“Yeah. But I don’t know what I’m going to say to them. I spent half the day searching for answers and found nothing helpful.”
“I’ll go with you. No matter what, we’ll figure it out.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He didn’t know if it was the sex or the fact that they’d nearly died together this afternoon, but at some point Laddin had changed from being Bruce’s trainer to his comrade in arms. Bruce wasn’t about to leave him hanging without backup against killer cheese fairies. That thought was so ridiculously silly, it made him snort. “I’m there for you, man. We’ll confront the limburger together.”
“Grand Master Cheesy, Great Fetid Feta.”
Bruce felt himself relax, the tension from thinking about things that made him uncomfortable easing because he was focused on Laddin. “I can’t believe you can say that with a straight face.”
“Hey, I’m not just a pretty face. I can tell my Fetid Feta from Smoked Gouda any day.”
“And here I thought you were just a great lay.”
He felt Laddin smile against his back. “I’m a man of many talents.”
They bantered back and forth for a bit, settling into a rhythm of chuckles and quiet breaths. Eventually Laddin drifted off, his soft snores making Bruce think of the atmosphere in the firehouse late at night. He wondered if this was what being in a werewolf pack was like. Did firefighters and werewolves share that sense of family? The idea comforted him and allowed his mind to quiet into sleep.
Rest was beautiful and so welcome.
So the last thing he expected when he woke hours later was to find a fairy army practicing maneuvers on his chest. It wasn’t a dream, and holy fuck, what the hell were they about to do to his dick?
Chapter 13
FAIRY FIRECRACKERS ARE NOT AS FUN AS THEY SEEM
LADDIN WOKEwith a start when he heard a strangled cry from Bruce. Their bodies were intertwined, and though he lifted his head, he couldn’t seem to move away from him.
WTF?
Holy shit, he was tied down!
The memory of being suffocated by fairy cheese had him straining in real panic. His head started pounding, his breath heaved, and he fought, fought, fought like a demon possessed.
“Ow! Laddin! Shit!” The words were punctuated with grunts, and somewhere from the edge of his vision, he saw bright yellow lights tumbling and spiraling away. He didn’t care. He needed to get free, and it was working. First a shoulder, then a foot. And then he was grabbing and ripping at whatever the hell was on top of him. Which—now that he was mostly free—turned out to be his bedroll.
He blinked while Bruce took a breath with him. His eyes were dark, his worry clear.
“Can you turn on the light?” Bruce asked, his voice low and quiet.
The light. Right! He’d left a camp light right by the bed. He banged down with his fist to turn it on, and the fury of the motion made him feel better… until he looked around closer and saw the bright yellow lights for what they were.
Pixies.
He rubbed a hand over his face and tried to calm his racing heart. “I told you I’d give you answers at dawn. It’s not fucking dawn.”
“These aren’t the same fairies,” Bruce said. His voice was low and filled with tension. Laddin blinked as he focused on his lover, only to see what the problem was.
Bruce was roped down like Gulliver had been by the Lilliputians. Slender stripes of white light lay in even lines across his naked body. Extra layers pinned down his far wrist and ankle, and all of it seemed to sizzle slightly. Oh crap! When Laddin sniffed, he smelled burned flesh. The only part of Bruce’s body that was free of the burning white ropes was where Laddin’s arm had stretched across Bruce’s upper torso and neck. Since Laddin had been in a bedroll, he’d been protected. But Bruce had fallen asleep lying on his back, completely exposed.
Holy shit. He had to get those ropes of light off of Bruce. He reached forward, but Bruce quickly stopped him. “No! Look at your arm.”
He looked, and sure enough, there were white lines like string cheese causing a low-level burn that hurt like hell. The only thing that had protected him was the bedroll. He tried to pull off the line from his arm, but the stuff wouldn’t budge, and it burned his thumb and forefinger where he grabbed hold.
It didn’t matter. He’d freed himself when he shoved himself upright. There had to be a way to haul that shit off Bruce. So he grabbed his discarded T-shirt, wrapped it around his fingers, and tried to pull one of those ropes off Bruce.
It didn’t work, though he kept pulling, even when his T-shirt disintegrated where it touched the ropes. Worse, the more he tugged, the brighter and hotter the ropes became. And hell, the hair on Bruce’s chest and—shit—at his groin was smoldering now. Laddin patted the flame out, but he doubted that would prevent the next spark.
