Page 53 of Wicked

Lead Pipe rushes around the room to find him a champagne flute and fill it with the pale liquid.

Milo raises his glass. “Never have I ever celebrated my birthday.”

The whole room goes silent. Then everyone takes a drink except for Milo.

The powerful scent of Candlewick’s slick hits me like a wave. Thank God. I think everything’s going to be okay.

In the background I hear Lead Pipe make another joke, but that doesn’t matter now. Under the blanket, I run my fingers along Candlewick’s crease and push two of them inside. He whimpers.

“It’s okay. I’m here.”

We’re all here, stuck inside this room, hoping to buy more time as Anne and Ken try to find a warlock with an opening.

Lester places a condom, still in the foil wrapper, on top of the blanket. It’s rare for an omega to get pregnant the first time they get knotted during their heat, but we need to be careful about that from now on. A pregnancy would end Candlewick’s heat early.

He also puts a water bottle on the tray.

“He needs to drink something. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m going to try contacting my warlock clients again.”

Between Ken, Lester, and Anne’s connections, there has to be someone who can help us.

20

Ken

It’s been a long time since I walked the snowy sidewalks of Montpelier, Vermont. Back in graduate school, I heard rumors of a secret magic in these parts. I lived here for a full two years, studying at the local college, before I suspected that the magic was happening right under my nose.

The first clue was the apothecaries. The town boasted several of them, all in older homes along main street. The strange thing was, they were always closed. Either for renovations, staff training, or to fix supposed fire damage. Despite this, their lamps, which were fueled by gas instead of electricity, would sometimes burn all day.

People seemed to visit the apothecaries, even when they were closed. One apothecary in particular gave away clear boxes made of netting that held a single butterfly.

I asked around, but people shrugged off my questions and claimed that Ari, the owner of the shop, liked to give butterflies away. This seemed strange to me. Especially because I knew most of the people in town, and I had never met Ari, or any of the other apothecary owners.

After months of getting nowhere with the locals, I finally stood on the stoop of his shop and knocked on the door. It was one of the days like today, when the lamp was on, even though it’s three in the afternoon.

I fear this means Ari’s services are already needed by someone else today. There are footsteps on the other side of the door and it swings open. A figure in a black hood stands behind the door. The house is dark, even though it’s the middle of the day.

The magic that has kept Ari alive all these years leaves him sensitive to the light.

Ari pulls back his hood. He still doesn’t look a day older than twenty. Eight years ago, he had the same pale, youthful face and the same wild blond hair.

“Ken. It’s lovely to see you. I never thought you’d darken my door again. Not after the last time. How is your omega?”

This is why I haven’t returned to Montpelier. It holds memories that are better left forgotten.

“We never bonded,” I say.

Ari is kind enough to not ask anymore questions, but this isn’t a good start to the conversation I need to have with him. Long ago, Ari did a spell for me. In exchange for my fertility, he gave me back my teeth so I could bond to my lover. The problem was, my lover didn’t want a bond with me.

At the time, I wondered if it was for the best. Ari made it clear that I wasn’t allowed to tell a soul about how I got my teeth back, and I couldn’t have explained a bond to Timber and the other guys. So I kept the whole thing a secret, never admitting that my set of teeth were the real thing, instead of the implants we’d gotten after we left the pits.

“My friend is in trouble,” I tell Ari. He was straightforward with me back then about who he was and what he was doing here when I knocked on his door for the first time. I can be honest with him now.

Ari winces. “Ah, I see. I’m not the kind of person to turn to in times of trouble. Too busy to deal with it, I’m afraid.”

I forgot how much of an ass Ari is. After my first visit to his shop, I started stopping in fairly regularly. Sometimes several times a week. There was something about Ari that I related deeply with. Maybe the sadness he tried to hide. Or maybe it was the way he seemed frozen in time, unable to bond or have children of his own.

“Please, Ari. This man is my brother. His fated mate is in heat, and if he can’t bond to him by the time the heat ends, their magical connection will be broken.”

---