Fury Frayed

The hint of humor in his gaze only grew the longer I looked up at him. Oanen had to know what he was doing to me, how conflicted he made me feel.

No, it was how I felt that conflicted me. Why was it so difficult to be near him, yet twice as hard to walk away?

“Have you eaten dinner yet?” I asked.

“No.”

“Would you like to? With me? In the house?”

I wanted to smack myself in the head. What was wrong with me?

He smiled widely.

“I’d really like to have dinner with you, Megan.”

“Okay.” I stepped around him, needing to escape quickly. He didn’t allow much distance, though. I heard him following closely behind as I strode to the house.

In the kitchen, I focused on pulling the makings for sandwiches out of the fridge. Like the last time, he sat at the table and watched me move around.

“Something’s changed,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, not looking up from the plates I’d put on the counter.

“You seem nervous now. Why?”

“Because life is complicated. Because I have no one to talk to about any of it.”

“You can talk to me.”

His simple words made my heart pound so loudly in my ears that I struggled to think straight. I knew this was the moment to tell him that we wouldn’t work. That I was too unpredictable to ever be anyone’s girlfriend.

“It’s just…I just…”

It felt like I’d swallowed my tongue for a choked moment. Now that the time for the talk was at hand, I wanted to run. With every ounce of willpower I had, I stood my ground and struggled with the words that would make him understand.

“I don’t know you, Oanen, and I definitely don’t know myself. I feel like I don’t know anything. You told me to focus on what I do know, and I’m trying. But anything more than that is—”

“Too much right now. I get it.”

I released a slow breath, grateful.

“Good.” I turned and brought the sandwiches I’d made to the table. “As long as we’re clear, you can stay in the spare room or on the couch tonight. Your pacing on the roof has been keeping me up.”

He considered me as I sat then nodded and bit into his sandwich, consuming a quarter of it in one mouthful. I ate my dinner in silence, still unsure if I was making the right choices. Not just with Oanen, but my life.

I was a fury. Now what? Use my anger like a water diviner and seek out the murderer?

“Since I plan on keeping an eye on things,” Oanen said, interrupting my thoughts, “I’ll clean up down here.”

I realized I was playing with the bread crumbs on my plate and took it to the sink.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. And, Megan?”

I stopped at the kitchen door and looked back.

“Thanks for letting me stay. Next time, I hope you let me in.”

I nodded and, uncertain of his meaning, fled upstairs.

Singing woke me. Female singing.

I sat up in bed and turned my head toward the door, not believing my ears. Unless Oanen had a third form, there shouldn’t have been a sweet female voice singing a current pop hit from within my kitchen.

Easing from bed, I moved to the door. Was that the shower running? I crept down the stairs and caught Eliana busting a dance move in front of my stove.

“Good morning,” I said from the kitchen doorway.

She jumped a little but turned with a smile.

“Morning! I’m making you breakfast while Oanen showers. He asked me to bring him a change of clothes for school.” Her open smile changed to a knowing smirk. “So…sleepovers, hey?”

“Shut it. He’s been standing on my roof like some gargoyle protector.”

“Oh come on. He’s nothing like a gargoyle. They scare the daylights out of me at night when they take their true forms.”

“Wait, gargoyles are real, too?”

She sighed and shook her head at me. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Just about all of the myths are real. Some creatures are misrepresented or exaggerated, but most exist.”

The bathroom door opened, and I automatically glanced that direction. My lungs seized, and my brain crashed at the sight of Oanen with a towel wrapped low around his waist. He saw me, and his lips twitched in an almost smile. My heart joined the list of my other malfunctioning organs.

He looked devastating straight out of the shower. Wet strands of his lighter hair hung in short waves around his head. Early morning sunlight reflected off of each damp ridge he possessed. And, the way he moved when he stalked toward me had nothing on the clean, damp smell of him.

“Morning, Megan. Hope you don’t mind that I used the shower.”

