, fearful. Grant merely looked tired.
He kept his attention on R.C. but reached for Ben’s
hand, the one not engaged in petting the cat. Ben
wondered what the hell it looked like he was

doing from Grant’s point of view—stroking the
air?

He didn’t care. It felt good to hold Grant’s

hand. Real, solid.

Softly Grant said, “So Ben can see fairies.”
“Among other things.”
“And what about me?” His hand tightened

slightly on Ben’s. “Tell me what’s supposed to
happen to me.”

“As an adept, you can change forms. It’s

sometimes necessary to jump-start the first change,
but you’ll learn to control it after that. As to what
you turn into…” R.C. shrugged. “It’s anyone’s
guess.”

“I don’t believe you.” Grant spoke calmly,

but his voice was firm.

R.C. looked at Ben. “Then maybe we should

demonstrate that, my dear.”

Ben felt confused. My dear? He was only

holding on to all this by a thread, but hadn’t R.C.
said the seer didn’t change shape?

The cat jumped down from his lap.
The hairs on Ben’s neck prickled. Grant

can’t see the cat.

It sashayed away from him to R.C.’s chair

and turned. Regarding first Ben, then R.C., it then
stood up on its hind legs as casually as Ben
himself would.

The air around the cat shimmered as if with

heat. Something twisted; Ben had to close his eyes
for a moment against the searing feeling in his
optic nerve.

When he opened them again, a blonde woman

stood where the cat had been.

She looked directly at Grant—Grant, who had

gone white, who was staring at the woman with his
mouth hanging open.

She smiled sweetly and said, “Can you see

me now?”

* * * *

“Deep breaths. It’s okay, Grant. Just breathe

with me.”

Ben’s hand was on his back, pressing him

down so his head was between his knees. Grant
didn’t think he’d ever hyperventilated before, but
Ben said that’s why he felt like his chest was
collapsing. Grant was more inclined to think it had
something to do with a woman appearing out of
thin air in the middle of his apartment.

In between taking his deep breaths, Grant

said, “This is so fucking weird.”

“I know, I know.” Ben moved his hand in a

soothing circle against his skin. “Just breathe
slowly and you’ll start feeling better.”

Grant had his doubts about that. “Let me up,”

he said, and Ben’s hand slid away.

Grant sat up. The blonde woman now stood

behind R.C.’s chair. She let her hand linger fondly
on R.C.’s shoulder. She looked perfectly normal—
dark slacks, a blue blouse that brought out the
color of her eyes—apart from the fact that she had
appeared out of nowhere. Both she and R.C. were
watching Grant with mild sympathy.

“You weren’t here a moment ago,” he said to

the woman.

Her smile was a lot like R.C.’s—apologetic,

knowing. “I was, but you couldn’t see me.” She
spoke with an accent that might have been German
or Scandinavian.

“My wife,” R.C. said. “Ina Birkeland-Irwin.

Ina, Grant Moody and Ben Roth.”

“Hello, boys. It is so nice to meet you,” Ina

said.

“Ina is my counterpart,” R.C. said. “My better

half, if you will.” Ina squeezed his shoulder. “I’m
the seer, and as you can see, she’s the adept.”

“So you were a cat?” Grant asked.
“ A bakeneko,” Ina said. When Grant looked

at her blankly, she added, “Yes, it’s like a cat.”

How much like a cat wasn’t the part Grant

was having trouble with. “But you were the cat.”

“Like you, Mr. Moody, Ina has a second

form,” R.C. said. “If you were to change into your
second form right now, she wouldn’t be able to see
you, either. Adepts anchor their counterparts to the

‘real world.’” He used air quotes. “Part of being
that anchor is a certain blindness. You can’t see
anything in the supernatural world unless you’re in
your second form. A seer like Mr. Roth—or me—
can see everything, all the time, but he has no
second form. It’s a trade-off.”

Ben had put his hand on Grant’s back again.

Grant wasn’t sure Ben remembered it was still
there. “You can call me Ben,” he said. “Why did
this happen to us? Why now?”

“As I said, you’re a matched set, as it were.

You unlock these powers with, ah…intimacy.”

“Sex,” Ina supplied.
Grant glanced over at Ben. He was blushing,

no surprise. “This isn’t normal when you lose your
virginity, is it?” he blurted.

“Believe me, babe,” Grant said. “Nothing

about this is normal.”

“It will never happen to you with anyone

else,” R.C. said. “As a matter of fact, now that the
two of you have found each other, no other person
will ever give you this sense of…belonging. And,

ah, shall we say that sex with anyone else won’t be
quite so spectacular.”

Ina smiled like a girl with a secret. “But you

only blow out the power the first time.”

“We did that?” Ben asked.
Grant was hung up on a different point. “Our

fucking is what unlocked our superpowers?”

“I don’t blame you for your skepticism, Mr.

Moody, but yes.”

“You can call me Grant,” he said

begrudgingly. “So in order for Ben to see ghosts or
whatever and for me to turn into…something, we
have to screw?”

“Not exactly. It’s the intimate connection, not

the physical one, that completes you. As long as
you care for your counterpart, and vice versa, you
will have access to your powers.”

Grant avoided looking at Ben. Kind of a lot

to throw onto a first date. He asked himself if he
cared for Ben. The answer came back instantly that
he did. That was why he’d wanted so much to
make this night special for him—show him a good

time, and then maybe a good second time.

It seemed a little early to start throwing their

feelings around, though. “We’re not even in a
relationship, technically,” he said to R.C.

“Nor do you have to be, now that this is

happened. You can walk away from this at any
time, gentlemen,” R.C. explained. “The only
consequence is that your powers, such as they are,
will fade and then disappear. The same would
happen if, God forbid, one of you should die.
Although, as I said, if you do leave each other”—
he reached up and laid his hand over Ina’s where it
still rested on his shoulder—“you will never
connect with someone quite so deeply as you do
with each other.”

Grant chewed that over. Looking at it one

way, walking away from the best sex of his life
was a small price to pay for that life to go back to
normal.

Walking away from Ben, on the other hand…
“Before there’s any consideration of the

future,” R.C. said, “I would like to invite both of

you to our ranch. I have the means there to jump-
start Grant’s first transformation. It will help you
figure out what you are, and I’d consider it a
personal favor. We know very little about lánúin,
despite a lifetime of research, and if I can find
others, I’d rather not be strangers with them.”

“How did you find us?” Ben asked slowly.
R.C. smiled and stood up. “A little invention

of mine. I’m very proud of it.”

Ina, peeking around her husband, added,

“Every time lánúin have sex, a siren goes off at the
ranch.”

R.C. gave her a look of mild recrimination.

“Only the first time, my dear. No need to make
these young men self-conscious.” He fished in his
wallet and pulled out a card. “Your invitation,
gentlemen. You are welcome at any time.”

“Do come,” Ina said. “There’s lots of room

for you.”

“But now we had better be going. It’s late.”
Grant didn’t see Ina change. The air around

her seemed to shimmer, and then he felt forced to

close his eyes. It was like sunlight had been
poured into them without any actual light. When he
opened his eyes, Ina was gone and both Ben and
R.C. were looking at a spot on the floor.

R.C. stooped and seemed to scoop something

into the crook of his arm. He’d been holding his
arm that way when he came in, Grant realized. He
hadn’t noticed in the midst of all the other weird
shit that was happening.

Ben was watching this whole pantomime too

—though to Ben it probably didn’t look like a
pantomime. “I—I still have questions,” Ben said.

Grant couldn’t believe Ben wanted these

people to stay. He felt wrung out, drained. More
than anything he wanted to go to sleep and for this
to have not happened when he woke up again.

“That’s how I intend to lure you to the ranch,”

R.C. said, looking pleased with himself. “All the
answers are there. Good morning, gentlemen.”

He saw himself to the door. When he opened

it, a strange wind blew inside. Grant’s
neighborhood was blocks from the Pacific, but

there was no smell of the ocean. The wind was
warm, infused with the scent of hay. Crickets
rasped loudly, and from beyond R.C.’s shoulder
Grant glimpsed the lit windows of a large white
house.

R.C. stepped onto the springy grass of

definitely-not-Leucadia, and then reached back and
closed the door behind him. Just before it shut, he
smiled at Grant and Ben.

There was a stunned silence, and then Grant

bolted across the apartment. Of all the things he’d
seen tonight, this one, for some reason, was the
hardest to accept. The door from his apartment led
to the balcony overlooking the parking lot, not to a
field with a house in it.

He opened the door and stumbled onto the

walkway. His wet suit hung over the railing. The
scent of the ocean hung in the still air.

But there was a wind just a moment ago…
Perplexed, mentally exhausted, and irritated

about the entire thing, Grant turned back to look at
Ben, who still stood next to the bed inside the

apartment.

There was a tiny electric noise, and the lights

came back on. They said nothing, but for a moment
they shared a look of stunned commiseration.

Chapter Three

The Texas hill country rolled past the tinted

window of the car. Scrubby, dark-green trees
stood in isolated clumps on steep slopes. Every so
often they passed a patch of wildflowers,
startlingly vivid. Grant estimated they were about
an hour out of Austin, but he couldn’t have said
what direction they were going.

For most of the ride, Ben had been silent,

looking out his own window. Now and then Grant
glanced at him, trying to gauge his mood. He had a
sense that Ben was doing the same to him
whenever he wasn’t looking.

Ben said now, “How do you think R.C. knew

to have the car waiting for us?”

Grant shook his head. “No idea.” They hadn’t

sent word to R.C. that they were coming. The card
he’d given them had a detailed address, including
GPS coordinates, but no phone number or e-mail.
Yet the driver had been at baggage claim with a

sign reading MOODY/ROTH.

“Maybe he’ll explain,” Grant added darkly.
He had his doubts about R.C.’s promises to

explain everything. He had doubts that he should
be here at all. Texas, for chrissakes . People in the
airport had been wearing Stetsons and cowboy
boots, and not ironically. He missed the ocean
already.

He reminded himself that this wasn’t about

him, and finally he chanced a look across the
backseat at Ben. Of course, Ben was looking out
the window again, his chin propped on his hand.
He seemed to have curled up into the dark leather,
pressing himself deep into the car.

“Are they here too?” Grant asked quietly.
Ben didn’t look away from the window, but

he nodded.

After R.C. left, that night more than a week

ago, the two of them had gone to bed. Their
exhaustion beat out their astonishment and
confusion, and they’d fallen asleep within moments
of lying down.

Waking in the midmorning, before Ben, Grant

had gotten up and gone surfing. Neither the tide nor
the wind was in his favor, but he stayed out on the
water until his mind had calmed and his muscles
ached with pleasant fatigue.

Ben had been waiting for him on the beach,

still wearing one of Grant’s oversize shirts. The
wind blew his dark hair forward over his face.
He’d been wearing that look he had now—a
worried look—but when Grant had gotten out of
the water, he’d leaped to his feet, run down the
beach, and thrown his arms around him.

He’d been trembling. “I really don’t think you

should swim out there,” he’d whispered.

The supernatural world was pretty active in

Leucadia, as it turned out. And it was just as active
in Cardiff, where Ben lived. When Ben and Grant
had met up in a coffee shop in Solana Beach the
following day—to talk things over—it seemed
there was no part of Southern California that
wasn’t teeming with invisible fauna.

Ben could see them, but Grant couldn’t. He

was frustrated, not because he wanted to see—
some of what Ben had described to him sounded
obnoxious if not outright terrifying—but because
he didn’t understand why any of this was
happening. He didn’t want to believe it, but
increasingly he did. The memory of Ina Birkeland-
Irwin appearing out of thin air was emblazoned on
his memory. And then that door to somewhere
else…

Ostensibly he and Ben had met at the coffee

shop to decide what they would do. From the
moment Ben sat down with his latte, it was
apparent that they had only two options: go to R.C.
or never see each other again. They couldn’t
continue like this with Ben seeing all kinds of
things—elves and fairies and weird little animals
that he didn’t know the name of and, sometimes,
more terrifying creatures darting through the air
above the palms and eucalyptus.

Ben wouldn’t admit it, but he was scared.

Fear poured off him. Even a passing familiarity
with Western folklore and a quick trip to the

library couldn’t teach him about what he was
seeing. He was now part of a world full of dangers
that neither he nor Grant understood—hell, Grant
couldn’t see any of it. How could he protect Ben
from something he couldn’t see or hear or touch?

And at that coffee shop, he’d understood that

he wanted to protect Ben. It wasn’t just that he felt
a weird kind of survivor’s guilt—it seemed like it
could easily have been him seeing pixies—but he
genuinely didn’t want to leave him. Ben was a
sweetheart, a genuine-article good guy, and Grant
had dated enough to know how rare that was.
There was just something about Ben that made
Grant want to touch him, to make him laugh, to
make him happy.

After the coffee Grant had taken him back to

his apartment and made love to him. Ben had
seemed to feel better, as if his orgasm had drained
off some of his anxiety. Without further discussion,
it was settled: they would go visit R.C.

Fortunately Ben’s spring break was coming

up. He wouldn’t have to teach his Anthro 101 class

and he could tell his graduate advisor that he
needed to go visit his family. “It’s not like I can
work on my thesis with everything going on,”
he’d said.

Grant, for his part, worked in a surf shop not

far from his apartment and had no other
obligations. Once his shifts were covered, he was
a free man.

They’d been bound together this past week by

the common purpose of planning. They expected to
be gone only a week, but they both acknowledged
that, given their lack of control over any part of
this situation, it might be longer. Buying plane
tickets (Grant wishing all the while that R.C. had
had the decency to magic them to Texas the way
he’d gone there), closing up their respective
apartments, putting the mail on hold—all that had
given them something to think about other than
what was happening.

The camaraderie of shared work had ended

when they got on the plane. Now something new
was coming, and Grant didn’t know what it would

mean for their relationship. He felt awkward with
Ben. Even if he was an adept, or whatever, he still
seemed to be on the outside of all this. He
desperately did not want to get any deeper, but at
the same time he wanted to help.

Seeing Ben like this now, as he watched the

monster-infested landscape roll by, that impulse
rose up in him again. He unbuckled his seat belt
and slid across the backseat. Ben looked over at
him, raising his eyebrows.

Grant wrapped his arm around Ben’s

shoulders and kissed his temple. “Do you want to
tell me about it?”

“It’s okay.” He sounded tired. “It’s just…

strange. This has always been around us, you
know? It’s not like all these weird creatures
showed up when you and I… I mean, they’ve
always been here. I’ve just never been able to see
them.”

“I still can’t.”
“You will, when you change shape.”
Grant had mixed feelings about all that. Ben

inhaled deeply. Grant felt his ribs expand under his
arm. “Well,” he said on a sigh, “R.C.’s going to
explain everything.”

It was turning into a kind of mantra. Grant

hoped explanations were enough.

Ben still looked serious. Grant said, “You do

know that the cows with the giant horns aren’t
supernatural, right? They’re just longhorns.”

It worked: Ben smiled. “Oh, you can see them

too?” He elbowed Grant gently in the side.
“Smart-ass,” he muttered playfully.

Grant pushed Ben’s hair back and kissed the

shell of his ear lightly. He felt Ben relax against
him. “But they’re not cows,” Ben said. “They’re
steers.”

“I’m a smart-ass?” Grant whispered. He

latched his teeth on to Ben’s earlobe and sucked it
between his lips.

Ben let out a shuddering sigh. Grant loved the

noises he made. He wanted to hear him moan and
cry out. Ben was so responsive to every touch.
Grant slid his hand up Ben’s inner thigh to cup his

crotch. Unsurprisingly he was already hard.

“The driver,” Ben whispered.
Grant didn’t give a shit, but he supposed Ben

had a point. As much as he thought giving Ben a
blowjob before they reached the ranch would
make the rest of the day easier—for both of them,
since

Grant’s

emotional

welfare

seemed

increasingly tied to Ben’s—they were in
unfamiliar territory. Middle of Nowhere, Texas,
might not be hospitable to queers blowing each
other off in a hired car.

It turned out to be a moot point: at that

moment the car turned for the first time in what
seemed like forever. Ben’s weight shifted
pleasantly into Grant’s side. They both looked up
as the car began jolting over a gravel road.

“Zephyr Ranch, sirs,” the driver called back.

“Should I take you up to the house?”

Reluctantly Grant released Ben’s shoulders.

“Sure, thanks.”

Both of them peered out Ben’s window. The

ranch was situated in a valley, and steep, dry hills

rose all around. Yellowed pasture rolled out to
either side of the gravel road, decorated with more
of the twisted dark-green trees and patches of red
wildflowers. Grant spotted a few buildings in the
distance, but they might have been houses and
might have been ranch buildings. Farther on they
passed a herd of about a dozen goats and a gray-
and-white donkey, which watched them soberly as
they passed.

Grant leaned to the side to peer through the

front window, peeking at the house at the end of
the driveway. It could have been any house
anywhere, apart from one detail in the front yard.

“Why is that door there?” Ben asked.
The car pulled around the circular driveway,

in the middle of which was planted a single,
sprawling oak. Between the oak and the house
stood a door, painted white and identical, so far as
Grant could see, to the front door that led into the
house itself. But the first door was freestanding,
erected in a wooden frame on the gravel path
between the circular drive and the house. It was

closed.

“No idea,” Grant said. “We’ll add it to the

list of questions.”

The car stopped, and the driver got out. Grant

slid over to his side of the car. The moment he
opened the door, the heat blasted him—dry,
withering heat. It’s only April. Was this normal?

With his first breath of the air, however, he

felt something familiar. He recognized the smell of
this place. It was the same smell—trees and grass
and dry air—that had come through his front door
back in Leucadia on That Night.

That this realization made sense to him was

almost frightening.

The front door—the one attached to the house

—burst open, and Ina came running down the path.
“Welcome, welcome!” she called. She skirted
around the extra door and reached the car as the
driver finished unloading the bags. Grant had to
drop his when Ina went in for a hug.

“Hi,” he said. A tendril of her long blonde

hair blew into his face. She held him for a long

time, chattering happily over his shoulder that she
was so pleased they’d decided to come and she
hoped they’d stay and there was iced tea in the
house and how was their flight?

Then she subjected Ben to the same treatment.

By the time she stepped back, Ben looked the way
Grant felt, like they’d been spun around and spit
out by a Scandinavian whirlwind.

Ina picked up Grant’s bag despite his protests

and led the way back to the house. The driver must
already have been paid, because he returned to the
car without a word to anyone. The sound of the
tires on the gravel prompted Grant to turn. He
paused, watching the sedan bucking over the
uneven surface as it eased back to the road.

There goes our only way out of here.

* * * *

Grant and Ben were given a room on the

second floor, looking out toward one of the hills.
Ina didn’t ask them if they wanted to stay together;
presumably as counterparts they were expected to

want to share a bed. And Grant did, so he didn’t
press the point.

Ina let them wash up, then plied them with

iced tea and cookies down in the kitchen. The
house was like its mistress—informal, welcoming,
warm. Ina favored a quintessential farmhouse
decorating scheme that made Grant feel like he’d
stepped onto a movie set, but it was comfortable.

When Ina had satisfied herself that her guests

had enough tea, she said, “R.C. is at his workshop,
but he’ll be up soon. Don’t let him whisk you away
there at once. I know how he is. Give him the
chance and he will be there all evening and all
night with you two, figuring you out.”

“Actually, ma’am,” Grant said, “we don’t

mind getting figured out. It’s why we’re here.”

He glanced at Ben for confirmation. Ben was

staring at something Grant couldn’t see in
approximately the middle of the kitchen. He was
wearing that worried look again. “Ben?”

“What?” Ben looked around as if just

realizing Grant and Ina were present. “Sorry, I—”

“Oh, is it Libby? Don’t mind her if she teases

you.” She put her hands on Ben’s shoulders, giving
them a squeeze. Grant tamped down a weird pang
of jealousy. “Poor kjære, it’s not easy at first. I
remember when R.C. started seeing them. There
was no one to explain, so he thought he was going
crazy.”

“Yeah,” Ben muttered. He tore his eyes away

from whatever was in the middle of the kitchen and
looked at his glass.

Ina continued to massage his shoulders. “The

stories I could tell you,” she said. “There was one
time when he saw his first bunyip. He was so
scared that he—”

“Ina, my dear, no one wants to hear that

story.” R.C. strode into the kitchen, his hand
extended. “Grant! So glad you came! So glad.
Welcome to our humble abode.” He leaned across
the table to shake with Ben, who was kept in his
seat by Ina’s hands. “Your flight was all right?
And the drive? Excellent. Well.” He clapped his
hands together. “Do you want to get started?”

Ina sighed. “You see? I told you. First thing

we do when guests arrive is let them relax, R.C.
Not attach electrodes to their bodies.”

“Electrodes?” Ben repeated.
“Don’t mind my wife,” R.C. said. “Though if

you’d like to rest, I quite understand.”

“No,” Grant said. He looked to Ben for

confirmation. “We’re here to…learn. We both
appreciate your hospitality, and we don’t want to
impose any longer than we have to. I’m happy to
get started.”

“Me too,” Ben said quietly.
“Excellent. I’ll need Grant first and longest.

Ben, you’re welcome to stay here while we head
over to the workshop. I’ll let you know when the
excitement will begin.”

Grant stood up, feeling wary. Ben’s

expression clearly said he didn’t want to stay here
by himself. Grant tried to convey with his eyes that
Ben could come along if he wanted.

