Freakshow (26 page)

“I don’t know how you do it,” he said slowly, “But every time you explain something to me it makes so much sense. I know this is the wrong move, Liv, but I can’t seem to tell you no.”

“It’s my witchy ways,” I said and leaned forward to sneak a kiss before he opened his eyes.

His lids snapped open and he looked surprised, but only for a moment. The one place he didn’t seem conflicted was with me, in this way. Sex, and love, it was all so glaringly obvious to us both that there was no problem when we were together.

Even his pending marriage, I had a strange feeling that it wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let it happen. I had no idea how I would stand in the face of hundreds of years of Cirque tradition, combined with his mother’s last wishes and his father’s desperate need for money, but I knew I would.

Cairo’s fingers traced paths along my arms, making my flesh prickle with goosebumps. I still felt no pain, you could stab me or slice my skin and I would see the blood as an abstract concept, but when Cai touched me, my body felt it.

My blood felt it. My skin prickled and every hair on my head felt lighter, as though he infused his own brand of magic into every cell of my defective body.

With him, I felt complete and normal, and that was more of a turn on than anything else I could have found.

And by normal, it was my own brand of normal. I was perfect with Cai, perfect as I was, and I would never feel pressured to change a damn thing around him.

He sunk back onto his bed and pulled me with him, so I was straddling his broad body, leaning over him and kissing him.

He pulled me further and I felt like I was falling into him, the ocean of Cai, like a great body of water that could barely contain our love.

“I love you,” he breathed against my lips, his hands cupping my ass and pulling me against his hardness. We were fully clothed, and yet somehow it felt more sensual, more connectedness than if we were bare naked.

“I love you too,” I replied, tears wetting my eyes.

I fell further, past the ocean and into the vastness of space, where Cairo was the moon and stars and everything in between and beyond. My heart ached as it strained to contain him, my ribs cracked as my lungs expanded and he filled my body with his essence.

We kissed like that, our bodies moving against one another, our waves crashing on each other’s shores, and our empty distances filling up with one another until it was as though he began where I ended and he ended where I began. We were flowing into each other.

“Cairo,” I moaned against him, “Please.”

We were all hands and seeking mouths at that. Our clothes melted away as we tore at each other, our need lending lightness and agility to our fingers.

I rode him, sitting up straight and proud, tilting my hips against him until I felt his cock slide deep inside of me, his piercings roll along my inner flesh, and his huge hands encircle my waist.

I rocked my hips and splayed my fingers across his massive, tattooed chest, giving myself balance and drawing from his body as I would draw from the earth.

I realized it then, what was different with Cairo over all other men.

I could draw from him, I could extend beyond my physical touch and seed my energy deep inside of him, I could almost see it when I closed my eyes, our bodies flowing and undulating as one single organism.

I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut. My hair tumbled down my back and Cairo reached up to grasp a handful of it, pinning me tight against him and rocking me faster until he was gasping as much as myself.

“Come for me, Liv,” he rasped, “Come with me.”

I did, I obeyed his order and we came together because there was no other way. We were so deeply rooted inside of each other that it was if we were sharing the same pleasure.

I shuddered my orgasm around him, clenching tightly and listening to him growl his release. He exhaled and said, “Liv, there’s your magic. That’s the power, love.”

I opened my eyes and saw the familiar glow, the faint blue light that would cover my body any time I connected with the earth, the healing light that was my family secret and my secret shame. It was like an aura, almost neon in its aspect, and always showed up at the times I was in stress, needing to heal.

Or, apparently, when I was in love.

It had always filled me with confusion and made me wonder if this was the source of my disorder, if somehow I was the only one in our family who received the gift and the curse in one neat and tidy package.

But now I didn’t care, it glowed and I had my orgasm, and I loved Cairo and he loved me.

He was apparently a wolf, I was a freak, and we were completely, perfectly content to be with each other just the way we were.

“Oh,” I breathed out, “That.”

“That?” he laughed, “You’re so casual about it.”

I felt my orgasm recede and the aftershocks settle. I dropped into his arms and pressed my face against his chest. “Just like you’re casual about being a wolf, right?”

“Touché,” he smiled, “you got me there. We need to find out about your particular power though, I feel like if we can unravel exactly what you are, we can use it to free me from my father’s grasp.”

“But right now, I just want to come again,” I smiled and nipped his flesh, making him shiver with my touch.

“I can certainly accommodate that, my little blue witch,” he laughed and rolled me onto my back, covering me with his body and his kisses.

*****

“T
he audience expects something dramatic,” Orion told me a day later on the stage of After Dark, after I’d told him I would perform.

His smug smile had almost made me turn and run, but I needed to know what was happening to the girls...and I needed Cai.

“So what is your version of dramatic in this context?” I asked, looking around at the equipment displayed on the stage. I felt like he’d made it more prominent in order to frighten me.

It wasn’t working. I felt stronger than ever around him, considering my newfound connection with Cai. He’d seen my strange abilities first hand and had only found me even more appealing.

I hadn’t seen his wolf form since that night I was attacked, but I was starting to find it unbelievably sexy to think of my love as a beast, a fierce feral creature that could step in between myself and danger.

We could be a force to be reckoned with, but first we had to figure out how it would work.

“I want you to writhe in pain and pleasure,” Orion said stepping towards me with a curious look on his face. “You are able to understand pleasure, are you not? It seems as if not enduring pain would make the opposite unavailable to you as well.”

“I can feel pleasure,” I said, screwing my face up in defiance.

He stopped directly in front of me and scanned my face as if looking for a deeper meaning behind my words. “You mean with my son?”

I blushed a furious red, I could feel my face grow tight which always meant I was red with embarrassment. “Yes,” I said, thrusting my chin out and looking up at him through narrowed eyes.

