by Melissa Marr
“Damn.”
Eli smiled proudly. “Perhaps a single malt? Wine?”
“All of it?” I looked at the options. There were bars that weren’t as well stocked as his liquor cabinet.
I pulled my gaze away from the liquor and took in the larger room. Stone and earth. Light-blocking drapes—currently opened to the light of streets and stars. I felt the age in the building materials of the building. This was a structure with minimal steel, the sort of place even a full fae could visit comfortably.
“Your home is incredible.”
“I’ve worked to create a haven,” Eli said. “I am . . . happy to be in New Orleans, but I do like my creature comforts. I miss nature more than I expected. The courtyard here helps. Some of my interior architecture does, too.”
“Could you go—”
“Home?” He gave me a wry smile. “To Elphame?”
I nodded, not sure if I had already crossed a line and afraid that the wrong move or word would shatter the moment. I felt like my entire body was in stasis, not breathing, no heart beating.
“There are obligations I would need to address,” he said. “My uncle and I have an accord. I agreed to begin the process of fulfilling my duty on our next meeting. He does not ever leave Elphame. As long as I do not visit, the clock does not begin to tick.”
“You’re in exile.” I stared at him. “I had no idea. I’m so—”
“Self-imposed. I have not been cast out.” Eli gave me a fierce look. “I choose not to see my brethren. That is the choice I have accepted.”
I couldn’t say I completely understood. I could, technically, go to my childhood home. I could visit my mother, although I had to keep my visits short for her safety. And I had Jesse—who was like a brother—here with me in New Orleans, too. Like Eli, I had limited choices. I thought about home more and more these days. I couldn’t live there, or even visit there long.
“I miss fields,” I admitted. “I grew up in a space where the soil was clean. There were no surprise dead under the ground there.”
He nodded. “But there are no places in the fields to hide your beacon from the unclean ones.”
I accepted the ornate textured glass he offered, enjoying the weight of the heavy glass, and stepped back to the liquor choices. “The barriers my mother erected with her magic stopped working when I was eight. I woke most days to draugr and shambling, dead animals surrounding the house. My nature carried from root to stem, dew drop to stream.”
“And they came.” He poured himself a single malt. I knew what it was by the scent, although the name on the bottle was unfamiliar to me.
“We are both exiled in our way,” Eli said.
I grabbed a bottle of tequila. “And not truly by choice.”
“Let us drink then.” He lifted his glass. “To exile.”
We drank and stood in silence, both lost in our own thoughts. I considered asking for a bit of juice so I could actually feel intoxicated. Straight liquor was like water for me, nourishing and refreshing; the taste was simply a pleasure. No liquor I’d found would leave me drunk. Wine could offer a light buzz, but that required a full bottle. I didn’t publicize that fact. I’d rather look like a bad-ass with a hollow leg than admit that booze wasn’t limiting to me—but that fruit was.
“As my dear dead gran isn’t in the walls to summon,” Eli announced suddenly, “perhaps we could relax here until you are ready to visit the family. I have two showers and a pair of tubs. I will need one of the showers after carrying the deceased. What would you prefer?”
The appeal of sinking into a tub must have been obvious on my face. Eli led me to a room that seemed impossible, but so utterly him. Plants bloomed, and moonlight filtered in through skylights. The ground appeared to be grass. I bent to pet it.
“I’d ask that you wear no clothes or shoes past this foyer,” he said. “Some of the plants are sensitive, and we were in the dirt and blood.”
He motioned to a wooden cabinet. “There are clean clothes here. Identical to items you wear often.”
“In my size? Or . . .”
“Yes.” He said no more, but I opened it and glanced in. It wasn’t as if he had many clothes, of many sizes or styles. Just mine.
“Eli—”
“I lack shoes for you, but . . .” He shrugged. “I was not expecting to need those.”
“My boots are fine.” I bent and removed them.
“Shower to rinse first if you want.” He gestured to a marble rainfall shower behind plants. “However, the tub filters the water at all times. The controls are on the wall near it, but it is already at a temperature comfortable for you.”
In the far end of the room was the largest tub I’d ever seen. It was cut of stone, and a small waterfall poured down the wall as if nature had been captured inside. It seemed more like an indoor pond. At least four grown adults could fit inside it.
I glanced at Eli, thinking about him joining me. “Where will you be?”
“Another room.” He didn’t respond to my look: no flirtation, no offers. He took a drink of his whisky and walked away.
When the door closed, I stripped and walked closer to the tub. At the bottom were massive smooth rocks. I sank into the already warm water and tried not to think about my magic’s irregularities or the way I wanted to lean into my body’s response to Eli.
I was going to drink and wash the gross away instead. I appreciated the way Eli looked and acted, and he appreciated something about me he was kind enough not to say. Ours was still a simple, clear relationship—which was how I liked everything in my life. Clear. Well-defined boundaries.