But Ben glanced down. His eyes wheeled

around to the middle of the kitchen again. “Sure.”

“Ah,” R.C. said softly. In a louder voice he

added, “If you’re worried about Libby, she will
leave you alone.” He too glanced toward the
middle of the kitchen, his expression unexpectedly
stern, and then he looked back to Ben with a smile.
“Don’t worry about her.”

Grant was adrift. Ben pressed his lips

together and looked between Grant and R.C. with a
kind of desperation. But he said, “It’s okay, Grant.
I’ll catch up in a bit.”

“I’ll take care of you.” Ina squeezed his

shoulders again, and Grant fought another burst of
annoyance. Ina was married and Ben wasn’t
interested in women in any case, but still. She
could stop touching him now.

And then there was this business with

whatever else was in the kitchen. Grant looked
where the two seers in the room kept looking,
though of course there was nothing to see. He must
have hesitated, because R.C. clapped him on the
shoulder and said, “Come along.” He began to
lead him out of the room. “Soon, Grant, we’ll have

you in your second form, and then you’ll be able to
see everything.”

* * * *

Ben edged out the front door, closing it

behind him as softly as he could. He didn’t want
Ina to hear him sneaking out of the house. More
importantly, he didn’t want the house’s other
resident to realize he’d escaped.

Feet crunching on the gravel, he crept

backward and watched the windows of the house.
When he moved back farther, he could see above
the front porch. If he were to see anyone peeking
out at him, he didn’t know what he’d do, but the
gauzy white curtains were still.

Thank God. He turned his back to the house

and hurried down the path.

Zephyr Ranch was less infested with

supernatural wildlife than anyplace else Ben had
seen. Even the airport in Austin had featured a
colony of what looked like giant bats hanging
around in the terminal, and he was pretty sure he’d

spotted some sort of gnome boarding a flight. But
apart from a pixie—one of the little blue ones—
that had come zooming out of his luggage when he
opened it, he hadn’t seen much on the ranch.
Maybe having a seer like R.C. around meant he
weeded them out. Maybe he’d teach Ben how to do
that.

Now that he was free of the house, he didn’t

know what to do with himself. His primary
objective had been to get away—not from Ina, who
had left him alone when he said he was tired (he
was; he’d been tired ever since this all started),
but from the other one.

Libby. Ben shuddered and checked over his

shoulder again. No movement.

He wanted to go find Grant and R.C.—though

mostly just Grant. That thing Ina had said about
electrodes bothered him. Grant could look after
himself, better than Ben could look after him, but
they ought to stick together.

Unfortunately he had no idea where they’d

gone. R.C.’s workshop seemed to be elsewhere on

the property, but from the front walk Ben could
spot four different outbuildings flung across the
fields. There were fenced-off areas as for animals,
but no other living being was in sight except for the
donkey, which was grazing near the road.

May as well look around. He certainly

wasn’t going back into the house.

He wandered down the path and stopped at

the door that stood in the middle of it. There was
nothing out of the ordinary about it except that it
was standing on its own. He walked around to the
other side of it, noticing how it lined up perfectly
with the house’s front door.

There was still no movement at the windows.
Feeling reckless, Ben reached for the knob. It

turned.

He opened it to see the house waiting for him

on the other side. He even looked from one side of
the frame to the other, trying to see some
difference, but it was the same house. The door
didn’t go anywhere.

Ben let out a little laugh. My imagination’s

getting the best of me. He walked through the
door, around it, through it again, and satisfied
himself that it was really just a door. Then, feeling
silly, he set out to find Grant.

The first building he approached looked like

a barn from the outside. Ben walked along a rough
wooden fence. A chestnut-colored horse nipped at
the short, yellowed grass on the other side of the
pasture, and it came wandering over to Ben.
Looking for a handout, Ben thought. He hadn’t been
around horses except once or twice at summer
camp, but this one seemed friendly. He reached out
to stroke its muzzle.

“I wouldn’t do that.”
Ben jumped and looked around. A tall, burly

man wearing a white Stetson approached from the
barn with a coil of rope over his shoulder. He
gave Ben a look of such open hostility that Ben
took a step back from both man and horse. The
man, however, continued forward until he was a
yard away. Then he stopped, planted his feet, and
tipped back his Stetson to regard Ben critically.

“Hi,” Ben said. “I’m Ben Roth. I’m—”
“The Irwins’ guest, right.” Nothing about the

man’s manner warmed at this observation. Hard
gray eyes assessed Ben from under the brim of the
hat.

No introduction seemed to be forthcoming,

and Ben wasn’t about to ask for one. This man
intimidated the hell out of him. He was tall, even
taller than Grant, and built on the scale of people
who handled livestock every day. Ben was pretty
sure this guy could pick him up and throw him over
those gigantic shoulders as easily as he did the coil
of rope.

The man’s gray eyes finally left Ben. “Pasha

bites.”

He realized they were talking about the horse

again. “Oh—thanks for warning…” Ben trailed
off. Another horse was emerging from the open
doors of the barn. It trotted into the paddock,
shaking out the huge gray wings that sprouted from
its back.

Ben pulled his jaw up. “Is that a—”

He stopped himself. The man in the Stetson

turned his head to look, but Ben realized the odds
of him being able to see the Pegasus were slim.
I’m going to have to learn not to react. People
will think I’m crazy if I keep doing this.

People were going to think he was crazy

anyway.

“That’s a Pegasus.” The man’s voice dripped

with condescension. He turned back to Ben.
“Don’t try and pet him either.”

“You can see it?” Ben’s heart lifted. It didn’t

matter that the man in front of him bristled with
hostility that Ben hadn’t earned—he could see it!
“So you must be a seer too.”

A voice spoke behind Ben before the man

could answer.

“Fitz can see all kinds of things, can’t he?”
Ben knew that voice. He whirled around.
A young woman with short red hair sat on the

top rail of the fence, no more than a yard from Ben.
He hadn’t heard her approach, but that didn’t
surprise him. She’d managed to sneak up on him

about ten times in the house.

He glanced over his shoulder at the man in the

Stetson. “And can you see Libby?”

The man grunted, but his cool gaze seemed

focused on the spot Libby was occupying.

Libby looked human from a distance. In the

kitchen Ben had sensed that she wasn’t, but that
was partly because Grant and Ina hadn’t
acknowledged her. It wasn’t only once she started
moving around that it became apparent to him that
she was something else. Her grin, too, split her
face a little too widely and showed teeth that were
a little too sharp for her to be human.

“Fitz can see everything, can’t you, Fitz?” she

said. Her voice was a musical singsong. She shook
her red hair back and clambered to her feet,
balancing on the top rail of the fence. Her clothes
were deceptively normal—a black tank top, dark
jeans, battered sneakers. She wouldn’t have
looked out of place in the real world, which was
new to Ben. The creatures he’d seen so far wore
no clothes at all or simple, nondescript rags. Libby

seemed to have a stronger sense of fashion.

Libby took a couple of mincing steps along

the top rail. Both Ben and the chestnut mare backed
away from her. The mare whickered nervously, her
eyes rolling to keep Libby in her sights. Ben
sympathized.

“Fitz sees you and your boyfriend getting out

of the car,” Libby went on. “Fitz doesn’t like that
at all, does he? I hear him talking to the horses.”

“I didn’t say anything about anybody, Libby.”

Fitz’s voice was as hard and dark as ever.

Ben felt a pang of unease. There seemed to be

no reason that Fitz would object to him and Grant
being here—nothing except the word boyfriend.

He kept forgetting this was Texas: even if

R.C. and Ina hadn’t blinked that Ben and Grant
were both men, that didn’t mean everybody else
around here would be forgiving.

“It ain’t nice to lie,” Fitz went on to Libby.
“Lying? Me?” Libby threw her hand over her

heart so dramatically that she nearly fell over
backward. She used the momentum to spin around

one-footed on the rail, landing neatly facing Ben
and Fitz again. Ben shuddered. Libby seemed to
have a loose relationship with gravity. It gave Ben
the unnerving sense that she could spring at him at
any time.

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Fitz,” she crooned.

“Maybe Fitz is jealous of the handsome boys
coming to the ranch. Not for poor little Fitz,
though. No counterpart for Fitz.”

The cowboy’s expression darkened rapidly.

“Go away, Libby.”

Libby tripped closer along the rail. Ben

backed away from her. The chestnut mare bolted
across the paddock, snorting. Libby dropped to
hands and feet. She crept right up to Fitz, who to
his credit didn’t budge.

“You can have me, Fitz,” she said, her grin

stretching her face. “Come on and give me a kiss.”

Libby leaned close, lips puckered. Fitz

continued to stare her down coldly. Ben thought
Libby would lean right in and kiss him—it
wouldn’t be out of character, that was for sure—

but at the last moment the air around her
shimmered. Ben blinked hard against the searing
feeling in his eyes. When he opened them, Libby
had been replaced by a black dragon about the size
of a golden retriever. Her tail looked as dark and
scaly as the rest of her, but as she swished it, it
seemed to turn into a fiery whip. Ben edged
backward.

The dragon lashed her tail, drawing a bright

zigzag on the inside of Ben’s eyelids. She lapped
at Fitz’s cheek with an acid-green tongue. Fitz
finally flinched back.

Wearing a grin full of razor-sharp teeth,

Libby the dragon jumped upward. Her wings
unfolded, and she seemed to hang in the air. She
reached out a clawed hand and knocked Fitz’s
Stetson off, then zipped across the paddock, diving
close to scare the horse and the Pegasus. Her fiery
tail streamed behind her. Ben watched both
animals gallop back into the barn as the dragon
flew off.

Fitz swore under his breath as he stooped to

retrieve his hat. His hair, underneath it, was
cropped short and graying. His face seemed older
without the hat.

He pushed it snugly back on his head and

glared at Ben as if daring him to say anything.

Ben kept his mouth shut.
“Come on,” Fitz said. He dropped the coil of

rope over a fence post. “R.C. wanted both of us at
the workshop at sundown. He’s going to jolt your
counterpart.”

Jolt? Ben started feeling nervous again.
Fitz didn’t wait for his reply. He turned and

began walking away from the paddock. His
attitude made it perfectly clear that he didn’t care
if Ben followed.

Scanning the sky for any sign of the black

dragon, Ben jogged after Fitz.

Chapter Four

“Excellent. We’re all here? Then let’s get

started.”

R.C. was clearly in his element in the

workshop. Ben couldn’t say he felt as comfortable,
nor did Grant look that way. They sat side by side
on a bench, a cluttered worktable at their backs.

When R.C. turned his back, puttering around

the opposite side of the workshop, Ben leaned
close and whispered, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Grant spoke at a normal volume. “He

just took a bunch of measurements. Asked some
questions.” He shrugged.

“What happens now?”
“I guess now I…change.”
Ben heard the trepidation in Grant’s voice

and patted his arm, not that he felt much more
confident. Grant responded by taking hold of Ben’s
hand and interlocking their fingers.

It felt nice, but Ben sneaked a nervous look

toward the door. Fitz had stationed himself with
his shoulder leaning against the door frame upon
his arrival and hadn’t budged. He seemed to be
watching R.C.

“Who’s that?” This time Grant did whisper.
“I’m not sure,” Ben confessed. He felt a

certain relief that Grant could see him, though. He
squeezed Grant’s hand a little tighter.

“Mr. Fitzhugh, this is for you.” R.C. crossed

the workshop, maneuvering around tables and
carrying what looked like a helmet in one hand and
a spear gun or something in the other. He gave the
gun to Fitz and then continued on to Ben and
Grant’s bench.

“Oh, have you all met?” he added. “Ben,

Grant, this is Jeremy Fitz—” R.C., turning,
realized Fitz had already left.

Ben was utterly unsurprised.
“Ah well,” R.C. said amicably. “He’ll join us

outside. Now if I could have you carry this”—he
passed the helmet to Ben—“and Grant, you can
help me with the receiver, and we’ll be on our

way.”

Grant joined R.C. across the workshop, and

the two of them carried a large, apparently heavy
steel box toward the doorway. Ben hung back to
let them go first, which gave him a good view of
the thing. Most of the devices lining the walls of
R.C.’s workshop wouldn’t have looked out of
place in a ’70s sci-fi B movie. Cold War–era
blinking lights and knobs featured prominently on
most of them, including the box. The helmet too
was studded with steel nodes.

He followed R.C. and Grant out of the

workshop, which turned out to be another barnlike
building, painted green, around the back of the
house. It was dusk now, and the air, filled with the
rasp of crickets, was beginning to cool.

R.C. led them a hundred yards from the

workshop into the middle of a field. The nearest
object was a medium-size live oak, which Fitz
was standing under. The gun, if that was what it
was, he held casually at his side. Ben wondered
what it was for.

The metal box was set about thirty feet from

the tree. R.C. then began to unwrap wires from it
and attach them to Ben’s helmet. Helmet in hand,
R.C. paced away from the box, counting under his
breath.

Ben heard Ina call, “Hello!” and he and Grant

turned to see her crossing the field from the
direction of the house. “What a beautiful evening!”
she enthused. She came up on Ben’s other side and
stood with her hands on her hips, surveying her
husband as he paced across the field.

“Can you explain any of this?” Ben asked.
“Not really,” she said cheerfully. “R.C. is the

engineer. He made everything in that workshop
himself. Can you believe that? Of course he burned
down the first workshop.”

“What?” Grant said.
“All right, Grant,” R.C. called. He had

walked until the wires were fully extended from
the helmet to the steel box. “Come on out here.
We’d better get going before we lose the light.”

Ina slipped her arm through Ben’s. “Let’s go

back by the tree where it’s safe.”

That was hardly reassuring. Ben resisted

when she tugged at his arm. “Just a moment,” he
said and looked up at Grant.

“I’ll be fine,” Grant said. He was clearly

trying not to show his nerves, but Ben could see
how rigidly he held his shoulders.

He’s doing this for me . Ben realized he’d

been suppressing that thought for days—ever since
they’d agreed to come here. They were only here
because he was too scared of the supernatural
world to function.

Extracting his arm from Ina’s, Ben put his

hands on Grant’s shoulders and leaned up to kiss
him. The press of his lips sent a pleasant tingle
through Ben’s body.

Pulling away, he took a breath to say

something, and the first words that surfaced in his
mind were, I love you.

He kept his mouth closed, afraid of saying

that now—here, with Ina and Fitz and R.C. all
watching. Jeez, I just kissed him in front of

everybody.

Ben felt himself blushing. Grant smiled a

little. “Thanks, babe.”

This time Ben let Ina guide him over to the

oak tree. Fitz left his post as they approached, not
looking at Ben as their paths crossed.

Asshole. If Fitz did anything to mess this up or

upset Grant, Ben decided he would, well, he’d sic
Libby on him. The thought made him smile. There
was one thing, at least, that riled the cowboy a
little.

R.C. joined them under the tree, fiddling with

a remote control of some sort. Fitz stood next to
the steel box, gun in hand.

Grant sat alone in the field. The helmet was

fitted over his head, its wires trailing invisibly
through the grass. From his expression, he was
aware of how silly he looked out there under the
broad, paling Texas sky.

“That’s everything, then.” R.C. turned to stand

beside Ina, and Ben saw that the device in his
hands was a smartphone. Ben was glad at least

some part of R.C.’s technology was rooted in this
century.

Something else was bothering him, though.

“Excuse me?”

R.C. and Ina both looked at him. Ben asked,

“Why does Fitz have a gun?”

“Tranquilizers,” R.C. said. Ben supposed his

tone was meant to be reassuring. “The fact is, we
don’t ever know what exactly an adept will turn
into this first time. There are plenty of creatures in
the fae world that are not safe for humans to be
around. Until he learns to control his second form,
Grant may be…safest if he’s tranquilized.”

Ben frowned. Ina squeezed his arm. “Only if

it’s an emergency,” she said.

He looked back at Grant, still sitting patiently

in the field. “I see.”

He just wished it wasn’t Fitz doing the firing.
“All right?” R.C. asked. Ben nodded.
R.C. readied the phone. “On my mark!” he

shouted. “Three! Two! One!”

R.C.’s finger touched the screen. A big red

light on the metal box lit up, and a low hum started.

Nothing else happened.
Ben tore his eyes from Grant long enough to

check R.C.’s and Ina’s expressions. Both of them
looked calm. Fitz still held the gun at his side.

For another moment all was quiet. The

crickets called over the hum of the steel box, and
Grant sat in the field looking as bewildered and
edgy as Ben felt.

Then the air around him shimmered. The

machine issued a loud pop. Ben had been
determined to watch Grant change forms, but the
searing feeling in the backs of his eyeballs forced
his eyes shut.

Before he could get them open again, he heard

something massive flop to the ground.

Ben blinked, trying to get a handle on what he

was seeing. Grant had disappeared. In his place
was something large and dark teal in color. Scaly.
Thrashing around wildly.

There might have been a name for what Grant

had turned into, but Ben didn’t know what it was.
The only thing that came to mind was sea monster.

“That’s interesting,” R.C. said calmly.
Grant twisted against the dry grass. He had a

long, long body—where it stopped being his body
and started being his tail was hard to say, since he
had no back legs. A pair of front fins, each roughly
as long as Ben’s leg, paddled helplessly on the
grass. Each fin was webbed with electric blue, the
same color as the webbing on the spikes that
trailed down Grant’s back.

Grant the monster turned his head toward the

tree. His head reminded Ben of East Asian dragons
he’d seen in books—reptilian yet sleek, with two
long whiskers trailing from the muzzle. He opened
his mouth on a double row of serrated teeth.

His glossy black eyes admitted no human

emotion, but the way he thrashed around on the
grass alarmed Ben. Something was wrong.

“He’s—he belongs in the water,” he said.
“Yes, I think so.” R.C., from his tone of

voice, could have been talking about what they’d

eat for dinner. “Certainly he’s aquatic. The gills
make me think salt water, but we’ll have to see.
Not a kraken, that’s for sure, and not really a Pi-
Hsi…”

“If he has gills, that means he can’t breathe.”

Saying it aloud made it real. Panic flooded Ben.
“He can’t breathe.”

“No,” R.C. said thoughtfully. “Probably not.”
Ben wanted to shake him. He wanted to help

Grant—how could he help Grant? Grant was a
thirty-foot-long dragon who needed water. A glass
of it from the kitchen wasn’t going to do the trick.

“Change him back.”
R.C. seemed to notice Ben’s terror for the

first time. “I can’t,” he said.

“What?”
“He’ll change back on his own in a moment,”

R.C. said, soothing. “The jump starting isn’t
sufficient to keep him in this form if he doesn’t
want to stay in it—and I dare say he doesn’t.” He
paused as Grant brought his tail down on the
ground with a thump that Ben felt in the soles of his

shoes. “Most adepts will change back to their
human form when they panic. It’s an instinctual
response.”

“And if he doesn’t?”
R.C. gazed meditatively into the field. “Then

we might have a problem.”

Ben didn’t think he was imagining that

Grant’s twisting on the grass wasn’t as vigorous as
it had been. His mouth stayed open as if seeking
air. Ben couldn’t breathe, either. Please please
please change back.

Overcome with desperation, he walked

toward Grant. R.C. gave him a swift glance and
shook his head in warning. “Stay clear of him.
Ina?”

Ina caught him by the hand and pulled him

back. She was surprisingly strong for her size.
“Grant will be fine,” she promised.

How can you be so calm? As soon as he

wondered, Ben remembered that Ina couldn’t see
what was happening. She wouldn’t be holding him
back if she could see, he thought frantically.

Grant rolled onto his back. His tail slapped

the ground weakly.

“Hmm,” R.C. said. “Maybe we’d better give

him a boost. Mr. Fitzhugh!”

Fitz didn’t need any other instruction. Ben

realized he already had the tranquilizer gun
mounted on his shoulder. At R.C.’s shout, he
pulled the trigger.

Grant lurched. It seemed as though he ought to

cry out, but he didn’t make a sound. The dart was
briefly visible, bright yellow against his dark
scales, and then he rolled away.

He went still. Ben covered his face with his

hands. “Oh God, oh my God.”

I shouldn’t have asked you to come out here.

It would have been better if we’d decided not to
see each other again.

Ina clasped his arms, her body tucked close

behind him. “Look, Ben. It’s all right.”

She tugged at his forearms, and he lifted his

face, braced for catastrophe.

Grant—his Grant, his human Grant—lay in

the middle of the field. He was unconscious and
naked. The helmet and the dislodged dart lay in the
grass. There was no trace of his clothing.

But he was breathing. Ben could see his ribs

rising and falling even at this distance.

He broke free of Ina’s grasp and ran across

the field. Grant didn’t wake when Ben touched
him, nor when he wrapped his arms around his
shoulders. Ben didn’t care, so long as Grant was
alive, but it was a long time before he let R.C. and
Ina pull him away.

* * * *

The first thing Grant heard was, “Oh thank

God.” Then someone was cupping his face and
kissing it all over.

Groggily he lifted his hand and, with a little

effort, landed it on the hand on his cheek. His eyes
were being disobedient, but he was pretty sure the
person kissing him was Ben.

Grant made a garbled sound. He tried again.

It seemed to take twice as long for everything to
work. “What happened?”

Ben’s anxious face swam into focus. “You

feel okay?”

His voice sounded like it was coming down a

tunnel. “I dunno,” Grant answered honestly.