“Is he the only one?” Orion demanded.

“Yes,” I spat.

“Interesting,” he said in a distracted tone, “Not unexpected though, considering what you are to each other.”

“And what is that?” I asked quietly, hoping to draw information out, as one draws an infection from a wound.

He glared at me with hooded eyes. “That, my dear,” he said in an even, sharp tone, “is something you need to figure out for yourself.”

He grabbed my right arm and yanked me hard, making me draw my breath in sharply and eliciting a laugh from him, from somewhere deep in his throat.

He dragged me to a wooden table, like a rough-hewn dining table, but affixed with all manner of restraints and metal loops.

“What is this?” I gasped.

“This is where we will perform. We are going to keep it simple, I will restrain you, much like on the wheel, but with you facing downwards. I will pierce your skin with hooks, and we will suspend you from the rack up above,” he said casually, as if listing off his grocery list.

I glanced up to where he was pointing and saw a heavy industrial rack with all sizes and lengths of chain hanging from it. I shuddered at the sight, the impersonal feel of the stage was getting to me.

“Will I be naked?” I asked, still looking at the chains.

“Of course,” he said sharply and I dropped my gaze to him. “I’m not attracted to you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No,” I replied, “But it will be rather disconcerting, hanging naked in front of a crowd of people.”

“The crowds are small and extremely discerning. They will want to see your pale flesh, your scars, your blood streaming along your body. They are here for the art as much as the eroticism.”

“Will we have to practice?” I asked, suppressing a shudder.

“We will, I had hoped to get started immediately.”

“Can I make a request?” I asked.

“Certainly,” he said, his face unreadable.

“I would like Cairo present for our practices,” I said, staring him directly in the eye.

“Why?”

“So I feel safe.”

“The entire point seems to be lost on you, Olivia. You are not supposed to feel safe.”

“So I feel safe during rehearsal,” I said emphatically, “I don’t feel that way around you.”

He looked me up and down, once again found me wanting, and sneered, “Good.”

“So?”

“I suppose there’s no harm. It might be interesting to get the object of our control between the two of us, to find out who does actually exert the most pressure.” He seemed almost triumphant, assuming he would still maintain his absolute power over his son. I wasn’t sure how the entire wolf pack thing worked, but from what Cairo had told me, he was implicitly governed by his father, his pack leader.

I couldn’t imagine having no freedom, to have that supernatural entanglement, the curse woven around your heart so even when you wanted to do something like medical school, your father’s commands dictated your entire existence.

It would have driven me to madness.

“It will be interesting indeed,” I replied, arching my brow. “Shall I go get him now?”

“Don’t bother,” he said, waving his hand at me dismissively, “I will bring him tomorrow. Be here at ten in the morning precisely.”

With that he was done, he turned and left the tent.

I stood on the stage, my knees trembling after the encounter with Orion. I’d managed to maintain my act the entire way through, but as soon as he was gone, it all flooded over me.

He was fucking dangerous, he was fucking with me, and I was putting myself right in the middle of his control. I was fucking insane apparently.

The silence was broken by a muffled noise from behind me, I whirled around and saw nothing.

“Hello?” I asked.

I heard a sharp knock, followed by a thud.

“Hello?” I said again, “I know you’re here. Come out, please, or I’ll go get security.”

I took a step towards the noise to let whoever it was know that I was serious.

In reality, I was shaking like a leaf in an autumn wind, but that stupid self-destructive part of me would never let me back down.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Carl’s voice came from behind a thick canvas interior wall. The only real back stage to speak of.

“Carl? What the hell are you doing here? Don’t tell me there’s some weird clown fetish in After Dark,” I laughed.

My friend stepped out into the dim light with a grin, “Not yet,” he said, “but maybe soon.”

“What are you doing here? If you weren’t so desperately in love with Dave, I’d assume you were trying to get a look at my body,” I said and winked.

He laughed, and said, “Oh no. You can’t tell anyone, but sometimes I like to come in here to get away from everything. It’s my quiet place. I was so excited when Orion started it up again.”

“There have got to be other places on site,” I replied.

“Not like this,” he said, “I can nap for an hour and nobody finds me. The morning time is dead, most rehearsals are done in the afternoon and performances are late, like after midnight. And not that often, once a week or so.”

“So you were back there taking a nap?” I asked.

“Guilty,” he said. As he stepped closer, I saw how sweaty and nervous he looked. We must have startled him during his secret sleep session...or was he doing something else?

His face was bare, and he was dressed in a loose fitting suit. He looked almost normal, except for the remains of some clown make up down the side of his face.

“You’ve got some make up there,” I said and grabbed a napkin from my pocket. I swiped up towards the smear of red. Carl ducked away as I made contact with his flesh, put his hand up and leaned back.

“It’s quite all right,” he said, “I have special remover. If you don’t use it, it just smears. Anyhow, that’s my cue to get back to work I guess.”

“I guess,” I said, “but now I’m tired, I think I’m going to go have a nap.”

“Lucky you,” he exclaimed and walked away. As he reached the door, he turned and the light caught his face, making deep hollows under his eyes. He looked almost menacing. “Remember, Liv,” he said in a low voice, “Don’t tell a soul you saw me here.”

“I won’t,” I said in a whisper, he grinned, turned and was gone. “What the fuck was that?” I said under my breath as I left the tent.

I sometimes felt like I had stepped into an alternate Cirque, somewhere along the line I’d fallen into a rabbit hole where Cai was a werewolf, Carl was fucking freaky, and I was some kind of powerful player in it all.

And in spite of everything, my brain seemed numb to the dangers I was nipping the heels of and the only thing that matter was Cairo and my love for him.

And then I would remember that this was no dream, it was happening, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.