Chapter 80
"Do you even have an invitation?" He groaned, running a hand through his hair, and actually exhaled in relief when she paused before admitting she did not. Machias probably hadn't bothered since she was on downtime, thanks to Ash. "I… have one, and a plus one." He admitted just as diffidently, puffing out his cheeks. "Meet you at my place?" He was going to have to dig out formal clothes or something, inwardly cursing. "My attire is black, with red and white accents." He said finally, practically feeling her smiling. "In case you wanted to match or something…" He sounded like such a dork right now.
"Well, look at you trying to be all formal and everything!" Melyssa teased, laughing at the look on Crow's face. "Oh come on, it won't be so bad and I promise I'll get all gussied up too." Red. She would wear red. Last time it was black, so this time she would go for a bolder color. "I'll call Machias and…" Crow told her not to bother, he would inform the man and told her to get busy on the road since it was over an hour's drive back to the city. "I'll meet you at your place tonight. See you soon, brother dearest." Winking, she ended the call on the ARCUS II and immediately began packing her bag, trying to think of where she could go to buy a dress in the morning.
This was a formal event. Crow wouldn't be embarrassing not only himself, by showing up in casual wear, but Machias and the office. He was an employee of the city, technically, he HAD to represent it properly. That was something that had been instilled in him throughout this gig and he knew Rean would heckle him mercilessly. Gehenna, he could probably get away with wearing his formal attire from Thors, though it had been over two years since the last time he had worn that. Groaning again, he headed for his bedroom to search for said formal wear. While she was in the city, if she wanted to redo the warding, they could get on that too. He had already had Rosalie come do his apartment.
Coming back to the city tonight was a mistake.
A huge, fat mistake.
There he was, with a different woman, ravishing her against a car just outside of the apartment building they shared. Melyssa recalled Ash doing that to her a time or two, ravishing her outside of the building, until she had to force him to take her upstairs to one of their apartments. Public indecency was a thing and she kept reminding him of that, but Ash didn't care. Women were objects to him and nothing more, she was seeing that now. However, Melyssa would not let it get her down and knew she couldn't run away forever. She had to come back and get back to work, to help protect Machias and put an end to Ouroboros once and for all. Walking past them, Melyssa didn't care if she was noticed or not and made her way up to Crow's apartment, squaring her shoulders.
Ash hadn't noticed her one bit. One good thing about that farce of a relationship with Melyssa was he had gotten his libido back. When she had been taken by McBurn two years and some change ago, everything had died for him, including his sex drive. It had come back plus some once he had gotten with her and he had forgotten how much FUN sex was, when done right, and with the right person. Obviously, she couldn't hack it in the bedroom, not with a man like him. He was a bit grateful their relationship was over because he wasn't ready to settle with one woman, not anytime soon and it had taken her to realize that.
Crow opened the door on the second knock, grinning when Melyssa tried walking in only to be sent backward, watching as she stumbled before catching herself. "Hand out." The best part of this was the fact that door-to-door salespeople got the SAME treatment, he had only felt bad once when a kid had come calling to sell cookies for a school fundraiser.
A second later, their blood had been mixed again and she was through the barrier.
That jolted her a little and she needed a minute to get her equilibrium back on track. "Blood magic is nothing to mess with, is it?" She muttered, once she felt everything was back to normal again and finally turned to face Crow. "Thanks for waiting up for me. Traffic wasn't too bad getting here."
There was no way she would mention seeing Ash with another woman outside of the building. There was no reason to and…surprisingly, Melyssa did not feel any heartache or sadness. It was all gone. It made her believe that much more that her love and what she felt for Ash had been the spell, not her.
"Are you sure it's okay that I stay with you? I don't want to put you out, Crow…you've done more than enough for me already…"
Blood magic was definitely not anything to mess with and Crow knew these wards were the NICER side of the blood magic spectrum. Rosalie was new to this type of magic, which seemed odd given her age, so her repelling factor was nowhere near as strong as the ones at his hideaway, which was a good thing since…this was a populated apartment building. At least it only repelled once the door was open and a person was standing in the threshold, he'd imagine he would get in serious trouble if it did it to everyone who knocked.
