Traps and Gretchen (Bayou Bishops #19)

Desperate Measures

Traps made his way to a black armored looking car jeep where Rowan and Fetch waited. She sat on the hood with Fetch between her legs, arms draped around his neck. The picture of intimacy filled him with a boiling envy that rivaled his growing rage. Her green eyes probed but it was the brilliant blue ones of his brother from many removed mothers that he felt into his bones. With every step toward the man-being, salvation gathered in his blood. His blue gaze glowed with all the answers he’d been clawing to get at for over two months. He hadn’t penned a poem in ages, but his serene, otherworldly looking brother inspired him in ways that would require many pages to capture.

The possessive way he held his woman’s forearms draped over his chest again strummed every jealous fiber in him until the ache in his chest burned. Traps extended his hand as he approached, wondering if he was like his brother Kaphas with his touching ability. He had nothing to hide. In fact, he’d prefer he just read all about his problems in his blood or wherever they existed rather than putting his marital mayhem into words.

Fetch’s skin brought a hot rush as their hands met in a firm embrace. “Traps,” he mumbled, his grip seeking, maybe testing.

“Fetch,” he said, eyeing the green pair of eyes next to his, openly digging into him like a kid. “Rowan,” he remembered, before burying both hands in his leather coat pockets. “How was the trip?” Last he’d heard, travelling from the North Swamp to the Dry Dock was getting more dangerous. But what did a being like him need to fear?

“Mostly uneventful,” he said, bringing Rowan’s exasperated snort.

“We were bloody ambushed by a group of thugs at a redlight,” she countered.

“Really,” Traps said, still unable to believe shit had gone that far south. “What happened?”

“He got out the bloody car is what happened,” Rowan tattled.

“Then she got out the bloody car,” Fetch muttered, his tone thickening the air.

“Because ye said ye was gonna preach a sermon to their blood! ”

“As I said, human, it’s not my fault you assumed I meant violence.”

She shot out a laugh, aiming a pointer finger at his face while looking at Traps. “Tell me you’da thought otherwise with this one?”

“He is not one with me, my wife ,” he reminded.

“Well, I guess yer fetchin’ powers you gave me glitched a wee bit, then?”

“No, human. Your submission glitched. And look what that cost.”

Traps felt his anger more than heard or saw it and her sudden silence said she did too.

“Somebody get hurt?” he now wanted to know.

“Ten humans were added to the paraplegic race,” he mumbled, sounding unapologetic. Which meant all his anger was directly related to the fear of her safety, not theirs. Traps agreed a thousand percent with that.

He was about to dig for more details when Rowan asked, “So, what’s ye’ real name?”

“Neelo Richard,” Traps said.

“Neelo,” Fetch mused. “Italian.”

“My great grandfather, yes.” He bit his tongue on more, ready to get to the issue.

“So, here’s what I see,” Rowan said, pressing her face against Fetch’s who leaned into it, his anger nowhere to be found as he rubbed her like a hungry cat, eyes still boring into Traps’ all the while. “For one, his poor mind is riddled with holes from all his diggin’ for answers. Probably why he can no see what is plain as day in front of his face, yeah.”

“And what is that?” Fetch asked for him.

“Well, I’m only guessin’,” she pardoned herself, “at least till I have a wee look at the lass responsible for the other half of this mess, but me thinks he’s plantin’ the wrong seeds in the wrong field at the wrong time.”

Traps glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth at the three vague revelations, determined to wait for more.

“I think he’s too close to the problem,” she explained in english. “Can I ask him questions?”

“You may,” Fetch said, his thumbs moving over her hands as he continued staring at Traps.

“You two fight all the time?” she started off with.

“Always,” he said. “Only, I’m never fighting, she is. Every chance she gets, every day. All day.”

“What is she fighting with you about?”

He paused briefly. “When I say everything, it’s not an exaggeration. All that I say and do is a problem and all I don’t say and do is a problem.”

“So, she’s looking for problems,” she mused, getting Traps’ nods. “Yep,” she decided. “Sounds scared outta her wee mind, me thinks. What about ye’, husband? What ye’ be fetchin’ bout it?”