I just needed to figure out how to keep it that way.
Chapter Eight
When I returned from bathing, dressed in a nicer version of my standard jeans and shirt, Eli was settled in at a plush chair by the window, reading a tattered book of what appeared to be Gaelic poetry. His hair was damp, and his clothes were clean. I resisted the urge to remark on his reasons for having clothes here for me, or even the fact that my magic was calmer after having a few moments to find my own ways to take the edge off the sexual tension I couldn’t release with him.
“Better?” he asked. The question felt loaded, and I wondered how much his fae senses told him—or if he just knew me.
I nodded. I was a witch, tied to nature, life, and death. There weren’t many of us in the world. The only one I knew well was my mother. I’d met two or three others in my childhood. None of them were particularly reserved women. Life and nature and death were all raw, messy, and dealing with that didn’t leave a lot of room for being a prude.
My mother’s version of the “birds and bees” was along the lines of “witches who refuse their primal energy can’t work magic well.” Nudity was natural. In this, Eli and I were pleasantly at ease. The fae weren’t any more prudish than witches.
“I am calmer as well,” he said with a rough voice and wicked smile that made me quite certain that he had taken the edge off his tension much as I had done.
And just like that, my needs were back. I walked over to the bar, grabbed another drink, and tried not to think about naked Eli.
I glanced at Eli, who had placed my weapons on a cloth on the floor beside the window.
“Do you have oil I could use? An old rag?”
“An old rag? For your sword?” Eli looked scandalized when he lifted his gaze from his book and motioned to the bottom shelf of a massive case. “There is a box in the bottom shelf for you. It is labeled.”
“A box . . . for me?”
This time Eli didn’t look at me. His eyes were fixed on the page as he said, “Weapon care supplies. Bone setting implements. Sooner or later, I knew you would be here.”
He had left an opening to talk about so many things, and again, I was not going to take it. Silently, I walked over to the bookcase in question, and there was a wooden crate with a hinge. On the outside, in ornate script letters, were the words “Decadent Golden Cream Delight. Unwrap carefully.”
I looked over at him, and he offered the sort of smile that said he was aware of my response even as I said nothing at all. I wished fervently just then that I disliked him. Hate fucks or casual fucks with him sounded better by the month. Sadly, he wasn’t offering me those. Everything I would enjoy in a man was composed before me, but I had a lifelong “no relationships” policy. Casual sex was lovely. I had only two rules: no dead things and no serious relationships.
Cleaning my sword would take far less time than I’d like, especially since Eli had a well-stocked kit. All I truly needed was to wipe it down, and re-sharpen it. The box on Eli’s shelf held oil, cleaning rags, cotton swabs for the grooves of the inlay, as well as a new whetstone. No unnecessary liquids or fluff that was sold to the unknowing fool. Aside from a spell sachet, the kit he’d prepared was exactly what I would have assembled.
Eli was damn good at the details.
Blood, especially draugr blood and flesh, would corrode the blade. Liquids weren’t great for steel either, though. Even with effort and care, my sword would only last a year or so before replacement. Less if not for magic. So, I went through quite a few swords before I started infusing them with various magic.
I considered my weapons as I removed a bit of rotted flesh that had started to dry. I liked to use a two-hander, a single-hander, and revolver as my default weapons. If folks wouldn’t look at me like I was vaguely terrifying and cross the street to avoid me, I might carry a halberd or even a battle axe, too. It might seem like overkill, but I liked to keep a good distance from draugr teeth—and venom.
The venom was what worried me.
Not every bite was one with venom; some were even “dry” bites—no venom injected and no blood taken. There was no way to predict that, however, and I had no idea what venom would do to me. In the living, it could kill. It could also reanimate. Enough bites with venom would turn a person. It was incentive for a lot of people to live behind fences, and it reduced the number of people willing to fight draugr.
It simply made me extra thorough. I could handle what many could not. I’d never come close to being bitten. If I did, though, I wasn’t sure of the consequences.
Humanity had spent billions on injections, surgeries, pills, and every manner of way to deceive the eye and appear younger. Who knew that an old Icelandic magic was the answer so many people had sought? I didn’t think a decade of ravenous mindlessness was worth extra years in the world, but draugr forgot much of their first decade or two. That was common knowledge. They were stumbling, mindless eating machines.
By forty years post-death, they were fully articulate. They were monstrosities, and I wanted no part of building a rapport with them, as some politicians and religions suggested.
If anything, they seemed more like reptiles. Cold. Borrowed heat from outside themselves. Hunted well in the dark. The only difference was that reptiles served a purpose in the ecosystem. Draugr were a blight.
Forty years into the reveal of the draugr, the laws were still struggling to make sense of what it meant. After a few years, they were sentient, but what was to be done between death and sentient minds? Do we let them rise? Do we have social services for the care of the ravenous? If not, were we saying eternity was only for the wealthy? The Re-Animation Advocates had already managed to ban cremation unless pre-planned, notarized in the year prior to death. This modification was valid for the next century “while the legality of life in the post-living is assessed.” The objective, in theory, was to prohibit family members from undoing choices made by the decedent before passing.