After Ben made him sip from a glass of water

and helped him lie down again, Grant caught up.
The last thing he remembered was being outside, at
dusk, but he and Ben were in the bedroom now. No
light shone through the gauzy curtains. When he
asked, Ben said it was after ten.

“I’ve been asleep?”
Ben nodded. He crouched beside the bed,

resting his elbows on the sheet. Grant was tucked
under the comforter—naked.

Why did it take me so long to realize I’m

naked?

“What happened to my clothes?” he asked. As

the words left his mouth, he remembered. The
field.

Grant sat upright. Ben’s hands were at his

shoulders immediately. “Lie down. R.C. said you
won’t feel good until tomorrow,” he said. “Just
relax. It’s okay now.”

His back hit the bed again. Grant stared up at

the ceiling. “I turned into a sea monster.”

It was coming back to him. The feel of

transformation wasn’t too different than what it felt
like to see one. A weird, almost electric sensation,
like his spine had gotten zapped. It was more
strange than painful.

All at once he’d been in his second shape.

There was no sense of transition. One minute he
had legs, the next he didn’t.

One minute he could breathe. The next…
“R.C. called it a water dragon,” Ben said.

“Sorry—called you a water dragon.”

“What’s a water dragon?”
Ben shrugged. “A sea monster.”
“Jesus Christ.” It hadn’t been a dream or a

hallucination. He’d really been something else.

His thoughts hadn’t even been the same. The field
and the sky had looked utterly foreign to him. The
ground had rasped against his skin, and the hot air
had seared his eyes and nostrils.

Ben’s fingers took his hand tentatively. “I was

scared out of my mind.”

“That’s two of us.”
Ben still looked scared, and Grant felt a little

shaky himself. He patted the bed. “Lie down with
me.”

Ben didn’t hesitate. Grant had a feeling Ben

had been lying with him while he was
unconscious. He tucked his head against Grant’s
chest, aligning his body carefully against Grant’s.
For once their touching didn’t feel sexually
charged. They both needed comfort and security.

Grant put his nose to Ben’s hair and inhaled.

Beneath the smells of ranch air and shampoo, the
scent of Ben was there. He relaxed.

“Was it weird?” Ben asked.
“It set a new standard for weird.” Grant

thought about it. “Was I supposed to be able to see

all the, you know, elves and shit?”

“I guess so. Ina says she can see them in her

cat form. Or, um, whatever it’s called.”

“Hm.” Grant didn’t remember seeing anything

weird. Then again, he’d been pretty fixated on not
being able to breathe. Even remembering the
sensation made him shudder. He took a deep,
calming breath of air. Poison when I’m a water
dragon, life when I’m human…

They lay silently for a while. Grant stroked

his hand over Ben’s shoulders. At last Ben said,
“Now what do we do?”

Grant didn’t have an answer for that. “I’m not

in a big hurry to change again,” he said.

“No.” Ben pressed his hand to Grant’s chest

as if to stop him from turning into a water dragon
on the spot. “Me neither.”

“But R.C. talked a lot about learning to do it

voluntarily.” He’d said that once Grant had been
pushed into the change with that weird helmet
thing, it would be easier for him to learn how to do
it himself. “Once you know the destination, it’s

easier to find it again,” in R.C.’s cryptic words.
Grant wasn’t sure he felt enlightened by his
experience in the pasture. He mostly hoped he’d
never be subjected to that inability to breathe
again.

Nonetheless he continued, “I guess he’ll teach

me how to transform. And I asked him if he had
any advice for you. You know, seer to seer.”

Ben’s head moved on his chest as he tipped

his face upward. “Did he?”

“I think he does. At least, he doesn’t seem

bothered by any of this stuff.” In the workshop
R.C. had casually carried what he said was a pixie
—Grant, of course, couldn’t see what R.C. was
holding—to the window and tossed it out. Ben had
complained about seeing things that looked
pixieish, but his reaction was to lock himself in the
bathroom until they went away.

Grant decided not to mention that. Ben had

already tensed, and now he said defensively,
“R.C.’s had a long time to get used to it.”

Grant stroked his back. “You will too.”

Ben didn’t relax. In a voice just above a

whisper, he said, “Only if we stay together.”

That was true, but Grant didn’t want to talk

about it. How could they be expected to make a
decision about each other after so little time?

We should have had time to get to know each

other without all this bullshit, Grant thought. We
should be able to go on dates, see other people if
we want to…

Except, he didn’t like that thought at all.

Jesus, you didn’t even like Ina rubbing his
shoulders. What would happen if you saw him
making out with another guy?

His blood boiled at the thought.
Ben sat up. He averted his face from Grant

and drew his hands together so that they weren’t
touching each other. “You wouldn’t have to worry
about that happening again if you weren’t with me.
We’d both go back to normal.”

Grant took a moment to quench his initial

reaction. In a level voice he asked, “Is that what
you want?”

Ben shook his head. He didn’t turn, but he

said, “I’ve never even been in a relationship
before.” He let out a small, bitter laugh. “I’m
twenty-three, and I don’t know anything about
being with someone.”

“Look.” Grant struggled to sit up. Ben turned

around at once and pressed him back down. At
least he’s looking at me now.

“Look,” he started again, “I’m not going to

lie: I’ve been in plenty of relationships. Enough for
two. But I’m shitty at them.” He watched Ben’s
face fall, feeling disappointed in himself. But Ben
deserved to know. “I don’t even know why it all
falls apart, but it does. I’ve gotten used to thinking
of myself as a loner, you know?”

“I know,” Ben whispered.
“Maybe it won’t work out. Maybe it will.”

Grant stroked Ben’s arm, which was the only part
of him he could reach. “I don’t think we should
give up just because I’m a hideous sea beast.”

The corner of Ben’s mouth curled up. “You

weren’t hideous.”

“I recall some scales.”
Ben lay down beside him again. His cheek

rested on Grant’s chest, and his hand over his
heart. Grant wrapped his arm around Ben’s lithe
body. “They were beautiful scales,” he protested
gently, then let out a sigh. “You’re the handsomest
water dragon I know.”

“Thanks, babe.” Grant kissed his head.

“Coming from you, that means a lot to me.”

Chapter Five

“Shit shit shit!” Grant shook his arm like it

was on fire. Water droplets sprayed everywhere
as he smacked the surface of the pond with his
arm.

He held still and looked at his hand. Normal.

For a second there he’d seen a fin, and he’d
panicked.

Ina wiped water off her face. “That was

good,” she said.

“It didn’t feel good.” Grant let both his arms

rest on the surface of the so-called pond. It was,
properly speaking, a watering hole for livestock.
At R.C.’s instruction, Fitz had filled it up this
morning, giving Grant a shallow twenty-foot pool
for transformation practice.

Of course, Grant was thirty feet long in his

second form. And the water was fresh, which R.C.
hypothesized was not going to be a hell of a lot
better than no water at all. None of this made Grant

look forward to success.

But failure was also getting on his nerves.

He’d been bobbing in this pond for so long his
fingers and toes were raisins. Still Ina showed no
inclination to give up.

“It won’t feel good, not for a while,” she told

him for the fourth time. She had tethered an
inflatable pool toy to the grassy edge of the
watering hole, and she kicked her legs in the
water. The float was teal green and shaped like an
alligator, which alternately struck Grant as
appropriate and annoying. “But it won’t hurt you.
Once you transition completely, it goes away.”

Grant flexed his hand again. “How long is a

while?”

“The first few hundred times. Now try again.”
Ina was not nearly as much of a sweetheart as

she seemed. When charged with something like
teaching a reluctant adept how to change forms,
she was a fucking hard-ass.

Not that her determination was making a

difference. Grant continued to gaze at his hand. It

was back to normal, but whatever had almost just
happened was the closest he’d gotten all day to an
actual transformation.

For the millionth time Grant took a deep

breath. He plunged under the water. It was better
to keep his eyes closed, since opening them only
drew his attention to how gross this water was.
Kicking to stay under, he reached for the feeling of
being a water dragon. I have a tail, he recited to
himself. I have fins and a long snout.

I can’t breathe air. I can’t breathe fresh

water.

Lungs burning, he surfaced. “Nothing?” Ina

asked.

He shook his head, treading water. That time

he hadn’t even gotten close; there was no weird
electric sensation anywhere in his body.

Ina scooted to one end of the float, nearly

upending it. She patted the other side. “Come out
and rest.”

Jesus, finally. Grant crossed the pond in two

strokes. Climbing onto the flimsy raft from the

water would have thrown Ina off, so he clambered
out onto the edge and then eased himself butt-first
onto the float. He nearly threw Ina off anyway, but
she grabbed him and righted her balance.

Grant let his hand rest on the alligator float’s

snout. The sun warmed his wet shoulders. It felt
nice out here, but as soon as he dried off, he’d be
roasting. Ina was sheltering under an enormous sun
hat, but for the first time Grant realized she
probably hadn’t been comfortable sitting out here
for the past two hours, either.

“It’s not easy,” she said, patting his knee. “It

took me a long time too.”

“I’m glad I have help,” he said grudgingly. He

plucked the fabric of his swim trunks away from
his legs.

Ina’s sunny nature reasserted itself. “Just

think, when you can transform, you can go swim in
the Pacific all day.” She smiled brightly. “Ben told
me you live right next to the ocean. Isn’t that
lucky?”

“Yeah.”

R.C. seemed to think it was more than luck:

he claimed Grant would never have been drawn to
the ocean or to surfing except that some part of him
was secretly a water dragon. That bothered Grant
more than he cared to admit. He didn’t like the
idea that a part of him he never knew existed—
that, without Ben, he would never have discovered
at all—had dictated how he lived his life.

Apparently it would dictate how he continued

to live it too.

Grant hesitated, then said, “Ina, can I ask you

something?” She nodded. “Are we really supposed
to just, you know, go home and go back to our
lives in a few days?”

“Well, yes. Ben will be able to deal with the

invisible world, and you’ll be able to change
forms. You don’t have to, of course, though
personally I find it feels good. Too long in this
form and I feel cooped up.”

“Ben can’t turn his off.”
Unless he leaves.
“No.” Ina looked sympathetic. “Seers need

help. That’s why they have us. If Ben is
overwhelmed or scared, you can help him.”

A lot of good Grant could do him, he thought.

Ina could change form and see the invisible world
alongside her husband. Unless he happened to be
at sea, Grant didn’t have that option. He would
always be outside the world Ben was learning to
inhabit.

None of it bore thinking about. “I wonder if

they’re back yet,” Grant said, changing the subject.
R.C. had taken Ben on a field trip to show him
some of the local fae. Zephyr was protected
through a combination of R.C.’s technological
innovation and the fact that the ranch was inhabited
by a couple of creatures higher up the food chain—
Ina, for one, and this Libby person he kept hearing
about.

R.C. had spent the last couple of days

showing Ben books that would help him sort out
which creatures he should be afraid of and how to
deal with the rest. Now they were going to see
them in the field.

Grant missed him. They all got together in the

evenings, having dinner at the kitchen table with
R.C. and Ina—and once, Fitz, though he dampened
the fun a little bit—and after that they went to bed
together. But so far they’d been so exhausted that
they’d fallen straight to sleep, no matter their
intentions.

As for getting to know each other and figuring

out what they would do when they got back to
California, they hadn’t made any progress at all.

Grant didn’t quite feel ready to air his

insecurities to Ina, though of all the people in the
world, another adept was more likely to
understand. She and R.C. must have gone through
all this, or something like it, back when they first
met.

He was still thinking about asking when Ina

said, “Your lives…may be a little different.”

Something in her voice had changed. Grant

had never heard her sound hesitant before. “Other
than me turning into a water dragon and Ben seeing
fairies?” he asked.

She didn’t smile. Her pink lips drew together.

“There are some…lánúin who don’t think about
the supernatural world the way R.C. and I do. They
might approach you.”

Grant watched her. He didn’t like how she’d

come over reticent. “Approach us about what?” he
asked.

“Ask your help. You can’t access it yet, but

you’re powerful in your second form. Ben may be
powerful too, in time. R.C. hasn’t mentioned his
abilities with doors, has he?”

“Well, we saw a demonstration.”
“Some seers develop that kind of affinity.

When you live in the supernatural world all day,
every day, the way seers do, sometimes it rubs off
on you. Neither R.C. nor Ben will ever have a
second form, as we do, but sometimes they
develop other talents.”

“Is that why there’s a door on the front

lawn?” Grant asked. “I’ve been wondering.”

“R.C. needs a door to travel that way—what

kind doesn’t matter. He used to use the front door,

but I got tired of cleaning up mud and things he
brought in with him. The door on the lawn is part
of his security system too, but you’d have to ask
him about that.”

Grant wasn’t in a hurry to. Conversations

with R.C. tended to piss him off one way or
another.

He tried to stick to the point. “So these

people who might approach us?”

“Yes.” Ina sighed. “There’s one in particular.

Cyril Soldati.” She pursed her lips together again.
“R.C. and I believe it’s enough to be part of the
supernatural world. We see it as a gift.” She
shrugged, as if to acknowledge that Grant didn’t
feel quite that warmly.

“Cyril doesn’t,” she went on. “It’s not enough

for him to be part of that world—he wants to rule
it. He sees himself as a latter-day fairy king.”

“Is he?”
“He’s a murderer.” All the sunshine had left

Ina’s voice. “He’s a traitor. And that is all he ever
will be.”

She turned her head, and her blue eyes pinned

Grant. “He will approach you and Ben,” she said.
“It’s more likely he’ll approach you since he
doesn’t see much use in seers, not unless they have
some additional ability like R.C.’s affinity for
doors. Cyril will see a powerful water dragon
who can help him get control over the world’s
oceans. I’m sure he’ll make some appealing offers.
Cyril promises all kinds of things. And if you
refuse him, he will turn on you.”

Grant frowned. “Turn on me how?”
“Any lánúin who won’t help him is an enemy.

He would rather wipe you out while you’re
relatively

inexperienced

and

powerless.

Otherwise he’ll help you develop that power.”

Grant understood that she meant something

different than the way Ina herself was helping him.
“Let me get this straight,” Grant said. “There’s an
adept out there who will track down me and Ben
and either kill us or convert us, and if he converts
us, we’ll have to work for him in his crazy taking-
over-the-world plan?”

“He’s not an adept,” Ina said, “but yes.”
“And R.C. didn’t mention this why?”
Ina looked away. “R.C. doesn’t like to talk

about it.”

“Tough shit!” He didn’t care that she looked

startled. I was wrong. I don’t even have to talk to
the guy to get pissed off at him. Grant was
infuriated by the thought that R.C. might have put
Ben in danger—both of them in danger—by sheer
negligence. What if Ina hadn’t seen fit to mention it
to him? They’d have gone wandering back to San
Diego, fair game to any asshole who decided to
take a piece out of them.

Not for the first time, Grant felt how wildly

out of their depth he and Ben were. They didn’t
even know what danger was—how could they
protect themselves from it?

How could he protect Ben?
To Ina he said, “What the fuck are we going

to do when he comes after us? Even if I can change
forms, what am I supposed to do? Flop on top of
him and die?”

She lifted a placating hand. “We’ll figure out

what to do. As long as you’re at Zephyr, you’re
safe. R.C. has spent a lot of time making sure no
one can get on the property unless they’re
welcome.”

Grant wasn’t done being pissed off yet. He

stared out at the water. “Goddamn it.”

“Don’t judge R.C. too harshly. He would

have told you eventually.”

“Eventually my ass.”
She let out a sigh. “Cyril was our friend.

R.C.’s student.” She gazed fixedly across the
watering hole. “He left years ago, but it’s still a
sore subject. Neither of us expected him to turn on
us the way he did. He stole from R.C.—
information, tools. Afterward we realized how
long he must have been planning this. Neither of us
saw it coming.”

Ina was digging her fingertips into the

inflatable alligator. Grant looked at them for a long
moment after she fell silent, putting the pieces
together. Ina was an adept too. Did she feel, as

Grant did, this deep desire to protect her
counterpart?

All his anger left him at the thought. It was

pointless, anyway. He didn’t need to be mad. He
needed to plan.

“So Cyril is a seer,” he said. Ina looked at

him. “Who’s his counterpart and what does she—
or he—turn into?”

Ina shook her head. “He doesn’t have a

counterpart.”

That didn’t make any sense. Grant had not

retained everything from R.C.’s little speech in his
apartment, but he distinctly remembered the line
about lánúin being two halves of one soul. It was
kind of hard to forget. To be a seer you had to have
an adept.

He got as far as, “So…how…?”
Ina, her voice uncharacteristically tense, said,

“He had a counterpart, but she died. She was our
friend too.”

There was more anger in Ina’s expression

than sadness. “He’s a murderer,” she’d said.

“He did it?”
Ina nodded, looking away again. “We don’t

know why. Perhaps he didn’t like relying on
someone else for his power. I don’t think I want to
understand how Cyril thinks.” She took a breath.
“As for how, R.C. long ago figured out how to
sustain a cipher without his counterpart.”

“A cipher?”
“Someone like Cyril. Normally if a

counterpart dies, the survivor loses his connection
to the supernatural world and goes back to
normal.” She snorted. “‘Normal.’ I can’t imagine
living without R.C.”

Her tone of voice told him she meant it. Grant

felt slightly ashamed that he’d never felt that way
before.

He’d

always

been

self-sufficient,

independent. He hadn’t even kept in touch with his
family after he came out; they hadn’t wanted to.
And that had been just fine.

Could I someday feel that way about Ben?

Like he couldn’t live without him?

Grant knew the answer, and it terrified him.

“Cyril cheated that fate,” Ina went on. “He

stole the tools from R.C. so that he can continue
living as a seer. Of course, that’s not enough—he
wants to be an adept too.” She sounded disdainful.
“Maybe he can do it. But he’ll never get back the
part of his soul that he killed.”

Grant let silence fall between them. The

bright, pleasant weather seemed incongruous with
the mood between them. Ina stared across the
water, her expression distant.

Ina had given him a lot to think about—the

idea of this psychopath coming after him and Ben
still bothered him just a tad—but he had a hard
time holding on to any idea except what it would
feel like to lose Ben.

Ben leaving would be bad enough, but Ben

dying? How could someone, even someone as
deranged as Cyril seemed to be, hurt the person
who was the other half of his soul?

He tried to think about something else. “Why

did R.C. want that kind of technology in the first
place?” Being mad at R.C. was almost comforting

compared to everything else rattling around in his
skull. “Seems like it would just call out to the
wrong element.”

“Tools are just tools. Yes, Cyril sees that

technology as a way to stay in the supernatural
world—and yes, he sees it as a way to control
people. Should his other tactics fail—that is,
should he go after someone who can’t be bribed or
intimidated, who can’t be controlled by threats to
his counterpart—he’s not above killing off one
counterpart in order to control the other. To Cyril,
keeping your place in the supernatural world is far
more important than the other half of your soul.”

Her tone had turned bitter again, but she took

a breath and added more calmly, “That’s not what
R.C. intended it for. Some of us put down roots in
the supernatural world. Losing your counterpart
means leaving all of it. R.C. wanted to provide an
alternative. A way of coping—temporarily—with
that loss.”

Except Cyril hadn’t seen his counterpart’s

death as a loss, Grant thought. He’d seen it as an

opportunity. “You say he’s considered killing off a
counterpart?”

Ina nodded, utterly serious.
“What’s stopped him?”
Her voice was still grim. “Lack of

opportunity, I expect.”

Someone coughed behind them. Both Grant

and Ina turned around. Fitz stood about ten feet off,
looking as prickly as ever under his Stetson. His
battered red pickup was parked some distance
away. Grant had been so absorbed in the
conversation that he hadn’t heard Fitz approach at
all.

“R.C’s looking for you,” he said to Ina. Fitz

apparently wasn’t a man for pleasantries. “He’s
back.”

“Ben too?” Grant asked. This conversation

with Ina had, for some reason, made him
desperately want to see his counterpart and
reassure himself that Ben was safe.

“Yeah.” Fitz didn’t look at him. “I can give

you a ride back to the house.”

“R.C.’s probably hungry. Silly man! He loves

going out to look at fae, but he’ll spend the rest of
the afternoon complaining about it.” Ina seemed
delighted by the prospect.

She crawled off the alligator float. To Grant’s

surprise, Fitz stepped forward and offered his
hand to help her. Grant had only seen him up close
a couple of times, though it was rare to be out on
the ranch without glimpsing him off in the distance.
At every occasion he’d seemed about as friendly
as an enraged wasp, but at least he was nice to Ina.

Grant began clambering off the float too, but

Ina held up her hand. “Ah-ah. You stay and
practice.”

“What?” Grant couldn’t help his indignant

tone of voice. “Ina, we’ve been out here for
hours!”

“You have to be ready for whatever comes.”

There was a thread of steel in her voice that told
Grant not to complain. “Keep trying, and I want
you to come back and tell me you were
successful.”

She turned and walked to the truck. Grant

watched her go, thinking that if he were successful,
he wouldn’t be going to the house, because he
would be a water dragon. And he wouldn’t be able
to breathe.

Fitz treated him to one of his cold, empty

looks before turning away and following Ina.

The truck engine started up, and Grant turned

back to the mucky watering hole. The inflatable
alligator bobbed on the surface. He watched a
man, presumably a ranch hand, walking along a
distant fence. Apart from that far-off figure, Grant
was alone.