Scared? Her ? “I’m emphatically sure she’s not scared of a damn thing, especially not me.”

“Tell us what you have fetched about your wife thus far,” Fetch prompted, lifting his wife’s hand to his mouth.

“Where to start,” he said, sure they didn’t want that full answer just because of the time it would require.

“The beginning,” Fetch said.

“The beginning,” he mumbled, considering how to condense the two hellish months into mere minutes. He pulled his hands from his pockets, setting them like guard rails before him. “I’ll start from the moment she learned about the Fate Dice and summarize the eight weeks that followed.” He held up his thumb. “Week one. Hellfire and brimstone. She rained it down for a solid seven days straight. And I took it. I rolled those fucking Fate dice for her—I’m guilty—go ahead and give me your worst, make me pay.” He jammed his hands back into his pockets. “Turns out handing my balls over worked like pissing in the devil’s eye. The next week was hellfire, brimstone, and a set of Farkle dice that she rolled to determine anything and everything relating to handing me my ass.”

Traps wished he could appreciate the snigger that escaped Rowan.

“ Third week,” he said. “She brought in this storm of eerie silence. I mean not a single word or sound. I literally did not exist,” he said, still amazed and pissed with that one. “Some days I wondered if I’d died and was a ghost. But was she done?” He shook his head. “Not even close. Fourth week, she visited a pretend sick sister. And when I say pretend sick sister, I mean the sister was actually a nun sick with the joy of helping swamp folk. That little lying vacation lasted seven holy days. I got a little fridge note about it.” He drew his hands from his pockets and placed them on his chest. “I’m fine with that. Go play Mother Theresa to spiritual relatives half dead with joy, whatever makes you feel better.”

“I actually heard about this from Scarlett,” Rowan giggled. “Did it help?”

“Oh, it brought an angel back to me on week five.”

“Geeze louize,” Rowan said, sounding genuinely relieved.

“Geeze. Louize,” he articulated dryly. “It was an amazing seven days exactly . Then came the sixth week.”

“Oh boy.”

“I imagine she looked over at Satan and said, ‘Let’s have a little fun. Hold my tea.’ She’s got this obsession with every known tea that exists,” he explained. “Makes my obsession with rope look cute. Well, she made me rue the day I was stupid enough to believe a fucking thing that came out of her mouth.” He shoved his fists deeper into his pockets, shaking his lowered head. “That one got me. It got me real fucking good. I learned my lesson like a good boy and dragged my remains off her sick little battlefield. And last week?” he said, thumbing the air behind him. “She’s back to an angel of light,” he said lightly. “Only this time she’s packing a lot of heat. My little high collared, toe covered cloistered nun is now bearing cleavage, ass, and thigh.” He spread his arms. “Seduction then slaughter. That’s what’s on her menu for me. And here I am. Standing before you at my wits-fucking end, down for the count.”

“Wow,” Rowan marveled, looking at Fetch then back at him. “You’re officially the Patron Saint of hormonal hell holes.”

“How was she before she learned about the dice?” Fetch asked.

“Oh, the week of bliss,” Traps recalled. “Feels like a fever dream now. At first, I honestly wasn’t happy with Fate’s choice and then I met her officially at a swamp ball they’d thrown so we could get to know each other.” His entire body recalled every detail with painful clarity. “She was the stick in the corner wearing a black funeral dress as if she was coming to marry death. And then when I stood before her and forced myself to actually see her, I realized she was stunningly beautiful. And she had a personality that matched. Sweet, intelligent, funny as hell, sharp as a whip.”

“Full-blooded librarian,” Rowan said.

“All her life,” he’d learned. “She was everything I could’ve wanted in a woman given the kind of hook-up we’d proposed and everything I didn’t ever realize I needed. Craved. She had no demands of me, no expectations, she was easy to talk to, easy to understand, very easy on the eyes, and… submissive in every way I could dream of for a wife.”

“And then those damn Fate dice happened.”

The sadness in Rowan’s words shredded his guts and other invisible things in him.