"You're fine, I already remade the bed for you, so it's nice and clean."
Truth be told, he slept a lot on his couch, unable to sleep in his bedroom. Maybe it was because he knew right across the hall, Melyssa was supposed to be there and she wasn't. All because McBurn had gotten through the original wards and been waiting for her.
"No, I can't take your bed…" Melyssa noticed the blanket and pillow on the couch, which looked like it'd been slept on quite a bit. "You sleep on the couch when you have a bed? You make no sense, Armbrust." That was just who he was, though. "All right, all right, I'll take the bed and stop being stubborn. I'm gonna use your bathroom and then I'm heading to bed. I need to get up early and go dress shopping for the event."
They said goodnight to each other and she grabbed her bag, taking it with her since it had everything she needed. If blood magic would keep McBurn out of her apartment, then she would come back to Crossbell City and stop hiding away in the cabin. There had been talk of employing blood magic at the office but then… Machias dismissed it. He had taken up the offer on his personal home, but he had been the one to point out that, if the mayor of Crossbell City was slashing citizens, then sharing blood with them, before they came into his office, it was going to look suspicious, if not downright gruesome. Dropping down onto the couch, Crow reached for the remote to his TV, idly flipping through channels until he found something that wasn't going to overly bore him. Mostly, he just listened to Melyssa moving around in his bedroom and then in the bathroom, wondering if Ash was kicking himself in the backside for losing her.
He knew he would've been.
The following morning was chaotic, to say the least.
There had been an explosion down in one of the tunnels, but it was minor once checked out. Crow, Ash, and Rean had gone down there to investigate, along with Machias and a few others, Rosalie included. Turns out, some idiot kids had snuck down there and set off a small bomb for kicks, but nobody had seen who they were, so there was a search going on at the moment.
Melyssa had found her dress, though it had taken a few hours to do so. She had gotten her hair done professionally, a ton of spiral curls and it looked like a crown of blue on top of her head. She had added diamond pendant clips to each side since there was a diamond pendant in the middle of her sweetheart-shaped bosom. The dress was strapless, flowed down to her ankles, chiffon material, and clung to every curve of her body. Melyssa had also gotten some dangling diamond earrings and a diamond choker to match, along with her nails done, painted red.
Her makeup wasn't heavy, just thin black liner with foundation, a bit of highlighter, and red gloss. Staring in the mirror, Melyssa had to admit she cleaned up pretty nicely and slipped on her silver heels she'd also purchased that had diamond studs on the front of them. Hearing the knock on her door, since she was in her apartment, Melyssa made her way over to it to answer and smiled at the sight of Crow staring back at her.
Crow had gone with his non-Thors formal suit. It was a three-piece: slacks, waistcoat, and jacket with 'rolled up' cuffs and three silver buttons running up each cuff. The undershirt was silver – he had nixed the white because it had looked terrible and now he was glad he had – with a deep red waistcoat. The slacks fit him perfectly and he had been so glad he had a holster built discreetly into the design for one pistol. Inside the breast of his jacket was a pocket for his Blade deck, in case he got bored. His red eyes widened as he took her in, letting out a slow whistle. Her make-up was minimal and he got why instantly, those diamonds were the accent piece and she was dripping in them.
"You're gorgeous." He breathed and 'gorgeous' was an understatement.
"You don't clean up so bad yourself, Armbrust."
He was sexy, especially in that red waistcoat that really brought out his eyes. For once, he didn't have a bandana around his head and she reached up to fix the collar of his coat a little. It was her excuse to touch him, her hands smoothing out the invisible wrinkles, and could feel his muscles ripple beneath the material. The earrings in his ears just made him even sexier…and WHY WAS SHE THINKING ABOUT HIM THAT WAY?!
He doesn't think of you as anything more than family, a sister, remember that, you fool! "Let me grab my clutch and we can go." Flashing him a smile, she grabbed it from the kitchen table and shut the door behind her, locking it before taking his extended arm. "I guess I chose the right shade of red, eh?"
"You did, we're a matching set." He laughed, knowing better than to openly gawk at her.