He could fuck around out here for twenty

minutes and then hike back to the house, and Ina
would be none the wiser. But he already knew he
wouldn’t. He’d give it his all despite the
consequences of success, because Ina was right.
He had to be ready, whatever “ready” meant.

“It’s you and me, buddy,” he said to the

alligator float. Grant took a deep breath and
plunged in.

* * * *

An hour later he stood under the shower back

at the ranch house. As much as he hated the sight,
smell, and feel of water right now, he wanted to
scrub off the scum. The taste of mud had coated the
back of his throat ever since his moment of near
success—turning his left arm into a flipper again—
had made him panic and inhale a big lungful of
water.

He scrubbed himself down with a loofah, but

he didn’t get out of the shower when he was done.
Instead he put his head to the cool tile and stood
under the spray. The shower was big and
luxurious, and he was alone in it.

On the walk back to the house—a much

longer walk than he remembered it being on the
way out to the watering hole—he’d had time to
think about what a failure he was as an adept.
When he’d gotten inside, he’d heard Ben and Ina
and R.C. chatting and preparing dinner in the
kitchen. They sounded so normal, so fine, that
Grant had felt like he was on another planet. He

had stood in the entryway, dripping on the parquet,
for the better part of two minutes.

He hadn’t gone to join them. When Ben’s

laugh—a sound Grant hadn’t been able to produce
in days—finally got to him, he’d gone up to
shower. The others probably thought he was still
out at the watering hole, and he didn’t have a
problem with that.

What am I doing here?
There were few things Grant was good at.

Surfing was one. Sex was another. He was a pretty
good dancer, and he made a wicked smoothie.

He was beginning to think that was all he had.

He wasn’t a water dragon. He wasn’t a protector.
He wasn’t cut out to be a husband.

The shower door squeaked as it opened, and

Grant felt a draught of cool air on his back. He
looked around as Ben slipped into the stall. He
was naked, and his face was worried. “Are you
okay?”

“Fine.” Grant wondered how long he’d been

in here for Ben to have come looking for him.

Though now that he was here… Grant let his

eyes wander down Ben’s long torso. He had a
sleek, finely honed body that Grant wished he saw
more of. Ben’s cock stirred as Grant eyed it.

Ben took a step forward, coming under the

spray. He lifted his hand to block it from hitting
him in the face. “I thought you might like some
company,” he said shyly.

Actually he’d been busy throwing himself a

pity party. Grant let out a little laugh at his own
stupidity. While he was standing here thinking he
was a worthless human being, Ben had been
stripping down just outside the shower door and
preparing to surprise him.

I have no fucking clue how lucky I am. Even

if he had his doubts about whether he deserved it,
he found that Ben was right. He did want company.

Grant turned from the wall. “Come here,

babe.”

He reached out and smeared beads of water

across Ben’s flat abs, then ran that hand upward
over his pecs, coasting around the back of his

neck. Pulling him close.

Grant fell into the kiss. Hot water slipped

between their lips. He lapped it up, only pulling
away when he felt like he was drowning. In the
twenty seconds of their kiss, his cock had gone
completely hard.

Ben had noticed. His cock stood up, but he

ignored it, his gaze fixed on Grant. “I never got a
chance to touch you…before.”

Before. Wasn’t it, though? His life had been

divided into before and after.

Grant tried to put that aside. Ben was here.

They had time together. And Grant was glad for
that.

Ben swept his tongue over his lips as he

continued to gaze at Grant’s cock. The sight sent an
anticipatory throb of pleasure through his whole
body.

But Ben seemed to be waiting for permission.

“You can touch me anywhere you want,” Grant
said.

Without hesitating, Ben went for the prize,

closing his fingers around Grant’s cock. The touch
was light, teasing, almost ticklish. Grant made
himself hold still as Ben squeezed a little more
firmly and stroked his hand up and down. Slowly,
so slowly.

Grant pressed his palms against the tile for

support. He let Ben play as long as he could stand
it, until he had to fight the urge to thrust into his
hand. The hot water and the grip of his hand made
Grant think of what Ben’s mouth would be like on
him.

It didn’t help when Ben said, “I want you to

fuck me again.” He shook water out of his eyes and
blinked at Grant. “Or I want to suck you off. I’ve
never done that before.”

Grant pulled him close, angling his hips so

that their cocks were pressed together between
their bodies. Ben’s chest expanded against his as
he sucked in a deep breath.

“I want that too,” Grant said in his ear. He

licked the outer edge of Ben’s earlobe, lapping up
drops of water. Ben shuddered and moaned. He

leaned his head against Grant’s shoulder.

It felt incredibly good to hold him close like

this, but the throbbing in his cock was becoming
more urgent. “But I don’t want to forget about you.
Look at this beautiful piece of equipment.”

He leaned back enough that they could see

their cocks pressed close together. Ben’s dick was
gorgeous—thick and solid. And right now, very
hard. Grant had an idea.

Stepping away from Ben wasn’t easy. “One

second,” Grant promised. He yanked open the
shower door and hurried across the bathroom,
wincing as he shed water all over the rug. After
grabbing what he wanted out of the cabinet, he
jumped back into the shower. Ben looked at him
curiously.

“Where were we?” Grant said.
Ben was watching him open the Vaseline and

scoop up a glob of it. “What’s that for?”

Grant put the container aside and pulled Ben

to him again. “For this.” He rubbed it over both
their cocks, paying particular attention to Ben’s.

His chest rising and falling more rapidly, Ben
pressed his hips closer.

“Mmm, yes, babe.” His hard flesh slid over

Ben’s with just enough friction to coax his orgasm
nearer.

Grant encircled both their dicks in his hand

and began to pump his hips in a tight, controlled
movement. Ben’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Yes,” Ben sighed. “Oh, Grant.”
He liked the way his name sounded on Ben’s

lips, barely audible over the water hitting the tiles,
but breathy, exhilarated. Grant threw himself into
rubbing his cock against Ben’s. His pulse pounded.
That “almost right there” sense of dawning orgasm
came over him. He tucked his head and licked
Ben’s jaw, kissed him.

Then Ben pulled back. The hot water that hit

Grant’s cock felt almost cool compared to the
warmth of Ben—or maybe they were draining the
ranch’s water heater.

“I mean it,” Ben said. “I want to suck you

off.”

He dropped down to a squat before Grant

could answer. He winced as Ben’s knees came to
rest on the hard white tile, but Ben didn’t seem
fazed. His knees were spread wide to either side
of Grant’s feet. From his vantage point, Grant had
a perfect view of Ben’s cock standing straight up.

The water pressed Ben’s hair back from his

face as he looked up. Waiting for Grant’s signal. It
wasn’t the first time Grant had noticed Ben’s
tendency to wait for permission or instruction.
Grant didn’t normally go in for that sort of thing,
but when Ben did it, he was bowled over with lust.
This gorgeous man kneeling at Grant’s feet, asking
—pleading—to suck his cock might have been the
sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

He could think of sexier, though. A vision

came to him of how Ben would look tied up in his
bed.

Jesus. “That is a breathtaking sight.” Grant

could hear how shaky his own voice sounded. He
reached out to keep the water from drowning Ben,
and then wiped the last residue of petroleum jelly

off his cock.

He leaned back. The tile was sharp and cold

against his skin. Grant was counting on the slight
discomfort to keep him from going off the moment
those lips touched him.

“Go ahead, babe,” he said gently. “No

pressure. Just explore and—”

The rest of the sentence was choked off as

Ben closed his lips around the head of Grant’s
c o c k. He doesn’t waste any time . His tongue
lapped at the underside of Grant’s cock, just
beneath the glans, and then his lips suctioned
down.

Grant put his head back against the tile. Heat

and wetness consumed his cock. His legs began to
tremble.

“I knew you’d be good at this,” Grant

muttered.

Ben,

encouraged,

sucked

harder.

His

fingertips brushed Grant’s balls and then took them
with more confidence, massaging gently.

It was heaven. But it was going to be over

much too quickly. Grant felt his cock harden even
more inside the warm suction of Ben’s mouth.

“Babe,” he managed to say. “You’re going to

make me come.”

Ben replied by taking him a little deeper. He

snaked both hands around the backs of Grant’s
thighs, edging upward. When he felt Ben’s index
fingers at the tender bottom curve of his ass, Grant
reached for Ben’s head. He worked his fingers into
Ben’s wet hair, cautioning himself to be gentle. If
Ben balked or tried to pull off, he would let go.

Instead Ben took him deeper. A tingling

sensation began somewhere in Grant’s lower back
and began inching around to his balls.

“I’m going to come,” Grant warned him in a

tight voice. “You can pull off.”

Ben’s mouth was too busy to answer, but he

brought one of his hands up beside his head and
gave Grant a thumbs-up. It made him smile. And
then Ben swallowed, suctioning Grant’s cock even
tighter. He was doing something incredible with
his tongue that Grant couldn’t quite describe but

didn’t want to ever stop.

He put his head back again. Ben slipped his

hand between Grant’s ass and the shower wall.
This time he pulled apart Grant’s ass cheeks and
pressed his inexperienced fingers inward, eager
and persistent. Grant’s balls tightened, wanting it.
His cock felt hot, tight, painfully good.

Ben brushed his fingertip over Grant’s

asshole and then returned, massaging it. The added
sensation was like a burst of sparks under Grant’s
skin. He flew over the edge, calling out
wordlessly. He slapped the tile to keep himself
from collapsing.

The white-hot feeling consumed him from his

cock outward, burning away everything but this.
Everything but Ben.

The last part of his mind not blown apart by

ecstasy tried to pull his hips away from Ben’s
mouth as he came, but Ben kept him pinned where
he was. He drank down every drop of Grant’s
cum.

Sitting back on his heels, Ben wiped his hand

over his mouth. He was just as breathless as Grant.
Licking his lips, he looked up and smiled. “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow.” Grant wasn’t up to anything

more complex than that. He reached his hands out
to bring Ben to his feet, though in the end he leaned
on Ben just as much as he helped him. He shivered
and realized the shower was cooling. One arm still
wrapped around Ben’s shoulders, he reached out
and turned off the tap.

No longer competing with the sound of the

water, he spoke softly in Ben’s ear. “That was
incredible, babe.” He stroked his hand around
Ben’s ass cheeks and kissed the side of his neck.
“Now it’s your turn. I haven’t given that beautiful
cock enough attention.”

Grant went back to that vision of Ben on the

bed. He wanted to taste him, and then maybe he’d
get his second wind and fuck him. And then of
course they’d have to get back in the shower to
clean up…

Ben cleared his throat. “I, um, came.”
“What?”

His face had colored. He lifted a hand to push

wet hair out of his eyes. “I came already.” His
voice sounded uncertain, and his gaze darted
between Grant’s eyes and his shoulder. “It was…it
was so hot. I’ve fantasized about that—I mean, for
such a long time…”

Grant rewound his mental tape. Ben had had

one hand on his ass and the other on his balls. Too
astonished to moderate his tone, he said, “You
came without touching yourself?”

Ben’s face was definitely redder. “I mean,

you got me started earlier.”

“Jesus.” Grant grabbed him by the back of his

neck and pulled his face close. He kissed him
hard, not caring when their noses bonked together.
The idea that anybody could get that aroused from
sucking cock—from sucking his cock!—floored
him.

Ben looked dazed when they came up for air.

“You’re not disappointed or anything?”

“Shit! Are you kidding me? That’s hot, Ben.”
Ben ducked his head, still blushing a little but

also smiling. Then he shivered. “Let’s dry off,”
Grant suggested.

They got as far as the bedroom, but he didn’t

let Ben get dressed. He had too many other things
in mind.

* * * *

A couple of hours later, Ina knocked, bearing

a dinner tray and wearing a knowing grin. “Don’t
worry about the dishes,” she said. “I’ll come get
them in the morning.”

Ben had answered the door with a towel

around his waist. He had to use one hand to keep it
pinned around his hips, and with the other he
juggled the tray. “Thanks, Ina,” he said.

“Don’t be embarrassed!” From her grin, she

seemed to be loving this. Ben didn’t read any
malice into it, though. She seemed genuinely happy
that he and Grant were fucking like rabbits in her
guest bedroom. “You two take all the time you
need.”

She closed the door.

Grant was still in bed, the covers drawn up to

his chest. He lowered his hands slowly as Ben put
his back to the door. When their eyes met, they
both started laughing.

They ate naked in bed. Ben was famished.

Grant wanted to hear about his adventure with
R.C., so Ben told him in between bites.

“We saw all kinds of things,” Ben said. He

dabbled a piece of bread in marinara sauce.
“Some of it’s the same as back home. R.C. said
there are variations, but mostly it’s the same
everywhere. We talked to some of them too.”

“They can talk?”
“Some can. The way R.C. explained it, there

are lots of sentient or near-sentient species in the
supernatural world. Animals can see some of them.
It’s just humans who can’t. We don’t know why.”
He licked his thumb. “We don’t know why lánúin
happen, either.”

Grant caught his wrist. He sucked Ben’s

fingers between his lips, one by one. The sensation
of his tongue threatened to wake Ben’s cock again.

They’d been fooling around so long—fucking, then
resting or talking, then playing with each other—
that he was amazed he had any juice left.

It was probably best that Grant relinquished

his hand before Ben could get too turned on. He
gave Ben his Cheshire cat grin. “Sorry, babe. Go
on.”

“I’m not sure what I was talking about.” His

brain was completely derailed. “How did your day
with Ina go?”

Grant waved the question off. “Fine. Nothing

interesting happened. I didn’t turn into a sea
monster. You were talking about fairies.”

“Oh, right.” He wondered why Grant was so

determined not to talk about his day, but decided to
accept the request at face value. “Most of the fae
that I’ve seen are harmless. R.C. says that the more
dangerous ones have been pushed out of society—
if they’re dangerous to humans, they’re probably
dangerous to other species, and they hunt them
down. Can you imagine a party of brownies with
guns?”

“I still don’t know what a brownie is, to be

honest,” Grant said. “So you don’t feel scared of
them anymore?”

“No,” Ben said happily. “Some are a

nuisance, but R.C. taught me how to deal with
them. I think I’ll be fine—”

“Did he teach you,” said a voice at his ear,

“how to deal with me?”

“Shit!” Ben fell to the side, trying to get away

from the voice. He didn’t like having Libby behind
him, either, so he spun around. His elbow came
down on the tray, upsetting one of the plates. Ben
didn’t care. He scrambled backward, his feet
tangling in the covers, until he was close to Grant.

“What? What?” Grant’s hands shot out to

keep anything else from spilling, but his attention
was on Ben. “There’s something here?”

Libby was balanced precariously on the end

table, one hand wrapped around the base of the
lamp. It was an impossible position for a human
being; Libby made it look effortless.

“Yes.” Ben tried to catch his breath. “It’s

Libby.”

“Oh…Libby.” Grant, bless him, squinted

valiantly about two feet to the left of where Libby
actually was. “I’ve heard about that one.”

Libby rolled her eyes extravagantly. “Heard

about me? I’ve heard about him. Poor adept can’t
find his second form.” She stepped down from the
bedside table and climbed onto the bed where Ben
had been sitting a moment ago. Ben edged a little
farther away. “Such a big, sexy man,” she said,
eyeing Grant’s naked chest. “Maybe if he slept
with a woman, he would be able to find his…
dragon.”

“Shut up,” Ben snapped. “Grant, put a shirt

on, will you?”

“Why? What’s going on? What’s a libby?”
Libby crawled over the tray. “I’ll show you

what.”

“Hey! Back off.” Pure jealousy made Ben

reach out and grab Libby’s arm. He was surprised
when his hand connected with solid flesh. He’d
touched pixies and shaken the hands of a couple of

dwarves and brownies this morning, but Libby
was a class unto herself. He had half expected his
hand to go through her.

As it turned out, she was immovable. For

someone who sprang around like a helium balloon,
she was too heavy for Ben to push away from his
counterpart.

Libby gave him a look. Her pupils were too

narrow to be human. Ben let go.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Grant

sounded much calmer than Ben felt. But then, he
couldn’t see the way Libby was leering at him.

Ben half climbed, half fell out of bed. “She’s

—a pukis. A household spirit.”

She smiled her too-wide smile at Ben. “And

you don’t know how to ‘deal’ with me.”

Ben kept his attention on Grant. “Libby’s

bound to protect the house, but that doesn’t mean
she has to be nice. She’s been awful to me since
the moment I got here. When we were in the
kitchen with Ina, on our first day?” Grant nodded.
“She sat there making cracks about us—about me,

mostly. Saying what a bad seer I was, how even a
pixie could scare me away.” This had been true,
but Ben didn’t mention that now.

“But Libby isn’t bad,” Ben went on. “She’s

good. And she wouldn’t ever want to make
someone feel bad.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Libby

squirm. She looked less like a demon and more
like a sheepish teenager.

Ben dealt the death blow. “Everyone here

loves her very much.”

Libby made an irritated sound. Ben’s eyes

snapped shut, and when he could open them, Libby
had taken her dragon form. She gave him a
recriminating look and then galloped out of the
room on all fours.

Grant was still looking at Ben, waiting for

him to continue. “O…kay.”

“She’s gone.” Ben couldn’t help smiling. “It

worked!”

“She’s gone?”

“R.C. told me that Libby hates it when you

remind her that she’s a good spirit. She thinks
she’s a badass, but she has to guard the house and
everyone in it. It’s one of those fairy things where
they’re magically bound to a place or a job.” He
smiled. “I know how to make her stop bothering
me now.”

Grant looked perplexed, but he got off the bed

and opened his arms to enfold Ben in them. “Babe,
I am completely lost, but I’m glad you’re happy.”

He was. It startled him, how happy he felt.

The minor triumph of putting Libby in her place
was nothing compared to the security and the
comfort of being able to just hold Grant when he
wanted to.

Grant said softly, “I’m glad you have R.C. to

help you.”

Ben pulled back, frowning. He didn’t like

Grant’s tone of voice, nor the sad expression he
was wearing. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Like I said, I’m glad you

have him. I haven’t been any use to you.”

“Grant, that’s not true. R.C. knows the ropes,

but you’re my counterpart.” And I love you. Ben
hesitated. Why couldn’t he say it?

Because I have no idea what Grant will say.

The risk of rejection seemed huge. Just the look on
Grant’s face right now—barred off, distant—told
Ben that he would only make a fool of himself.

Grant shrugged. His arms dropped away from

Ben. “I don’t see how I can—”

A whooping sound swallowed the rest of his

sentence. Some kind of alarm. Ben clapped his
hands over his ears. Grant looked around. They
stared at each other.

“That’s not a fire alarm, is it?” Grant shouted.

Ben could barely hear him.

“I don’t know! Maybe?”
He didn’t smell smoke. Instead he heard a

crash from outside and felt the vibration of it
through the floor. A second crash followed. He
and Grant kept looking at each other as if waiting
for an explanation to appear between them.

Then Ben smelled the smoke.

Chapter Six

Ben stumbled into the hall just as someone

went running past. R.C., wearing a robe. At the
head of the stairs he turned back and pointed at
Ben and Grant. “Stay here!” he shouted.

He disappeared down the stairs. Something

low and black went streaking after him, skimming
past Ben’s ankle. “Shit!” He stumbled back into
Grant.

Ina, in cat form, slowed down to make the

turn onto the stairs. She looked back and paused,
her golden eyes bright in the darkness. “Stay here!”
she shouted.

Then she too bounded down the stairs.
She can talk in her second form?
Grant hadn’t heard or seen her. He jogged to

the head of the stairs as well and looked down
toward the entryway. “I think something’s on fire.
Smell it?”

Ben joined him, nodding. R.C. had left the

front door open, and the smell of smoke was
blowing in through it. Ben thought it seemed lighter
outside than it should, given the hour.

They looked at each other. “Let’s go down,”

Grant called over the alarm. “I don’t want to be
stuck in here if the house starts burning.”

Ben started, “R.C. said—”
But Grant was already jogging down the

stairs. They weren’t even wearing shoes; they’d
paused long enough to throw on some pants before
looking out into the hall, and that was it.

He wasn’t going to let Grant go out there by

himself, though. Ben followed, jogging to catch up
as Grant stepped out the front door.

It was at least quieter outside. The alarm was

within the house. So Ben could hear Grant clearly
when he muttered, “Fuck.”

The oak tree at the circular driveway was on

fire. From the look of it, it had been going for some
time. The branches blazed like kindling. As Ben
watched, fragments of burning wood dropped onto
the driveway. The fire hadn’t spread yet, but he

nervously scanned the fields that surrounded the
drive. Ina had said they’d had a dry spring. The
grass would burn quickly.

R.C. was running around between the lawn

door—which was wide open—and the tree.
Someone else, probably Fitz, was moving around
in the dark too. R.C. was waving his arms in the
direction of the house and shouting, but Ben
couldn’t hear what he was saying. He couldn’t see
Ina at all.

“What started the fire?” Grant asked.
Ben only had to wonder that for a moment.
There was another shuddering crash. A

twenty-foot man lumbered from around the other
side of the tree. Ben took an involuntary step back.
The giant—it was definitely a giant—was covered
in hair like some sort of bigfoot. He was holding a
burning branch that was probably as long as Ben
was tall. The giant eyed the figures down on the
ground. It didn’t seem to like the shouting and
waving, because it opened its mouth and roared.