Traps recalled, “Before that… I feel stupid using the word perfect but that’s what everything was. Not that I have anything to compare such things to, she’s the first woman I’ve ever attempted to be with.” The far-fetched idea had him rushing to explain. “I was barely nineteen when I signed up to become a member of The Twelve. Before that, my passion was a thousand percent in working with my father and two brothers. We had a family trapping business and worked from sunup to sundown every day until we were called to fight in the Noctambule war. It was the only way of life I knew and cared to know,” he remembered. “And…” His entire being returned to Gretchen and as usual, the massive trap she was went off in his chest, teeth piercing all the parts of him until it radiated in his blood and bones and lungs.

“Oh boy,” Rowan lightly marveled at seeing what he couldn’t hide. He didn’t know how and he realized he didn’t care as he paced before them, heaving for air.

Fetch suddenly met him on the fiery path of his crossroad. His hand touched down on his shoulder, sucking the air from him along with his whispered confession. “I’m lost brother . ” The reality cut everything loose inside him. “I’m so lost in her, I don’t… I don’t even know how this happened.” He grabbed hold of the strong shoulders before him, desperate for salvation. “She invaded every part of me and every fiber of my being is trapped in her . My purpose for pulling air into my lungs is her . I’m bound so tight, I can’t move, I can’t hear or see my way through.”

“She’s burning,” Fetch whispered to him, angling his head. “The fires of her past rage in her soul and you must enter it and let it consume you. Become one with it. Entrap it.”

A new panic rose inside him along with a hope. She was in trouble? “Tell me how. There is nothing I will not do for her.”

“You sense things in her. A darkness. Tell me of it.”

“Hold the bloody hell up,” Rowan cut in suddenly, pushing them apart.

They both eyed her, but her green gaze was narrowed on Fetch along with the little finger aimed at his face. “You best be Fetch, Fathom, and Finishing what I’ll do to ye’ royal balls if ye’ try and have a threesome right here in front of me bloody eyes.”

A threesome?

Traps looked at a laughing Fetch who attempted to kiss her but met her palm instead.

“He gets off to hearing morbidity ,” she said, her little accent twisting the syllables as she eyed Traps.

“My human ,” Fetch said between rolling chuckles. “It is only your morbidity that I get off on as you call it.”

She snapped her angry gaze at him, a deep furrow on her brow. “What ye be meanin’?”

He pulled her face to him and pressed his mouth on hers, the bold act boiling Traps’ blood with a hunger and power he longed to unleash. “I be meanin’ that your soul is the only food in this universe that can feed mine.”

She stared right into his gaze, now inches from hers and the power passing between them crackled in the air. “That a fact?” she barely whispered.

“It is a Finished fact.”

She seemed to realize the intimacy of the exchange and her pale cheeks tsked with a pink hue. She stepped back and gestured at Traps. “Carry on then.”

Fetch got back to eyeballing him. “Your woman has no wants, she has needs. This darkness she’s trapped in is its very own prison, and she fears it will consume you. And it will consume you.”

The chance that she cared about him to any degree had him shaking with more hope. “I would never hate her. I can’t ,” he realized. Even if he wanted to, and he did, many days, had even tried.

“She only knows self-loathing.”

He stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

“But you will. And when you do, you will also understand the trap she requires of you.”

“The trap she requires of me ?”

“It is the trap that will free her.”

His heart soared at this news. “I’ve trapped many things to free them. I know every trap.”

“You know many but there are more to learn. And with every one of them that you submit to, you will master. This is a divine gift you possess.”

“Tell me what I need to do first.”

“Trap her,” he reiterated. “ Literally . And then you must claim her body until all that is beneath her skin is also trapped in you.”

His instructions had him torn between hurrying back to begin and vomiting at his feet. “You want me to use actual rope and tie her up.”

“Yes.”

“Against her will. Because she’s not going to cooperate.”

“Yes. You will force her.”

He looked at Rowan, feeling like it was all a very bad idea. “You agree?”

“I honestly would say hell no if it weren’t me Fetch sayin’ it.”