“Oh, she doesn’t mind at all,” Eliana said, her voice sounding oddly distant.

I glanced over my shoulder at the kitchen and found it empty.

“Put your clothes on already!” she called from outside.

Oanen chuckled, the sound sending a shiver to my belly.

“I’ll be back,” he said. He grabbed the clothes from the kitchen chair then went upstairs.

Numbly, I walked to the kitchen door. Eliana stood by her car, her arms crossed and a frown on her face as she looked at me.

“You should take a shower, too,” she said. “A cold one.”

Instead of listening to her, I went outside and sat on the step. The cool air raised gooseflesh on my exposed arms and legs.

“How do you do it?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Fight your instincts.”

“I don’t fight them. I fear them.”

She rubbed her arms then walked past me to go inside.

“Breakfast is almost ready,” she said.

I nodded but stayed on the step. Instead of dwelling on my non-relationship with Oanen, I turned my thoughts to the instincts I possessed as a fury.

If I could sense the wicked through my anger, as Oanen suggested, I might be able to find the killer. But, so many people made me angry on a daily basis. How would I ever know which was the right one? I couldn’t go around trying to beat the truth out of all of them, could I? I shook my head. No. No matter how satisfying it might feel, I didn’t want to do that. To become that. Like Eliana, I feared where it might lead. I knew what rejected and alone felt like. I had friends now and didn’t want to risk losing them.

After a quick shower of my own, I joined Oanen and Eliana for breakfast then rode with Eliana to school. All the while, my mind remained fixated on the residents of Uttira rather than the students of Girderon Academy. Jesse’s death had proven the killer wasn’t an unmarked member of Uttira, so I doubted I’d find the killer within the halls of the Academy. However, my time there wouldn’t go to waste. I planned to test my fury power of identifying the wicked.

I stuck with Eliana as much as I could throughout the day. Instead of running to Adira every time someone ticked me off, I asked Eliana questions about the person. I paid attention to what she knew, which wasn’t much, and the level of anger I felt. Aubrey still reigned as the top contender for who I’d like to punch in the face when it came to the students. And that made me all the more determined to figure out why. Not an easy task while at the Academy and under Oanen’s watchful eye.

By the end of the day, I had a plan.

I waited until we were in the car to involve Eliana.

“Are you up for hanging out tonight?” I asked.

Oanen took flight from the roof and circled above our car as Eliana backed out from her spot.

“Sure. Dinner, too?” she asked. She merged with the flow of cars leaving the Academy grounds.

“Maybe. If there’s time.”

She glanced at me. “What do you mean?”

“Remember that siren in the hall after our first session?” I asked.

“Yep. Marla.”

“And that guy at lunch?”

“Devian.”

“Yeah, those two. I want to follow them around tonight and see if I can figure out why they annoy me so much.”

Eliana made a face that was a cross between a frown and an “oh-oh”.

“Oh, come on. Please?” I begged.

“Yeah, I’ll do it. I just hope tonight doesn’t result in another dead body. Especially one of ours.”

“We’ll be fine. We’re the perfect team. I kick ass, and you stop me from going too crazy.”

“If you had said, ‘What could go wrong?’ at the end of that little speech, I would have made you walk home. Remember, sirens don’t just lure humans with their songs. And, I don’t even know what Devian is. We’re messing with the unknown.”

And that didn’t worry me. Not even a little.

Eliana took a right out of the Academy drive.

“So who are we bugging first?” I asked.

“That’s Marla’s car ahead. I have no idea where she lives. So, we’ll need to follow her.”

Marla headed out of town going north. After about fifteen minutes, she pulled into a nicer subdivision nestled on the shore of an enormous lake.

“Wow. How far does the barrier go?”

“Around the whole lake. Uttira is larger than it seems because it’s sprawled out.”

Eliana turned into the subdivision well behind Marla, and we watched the girl’s compact yellow car pull into a driveway near the shore. Eliana pulled over and parked on the street.

“You know we’re going to get caught, right?”