The interior of its mouth was fire. The light

from inside its jaws reflected in its black eyes.

“It’s a giant,” Ben squeaked. “And it’s got a

—”

The giant threw the branch down at R.C. In

the darkness it was hard to make out where the
branch landed, but the wood exploded into a
shower of burning embers. Ben made out R.C.’s
silhouette as he threw up his arms.

“No!”
Without thinking, Ben ran down the path. The

gravel cut at his feet, and Grant called his name
from somewhere behind him.

When he reached the door—instinctively he

skirted around it—he saw that R.C. was getting up.
He had beaten out the embers around him.
Fortunately the front lawn was better irrigated than
some of the pasture and showed little inclination to
burn.

Ben helped him up. R.C.’s face was smudged

with soot. His eyes were wide. “Go back inside!”
he shouted.

Ben continued dragging R.C. to his feet, trying

to pull him away from the heat of the fire. “Are you
okay?”

“Fine! We’ve got it under—”
A ripping, crunching sound drew their

attention to the giant. It had yanked another burning
branch off the oak. It didn’t seem bothered by
holding the thing. The flames licked at its skin but
didn’t burn it.

“Fitz!” R.C. broke free of Ben and waved his

arms. “This way! Toward the door!”

Ben spotted Fitz after a moment. He was

running with a hose, presumably dragged all the
way from the house. It was utterly futile to try and
put out that blaze with a solitary garden hose. Fitz
concentrated instead on places where the ground
was burning. He was right, Ben thought, to try and
avoid a grass fire. On the other hand, the giant was
the biggest of their problems.

And it was moving toward them.
The giant pivoted around. Huge, hairy

muscles bunched. Then he swung back and let go
of the branch. Even as Ben saw it and understood

what was happening, he seemed powerless to
move out of the way. The fiery branch sailed
directly for them.

R.C was faster. He pulled Ben to the ground

with him. Ben’s hand shot out to brace his fall, but
he still bounced his forehead off the ground. The
branch crunched to earth a few feet behind them.

Something sharp bit at Ben’s calf. He looked

back to see a bright ember resting like a flaming
snowflake on his skin. Swearing, he twisted
around and beat it out.

The giant. What’s the giant doing?
Ben didn’t seem to be able to move fast

anymore. R.C. had jumped to his feet and was
shouting again. He briefly blocked Ben’s view of
the giant, and then he was running away. Herding
the giant toward the door on the lawn? Right, like
it’ll fit.

He had plenty of time to think all of that but

couldn’t seem to get himself up off the ground. And
meanwhile the giant had ripped off another branch.

A few earth-trembling steps brought it closer

to him than ever. Ben craned his neck upward.

The giant looked right at Ben. The black eyes

were pupilless, but Ben knew he was the object of
the creature’s attention. The monster grinned, its
inferno of a mouth stretching in a parody of
pleasure. It hauled back with the branch. Ben tried
to scramble backward with leaden hands and feet,
knowing there was nothing he could do now that
would matter. It wouldn’t miss this time. It was too
close to miss.

Something big and fast rammed the giant in

the side. The monster let out a sound like a
bellows, audible even over the crackling of the
flaming tree. It turned its head, seeking its
antagonist.

A dark, winged shape wheeled between the

giant and the tree. Its silhouette was strange—far
bigger than anything Ben had seen in the air. He
would have thought it was the Pegasus from the
paddock except that there was something wrong
with its head.

The giant spun in a circle, trying to keep the

whatever-it-was in its sights. The flying thing
touched down briefly, claws gripping the earth,
and Ben got a good look at it. He inhaled sharply,
bringing in a lungful of smoke in the process. He
tried to watch the newcomer through watering
eyes.

He knew what it was. It was in all R.C.’s

books and every mythology class he’d ever taken.

Chimera.
Three heads snapped at the giant’s massive

calves. They moved out of sync with each other,
but with a kind of unified purpose. One head was a
snake, the second a lion, and the third something
that looked like a goat—though a goat with sharper
teeth and redder eyes than any normal one. Its front
claws were like knives and its lashing tail seemed
to be barbed. Everything it had was a weapon.

R.C. was suddenly close by, still shouting

hoarsely over the fire and the giant’s increasingly
irate bellows. “This way! Fitz! Toward the door!”

Fitz? Ben looked around, but he didn’t see

Fitz anywhere.

The chimera lashed out at the giant, which

stumbled forward. When it tried to turn around, the
chimera leaped into the air again. Ben felt the hot
gust of air from its wings, and he lifted a hand
against the dust and embers blowing into his eyes.

The chimera latched on to the giant’s back for

a second, digging in its claws. The giant continued
moving forward, disoriented and unable to attack.
It had dropped its branch, which threatened to set
off another fire on the front lawn.

R.C.’s plan seemed to be working. The giant

was moving toward the door. There was only one
problem as far as Ben could see: the door was
about half the size of the giant.

Undeterred, the chimera nudged the giant

closer. R.C. stood next to the door, holding its
knob open.

All at once the giant broke into a shambling

run. It had clearly had enough. Hands outstretched,
it dived for the door.

Ben winced, waiting for the earth to shake as

the giant flopped on top of the door, crushing it.

Instead its hands went inside. The giant’s body
seemed to fold in on itself. Ben got that weird itch
deep in his eyeballs, the same as he got just before
an adept changed forms, but it didn’t crescendo
into the blinding pinch in his eyes. He made
himself keep looking despite the stinging.

The giant went into the door, but it didn’t

come out the other side. Head, shoulders, hips
disappeared into the door. It kicked its legs and
vanished inside. Ben’s perspective gave him a
glimpse through the door, but he couldn’t see
where the giant had gone.

R.C. slammed the door shut. He dug in his

pockets. “Could someone do something about that
branch?” he shouted.

Ben scrambled in the dirt and stood up.

Where was the garden hose? Fitz, who was still
nowhere to be found, had left it somewhere by the
tree.

By the time he found it—tripped over it, in

fact, and then reeled in the end—Grant was
running from the house with two big buckets of

water. Grant got there first, throwing the water on
the branch. Ben joined him with the hose a moment
later.

“Are you okay?” Grant called. He had to

raise his voice over the sound of tree branches
being eaten by fire.

“Yeah.” His cheek stung where he’d hit the

ground, but he was alive. That was better than he’d
thought he’d be a few minutes ago. His heart still
pounded, and it was hard to get the vision of that
giant out of his mind. He watered the ten-foot
branch, thinking, This almost hit me.

When it was extinguished, Ben looked

around. He half expected to see the whole pasture
on fire, but the conflagration around the tree was
contained by the driveway. The embers that fell
onto the gravel burned themselves out.

Ben was about ready to breathe a sigh of

relief when something massive dropped out of the
air and landed in front of him.

The chimera. It was easily twelve feet long

from heads to haunches, and its outspread wings

seemed to go on for days. Ben was close enough to
see that the wings weren’t feathered but were
batlike and scaly. Close enough to see the blank
animal menace in the goat head’s eyes as it turned
to look at him.

He squeezed the garden hose so tightly that he

blocked the water. It was his only weapon, not that
he could see it doing him a lot of good. He braced
himself for its attack.

The goat head turned away. Neither the lion

nor the snake head paid him any attention. Folding
its wings, the chimera took two steps toward R.C.
and the door and—

Ben snapped his eyes shut. When he opened

them again, Fitz was walking toward R.C. Apart
from the absence of his Stetson, he looked as if he
might have just walked out of the barn.

“It’s locked?” he called to R.C.
R.C. was holding on to the doorknob. “Ina’s

bringing the key. I didn’t think to grab it. Gods help
us all, I never thought they’d get in this way.”

Fitz looked toward the house. “She’s

coming.”

Ina, wearing a white nightgown, came

sprinting over the lawn. In one hand she held
something metallic, which she passed off to R.C.
He locked the door eagerly and only then released
the knob.

The three by the door breathed a collective

sigh of relief.

Ben wasn’t quite so relaxed. Neither was

Grant, who asked in a wary voice, “Where did Fitz
come from just now?”

Ben, though he had seen it himself, answered,

“I don’t really know.”

He felt so slow and stupid. All he could think

about was the giant holding that branch, ready to
trounce him, and the fact that Fitz was a seer—
he’d stood at the paddock fence with Ben and
talked to Libby. He was a seer, so why did he have
a second form?

A completely terrifying second form.
Fitz turned and walked directly for him. Ben

started to take a step backward, but Fitz was

quicker. He took the hose out of Ben’s hand.

His cold gray eyes met Ben’s. “Get back in

the house.”

A moment later Ina was telling him the same

thing, though in a gentler tone. She led him by the
arm back across the lawn, talking about a cut on
his face. Ben didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to
leave Grant. As soon as he realized Grant wasn’t
by his side, he balked.

“Come on, sit down.” The kitchen was

orderly, bright, unbelievable after the disaster
outside. “They’ll take care of the tree. Just sit.”

“Grant,” he said.
“Grant is fine. Now sit.” Ina reached up and

took him by the shoulders, then forcibly sat him
down in one of the kitchen chairs.

Dazed, Ben let her clean the cut on his

cheekbone. Ina said it wasn’t bad; it was more of a
scrape, and he’d have some bruising. She retrieved
the first-aid kit and began dabbing something
astringent on it.

Ben didn’t care about his face. He wanted Ina

to stop bothering him. “Where’s Grant?”

“He’s fine, Ben, I promise. You were the one

who went running out to the fire.” There was a hint
of recrimination in Ina’s tone, but Ben thought he
also detected satisfaction. “That was brave.”

“And…” The fiery log held back, the giant’s

muscles tense. His burning smile. “What was
that?”

R.C.’s voice came from the kitchen doorway.

“Unless I’m mistaken, that was a cacus. A kind of
giant.” R.C. and Grant trooped into the kitchen.
Both of them were sooty, and one of R.C.’s
sleeves was nearly burned off. Ina saw and
immediately transferred her attentions to her
husband. Ben was relieved.

“Could have been an eldjötnar,” R.C. went

on as Ina pushed him into a chair. “Didn’t get a
close look, to be honest.”

“I got too close a look,” Ben said.
Grant put a hand to his jaw, tilting his face

upward. His eyebrows were drawn together. His
thumb skimmed down Ben’s cheek, just beneath the

bruising. “He got you,” Grant murmured.

“If he’d gotten me, I’d be dead,” Ben said

flatly.

Grant’s hand dropped to his shoulder.
“I don’t understand how he got in.” R.C.

barely seemed to notice that Ina was cutting the
remnants of his sleeve off with the kitchen
scissors. His graying hair stuck up in all
directions. He looked older than Ben had ever
seen him. “And through the front door. Gods help
us if Cyril is developing a knack for opening
doors.”

A cold, sick sensation slid from Ben’s solar

plexus into his stomach.

Grant said, in a tone of horror, “That was

Cyril?”

Ben didn’t know who Cyril was. He was a

little preoccupied, though, with the idea of the
door on the front lawn being opened. Tampered
with. By someone.

“No,” R.C. answered. “Sent by him, though,

almost certainly. The odds of a cacus dedicating

the effort it would take to pick one of my locks,
just so that he could light the front yard on fire…”
He shook his head. “It’s not their style. But it has
Cyril written all over it.”

Grant held up a finger, his eyebrows

furrowed. “Who works on the ranch?” Before
anyone could answer, he went on, “You guys have
farmhands or ranch hands or anything?”

R.C. shook his head. “Only Fitz.”
“Well”—Grant’s mouth firmed—“I saw

somebody on the property earlier today, when I
was out by the watering hole. It wasn’t Fitz.”

Ben half listened to the ensuing questions—

what had the man looked like, where had he been
going—thinking the conversation hardly mattered.
What was he going to do, though, when someone
wondered aloud how the giant or anybody else had
gotten onto the property?

“It may very well have been Cyril.” R.C.

lifted his free hand to his forehead, rubbing his
temples. Ina was determinedly wrapping the other
one in bandages from wrist to shoulder. “We’d

better check the perimeter tomorrow. God knows
what else he got into.”

“What would it take…” Ben stopped and

tried to make his voice sound more casual, less
squeaky. “What would it take for him to get in, I
wonder?”

Grant gave him a funny look, and Ben had an

inkling that he wasn’t pulling off casual.

“I have no idea,” R.C. answered.
Some cowardly part of him wanted to keep

his mouth shut, but he said, “Could it happen if
someone here on the ranch opened the door?”

“Yes,” R.C. said, “but who?”
Shit. “Me,” Ben said.
Three sets of eyes turned toward him.
Ben looked at his knees. “I’m sorry. I opened

it and closed it. I didn’t realize what it was.”

There was a beat of silence, and then R.C.

asked, “When was this?”

“Monday. Right after we arrived.”
He made himself look up. R.C. was nodding

thoughtfully. “That makes sense. Cyril must be
watching closely to have noticed the breach. I
wonder if he brought in anything else without our
noticing. A giant would set off the sensors, but not
something small.”

“I’ll check,” Ina said. “I’ll change and walk

the perimeter.” She began packing up the first-aid
kit.

R.C. reached out and touched her arm, stilling

her. “In the morning, my dear. We’ll be all right
for the rest of the night. Both Fitz and Libby are
keeping watch. If there were anything else on the
property, we’d know by now.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben blurted.
“Well, that door shouldn’t have been

unlocked in the first place. I’m as responsible as
you are.” He offered Ben a tired smile. “No one
was hurt. Let’s be grateful for that.”

Grant reached down and took Ben’s hand.

Ben squeezed it but didn’t look at him. The house
had nearly been set on fire because of him.
Someone could have died.

R.C. stood. “Go to sleep, boys,” he said

gently to Ben and Grant. “We’ll sort it all out in
the morning.” Ina followed him out of the kitchen
with a single sympathetic look back at him.

Ben stood up and tugged at Grant’s hand.

“Come on.”

Grant resisted. “We need to talk.”
Oh God. If he was going to get in trouble with

Grant for the whole door thing… “Not tonight.
Please? I’m tired.”

Grant hesitated, then said, “Okay, babe.”
He wrapped his arm around Ben’s shoulders,

and they ascended the stairs side by side.

* * * *

Ben woke up stiff and sore midmorning. His

face felt puffy where he’d hit the ground, and when
he prodded it with his fingertips, it felt like his
cheekbone itself was bruised.

He pushed himself up to sitting. Grant was

gone. The other side of the bed was messy but
cold. The sun seemed high through the gauzy white

curtains, and Ben’s phone read half past nine.
Given how late the previous night had been, he felt
somewhat entitled to sleep in, but when he lay
back down, he couldn’t will himself to sleep
again.

Finally he rose, showered—there was still

dirt and ash in his hair—and went downstairs. The
house seemed to be empty, but he followed the
sound of voices to the front. Fitz was loading the
burned branches into the back of his pickup. He
was nearly done; as Ben closed the front door
behind him, Fitz slammed the tailgate shut.

Ben crossed the lawn, noting the charred

places and other evidence of the fight. The giant’s
steps had churned up holes in the gravel, which Ina
was industriously raking over.

He wasn’t too disappointed when Fitz started

the engine and drove away before Ben got to the
tree. He felt obliged to thank Fitz for dealing with
the disaster of Ben’s making, but he was still a
little nervous about approaching him, now that Ben
knew what he was.

He stood back a little, looking up at what was

left of the tree. Every last leaf had burned off, and
blackened branches forked toward the sky. What
had been lovely and summery was now barren, a
scar on the pasture.

My fault.
“Good morning!” Ina called out. “How is

your cheek?”

“Fine, thank you.” Ben shuffled closer,

sticking his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t mean to
sleep so late.”

“You needed it. Anyway, you didn’t miss

anything. Fitz and I have walked the perimeter, and
R.C.’s checked every supernatural sensor he’s got.
Cyril’s long gone, and he didn’t leave any friends
behind. Just a mess.”

My mess.
He looked up at the scorched branches above.

“I’m sorry about the tree, Ina. Was it old?”

“You never know, it might recover. The roots

are probably fine.” Ina handed off the rake to Ben.
He wasn’t sure what to do with it, but it was nice

to have something to do with his hands. “You can
make up for it by cleaning. Your counterpart was
already out here, helping bring the branches in,”
she chided playfully.

“Grant was? I wish he’d woken me up.”
She patted his arm. “It is all right. I’m teasing

you.”

Ben scraped the rake over the gravel. “Where

is he now?”

Ina didn’t answer. When Ben looked up, he

saw that her expression had gone serious. His
heart thudded. “Ina?”

“He’s…thinking. Thinking things over.”
Ben remembered belatedly that Grant had

wanted to talk last night. “About what?” I’m the
one who did this. The cagier Ina got, the more
unnerved Ben felt.

“You’ll have to talk to him.”
“Well, I want to. Where is he?”
Ina didn’t know. Ben stayed and raked for a

while, trying to make up for his mistake with more

than apologies. By the time he and Ina had gotten
the yard in order, it was almost noon. Ina asked for
his help making lunch. She said Grant was certain
to come back to the house to eat, but Ben got the
feeling she was trying to keep him occupied so that
he didn’t go searching.

That

was

annoying.

Grant

was

his

counterpart, and he’d wanted for them to talk. Ben
went along with it because he thought Grant would
show up for lunch, but he didn’t. It was Ben, Ina,
and R.C., who reported cheerfully that nothing else
had come through the door after Ben messed up his
supernatural security system.

They told him about this Cyril character too.

His name had come up the night before, and R.C.
could confirm now that he was responsible for the
giant.

Ben didn’t get too worked up at the idea that

the guy would target him and Grant. That bridge
only had to be crossed once they left the ranch, by
which time they should know how to deal with it.

Though R.C. assured him of that much, Ben

felt like he was still missing some information. Ina
did most of the talking, shooting occasional
inscrutable

looks

at

R.C.,

whose

usual

garrulousness had deserted him. R.C. tinkered with
his food, not eating, until the subject changed, at
which point he livened right up again.

File that away with all the other shit I don’t

understand.

One question, at least, he got answered. After

hemming and hawing about how to work it into the
conversation, he just asked, “What is Fitz?”

R.C. and Ina exchanged one of their looks.

Ben got the sense that they were having a silent
rock-paper-scissors game to see who had to talk
about it.

R.C. lost. “He’s a chimera.”
“I remember that from your books.” And it

wasn’t really his question. “He can see Libby. And
the Pegasus in the paddock. But—”

“Yes, he can see them. And he has a second

form. That’s what it means to be a chimera—they
alone, for some reason, have the powers of both a

seer and an adept. According to some, that means
he isn’t human.”

“We don’t think that,” Ina added quickly.
“No, of course not. Fitz is…” R.C. seemed to

search for a word. “He’s a special case, shall we
say.”

Ben was silent for a moment, trying to digest

this. Thinking back to the first day he’d met Fitz, he
asked, “Does he not like me because he’s a
chimera?”

Both the Irwins looked startled. “He doesn’t

—I’m sure he likes you,” Ina said. She seemed to
catch Ben’s skepticism and added, “He doesn’t
dislike you specifically.”

“Fitz can be a little sensitive when it comes

to lánúin,” R.C. added. “He is human, but he
doesn’t have a counterpart. His soul isn’t split, you
see, so there’s no one out there for him.”

“Oh,” Ben said again, this time more quietly.
He did see. The whole “split soul” thing had

struck him as kind of a raw deal before now. Most
people would never meet their counterparts; they’d

never be with the person who completed them.
Who wanted to be incomplete?

But how must it feel to live in the

supernatural world and know that you of all your
species didn’t have anyone else? It was one thing
not to find your counterpart, Ben thought, and
somehow different not to have one. He felt a little
sympathy for Fitz, however cranky the chimera
might be.

Above all, the conversation left him with a

keen desire to talk to his own counterpart. After
helping with the dishes, he set off in search of
Grant. Ina suggested he check the watering hole.
Ben trekked out there, but the place was deserted
except for a half-inflated pool toy shaped like an
alligator.

By the time he got back to the house, sweaty

and tired, he was beginning to feel annoyed. The
feeling increased sharply when he opened the
bedroom door and found Grant lying on the bed.

“Hi,” Ben said. “Where’d you go?”
Grant lay with his hands behind his head,

looking up at the ceiling. He turned his head to
look at Ben, but otherwise didn’t move. “Looking
for you,” he answered.

Typical. Ben sat down on the edge of the bed,

some of his anger dissipating. He reached for
Grant’s hand.

Grant slid his legs over the opposite side of

the bed, springing up to a sitting position like Ben
had goosed him. He sat with his back to Ben, his
shoulders a little hunched.

“I think it’s time to go back to San Diego.”
Ben twisted around to look at him. “Because

of the…giant thing?”

Grant shrugged, still facing away. “I’m not

learning how to transform. I don’t think I really
want to, or I would have been able to do it by now.
It wasn’t a lot of fun, not being able to breathe and
waiting for someone to shoot me with a
tranquilizer. And that’s the only point of my being
here, isn’t it?”

And for us to get to know each other. To

support each other. Ben couldn’t bring himself to

say it. Grant’s tone was too distant, too shut off.

“It sounds like you’ve made a decision

already.” Ben rubbed his hands over his jean-clad
knees. Back to San Diego. Well, it probably
wasn’t a bad idea. He’d have a few days left of
spring break to get cozy with the local fae life
before he had to get back to campus. Learning to
pretend he didn’t see fairies might take a little
practice.