Crow had said she was like his sister and, at the time, after kissing her RIGHT after getting bombarded by ALL his memories, she HAD felt like a sister. It had taken him a long while to get all of that sorted out, reconcile the 'new' Crow with the 'old' and his current feelings for Melyssa with how he had felt about her during their childhood. If he had been the sort to see a therapist, they would have had a FIELD DAY with him.
"My lady." He flashed her a charming smile, bowing at the waist before extending his arm to her. "Shall we?"
"We shall."
Melyssa had stuffed all of her feelings for Crow down the moment he told her all he saw her as was a sister – family. He did not have any romantic feelings for her and it hurt, at the time, but eventually, she got over it, especially after being captive by Ouroboros for two years. That would make any other problem cease to exist. However, now that they were spending more time together, whenever it was allowed, Melyssa could feel those old emotions and feelings bubbling back to the surface. No, she wouldn't allow them to. She had lost Ash already; she could NOT lose Crow and would rather have him in her life as a friend than nothing at all.
Unaware of her issues, he had his own, Crow led her out of the complex and to the waiting car. It was one of the Mayor's posh orbal cars, they were arriving in style tonight. "When we get there," He said quietly once they were seated and the car was in motion. "You're going to see a lot more soldiers and tanks than usual. Rean upped the security." Rean was paranoid, especially after that bomb thing even though it had probably been kids. Rean was also afraid of losing people, especially after he had finally gotten them back after the Dark Ages spell. "Rosalie will be there as Machias' own date." And eyeballing for any stray magic, and McBurn, not that they would say that out loud since nobody wanted Melyssa to be paranoid.
"Got it." McBurn, in other words.
She wasn't surprised Crow hadn't said that name aloud and nodded at his warning, smoothing out her dress with her hands. Why was she nervous? This wasn't a date with Crow – they were just going as friends. One bad thing about having her virgin taken was Melyssa experienced how great sex was…and her body was craving it. She didn't know how to relieve herself either because Ash had always been there to put the fire out, so to speak. Being alone in that cabin, all she could do was workout, train, sleep and read…and she thought a lot about Crow while there too.
Silence reigned as they were driven, Crow watching the scenery out the window at the sunset. He missed… anywhere but here. Crossbell City was nice enough, but long term, not so much. He hadn't really made his home anywhere, in particular, always traveling whenever he had wanted – or wherever duty had called him. He supposed he had gotten used to that life, being on the go, and settling was starting to grate on him. Crow imagined Melyssa was just glad to be out from underground. When the mansion came into view, he groaned.
"Remember that festival in the village when we were kids? And your Mom decked me for not having any manners?" At her nod and slight smirk, he frowned. "Don't you DARE deck me in public." Because the manners hadn't improved at all.
"Just TRY to be on your best behavior, all right? I won't deck you…in public."
She would, however, deck him once they were alone if he embarrassed her or acted a fool. This was part of their job and they had to be responsible and on guard. Mostly. He rolled his eyes at her and she did the same thing at him, sticking her tongue out in the process.
I just hope McBurn doesn't show up tonight. Please Goddess, keep him away.
That wasn't happening. McBurn was there, but he was under a disguise, thanks to a little magic from Mariabell. Well, he had to FORCE her to do it – torturing a person really got the blood flowing and she had finally agreed once she'd suffered enough pain at his hands. He was currently outside, smoking a cigarette and his eyes zeroed in on the woman stepping out of the orbal limousine with Crow Armbrust, the Azure Chevalier, and his former comrade.
How very interesting.
Arm in arm, Crow and Melyssa made their way inside and she laughed at something he muttered in her ear.
McBurn inhaled deeply, his eyes on Melyssa, though he was wearing a pair of tinted glasses, he doubted from this distance he would even notice. Does it really count as torture with Mariabell? She DOES like that sort of thing. I wonder if my delectable little Melyssa does. He'd find out soon enough.
Contrary to what Crow said about his manners, he possessed them and they were on full display tonight. He bowed to the right people, shook hands, and kissed them on the right women. Making sure to say the social pleasantries and ask the right questions when small talk arose before moving through the receiving line. Finally, he sneered at Machias once they reached him and Rosalie.
Machias was smirking. This was HILARIOUS.