“That’s why you’re going to stay in the car, and I’m going on my own. If I’m not back in five minutes, leave without me.”

Eliana sighed, which I took as her agreement, and I quickly left the car. Hopefully, my stroll down the sidewalk toward Marla’s house looked casual to any observers. The way I pushed through the yard’s towering shrub barrier probably didn’t, though.

On the other side of the cedars, the soft lilting sound of a sweet voice drew me around to the side of the house. I couldn’t make out the words until I was a few feet from the third window. Something about a naughty school girl undressing.

Like some pervy voyeur, I peeked through her window to see what she might be up to. What I saw confused me. She wasn’t undressing but sitting on the edge of her bed, filing her nails while singing. She glanced up at the computer on her desk and smirked slightly at the split images of four older men. All of them had their sweaty, flushed faces way too close to their cameras. The sight of their heavy breathing and the expressions on their faces gave away what they were up to.

“Gross,” I said under my breath.

I focused on Marla. She looked almost bored as she sang about taking off her underwear, which was damp from all her longing while at school. My anger warred with my need to gag. An alarm went off, and she quickly stood and wrapped herself in a robe.

“You know what this means,” she said, ending the song. “My parents will be home soon. If you want to watch me again tomorrow, deposit the money in my account.”

She turned off the cameras and went to sit at her computer to bring up a different screen. A list of deposits ranging from fifty dollars to three hundred filled the window. She smiled as two new deposits came in, then stood and removed the robe over her clothes. Using a remote, she reset an alarm on her desk, turned on her camera, and started her song again. This time it was a bit dirtier. Instead of singing about undressing, she sang about undressing and touching herself.

What the men thought they were watching was a lie, an illusion cast by her siren’s song. She was cheating them. Definitely something I’d define as wicked. Yet, these were all older men who shouldn’t have been watching her in the first place. I didn’t really feel too badly for them.

I ducked away from the window and retraced my steps back to the car.

“That was seven minutes,” Eliana said as soon as I opened the door.

“Good thing you didn’t leave. Now, we need to find Devian.”

She rolled her eyes at me and turned around, heading out of the subdivision.

“How are we supposed to do that? I don’t know where he lives.”

“Who would?”

“Oanen, but I don’t think we should ask him. He’s probably already freaking out and looking for us because we aren’t at your house.”

I chose to ignore all Oanen conversation for the moment.

“What’s plan B? There’s always a plan B.”

“We go to the Roost and see who’s there who might know. Anyone born and raised here is a likely candidate.” She started the car and turned around. “Getting that person to tell us what we want to know will be a problem, though. If you haven’t noticed, people in Uttira like to keep to themselves.”

The Roost was livelier than I’d thought it would be for a Monday afternoon. Music thumped inside like always, and bodies filled the dance floor.

I immediately saw who we needed. Fenris danced in the middle of his swarm of females.

“Stay here,” I said to Eliana.

Without hesitation, I strode into the crowd. Aubrey saw me first and stiffened. Fenris noticed and turned. As soon as he saw me, he smiled warmly.

“Hey, Megan.”

“Hey, Fenris. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.”

Aubrey immediately grabbed his arm in a cloyingly possessive way.

“Alone, Aubrey,” I said. “You can keep your jealousy in check for five minutes, can’t you?” My anger begged for her to lunge at me.

Her face flushed scarlet, and I waited, anticipating her next move.

“Keep dancing,” Fenris said, patting her hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Fenris extracted himself, and we moved off to the side without incident. I tried not to look disappointed.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I’m wondering if you know anything about Devian, a kid from school. Where does he go when sessions let out? Where does he live?”

Fenris thought about it for a moment then looked at the people on the dance floor.

“His girlfriend’s out there. Give me a minute, and I can probably find out for you.”

“Thank you.”

He disappeared into the crowd of dancers, and Eliana joined me.

“Did he know?”

“No. He’s going to ask Devian’s girlfriend.”

“Nice.”