When Grant didn’t reply, he went on, “I guess

we can get to know each other just as easily back
home.”

“I— What?” Ben felt Grant shift, and he

turned around to see Grant staring at him in
confusion. “I’ll go back to San Diego. You can
stay here.”

“What’s the point of that? I’ll go back with

you if you want to go.”

Grant let out an aggrieved sigh as he faced

away again. “Ben, I’m trying to break up with
you.”

“What?” Ben turned all the way around this

time. Grant stubbornly faced the wall, so Ben got
up and walked around the bed to stand right in
front of him. He made himself unavoidable.

The expression on Grant’s face wasn’t half as

resolute as his tone of voice. He couldn’t seem to
meet Ben’s eye, and he didn’t say anything more.

“Why?” Ben demanded. “Was it the door

thing?”

Am I such a colossal fuckup that you want

nothing to do with me?

“No.” Grant looked up at him now, his face

both puzzled and annoyed. “Jesus, Ben. You didn’t
do anything.”

“You mean apart from leaving the door

open?” Ben was getting confused too. “I almost got
us all killed.”

“And I couldn’t help.” Grant stood up so

suddenly that Ben had to take a step back. Grant
began moving around the bedroom restlessly. “I
couldn’t even see what was happening. Ina can
transform on the spot and be part of the action. I
can’t. I’ll never be able to—even if I learn how,

I’ll never be able to transform unless I happen to
be sitting in the middle of the ocean.”

“Okay.” Ben thought he got it now. “Okay. So

we’ll both go home. You’ll be able to get the hang
of it in San Diego. And it’s okay if you can’t
transform and see everything. I don’t know that you
want to,” he added with a little laugh.

Grant just looked at him. His expression

transmitted frustration and what Ben thought was
pity.

“That’s not the point anyway,” Grant said. “I

don’t think we’re going to, you know, work. In the
long run. It’s probably better to pull out now
before our emotions get involved.”

Ben let out an airless laugh. About a week too

late.

Grant gave him a funny look, and Ben told

himself not to try to fight that battle. He was the
idiot who’d let his heart get involved from the
start. Confusing sex and romance—it was the sort
of thing people probably did in their first
relationship. Grant would know better.

He felt like Grant was up at the top of a

mountain and Ben down at the bottom, straining to
make out the terrain up there. Of course he’d know
when it wasn’t working. It would only be Ben who
couldn’t figure that out. What an idiot he must look
from Grant’s perspective.

A kind of hopelessness filled him. He would

never be experienced like Grant. He’d never have
a lot of boyfriends. This would never be easy.

That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted

Grant, forever.

“We’re counterparts,” Ben finally said. “You

get what that means, right?” He gestured between
the two of them with his index finger. “This? Is
never going to happen again.”

“You mean turning into a monster and making

my partner think he’s lost his fucking mind? Gee, I
hope not.”

Ben wanted to back down, to crumble in the

face of Grant’s unrelenting indifference. He ought
to accept that he was out of his depth, that he was
being clingy, that Grant could never want someone

like him, not for long.

No.
“I mean finding the other half of your soul,”

Ben said firmly. “That isn’t going to happen
again.”

Grant shook his head, disbelieving. “You buy

that?”

“Why would I doubt it? I see magical

creatures. The idea that we have souls, and that
someone else’s completes mine, isn’t any more
unbelievable, is it? Especially because I feel it.”

He paused. Now the thing to do was to tell

Grant that he loved him.

And expose himself to Grant’s ridicule? His

rejection?

Before he could commit to saying it, Grant

replied, “I don’t.”

Ben made himself take a deep breath. Grant’s

attention had strayed to the window. His posture
was hunched and defensive.

Ben exhaled. “I don’t believe you.”

Something dangerous passed over Grant’s

countenance. “Are you saying I’m a liar?”

“Yes.” Ben made himself stand up straight

and stare Grant down. “You do care about me.” He
reached into the part of himself where he could
feel it. Grant had become a part of him. “I even
think you love me.”

Grant looked alarmed at the word. “Are you

insane?”

“Nope. But I can still see fairies. The

connection is emotional, not physical, remember?
If you really didn’t care about me, I’d have gone
back to normal.”

Point to Ben. Grant glared at him and didn’t

seem to be able to think of anything to say.

Except: “That’s exactly what I mean. You

should go back to normal. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Ben’s heart jumped painfully. He tried to

stand firm. “Nope.”

He could almost see Grant losing his temper.

“Well, I’m getting on a plane. I think you’ll find
that means I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not.”
Grant stood and took two steps toward Ben,

close enough that the difference in their heights
became meaningful. Grant loomed. “Yes, I am.”

“No.”
“What are you, five? You can’t just keep

saying ‘no.’”

“If I do, maybe you’ll snap out of it and stop

being a jerk.”

Grant’s eyes narrowed. Ben was angry, and a

small part of him was sincerely frightened that
Grant would go. But with Grant standing this
close, a delicious kind of excitement bubbled up
from deep in his stomach. The intent, fixed look in
Grant’s eye stirred his cock.

Weirdo. You’re turned on because he’s

mad?

There was virtually nothing about Grant that

didn’t have the potential to turn him on. Ben was
aware of the tension in his muscular shoulders, the
firmness of his beautiful lips.

Focus. He went on, “I don’t believe a word

you’ve said—about not caring about me, about
leaving, all of that. You don’t believe it, either.
We’re good for each other. You love me.” His
mouth was dry. Now or never. “I love you.”

He didn’t want Grant to reply. He was still

too scared about what cold, hurtful thing might
come out of his mouth.

All he had to do was take a step closer. He

pressed his hands to Grant’s shoulders, leaning up,
and covered Grant’s lips with his.

That’ll keep you quiet.
He half expected Grant to pull away, but he

matched Ben’s aggression. Grant’s fingers tangled
in his hair while the other hand hoisted him by the
ass.

The kiss was a fight. Both of them tried to

dominate it. Ben felt himself losing and didn’t
care. Grant bit his lip, sharp enough to bring a
little bite of pain and a huge rush of pleasure. His
tongue lit up nerve endings everywhere it touched.
Ben felt himself sinking back down on his heels.

They pulled apart as quickly as they’d fallen

together. Grant looked startled and breathless.

Ben gripped his shoulders tightly, but when

Grant pushed him, Ben fell, yelping, his arms
pinwheeling. His knees caught the edge of the bed.
As he flopped onto his back, Grant’s knees came
down on either side of his hips. Grant caught his
hands and held them overhead.

Possession was written all over his

counterpart’s face. Ben was a little alarmed by the
intensity of that expression, but he liked it.

He glanced down to Grant’s crotch. No

surprises there. Grant looked every bit as hard as
Ben was. So Grant liked it too.

Then Grant froze, gazing down at Ben with

his chest heaving. His expression changed
somewhere behind his eyes. Ben waited for him to
say something, but for almost a minute he didn’t
move.

Though Grant seemed to be having some sort

of internal conversation, no part of it leaked out for
Ben to interpret. The only communication between

them was Grant’s look—lustful, passionate, still a
little angry.

And scared.
Ben’s chest squeezed around his heart. He

wanted to say he understood. To feel this much this
fast was terrifying—but they were in it together!
They didn’t have to be scared by themselves.

No. Saying that would get him nowhere,

unless he wanted to watch Grant’s defenses come
slamming back down.

“I want you to fuck me.”
On the one hand it was better than talking,

since talking accomplished nothing. And it was
simply true—God, did he want Grant to fuck him.
Even if Grant had been prepared to bare his soul
and declare his love at that moment, Ben would
still have wanted a piece of that cock afterward.

His words seemed to break the spell. Grant

leaned back. He eased the pressure on Ben’s
wrists, but that uncertain look lingered in his eyes.
“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

Grant started to smile, then caught himself.

“I’m still not happy with you.”

Ben tried to sit up, only to be pushed back to

the bed. He was hardly surprised by that.

It was exactly what he’d wanted.
“Then show me how you feel,” he said.

Chapter Seven

Lust lit Ben’s eyes as Grant stared down into

them. Every nerve in Grant’s body felt alive and
tingling.

God, he’s sexy when he’s being obnoxious.
Grant leaned forward again, letting the weight

of his hips rest on Ben. “You’re saying maybe I
should take it out on your ass?”

Their cocks were right next to each other,

stymied by layers of fabric. Grant felt himself
harden even more as Ben pressed his hips upward
and said, “Whatever you want. I’m yours.”

Grant felt himself smile. “You may regret

that.”

Ben blinked, his confidence almost visibly

fading. If he thought he was going to continue
manipulating this situation, he was wrong. Grant
was in charge now.

Grant sat back and began unbuckling Ben’s

belt. Anticipation fizzed up and down his skin,

leaving goose bumps behind.

“Take off your shirt,” Grant said. He didn’t

get off Ben’s hips, which would have made it
easier, but Ben managed to wiggle out of his shirt
and throw it to the floor.

Grant caught hold of Ben’s wrists again. This

time he brought them together above his head and
began binding them with Ben’s belt.

Ben craned his neck. “What are you…?”
“Hush. You said you’re mine, and I want to

make sure you stay where I want you.” He tugged
at the belt. “Wiggle your fingers.”

He saw Ben shiver as he complied. That was

sexy. His baby liked being tied up.

Grant caught himself. Not mine. Ben isn’t

mine.

He told himself not to think about it.
“Good,” Grant said. He got off Ben’s hips.

“Up at the top of the bed.”

He let Ben figure out how to maneuver

without the use of his hands. Grant hid his smile as

Ben wiggled his way to the headboard. By the time
he was in place, Grant had gotten his own belt off.

Bringing Ben’s hands over his head, Grant

began looping the second belt around the
horizontal wooden beam of the headboard. It was a
good thing the Irwins favored sturdy furniture.

Ben tried to twist his head around to see what

was happening as Grant fastened his bound hands
to the bed frame. “This isn’t your first time doing
this, is it?”

“Nope.” Grant stood up and stepped back.

Standing where Ben could see him, he began to
leisurely strip off his shirt.

Ben watched him with evident longing as he

undressed. The look on his face became downright
pained as Grant stepped out of his jeans.
Straightening, he hooked his thumb in the
waistband of his boxers and ran it back and forth.

“You want me to take these off?”
“It looks like you want to.” Ben’s eyes were

fixed on Grant’s crotch. His fingers flexed a little
above his head. Wanting to touch.

“You, my friend, are in no position to talk.”

Grant dropped his gaze, and Ben squirmed his
hips.

He lost the boxers in one swift movement.

His cock sprang free. As he climbed back onto the
bed, Ben licked his lips.

“Nuh-uh.” Grant unbuttoned Ben’s jeans. “It’s

my turn.”

He worked Ben’s cock out of his boxers.

Without bothering to push down his pants, he
swooped over it and sucked it deep into his mouth.

Ben arched and moaned. Grant planted his

hands on Ben’s hips to keep him where he was. He
drew his lips to the tip and lapped a bead of salty
precum from Ben’s slit.

Ben was trying to spread his legs and lift his

hips. Hampered by his clothes and Grant’s firm
grip, he moaned again.

This was more rewarding than it had been

with any other lover Grant had given head to. Ben
reacted to every touch, every change in tempo. He
cried out so prettily that Grant caught himself

rocking his hips against the bed, desperate to
relieve the pressure building in his own cock.

He was careful to keep Ben away from his

edge. If his balls began to draw in or his cries rose
to a certain pitch, Grant backed off. It was clearly
getting to Ben, who changed from indistinct
moaning to a steady chant of “please, please,
please.”

Grant pulled off him. He lapped slowly from

the root of Ben’s cock to the underside of the
glans, then said, “Please what, babe?”

“Oh God.” It didn’t look like Grant was going

to get a more coherent reply, not immediately. Ben
had grabbed hold of the belt where it bound him to
the bed like he was dying to do something with his
hands.

Grant turned his attention back to Ben’s cock.

Gorgeous. He blew a cool current of air over the
damp, red skin. Ben let out another strangled plea.

Grant crawled backward until he could stand

at the foot of the bed. “Lift your hips.” Ben’s legs
were shaking, but he managed. Grant pulled his

pants and boxers off in one, worked them off Ben’s
feet, and dropped them on the floor. Then he stood
back to survey his handiwork—Ben, bound and
naked. Trembling with desire. His cock erect,
slick and swollen from the attentions of Grant’s
mouth.

His counterpart. Deep affection welled up in

him as his eyes met Ben’s.

Ben was into this: he was breathing fast, and

he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Grant. He’d
stopped moving his hands around and instead
seemed to have relaxed into being tied up. He
watched Grant with something like adoration.

Grant had to admit he got a kick out of it too.

He palmed his own cock and began stroking it. He
kept his eyes on Ben, enjoying the feeling Ben’s
look gave him—like he was powerful and capable.
Like he was irresistible.

Ben took a shuddering breath. “Please,” he

said again.

“Tell me what you want me to do, babe, and

I’ll do it.”

Ben watched Grant stroke himself. He

squirmed again, putting his feet flat on the bed.
That seemed unlikely to help him with his erection.

“Fuck me,” he gasped.
Grant smiled wickedly and continued to lazily

jack himself off. “Be more specific.”

He was pretty sure Ben had never tried

talking dirty before, but perhaps desperation
inspired him. “I want you to fuck me. Hard. I want
to feel you filling my ass up.”

Grant’s cock throbbed harder. Just hearing

Ben talk about it wound him up tighter.

The feeling seemed to be mutual. Ben’s head

dropped back, the rise and fall of his ribs
accelerating. “I want you to come inside me. Make
me come.” The pitch of his voice rose a little.
“Just fuck me.”

Grant made himself let go of his dick, as there

was suddenly a serious danger of him coming.
“Okay, babe.”

Moving fast, he retrieved a condom and a

bottle of lube from his bag on the floor. He had the

condom on and slicked in ten seconds flat, and then
he was hooking Ben’s ankles over his shoulders.
He lined his cock up with Ben’s asshole and then
paused.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Grant.” Ben moved his hips, trying to fuck

himself onto Grant’s cock. The motion pressed
Grant slightly inside the tight, slick ring of muscle.

He smacked Ben’s ass cheek. “Hold still.”
Ben moaned. Grant would have laughed if he

weren’t using all his energy to not ram hard into
Ben in one stroke. Ben was so keyed up that Grant
could probably tickle the sole of his foot and he’d
come.

Grant wasn’t any better off.
He pressed forward, his eyes glued to Ben’s

face. If he winced or made a sound Grant didn’t
like, he’d back out. Grant hadn’t fingered him
beforehand, but Ben accepted his cock beautifully.
He pushed out against the intrusion, and Grant slid
home.

As he shifted position, his abs rubbed the

head of Ben’s dick. Ben gasped.

“Too much?”
“No.” Ben rocked his hips. “It burns, but it’s

amazing.”

“You sure?”
“More!” Ben moved his hips again, managing

to work Grant a little deeper in the process.

He was being pretty pushy for someone

whose hands were bound. Grant wanted to torture
him a little by going slowly, but he didn’t have it in
him.

“I will fuck you”—he thrust his hips—“when

I’m ready.” He punctuated the statement with
another hard dig, driving him deeper than ever.

“Oh God.” Ben let his head loll back against

the pillows.

The pace he set was quick and sharp. Ben

stopped squirming around and met every thrust.
The hollow at the base of his throat glistened with
sweat. The long, lean muscles in his arms stood
out as he strained against the belt. His eyelashes

fluttered closed with pleasure.

“You like that?” Grant panted.
“Yes. More. Harder.” Ben squeezed his anal

muscles. It was like a vise coming down on
Grant’s cock.

With an appreciative grunt, Grant picked up

the pace. He shifted, coming down onto his
elbows. This folded Ben practically in half—Ben
looked a little startled to have accomplished this
position—and pinned Ben’s cock between their
bodies. Grant slipped deeper inside him,
enveloped to the root with every forward thrust.

This position would also, hopefully, find his

—

“Ahh!” Ben arched, hard, as Grant thrust into

him.

Found it.
Grant slid deeper into the tight heat of Ben’s

ass. This was so good. His consciousness
narrowed, honing in on the sweet friction against
his cock.

Ben’s face was flushed, ecstatic. His lips

parted, and he let out a breathless “Grant!” Then
he came.

Hot cum spattered against Grant’s stomach.

Every muscle in Ben’s body seemed to clench with
the force of his orgasm. The tightness around
Grant’s cock increased, and in a few sharp strokes
he was right at the edge. He dropped his head and
froze, his hips pressed forward hard. His orgasm
swept over him in a dizzying wave. The pleasure
overwhelmed him.

He stilled as it passed. They were both

breathless. Grant tried to press himself back to his
hands, but his trembling arms gave out. He rolled
to the side to avoid crushing Ben, and his dick
slipped free. Groaning, Grant flopped to the bed.
The comforter stuck to his face.

It took some effort, but he propped an eye

open. “Hands okay?”

“Yeah.” From this angle he could see Ben’s

chest rising and falling but not his face. His voice
sounded dazed.

Grant wanted to lie motionless for the rest of

the day—it was day, he remembered. Jesus, had
the Irwins heard all that?

He didn’t really care if they had.
He sat up with another groan. After disposing

of the condom, he carefully unbound Ben’s hands.
He knelt on the bed, massaging them. Ben had
tugged pretty hard, and Grant worried he’d be
bruised. Maybe he would invest in some padded
cuffs or something.

No. No planning for the future.
“What?” Ben’s voice prompted Grant to look

toward him. Ben was watching his face. “You just
closed off. I saw it.”

Uneasy, Grant said nothing. When he had

satisfied himself that Ben’s wrists were all right,
he lay down next to him again. Ben made room but
then snuggled close to him.

He tucked his head under Grant’s chin. They

fit well together. Effortlessly. Even though he was
sticky and sweaty, Grant just wanted to lie here.

“It’s like one in the afternoon, you know,” he

said perversely. “We can’t just go to sleep.”

“Why not?” Ben murmured. “That was

wonderful. I’ve never come so hard in my life.”
He wiggled a little closer, sighing contentedly. “I
don’t think I can get up.”

Grant closed his eyes. He was conscious of

how much of their conversation was unfinished.
Sated as he was, it was impossible to conjure up
the anger he’d felt earlier. He only felt sad.

He pulled back, tipped Ben’s face up with his

fingertips, and met his eyes. His skin was still
flushed, his hair tousled. Large, calm brown eyes
looked up at him. Grant was cowed by the love
and the trust Ben emitted with just a look.

His fingertips brushed just beneath the bruise

on Ben’s cheek. It was darker than it had been last
night. He’d had to work hard not to see it while
they were fucking.

“I didn’t protect you,” he whispered.
Ben grabbed his hand and held it between

their chests. “You don’t have to.”

He didn’t answer. Ina understood. Grant

would bet other adepts did too.

Grant turned his head for a kiss. Ben’s lips

brushed his softly, and when Grant pulled away, he
looked sleepy and sedate. His body was utterly
relaxed in Grant’s arms.

It was the middle of the day. Ina and R.C.

were probably wondering where they were. But he
couldn’t make himself get out of the bed.

“Take a nap, babe,” he said. “I’ll wake you

up in a little while.”

Ben tucked his head close again. As if he’d

been waiting for Grant’s permission, he was
asleep in a matter of moments.

* * * *

It was dusk when Ben woke up. Disoriented,

he thought it was morning for a few minutes as he
lay with his eyes closed. Only when his mind
began to wake up and backtrack—the sex, the
argument—did he sit up and check the time. He’d
slept most of the afternoon.

Even though he hadn’t known when it was,

he’d been aware that Grant wasn’t in bed beside
him. Ben felt sticky and grimy. Though he wished
Grant were here—he wanted to wake up next to
him—he had to sympathize if Grant had wanted to
clean up.

The shower felt great, but it wasn’t sufficient

to wake up his brain. As he wandered downstairs,
he wondered if he wouldn’t have done better to
sleep through the night. Tired as he was from last
night’s excitement, he could have.

No one was in the house. The kitchen was

dark and silent even though it was dinnertime. An
uneasy premonition stole over Ben as he stood
looking at the countertops. If something else bad
had happened, they would have woken him, right?
At least he should have heard some alarms going
off?

He didn’t hear someone behind him until a

footstep squeaked in the doorway of the kitchen.
Ben whirled around to find Libby—in her
approximately human form—standing in the
doorway.

“God.” He put his hand over his heart. “You

scared me.”

She sashayed over to the table and stood

there, her arms crossed over her chest. “Looking
for your counterpart?”

“Yeah. Where is everybody?”
“Oh, let’s see.” She unfolded her arms and

began to count off her fingers. “R.C. is in his
workshop. Fitz is in the barn. The salamanders are
in that tree you burned down. The gnome is in the
carrots—”

“Where’s Grant?”
He caught the gleam of malice in Libby’s

eyes, and that uneasy feeling came back.

“I’m getting there,” she said and continued

counting. “Ina’s driving back to the ranch. And
Grant…” She held out the index finger of her other
hand, looking between it and the five fingers she’d
counted out already. “Let’s see. Grant is far, far
away. He’s probably somewhere over Arizona
right now.”

He couldn’t breathe. He only managed to

wheeze out, “What?”

The front door banged open, and steps hurried

down the hall. Libby went on, “Or maybe he’s still
in Austin. But by the time you get there”—she gave
him that feral grin—“he’ll be gone.”