He regarded Fetch again, feeling like prior plans had just changed. His brother’s hand landed on his shoulder with a sly grin. “We’ll take a rain check on the filthy soup.”

“What!?” Rowan balked.

“Our brother has a fire to tend to.” He turned to face Rowan. “As do we, wife .”

Those words zapped away the dramatic gumbo crime crimping her face. He realized he might actually get to share such an intimacy with Gretchen and his adrenalin jacked up. “I’ll deliver the gumbo personally once I’m free to.”

“You can both deliver it,” Fetch said, walking Rowan to the passenger door of the car.

“I have to literally trap her,” Traps quickly double-checked.

“Literally. Then possess her in every way you’ve ever imagined.”

Fuck. “She’ll…”

“Fight you with all her human heart,” he assured. “While secretly rooting for your victory.”

Fuck, this would be the trap of all traps. The trap of the century. No, of his life.

“Just remember there is no safer place for her than in your eternal trap.”

What did that mean? A forever trap? His forever trap? The thump of the car door snapped him from the mental puzzle.

He eyed Fetch as he made his way to the driver’s side. “I’ll call you,” his fairy brother said opening his door then turning those glowing blue eyes to the sky. Traps looked up to see what seemed to hold his attention then found those blue portals back on him. “There’s a storm coming,” he mumbled to him.

Traps looked again at the sky, finding only red tinted air that indicated the opposite. He meant a different kind of storm and now wanted to ask what kind, when, where? Was it a personal one? For him? Was it the one coming tonight? Was it the one raging across the country? Was more of that coming?

His gut answered, All the above.

Traps watched the black car pull out right as his phone buzzed in his back pocket. He pulled it out and the sight of her name sent stars shooting through his blood and brain. Trap her literally. And do everything you ever dreamed to her.

Fuck, had he really said those words?

He slid his phone back in his pocket, not ready for her yet. He needed a plan. If he was going to trap her physically, he’d need supplies too. He still had no idea what she’d done with his favored ropes. He’d stop by his trapping shed and get every kind of restraint he might need or want because he sure had no idea what that was.

You’ll know.

Holy fuck, he was doing this. He was finally doing what he’d itched all along to do. Bind her up. Make her see. Make her feel. Make her endure what she did to him.

He made his way to the small boat and hopped in. Once enroute, he pulled his phone out, ready to get some idea of where her head was.

“Please don’t tell me you’re on your way, I accidentally burned the roux!” she cried in his ear.

“They had to cancel,” he said, casting out his first trap.

“Oh,” she said after a few seconds. “What happened?”

Which answer to give? “They had a marital emergency.”

She gave an odd sputter. “What the heck is that?”

“I have no idea. It appeared to be the kind of fight a husband and wife who are madly in love have.”

“Oh. Well… makes sense you wouldn’t know what that looks like.”

“How do you figure?” he challenged, as every need she’d evoked in him congregated in his cock till it thumped with hunger.

“Because you clearly haven’t experienced anything like that.”

He stared into those flames blazing around her and jumped right in. “You mean with you?”

“With anybody , I’d wager.”

There went that switch. Only this time, her fury registered differently in his blood and bones. He finally let himself imagine things. Thick rope biting into her soft skin. Muscles stretched so very tight. Joints put to the test. A devious hunger sprinkled its way through his blood as the memory of her seduction rose up. “Are you still wearing that dress?”

She made sounds that tickled his cock. Trapped sounds. “Yes, why?”

Yes. Why? “Because I like it,” he said, his arousal spiking his pulse. “Your tits drive me crazy in it.” Oh fuck. Those words out loud. Her silence. He was boiling for her. “You thought I didn’t notice?” The sound of her breaths and absence of words were perfection. “I did notice. I know what you’re doing, wife.”

Breathless. Fuck, she was in a corner. Pinned.

“Is that a fact?” she barely said.

“It is.”

“I don’t even know what you mean.”

“Oh, I think you do. And when I get back, we’re going to talk all about what you do to me. And why you do it. Are you ready for that?”

It took her many seconds to sputter the trembling words. “Fine. But talk is cheap.”

“It is. Unless you use rope to demonstrate.”