Aubrey chose that moment to stride toward us. I grinned widely and fisted my hands. Before I could take a step forward, Eliana pushed me back into the nearby couch and sat on my lap, wrapping her arms around me.

All the anger I felt left in an instant.

“Oh, don’t you two look cute,” Aubrey said with a sneer. “I’ve warned you, Megan. You keep messing with what’s mine, and I’m going to start messing with what’s yours.”

“Oanen would kick your butt,” Eliana said, her words loud in my ear since she was hugging me so close.

“Not Oanen, you dumb box. You.”

Her head popped up from my shoulder.

“You think I’m Megan’s?”

Eliana’s peel of laughter turned several heads before she smothered her giggles in my hair. I couldn’t help but grin, too. Aubrey’s face grew redder.

“Aubrey, what are you doing over here?” Fenris said, re-emerging from the dancers.

“Talking to Megan.”

“I see. Well, while you were talking to Megan, Nala and Brin left with Jenna.”

“What?” Aubrey turned on her heel and marched out the door.

Eliana released her tight hold on me and climbed off my lap. A wisp of anger poked at me, but faded as Aubrey moved further from the Roost.

Fenris offered his hand, a polite but unnecessary gesture that I accepted. His warm fingers wrapped around mine, and he gave a tug, helping me to my feet. Instead of releasing me when I stood, he pulled me into his arms and hugged me close.

Eliana wiggled her eyebrows at me over his shoulder while he inhaled deeply then whispered Devian’s address in my ear. Just as quickly as he’d hugged me, he released me and walked away.

“I’m starting to think you’re at least half succubus,” she teased.

“Shut up. Let’s go.”

We left the Roost and made our way to the address Fenris had obtained for us. Eliana gave me knowing looks the entire ride to the non-descript white house that sat in a rural area just outside of town.

She slowed down to pull over until we saw the front door open. She quickly resumed speed and passed by but not before I caught sight of Devian French kissing a girl on his front step. Since Fenris had obtained the address from Devian’s girlfriend, I was pretty sure I’d just witnessed him cheating on her. I’d definitely classify that as wicked.

“Should I turn around and go back?” Eliana asked.

“No. I think I have my answers now.”

“What answers? To what questions?”

“The answer to how a fury finds the wicked.”

“Fury?” She glanced at me. “That’s what you are?”

“Yeah. You mean Oanen didn’t tell you this morning?”

“No. He just called and told me to bring some clean clothes for him to your house. How did you find out?”

“I broke into Adira’s office.”

“No way.”

“Yeah. Oanen found me before Trammer did. And by the way, mermaids are creepy as hell when they sleep.”

“I don’t even know where to start. What did following Marla and Devian answer? How did Oanen find you? Were you ever going to tell me? Does this mean you have to hate me now?”

Her eyes started to water with the last question.

“Whoa, what? Why would I hate you?”

“Furies punish the wicked. I can’t think of any creature more wicked than a succubus.”

“Seriously, if you weren’t driving and I wasn’t afraid of crashing, I’d power hug you right now. I don’t know much about being a fury, but I do know that I won’t let what I am change how I feel about my best friend. Ever.”

She sniffled lightly. “Stop. You’re making me even more emotional; I get hungrier when I’m emotional.”

“Okay. Subject change. We were following Marla and Devian as a test. Oanen theorized that I can sense the wicked through my temper. Those two mildly upset me today.”

Eliana snorted.

“If I hadn’t held your hand, you would have tried to hit Devian.”

“Well, that’s because he’s cheating on his girlfriend. I don’t like cheaters.”

“Why don’t you get mad at Fenris, then?”

“He’s very open with his interest, and he’s not committed to Aubrey, despite what she believes.”

“So every time you’re angry at someone there’s a wicked reason?”

“Based on tonight, that seems to be the case. I’m not done testing it yet.”

“What do you mean? What more do you still need to do?”

“I need to follow my temper to Camil’s killer.”