R.C. burst into the kitchen doorway, catching

himself on the frame and narrowly avoiding
barreling into Libby. He was out of breath. “Ben!
I’m glad I—”

“Grant’s gone?” Ben felt disconnected from

his body. He looked at R.C. and Libby without
seeing either of them. There had been no note, no
good-bye. Grant had only held him and told him to
sleep…

I’ll wake you up in a little while. No, he’d

slipped away like a thief. Like a coward.

Somewhere, R.C. was saying, “Libby, that

was not kind.” Libby was cackling. Then Ben was
alone with R.C., who was making him sit down
and drink some water.

R.C. dropped into a squat in front of him. His

forehead creased. “I wanted to get back here to tell

you before you woke up. It seems Libby beat me to
it. I’m sorry, Ben.”

He just held the water, feeling the shape and

the hardness of the glass. He didn’t want to believe
any of this was real. “What did he say?”

“Nothing much. He’d arranged his ticket for

tomorrow, but he got it changed. Ina said he was
going to tell you about it today.” R.C. sighed. “He
talked Ina into taking him to the airport this
afternoon. I wouldn’t do it.”

“Why did she?” That hurt too. Ina was his

friend, he’d thought. He would have expected both
the Irwins to reason with Grant.

“Something about Grant wanting to keep you

safe.” R.C. shook his head. “I told him that both of
you are only safe here, but I couldn’t make him
stay. He would have hitchhiked to Austin—walked
there, if he had to—so Ina drove him.”

Ben dropped his chin. His sinuses burned, but

he didn’t let himself cry. That Grant had left was
painful, appalling. He hadn’t even begun to feel
angry and betrayed. But there was one thing that

still gave him hope.

Before he could ask R.C. about it, Ina’s voice

called, “Hello? The door’s open.”

R.C. stood up. “In the kitchen.”
She joined them but leaned against the door

frame. “So you told him,” she said to R.C.

“I could see Libby,” Ben said.
R.C. looked back to him. “Yes. I’m glad you

realize that.”

“Will

I

know?

If

he—breaks

our

connection?”

“It might take a few days. Only death can

sever a connection quickly. Otherwise it will just
fade.”

That meant it might have begun already, but

R.C.’s words still gave Ben a sort of confidence.
He was scared of the supernatural world turning
off, like someone had thrown a switch—not
because of the thing itself but because of what it
represented.

But he still had to ask, “What if I still love

him?”

R.C. looked remorseful. “It takes two people

to form the connection, but one person to break it.”

Then it was his job to keep that from

happening.

“I have to go,” Ben said.
Ina stood up from the door frame. “I’ll drive

you.”

That surprised Ben. “Really? I thought—” He

stopped himself from finishing the sentence. I
thought you were on Grant’s side.

It seemed childish, but it was true.
Ina anticipated his words. “Grant wanted to

go, so I helped. You want to go, so of course I’ll
help.” She smiled. “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

“Ina,” R.C. said in a warning voice. “This

isn’t a good idea.”

“Why not?” Ben asked.
“Cyril will go after Grant. If not now, then

later. He’ll be all too happy to use you however he
can—as a way to get Grant or as a way to hurt

him.”

“You’re telling me that somebody wants to

hurt him and you think that’ll make me stay here?”
He stood up. “I have to go.”

“Excellent!” Ina said. “I’ll help you pack.”
She disappeared into the hallway, leaving

Ben with R.C. again.

Looking tired and older, R.C. shook his head.

“You’re walking right into his trap, Ben. I can’t
protect you if you’re not here.”

“I know. Thank you for all your help, but I

have to go if Grant’s in trouble. Isn’t that what
you’d do for Ina?”

R.C.’s expression softened. “Yes. I would.”
Ben shrugged. That settled it. “I know you

guys don’t think I’m capable, but he might need me
to protect him.”

“Oh, on the contrary.” R.C. put his hand on

Ben’s shoulder, a fatherly gesture. “You’re
capable. And a good thing. Grant is probably going
to need your help.”

He let his hand drop and said only, “Find

him.”

Chapter Eight

The first kiss of the ocean on Grant’s face

was heaven. The water was stingingly cold, but it
woke him up. As he swam out through the
breakers, the long, bad night he’d spent back in his
apartment faded away. He forgot his sleeplessness
and his guilt and the lonely ache of not being in
bed with Ben. All that remained was him and the
ocean and his board.

Half an hour on the water cleared his mind.

The sun was coming up, painting the western
expanse of the horizon a calming blue-gray. Out
beyond the surf, Grant sat up on his board and
looked toward the shore.

For a little while there, he’d been able to

clear his mind of Ben, but as soon as he was still,
his counterpart rushed back into his thoughts. Ben
tucked close beside him yesterday, trusting him…

It’s for his sake . Grant had told himself that

so many times that the words no longer meant

anything. He forced himself to believe it again.
Once our connection dies, Ben won’t be a seer. If
he’s not a seer and I’m not an adept, Cyril has no
use for us.

He didn’t know how long it would take for

the connection to go away, but once it happened,
they’d go back to being normal people. Safe.

And alone.
He tried giving himself a different kind of pep

talk. Grant worked better as a free agent, anyway
—always had. So what if he was bad at
relationships? It worked out for him. It was fine if
he was no good at the supernatural shit, either,
because soon it would all be gone.

The idea of being free and independent didn’t

sit with him the same as it used to. He told himself
he’d forget about Ben—that it was best to forget
about him—but he didn’t believe it. Sitting out
here, it was hard not to think about how much he’d
been looking forward to teaching Ben to surf. In
fact, there wasn’t any aspect of his life that he
hadn’t begun to see Ben as a part of.

Not ready to go back to his apartment, Grant

flopped into the water and floated, tethered to his
board. He let his senses be saturated by the smell
of brine, the slow breeze and the stronger tug of the
tide. The water was cold, but it was home.

He didn’t think, I’m going to change. He

didn’t think about Ina’s coaching. He just slipped
his face under the waves and opened something
inside him that had been closed.

The first breath of water was a revelation.
When his eyes opened, Grant was so startled

he almost changed back without meaning to. That
had been so fucking easy! His tail lashed behind
him, and he shot forward. The water was
frictionless. Moving in it was effortless. Grant
twisted around, feeling the power rippling through
his long neck and broad tail. He looked at his
flippers, experimenting with moving the bones in
them that were normally his fingers.

Something darted beyond his flippers, and he

looked out.

The water around him teemed. Grant had

never been able to see underwater, not with the
muck the surf churned up and the salt stinging his
eyes. But he had twenty-twenty vision in this form.

And he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have

been able to see this stuff when he was human.

A school of fish darted away from him,

glowing golden like fireflies. He caught glimpses
of serpentine creatures, none as large as himself,
twisting through the muck. Something like a
stingray but shaped all wrong sailed past below.
Grant turned in the water and came face-to-face
with a fish that had the head of a dog. It darted
away from him in a cloud of bubbles.

He remembered Ben saying something about

him not wanting to go into the water. Ben must
have been able to see some of the wildlife even
from the shore. Obviously the profusion of aquatic
fae had scared him.

Grant didn’t feel scared at all. For one thing,

he was much bigger than all the fish surrounding
him, and everything seemed to give him a wide
berth. For another, it was cool.

He was a fucking water dragon!
Leaving his board at the surface, he propelled

himself deep underwater, skimming the ocean
floor. Delighted in his new form, he practiced
somersaults and barrel rolls, breaching the surface
when he felt like it. The world of the air seemed
foreign, but getting to plunge below the surface
again was like discovering it anew. Smaller
creatures fled before him. Grant chased some and
eyed the thrashing legs of surfers from a distance.
He felt sorry for the poor land-bound creatures.

When he began to tire, he just floated. He

rolled onto his back, his flippers keeping him
poised five feet below the surface. The sunlight
shot through the water, warming and illuminating
it. Grant felt how the sea supported him, a watery
embrace. A comfort, though it couldn’t hold a
candle to being held by…

Ben.
At once Grant didn’t feel contented or

peaceful anymore. The monster part of his mind
submitted to his human side. And his human side

missed Ben desperately.

All the pleasure drained out of him. He swam

to the surface and found his surfboard. When he’d
dragged it back to the breakers, he changed back.

The feel of his bones contracting and his skin

shrinking was acutely painful. Had he really not
noticed that happening when he changed the first
time?

It felt as though all his energy had gone the

way of his fins. Grant dragged himself back to
shore, feeling ready to drop. He registered that
there was someone standing on the shore, but he
was preoccupied instead with the way the rest of
his day—his week, his life—stretched out ahead of
him. No Ben.

He shouldn’t have tried changing, he thought

sadly. It would have been better for him not to
know what it felt like to swim as a water dragon,
rather than lose it as soon as he’d found it.

But he could still transform. Clearly their

connection was still intact; Grant realized he
should have asked Ina how long it took for it to go

away. Uneasily he remembered R.C. saying that
the bond was emotional, not physical. Grant had
assumed leaving Ben in Texas would put an end to
their connection. If that wasn’t true, if he actually
had to stop caring about Ben…

Fuck. This was a stupid plan.
Grant dropped his board on the sand and

began to stretch halfheartedly. He only noticed the
other man on the beach approaching him when he
was twenty feet away.

For a fraction of a second, he thought it could

be Ben. Grant stood up fast.

The man was a stranger. Unremarkable—

blond hair getting thrown around by the wind.
Sunglasses despite the overcast weather. Late
thirties, maybe. The most notable thing about him
was that he wasn’t dressed for the beach. Grant
was pretty sure those fancy leather shoes would
never be the same after getting shuffled through the
sand.

No business of his, of course, except this guy

was walking right toward him.

When the man was close enough, he called

out, “Magnificent show!”

Grant straightened up again. He’s not talking

to me, is he? There was nobody else on the beach.
Even the other surfers had mostly gone home as the
wind started to pick up.

“What?”
The man spread his arms wide. The suit he

was wearing was awfully fancy for a beach on a
Thursday morning. “Your second form. You’re a
marvel.”

That got Grant’s attention. He’d been casual

about splashing around out there because he’d
assumed no one on the beach would be able to see
him. Now that seemed incredibly dumb. He wasn’t
invisible in his second form, not to a seer.

“Do I know you?” Grant asked.
“We haven’t met. I know about you, though.

Grant Moody, the water dragon. There aren’t too
many of you around.” The man folded his hands
behind his back. He turned his head a little to one
side,

considering

Grant

from

behind

his

sunglasses. “My name is Soldati. Cyril Soldati.”

Shit.
That Cyril knew he even existed was baffling,

but Grant realized Ina had always taken it as a
given when she spoke of Cyril coming after him.
Word must have gotten out. After all, there were
other supernatural creatures on the ranch; hell,
Grant had probably seen Cyril himself the day
before the giant attacked.

He felt somehow betrayed, but there was

nothing to be done. Cyril was here, and all Grant’s
efforts to fly under the radar—wait for the
connection to lapse and safety to come—hadn’t
been enough to stop him.

Grant’s chest tightened. Again, he hadn’t

protected Ben. Again.

He tried to concentrate on his immediate

situation. Grant was wearing a wet suit. He had a
surfboard and the key to his house and that was it.
He didn’t even have shoes. If this fuck wad wanted
to fight him, he was screwed. No weapons.

Idiot. You are a weapon.

Retreat into the water? There were worse

ideas. Cyril was a seer; even if he had been an
adept, the odds of him being able to chase Grant
into the ocean were low.

He wasn’t sure what would happen after that.

He’d never discussed this with R.C. and Ina. How
the hell was he supposed to get rid of this guy?

“I can tell you’ve heard of me.” Cyril didn’t

sound displeased by that. “How is old R.C.? Ina
still putting up with him?”

The part of Grant’s brain not whirling in

panic thought, Yeah, duh, they’re counterparts.

He remembered what this man had done to his

counterpart.

Thank God Ben isn’t here.
The thought steadied him a little. This guy

was just a guy—okay, he was a guy who had sent a
giant to torch Zephyr Ranch, but he was still
human. It was even good that he was here. Ina had
said Cyril didn’t value other seers: they were
means to get to a powerful or useful adept. To
Cyril, Ben was just a way to Grant.

And Ben was safe in Texas, which freed the

majority of Grant’s brain to stop worrying about
him and start getting away from this asshole.

“R.C. did tell me about you,” he said. “I’m

not interested in…” He waved his hands vaguely.
“In whatever you’re interested in.”

Grant picked up his board. Like it’s gonna be

that easy.

It wasn’t. A fine line etched between Cyril’s

eyebrows. “You’re not exactly giving me a chance
to make my case, Grant. Don’t you want to hear
what I have to offer?”

“Nope. I’m going now. Don’t follow me.”

Though it made his skin crawl, he turned his back
to Cyril and pointed himself in the direction of the
stairs off the beach.

He got three steps away before Cyril said, “I

ask you to reconsider.”

His voice slid up Grant’s spine like the edge

of a knife. He stopped and turned back.

Cyril put his hands in the pockets of his fancy

slacks, his back to the surf. He wasn’t a big man—

he was, in fact, a solid six inches shorter than
Grant—but he projected utter confidence.

Grant wasn’t getting out of this without letting

Cyril state his case. “Just tell me what you want.”

“Your help. You have a powerful second

form.” He jacked a thumb toward the water. “I
have to admit that so far my efforts have
concentrated on land-based forms. I don’t have the
kind of access you do.

“You can collect information for me, help me

understand who’s in charge down there. In time
you’ll be the one in charge.”

Grant wondered what made this lunatic think

he had any ambition to rule the underwater side of
the supernatural world. His first instinct was to tell
Cyril where he could put his suggestions, but a
voice of reason kept him quiet for a moment.

What did he expect to happen if he just

walked away from Cyril? There was no way he’d
be that easy to get rid of. “Any lánúin who won’t
help him is his enemy,” Ina had said. If Grant
made an enemy of Cyril…

Not only did Grant have no idea how long it

would take for his connection to Ben to fade, he
also had a feeling that simply walking away from
Ben wasn’t going to do the trick—not when every
cell in his body was still yearning for his
counterpart.

His first plan was starting to look really

fucking dumb.

“It’s in your best interests to work with me,”

Cyril went on. “I doubt R.C. and Ina were fair
when they told you about me, but that doesn’t
matter. They didn’t paint you a clear picture of
what things are like in the supernatural world,
either, and that you should know.” He closed the
distance between them again. “The status quo is
changing. R.C. and Ina…” He shook his head a
little. “When the world changes, it won’t be their
world anymore. But it can be your world, Grant.”

Grant sort of hated himself for it, but he tried

the idea on. Did he want to work for this jerk? No.
But what if the only way to be safe in the
supernatural world, a world with Cyril in it, was

to take his side?

So long as Grant could keep Cyril happy, he

and Ben would be fine. Maybe it wouldn’t be so
bad to be this guy’s lackey, Grant thought as he
eyed Cyril over. And in any case, he’d be able to
stay with Ben.

His heart lifted at that thought. How bad

could any life be if it didn’t require him to
abandon his counterpart?

But then he tried to imagine making this case

to Ben. His sweet, honest Ben would not want to
do Cyril’s dirty work, and Grant had no doubt the
work would be dirty. How long would he have
before Cyril asked him to kill somebody? How
long, for that matter, before Cyril began using
Ben’s safety and happiness to force Grant’s
compliance?

This guy wasn’t like the Irwins. There was no

doubt about whose side Grant would rather be on.

He took a breath and let it out slowly. He was

impressed when he managed to speak calmly. “No
thanks. Is that all?”

Cyril ticked his head to one side. It bothered

Grant that he couldn’t see the man’s eyes through
those sunglasses. “Just ‘no’?”

“I’m not interested in working with you.” He

still didn’t know how to get out of this, either, and
he didn’t want to put his back to an angry Cyril—
not that he looked angry, or even dangerous. But he
sure as hell felt dangerous.

So Grant stood his ground and waited. Your

move, asshole.

Cyril shook his head slowly, almost sadly

except for the mocking turn of his mouth. “That’s a
shame, Grant. But I can see there’s no use arguing.
R.C. has done his work, warning you not to listen
to me.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and
began tapping at the screen as he spoke. “It’s a
shame he didn’t also warn you about the
consequences of refusing me.”

Well, he had, but Grant didn’t see what the

phone call was about. Cyril lifted the phone to his
ear and held up a finger for Grant to hold on. After
a pause he said, “Go ahead and kill him.”

Grant’s heart started pounding. He’s bluffing.
Cyril listened to whoever was on the other

end of the connection. “Fine.” He hung up and
glanced expectantly at Grant.

Okay. My move. Grant couldn’t help but take

the bait. “Who was that?”

“That was in regards to your counterpart.”

Cyril casually thumbed the touch screen. The
bored attitude didn’t seem like an act to Grant.
This was genuinely business as usual.

“Ben’s in Texas.”
“Hm? No, he’s not.” Cyril put the phone back

in his pocket and frowned at Grant. “He’s not far
off at all, actually.”

Bluffing bluffing bluffing. If Ben had left

Zephyr… Grant couldn’t even finish the thought.

There was a silence in which Cyril

considered him thoughtfully. Grant had no idea
what to do, so he asked, “You’re going to kill me
too?”

“Why would I do that? For one thing, you’d

feel tempted to transform and drag me into the
Pacific, and I like this suit.” Cyril gave what
passed for a smile.

Grant looked around the beach. They were

alone. So far away that they were almost specks, a
woman was walking a dog.

If a horde of fiery giants was going to

descend on him, though, he wouldn’t see it coming.

Cyril let out a little laugh that sent chills

down Grant’s spine. “You don’t get it at all. Why
should I kill you when I can still use you? We’ll be
in touch, Grant. Come find me when you want your
powers back.” He paused and added, “My
condolences.”

He turned and began walking away. Grant felt

paralyzed with panic for a few seconds. The first
instinct that returned to him was the one that said
he should pummel Cyril and maybe, for good
measure, do as he had mentioned and drag him
underwater.

Then reason kicked in. He needed to get

home, call Ben, and reassure himself that he was

far, far away from this situation.

And if he’s not?
If he were somehow here in San Diego…

Grant hesitated a moment longer. He couldn’t risk
it. There was no way he could get to Ben before
Cyril’s minions did, not when Grant had no idea
where Ben was.

He dropped his board and yelled, “Wait!”
Cyril turned to watch Grant run after him. He

came to a stop a few feet away.

“Yes?” Cyril asked coolly.
Grant had no plan. He caught himself holding

his hands out toward Cyril as if imploring him. His
heart was pounding, his thoughts pulled in a
hundred directions even though there was only one
thing he could do right now.

“I’ll work with you,” Grant said desperately.

“I’ll do whatever you want! Just don’t hurt him.”
He made himself take a breath. There was no use
getting both of them into this if it didn’t protect
Ben. “I’m yours, but you have to leave Ben alone.
Call your people off.”

Cyril sighed. “No, I don’t think so.”
Grant stared at him helplessly. He was giving

the bastard what he wanted! Why wasn’t it
working?

“This is probably the best way to go about

our arrangement anyway. You’re more useful to me
without a counterpart,” Cyril said. “Counterparts
mean mixed loyalties, complications…”

Grant’s mouth was dry. “You’re talking about

the other half of a person’s soul.”

He remembered Ben saying to him that he felt

it. Grant had pretended not to, but he did: Ben was
a part of him. How could he have ever let him out
of his sight?

“You’ve really bought R.C.’s line, haven’t

you?” Cyril seemed faintly amused. “Perhaps he
also told you about a device of mine. It can keep
an adept in the supernatural world after his
counterpart’s dead. Do you see? I’m your only way
to keep hold of that water dragon of yours.”

His smug pleasure made Grant sick. “Yeah,”

he heard himself say. “I get it.”

Cyril had it all figured out: he could control

someone’s access to the supernatural world
without the “complication” of a counterpart. He
saw the supernatural like an addiction, something
no one would willingly give up.

To someone like Cyril, having access to that

power was the only thing that mattered.

But Grant couldn’t see anything mattering

ever again if he lost Ben.

“I don’t like being refused,” Cyril said. “I’ll

give you a few days to bury your dead, feel what
it’s like to be stuck in the real world again. Then
come find me.”

He turned away again. This time Grant didn’t

attempt to follow. He watched the little blond man
stroll down the beach, utterly unafraid of putting
his back to Grant.

The words bury your dead went around and

around the inside of his head.

Grant sprinted up the beach.

Chapter Nine

The demon, or whatever it was, hung up the

phone. It carefully reinserted it into a little pouch
around its waist. There was something incredibly
weird, to Ben, about a demon having a smartphone,
though really the rest of his day had been much,
much weirder.

The other three demons were holding him at

knifepoint. Kitchen knives. With their lack of any
pockets—or clothes, for that matter—it seemed
possible that they’d grabbed the knives out of
Grant’s kitchen. All three of them turned their
bizarre glassy eyes to the demon with the phone.

One asked, “What did he say?”
They had voices like ground glass scraping

over cement. The boss demon looked at Ben and
said, “Kill him.”

Ben’s hands automatically formed fists. And I

thought I hit rock bottom when they cornered me.

He’d come to Grant’s apartment directly from

the airport. His bag still sat by the door. His
captors had rifled through it, not looking for
anything, it seemed. Just looting. They had taken
turns trying on his shirts while one kept a knife
trained on him. These things were much smaller
than Ben, and they’d had to give the clothes up in
disappointment. One had taken his cell phone out
of his back pocket, looking proud to have one, but
the boss demon made him give it up.

