Wicked Harmony

Chapter 12 | Cal

Chapter 12

Cal

W e’re all exhausted after driving solidly for the past three days, and I somehow wound up with Sin fast asleep with her head leaning on my arm. She’s drooling all over me, but I can’t find it in me to mind.

It’s past midnight and I can’t bring myself to wake her up either.

Somehow she sensed I was struggling at the gas station and she got me out of a situation that was making my skin crawl. She dove into the fray of overeager fans and swept me away with zero fuss. It was exactly what I needed. And then holding her in my arms after settled me like nothing else.

Safe to say, after the past couple of days in the car with her breathing in her sweet scent, I’m feeling off-kilter.

We pull up into the clearing in the woods where our cabin is located and I slowly retract my arm, careful not to disturb her. Then, carefully lifting out her sleeping form, I carry her inside.

I stride through the living room with single-minded determination and pick one of the guest bedrooms, kicking the door open and placing Sin carefully down onto the bed. The cleaners have been in to freshen the place up since we haven’t been here in months, and the air smells faintly of lemons.

I don’t know what the fuck’s going on with me. But it fills some deep forgotten part of me to take care of her like this .

What I really want to do is tuck her into my bed, where she’ll smell like me until she showers my scent off. But that’s just my instincts going into overdrive.

I have to keep reminding myself that giving into them would be crazy. There’s no way Sin wouldn’t freak out if she woke up in my bed.

I slink back to the doorway of her room and almost trample Micah, where he’s gazing after her with a besotted expression on his face.

“Might want to give her some space, man. You don’t want her to wake up and find you watching her sleeping. She’d probably find it creepy rather than cute.”

Although with Micah, who knows? I’m pretty sure anyone would scream if they awoke to my ugly mug staring down at them.

Plus, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing advising him. It’s not like I know anything about women.

But Micah nods at me like I know what I’m talking about, his eyes wide. “Right. Thanks for looking out, I appreciate it. I just... I don’t know how I feel right now.”

My lips curl into a half smirk. “Cuff still working?”

“Seems to be. I’m feeling my own emotions for once instead of everyone else's, and it’s... kind of confusing.”

I bet. I clap him on the shoulder and wince as he jolts forward.

“I like her, man,” he continues. “I like her a lot. It’s fast, I know, but—” He trails off, looking almost miserable about it.

Yeah, I know exactly how he feels. My instincts are a confused tangle right now, mixing with the logical part of my brain and messing me up inside.

But if he’s looking to me for advice on how to proceed with her, he’s shit out of luck.

Dorian’s the only one of us who’s into the whole adoring groupies thing. I’m pretty sure it’s all a part of his issues with being accepted. The rest of us are more than happy for all that bullshit to rest on his shoulders.

Iri always has his own thing going on that I’m not sure any of us understand fully. And Micah’s shown nothing more than polite interest in all the screaming and the offers of blowjobs that pop out of nowhere.

Back when we were first starting out, I tried to see if it was something I could get into. It felt like something that should appeal, considering Orcs have a ferocious sex drive.

But my cock would never cooperate.

Turns out, I need to feel some connection with someone to feel something down there. It made me feel like I had pieces missing or like I don’t fit together quite right.

Maybe if it hadn’t felt like the groupies were doing it for the novelty. It was pretty clear they wanted to suck a monster’s cock. They probably wanted to see if Orcs really do cum as much as the rumors say. Or they wanted to bag a rock star backstage.

None of those possibilities appeal to me.

So I drum and I fuck my fist.

“I was thinking,” Micah says, bringing me back to the moment. “I figured it would be nice if we made breakfast for Sin in the morning and sat down all together. It might help her feel comfortable here.”

Normally, when we get back to the house, we split off and do our own thing unless we’re practicing. After being forced together 24/7 when we’re on the road, it’s been a long time since we willingly chose to spend any of our free time together.

I miss it though. The guys are my second family. And we’re the only family Micah’s got.

I can see about a million holes in Micah’s plan. For one, we have zero food until we make a trip to the nearest supermarket. I guess we’re too used to being in hotels and having everything easily accessible.

Out here, we’re about a forty-five minute drive from the nearest town.

And it’s late as hell. My bed is calling to me.

“I was hoping we could make those little pastry things. You know the ones, we used to have them whenever we were on the East Coast?”

“You mean the ones that Linda used to make?” She was our personal chef when we were staying on the East Coast for a few months last year.

“Oh.” His face drops and I let out a sigh.

Fuck. He looks so damn hopeful. I don’t want to crush his dreams.

Seems we’re making a midnight trip to the supermarket so Micah can make some pastry things we don’t even have the recipe for. So that the two of us can attempt to do something nice for the woman sleeping just down the hall.

Should be simple enough, right?

Micah

WRONG.

The following morning, Sin comes down to breakfast and is greeted by a disaster of a kitchen and two overtired and slightly emotional monsters in the middle of it.

We got home from the supermarket after two am last night and it took another hour to get things prepped so that this morning could go seamlessly.

Too bad that while Cal can make a mean sandwich, his talents don’t stretch to using the stove and my incompetence in the kitchen outweighs any of his abilities, and Iri and Dorian were nowhere to be found to help dig us out of the hole we dug ourselves.

All I wanted to do was show my appreciation to the woman who has made the world quiet and my feelings my own for the first time in my life.

I’ve been on this earth for a long time and I can’t remember ever feeling so good.

I don’t think Sin appreciated what it means either, or what she’s done for me. Instead of the bombardment of alien emotions that follows me wherever I go, I feel calm and safe.

She gave me a solution to a problem that’s plagued me for centuries and she expected nothing back from me for it.

I wanted to do something to thank her. But burnt toast, rock hard pastries and fruit that looks like a toddler has chopped it up with a spoon weren’t exactly what I had envisaged.

She appears, looking sleep-rumpled. Her blonde hair is sticking up all over her head and she shoots us each a sleepy smile. I pour her a coffee and she grabs a small selection of the horror laid out in front of her, digging in without batting an eyelid.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt whatever is bubbling inside of me. Not as my own emotions or as something external, either. It’s like a pool of pure warmth swelling up inside me and every time Sin smiles, the warmth overflows and fills my veins.

“No cuff today?” she asks as she bravely chews and chews and chews the thing that should have been a foolproof bake-from-frozen pastry.

How we fucked that up, I have no idea.

“Not today.” I cup the back of my neck and shove some toast into my mouth as I try to build up the courage to tell her my idea of how I’d like this morning to go. The toast is dry and tastes like charred cardboard and I have to chase it down with half a mug of coffee before I can swallow it .

“I was hoping I could give you a tour of the house. Show you around and then you can choose a space to work from,” I say. “Unless you have, uh, plans?”

I mean, she just got here. She can’t have plans already, right? But I’m feeling kind of flustered and I know that particular sensation is not coming from anywhere else other than myself.

Something about Sin being here is turning me inside out.

I pass my eyes over her rumpled appearance and the way she’s chowing down on an inedible breakfast, just to be nice. There are lines on one side of her face from her pillow and my eyes dart to her full lips as she sucks some jam off her thumb. That movement has me shifting awkwardly, trying not to get a boner from such a small thing.

She smiles at me and takes a swig of coffee. “I was planning on watching a bunch of your shows today and looking at your set design to see what I can add and where.”

“Iri can show you all that,” I tell her.

He’s the one with input on pretty much everything. From our costumes to the set design and the locations we tour. Probably because he’s the only one of us that doesn’t need to sleep. He gets bored in all those hours when everyone else is unconscious.

And no one wants to see the consequences of Iri when he’s bored.

“I’d love that,” Sin says. “Do you want to lead the way?”

I glance over at Cal, who is staring around at the mess in the kitchen in dismay.

He nods with a little grunt. “Go ahead. I’ll clean this up before Iri has a shitfit.”

AND SO, I GIVE SIN a tour of the cabin. We own a bunch of places dotted around the world, but this one is definitely my favorite. The four of us designed it together as a place we could escape to. Inside, it’s big enough that we can all spread out and never have to see each other if we don’t want to. The floors are all solid wood and there’s a lot of wood paneling and floor to ceiling windows in every room, so it’s almost like it’s a part of the woods that surround us. But it’s still cozy as hell.

The open-plan kitchen leads onto a living room with a huge TV and Dorian and Cal’s game consoles and an entire wall of books we’ve collected over the years. There’s a glass atrium leading to the music room and I point out Cal and Dorian’s bedrooms, which are on this floor. My workshop’s at the end, but I skirt past it to lead Sin upstairs. Up here we have enough spare rooms for all of Cal’s family to descend if they want to.

Sin’s reaction to our home gives me all the warm fuzzy feelings I was hoping for and they only increase as I get blasted with her interest as I lead her around the house and point out all my favorite features. I show her the fireplace in the living room and the chairs and sofas we spent hours picking out to find mismatching ones that fit our asses just right. Onto the music practice room of our dreams, complete with every instrument we ever wanted to try our hand at playing. Then I lead Sin back downstairs, through the kitchen and living room to the other side of the house.

“Uh, we were thinking this can be your workshop, if that works for you?” After a hurried, hushed conversation with Iri last night after we got in, I know he spent at least a couple of hours sweeping the dust and clearing out a bunch of boxes to make it ready for her.

I push open the door, revealing a sparse room we haven’t been using for anything. It was supposed to be a study or maybe an art studio, but none of us ever decided to set it up properly. There’s a bench lining one wall and another massive window, but beyond the bench and a chair, there isn’t anything else in here.

Sin’s eyes go massive as she stares around the space.

“This is for me? Seriously? This is amazing. ”

I feel the surge of pleasure that fills her, followed by a zing of excitement, and I hide my giddy grin by turning away.

“Fuck yeah, this is amazing.” She charges out of the room and into the bedroom she slept in last night. I follow along behind and help her to carry the assorted boxes and suitcases filled with what sounds like a lot of bits of jangly metal into her workroom.

There’s excitement and anticipation rolling off her, and I’m grinning like an idiot. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so excited about setting up a workshop before. She then flits around the room, unpacking and carefully placing her tools on the bench.

—and I just watch her, acting like I’m helping, but mostly standing around like a weirdo.

I subtly grab the cuff from my pocket and slip it on, drifting into a space where it drowns everything else out, leaving me with only my own emotions to deal with. The cuff is giving off a steady dose of mild comfort, like someone I care about is playing gently with my hair.

It’s fucking nice.

Kinda confusing, though. Now that I’m able to feel my own emotions without them being jumbled up with everyone else’s, I’m not sure how to handle them.

“So, er, you’re good, right? Great.” I grin at her like a fool. “I’ll leave you to finish setting your stuff up, then. And then in a couple of hours, maybe you can swing by practice and get a feel for it?”

Am I an asshole for wanting to feel her reaction to our music and our home? Probably. But that doesn’t mean I can fight the urge to experience it all with her.

I want to show off to a pretty girl and impress her. Sue me.

“It might give you some ideas for, uh, the tour.” I trail off, realizing as I say the words that I’m not actually sure what Sin will be doing .

I know Iri’s been obsessed with finding her for months. I know he thinks she’s going to make all the difference to the crowd’s experience. But that’s about it.

And sure, I also want Sin to see us practicing. I’m pretty sure that’s all self-indulgent, though. I feel like a kid wanting to show off for my crush.