Too bad, Ben thought. Maybe if they’d gotten

distracted with the phone, he could have done
something about this ridiculous situation.

Now they turned on him as one. They’d sat

Ben on the end of the bed, which meant he was just
about at their eye level. Four sets of creepy, glassy
eyes seemed to watch him, though it was hard to
tell. They had no pupils.

Looking closer, Ben realized they weren’t

just glassy, they were glass—marbles, from the
look of it, peering out of lumpy grayish faces. All
three were of a uniform height, but not identical.
What were these things?

Doesn’t matter. They can kill you without

you knowing what they are.

They held up their knives. “You don’t have to

kill me,” Ben said, holding up his hands. “We can
talk about this. What do you want?”

None of them ever blinked. It was

disconcerting. They stared at him as if processing,
and then the one with the phone said, “We want to
kill you.”

A chill moved up Ben’s back. Negotiation

might not work with these things. “You don’t even
know me.”

The second said, “Our master wants to kill

you.”

“So we will kill you,” the third one finished.
Their master? Cyril? Ben’s list of mortal

enemies was pretty short.

Again, doesn’t matter.
His hands were free. He was bigger than

these things. He’d seen them move fast: they’d
opened the door to Grant’s apartment and yanked

him inside before he even finished knocking. But
they didn’t seem incredibly smart. Every time
something happened, it took them a moment to
think about it.

Ben looked at the knives. He jolted himself

out of his paralysis. If he waited for them to move
first, he was dead.

Here we go.
Ben kicked his legs out. He got lucky and

knocked aside the knife of the one in the middle.
He scrambled backward on the bed, legs thrashing.
He didn’t see if he’d disarmed the little monster or
not. The others were on him too fast.

Little hands grabbed him. He didn’t know

where the knives were, or even how many of his
attackers were on him. He kicked wildly and threw
one of them off. Running out of ideas, Ben rolled
off the bed.

He landed on top of one of the demons. It

made a crunching sound underneath him, more like
a bag of pottery pieces than breaking bone. Ben
rolled to the side. Even as he reached for one of

the other three—the one holding on to his shoulder
—he looked back to see if he’d injured it. The first
demon got up slowly, looking down at a deep
crack running across its torso.

What the…?
Pain lanced through his leg. One of the demon

things had jabbed its knife into his calf. Ben kicked
frantically, and it rolled off. The one on his
shoulder was grabbing him under his chin. Trying
to slit his throat.

The other three were coming back. Ben

wanted to get a knife from one of them. The tiny
hand under his chin got better purchase and yanked
his head back.

Ben waited for the bite of the knife even as he

tried to grab the monster and throw it off.

Something banged in the apartment. A large

body covered Ben’s, grabbed him, rolled with
him. The demon on his shoulder disappeared.

Grant. The rubbery material of the wet suit

was damp and cold, but the strength of his arms
was warm. “Jesus, fuck,” he breathed. “Ben,

what’s happening?”

Ben looked up into his face. Grant’s eyes

were wide, panicked, but Ben had never been so
happy to see anyone in his life. “There’s some sort
of—shit!”

A knife struck his thigh. It might have done

some actual damage, but the demon behind the
blow—Ben looked—was the one with the crack
down his torso. It wasn’t moving as forcefully as
the others.

When he looked over his shoulder, he saw the

other three closing in. They drew themselves into a
kind of formation.

“Oh God, you’re bleeding. Where did that

come from?” Grant’s hand pressed over the cut on
his thigh. “Babe, tell me what’s happening.”

There wasn’t time. Ben tried to scramble free

of Grant’s arms. Grant was inadvertently holding
him still for the demons to attack. “There’s four!”
he shouted. They were closing in fast. Two were
going for Grant now. “Watch out!”

Grant looked at Ben, not at the demon.

Horrified, Ben watched the creature lift up the
knife to stab Grant’s hand where it rested on the
floor.

Ben crawled forward. He grabbed the demon

around its upper arm and yanked it away from
Grant.

The arm broke off in his hand. Ben fell back,

holding it in stupid astonishment.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the arm holding the

knife. The demon looked slightly perturbed, but not
upset the way Ben would be if his arm were
yanked off. There was no blood, not on the severed
limb and not on the hole in the demon’s shoulder
socket.

There was a little rasping grunt behind him,

and Ben arched his back. Sharp, vicious pain
radiated down his shoulder blade. The demon
behind him was trying to use the knife the way a
mountaineer would use an ice pick, to climb up
Ben. A little hand grabbed the flesh of his neck,
and feet kicked against his back.

He couldn’t even see what was happening to

Grant. Every cell in his brain screamed for him to
help Grant, who must be worse off, who couldn’t
see anything. But he couldn’t help. He was
bleeding, and there was a thing on him, and a hand
was at his throat again.

Right in his ear the demon growled, “Hold

still.”

* * * *

Grant watched the cuts opening on Ben’s

body. It was like a nightmare—no visible
assailant, no way to help. He wasn’t even sure if
he could touch Ben’s attackers. He certainly
couldn’t save Ben.

He had to see what was happening, and there

was only one way.

Panicking, Grant had to reach for the

transformation this time. It wasn’t effortless like
before. Having the wet suit on seemed to help,
though: he could smell the ocean on himself. He
could reach back deeply into himself and
remember what it had felt like to change.

Once it started, there was no stopping. Grant

opened his mouth to scream as his flesh stretched
and twisted, but it was over almost as soon as it
had begun. The pain was a blink and then nothing.
The scream came out as a roar.

He saw them now. Four little creatures, mud

gray. They looked up at him with shiny eyes. None
of them seemed to know what to make of a water
dragon filling the apartment.

And he did fill it. Grant twisted, and his tail

slammed against the front door. He rolled, feeling
something sharp and powdery underneath him.
When he looked back, he saw the crushed remains
of another monster.

One down.
He could see them, but he didn’t have time to

do anything about it. His lungs burned, and the dry
air seemed to tear his skin. Then his vision
blurred, and he had to shut his eyes.

Ben, keep out of the way.
He brought down a fin on the place where he

thought one of the monsters was. He rolled. There

was no strategy—could be no strategy when his
mind was screaming for water. The better part of
his twisting and rolling was instinctive desperation
to get away from the burning air.

All kinds of things crashed and broke around

him. They might or might not include the monsters.
They might or might not include Ben. Grant tried to
open his eyes. A blurry goblin was running right
for him. Grant opened his jaws and snapped them
shut on the thing. Something awful and sharp and
powdery exploded inside his mouth.

He felt weak, so weak. However powerful

and big he was, he couldn’t live without oxygen.

Distantly he heard Ben calling his name…
Water flowed into him, cold and sweet. Grant

tried to twist and found his legs tangled up under
him. Legs?

He opened his eyes. He was breathing air, not

water. He was human again.

“It’s okay, stay still,” Ben said. “Just breathe,

Grant.”

Grant’s senses came back online, one after

another. He realized Ben was holding his head in
his lap, cradling him. Upside down, he looked into
Grant’s face. His fingertips strummed over Grant’s
skin. “You’re alive.”

The relief was mutual. Grant sat up so fast his

head spun. He turned and pulled Ben into his arms.
His hand came away bloody from Ben’s shoulder.
“Jesus Christ.”

“It’s okay. None of them are deep.” Ben

offered him a wobbly smile. “They had shitty
aim.”

Grant pressed his mouth to Ben’s, locking his

fingers in his hair. He needed to keep Ben close.
Relief and desire and pure, unadulterated love
swept over him.

They came up for air, and Grant cupped

Ben’s face in both hands. “I’m going to get you
cleaned up, and then I’m going to lay you down in
my bed and make you come, but first I have to tell
you that I love you.”

Ben looked a little taken aback, but then he

smiled. “I love you too.” A smile crept over his

entire face, lighting his eyes and making Grant
want to kiss him again. “I won’t say ‘I told you
so.’”

“Such a smart-ass.”
Grant got to his feet and insisted on picking

Ben up. He carried him across the trashed
apartment to the bathroom to take care of him. All
the way, his feet crunched over the powdery,
shattered remains of their assailants.

Epilogue

The lights of San Diego burned off to the

south, but the water around Ben was dark. He
bobbed, holding his surfboard and now and then
kicking his feet lazily. He’d never imagined
himself feeling so relaxed in the ocean, especially
not at night, but he found himself closing his eyes.
The water rocked him, and the susurration of the
waves against the shore was calming.

Grant was right about the ocean. Ben had

yet to successfully stand up on a surfboard, but not
for want of trying. Grant assured him he’d get it
soon. Ben liked this better—just enjoying the
water. It didn’t scare him anymore. Not the
riptides and not the sharks and not the supernatural
things that lived under the sea.

They wouldn’t dare get close.
Grant breached the surface a few yards to his

right. He came shooting out of the water with his
long whiskers streaming. He arced midair, twisting

and wiggling. Ben lifted a hand to shield himself
from the fat droplets that came raining down all
around him.

His counterpart hit the water with a shattering

splash. Ben shook his head and waited for him to
surface again.

Grant came up slowly this time, his head—the

size of Ben’s board—just a few feet away. He
grinned, displaying teeth the length of Ben’s
fingers.

“That would’ve scared me if you hadn’t done

it forty times already,” Ben said.

The dragon submerged again, still grinning. A

moment later Grant came bursting to the surface in
human form.

He latched on to Ben’s board. “You are such

a killjoy,” he said, flashing his dimples. “You
can’t even pretend to be scared of the water
dragon?”

He planted a salty kiss on Ben’s lips, and they

began to paddle for shore.

* * * *

After they’d showered, Ben suggested they go

back to the beach. It was after midnight, but neither
of them felt tired. Grant’s apartment was half-full
of boxes of Ben’s books and clothes, and Ben
knew if they stayed in, he’d get sucked into more
unpacking.

As much of a pain as it was to move his life

to Leucadia, even the sight of his socks in the same
drawer as Grant’s made him smile. Grant was
even worse. All of his hesitation about long-term
relationships had evaporated, and he now lobbied
hardest for any step in the direction of permanency,
be it getting tested together or ensuring that Ben
kept a toothbrush at Grant’s apartment. In another
week Ben’s lease in Cardiff would be up and this
would really be his home. Grant was counting
down the days like Christmas was coming.

Once they’d dressed, Ben grabbed a blanket

to put down on the sand and handed it off to Grant,
who was hanging out wet suits. “What’s this for?”
Grant asked.

“Nothing,” Ben said innocently. “Let me turn

on the security system and we can go.”

He fetched a bowl of milk from the fridge,

peeled off the plastic wrap, and checked the loaf
of bread on the counter. Not too moldy. Setting
these things inside the door, he stepped out and
joined Grant.

When Grant saw Ben fishing for the dog

whistle among his keys, he muttered, “I’m getting
out of the way.”

“They’re not after you,” Ben chided as Grant

walked farther down the landing. “Anyway, pixies
are nothing to be scared of.”

He blew the dog whistle. The local herd

never went far these days, and in under a minute,
he spotted the swarm of glittering wings down in
the parking lot.

Now Ben moved out of the way. Two dozen

green and blue pixies barreled through the open
doorway of the apartment. Most were interested in
the payment Ben had left out for them and began
fighting over the bread, but several settled into

their favorite spots around the apartment. When
R.C. had outlined how Ben might put together a
security system, Ben had worried that the pixies
would resent being on call—they weren’t
domesticated, after all—but after only a few
months, they seemed to be thinking of Grant’s
apartment as home.

Ben couldn’t wait until he could officially say

the same thing.

He glanced down the landing and reassured

himself that Grant had gone down the stairs, and
then he leaned inside the doorway. “Do me a
favor,” he said to the pixies in the low voice. A
dozen tiny faces looked up to him. “Don’t follow
us down to the beach, okay?”

Half the time he went to campus, these days,

he had an honor guard of pixies with him. While
Ben was touched by their loyalty, that wasn’t what
he wanted tonight.

The door shut and locked, Ben joined Grant

in the parking lot. They joined hands and retraced
their earlier path toward the beach.

Leucadia’s streets were dormant. Ben spotted

a couple of red caps, but the creatures kept well
clear of them. Word must be getting around, Ben
thought, that the guy living in the apartment
building on Jupiter Street was not to be messed
with.

Whether that was enough to keep Cyril off

their backs, though, they’d have to see. They’d
been in frequent contact with the Irwins, and R.C.
warned them incessantly that Cyril wouldn’t like
having his golems—not demons, apparently—
smashed and his plan for Grant ruined. The pixies
would be able to take care of more golems, but
Ben still dreamed sometimes about that fire giant.
It wasn’t like they could keep a herd of Fitzes on
hand to deal with that kind of threat.

Their most recent phone call to Zephyr had

reassured him, though. Ina had told them Cyril
seemed to be shifting his focus away from
recruitment. Rumors varied about what he had
planned next—Ina was not optimistic about any of
the possibilities—but whatever it was, it seemed

to be absorbing his time and energy. It wasn’t that
he didn’t want to crush Ben and Grant, she said
cheerily, but that he didn’t have the resources.

Ben found that surprisingly comforting.

Certainly he didn’t wake up every morning feeling
scared of Cyril. With Grant by his side, nothing
scared him.

Grant had brought a flashlight for their walk

to the beach, but they didn’t need it. The city lights
reflected off the low clouds and kept them from
tripping on the stairs that led down the cliff face to
the shore. When they reached the sand, Ben kicked
off his sandals. Deliciously cool sand splashed
over his feet as they walked.

They spread the blanket in a spot where they

weren’t likely to be molested by the waves or
stumbled over by other late-night beachgoers.
Grant sat down on it with a sigh, and Ben tackled
him.

“Well, hi,” Grant said from his new position

on his back. Ben leaned his hands on Grant’s
shoulders and settled his hips snugly against

Grant’s. “What’s all this about?”

“Did you really think I suggested this so that

we’d just sit and look at the water?”

“You’re saying you have designs on me, Mr.

Roth?”

“I have a list.” Ben reached down and

unzipped Grant’s fly. He worked Grant’s cock out
from the fabric, enjoying its heat and firmness.
“Where do you want me to start?”

Grant put his hands behind his head. “Doesn’t

matter. I’ll enjoy everything on that list.”

Ben sat back and caressed Grant’s cock for

another minute, making sure he was hard and
ready. Then he stood and stripped off his T-shirt.

Grant watched him. There was enough light

for Ben to see the admiring look on his face.
“Anyone could walk by and see you,” Grant
observed.

“Says the man with his cock standing straight

up in the air.”

“You were responsible for that, babe.”

Grant’s gaze stayed fixed on him as Ben dropped
his pants to the sand and stepped free of them.

Ben took hold of his own cock. The cool,

salty air made his skin tingle. He felt alive out
here. Grant spread out before him like a banquet
made him incredibly horny.

And, he had to admit, the thrill of possibly

being spotted was appealing too. Few people were
likely to come down to the beach this late, but any
supernatural creature could wander by. The
thought made him smile.

“Maybe I like that anyone could see us,” he

said. He dropped down to his knees and straddled
Grant again.

“You’re full of surprises.” Ben heard a

certain amount of pride in Grant’s voice.

He laid out over Grant, drawing his legs in so

that from ankles to chest, they were touching. He
liked the feel of his naked skin against Grant’s
clothes, the thrill of being vulnerable and exposed.
Vulnerability, with Grant, meant pleasure, not
danger.

Grant’s exposed cock was like a hot brand

against Ben’s hip. He could feel it throbbing,
pinned between their bodies. Grant caressed Ben’s
back, sliding his hands down to cup his ass cheeks.
“I can’t tie you to the sand, you know.”

“No. But you can fuck my brains out, can’t

you?”

Grant rolled him expertly. One moment Ben

was enjoying how his cock was pressed against
Grant’s hard body, and the next his back was
against the blanket, Grant above him. His broad
shoulders blotted out a good portion of Ben’s view
of the sky.

“Did you bring lube?” Grant said.
Ben’s heart sank. He’d forgotten. So much for

his diabolical plan…

Grant grinned and pulled something out of his

back pocket. It was too dark to read the label, but
Ben recognized the shape of the bottle.

He pushed at Grant’s chest, which was like

slapping a brick wall. “You tease.”

“I should have made you twist,” Grant said.

“But I just can’t wait.”

He lowered his head. His lips skimmed Ben’s

cheek, rasping against the stubble on his jaw, and
then latched on to his earlobe. Ben let out a
shuddering sigh and released himself into the
pleasure. Grant held himself up on hands and knees
so that their bodies only brushed. Ben reached his
hips upward, seeking some sort of contact.

Grant pulled his lips an inch away. “You are

so pushy.”

“I want you,” Ben breathed.
“Thank God I’m prepared, huh?”
Grant sat back. Ben heard the pop of the lube

cap. It was a sound he had learned to associate
with imminent pleasure, regardless of whether he
was taking Grant’s ass—he’d passed that exam
last week, and, according to Grant, with flying
colors—or vice versa. Ben closed his eyes,
soaking in the anticipation. The waves hushed and
hushed against the shore. Every inch of his skin
sang, wanting to be touched.

He felt a cold, slick finger against his

asshole. Ben pressed out against it, and Grant
slipped the finger inside him. A warm burn began
to replace the coolness. It gradually filled him up.

Grant closed his mouth over Ben’s cock. He

gasped, resisting the urge to thrust into Grant’s
mouth. Grant continued to work his finger in and
out, slowly—too slowly.

He welcomed the feel of a second finger.

Grant continued to suck him, and Ben felt himself
slip into a fugue of pleasure. He was half-
conscious of the noises he was making, little
groans and sighs that were swallowed up by the
sound of the sea.

When Grant hummed around his cock, though,

he felt it all the way down to his balls. Grant
pulled off of him. His fingers disappeared, only to
return a moment later—three, now. He’d increased
his pace without Ben noticing, so that he fucked
Ben’s ass with his fingers. It felt so good, a sweet,
filling burn, but it was nothing like Grant’s cock.

Grant withdrew his hand completely, and Ben

felt like crying out in protest. Then he heard the

lube cap again and lifted his head. Grant pushed
his pants down his hips without taking them off.
Ben was grateful for the light reflecting off the
clouds, which let him see Grant’s cock, huge and
heavy, as it bobbed free. Ben widened his legs in
welcome.

When Grant’s cockhead pressed against the

opening of his ass, Ben let his head drop back.
Grant’s shoulders once again filled his vision, and
Grant interlocked his fingers with Ben’s, pinning
the backs of Ben’s hands to the blanket near his
head.

He pressed in. Ben took a deep breath and

exhaled on the word “yes.” Grant’s cock filled him
completely. For a moment they were still. Ben
could hear Grant breathing harder.

“So tight,” he whispered. “You’re gonna kill

me, Ben.”

He began to move, and Ben went beyond any

kind of reply. His own cock hardened more than
ever. Ben met Grant’s thrusts, reveling in the feel
of that big, hard dick moving against his inner

walls. He pressed against Grant’s hands without
moving them. He didn’t want to. The feeling of
being taken, being pinned to the sand, was exactly
right. No inch of him didn’t belong to Grant. No
part of Grant wasn’t his.

Grant thrust hard and steady, digging in his

hips. Every time he did, the feeling of incoming
orgasm spiked. Ben slipped his legs around
Grant’s torso to draw him closer. Grant grunted,
accelerated. He squeezed Ben’s fingers harder,
curling them into the blanket and the sand below.

The breeze cooled the sweat on Ben’s chest.

He was so close. When he began squeezing his
anal muscles in time with Grant’s thrusts, Grant
lost control. He released Ben’s hands. One of
Grant’s forearms held him up, and the other took
Ben’s cock.

His face inches from Ben’s, Grant gasped out,

“Come with me. I want to feel you come around
my cock.”

His words and the fast, ruthless motion of his

hand sent Ben flying. He cried out, falling into the

bliss. Grant froze and released a shuddering cry.
Ben felt Grant’s cock throb and his hot seed inside
him while his own cum painted his belly.

Grant gave him a few more strokes that sent

tingling aftershocks of pleasure rocking through
him. He pulled out carefully and flopped onto his
side. As he collapsed to the sand, he grabbed the
edge of the blanket and pulled it over their bodies.
Ben scooted closer until they were pressed
together.

They said nothing for a long time. There was

no need to speak. Ben felt himself floating between
sleep and waking, lulled by the delicious satiation
in every muscle.

Grant stretched and settled. He kissed Ben’s

temple, just above his eye.

“So, seer. Did the fairy kingdom enjoy the

show?”

Ben smiled but didn’t open his eyes. “Do you

really want to know?”

“I guess not.” His fingers threaded through

Ben’s hair again, and their foreheads touched.

“We’ll have to show them how it’s done another
time.”

Ben smiled. “More than once, I think.”

Loose Id Titles by Nessa Vincent

The ZEPHYR RANCH Series

Sea Change

Nessa Vincent

Descended from circus artists, Nessa spent

her early life traveling the US and Europe under
the big top. When she got tired of lugging her
books around with her, she settled in Texas, but
she still never misses a chance to hang upside
down on the monkey bars.

Keep in touch with Nessa by visiting

http://nessavincent.com

.

Table of Contents

Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
Loose Id Titles by Nessa Vincent
Nessa Vincent