The rest of the laws were in flux. What happened to inheritances when the dead were re-animated? Were prenups violated? Could a draugr own property? What about taxes? Do they owe more because they were still sentient? Or less because they weren’t using the universal healthcare?
I would never find out firsthand. I glanced at Eli, only to find that he was watching me. He was the one I’d ask to kill me if I was envenomated. He could do it. He was strong enough to end my existence if I woke up shambling and trying to bite my friends. I just wasn’t sure when—or how—to ask him to kill me if the time came.
Hey, Eli, could you kill me if I wake a draugr? I have money to pay you.
And now, I had a lot more than I used to with all of my recent clients. This month alone I’d had three wealthy businessmen. I finished cleaning my blade and was pondering the uptick in work when I felt Eli’s gaze on me like a physical thing. He still held his book, but he was obviously not reading.
“Stop staring at me.”
“After a job, you are different. It is an honor to see you so.” He lowered his book, surrendering his pretense of reading. “I find myself wanting to procure antique weapons for your hands.”
“I thought you weren’t going to flirt.”
He stilled. “I am not flirting, Geneviève. I am remarking that you are a warrior in ways that should be honored.”
My hand curled around my hilt as if expecting the appearance of an enemy I could slay. Fighting made sense. Kill. Protect. It felt natural. I could summon an army of walking corpses. Violence was in my nature. That was part of why we could never be together.
I slid to the floor and boxed my cleaning supplies, my new ones that Eli had collected. Whatever he was offering, flattery of my work and useful supplies did more than all of his pastry-based nicknames.
I did not look away from the box’s contents as I said, “I don’t know the rules that will make our friendship work.”
“I would ask that you tell me when you are panicking next time rather than refuse my aid.” His voice took on a raw edge as he added, “I would be . . . not be well if you were injured, especially if it were because you are afraid that I cannot observe your rules. I will not force you to accept my affection. I will not plan to seduce you. You can rely on me.”
I nodded once because I couldn’t trust my voice just then. I glanced at him. Elegant. Handsome. No longer hiding his dark hair under a cap or under the magic he used to dull it in public.
I needed to focus on my immediate task: collecting for the Chaddock job. Sometimes collecting was tedious. Retainers were easy. Fear of the dead motivates a lot of people. Afterwards? There were often excuses. People were, by their very natures, deceitful. They doubted my word. Unlike the fae, a traitorous part of my brain whispered. Fae things didn’t lie outright.
“Would you accompany me to meet the client, Eli?” I asked as I returned the box to the shelf. He’d never accompanied me to meet clients before this, but it seemed foolish to exclude him. I had enough areas of my life that were off-limits to him. This one did not have to be.
He rose to his feet with a grace he never showed in public. “I would be honored by such trust.”
“I do trust you.” I cleared my suddenly-dry throat. “But. . .”
“You find me attractive.”
I met his gaze. “Of course, I do. Are there straight women who don’t?”
“I had wondered, since you have selected not to pursue the immense potential we have.”
“Would it mean something to you? Personally? Culturally? If we—”
“Yes.”
“Then, yes, I am ignoring the potential,” I said carefully. “Be my friend. My right hand with my work.”
“I will accept your terms for a fee.”
“A fee?” I echoed.
“One kiss.”
I shook my head. “Eli—”
“You know I am not human, Geneviève,” he said bluntly. He had dropped whatever glamour he still had in that moment. His skin glimmered as much as his hair, as if he was cut from the rarest of opals. “You have offered a bargain to one whose heritage requires an exchange. Do not offer a bargain to a faery without expecting a term in exchange. I require a kiss freely given at the time of my choosing.”
In some ways, his lowering of defenses and disguises with me was still more alluring than his words—and those were increasingly hard to ignore.
“Whe
re?” I asked suspiciously.
He laughed. “Have you been researching bargains, bonbon?”
I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “Which part of my body do you intend to kiss?”
“My fee is one, unfettered kiss here.” His fingertip lightly brushed my lips. “You can release your magic if you choose, and whatever decisions you make at that point, I shall accept. Even if it is to use me thoroughly and then discard me.”
“Eli . . .”
“You could satisfy your curiosity, and I would forgive you. I will still be here. I will never eject you from my life, Geneviève. It’s an advantageous bargain,” he tempted.
I licked my lips, tasting the honeysuckle sweetness that his skin seemed to exude. “Why?”
“Because I believe it will answer your questions,” he said lightly. “And I believe that there is a not insignificant chance that I will gain at least one night exactly where we both want me to be.”
I gasped involuntarily at the thought. “I accept.”
We stood there close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin, and if he couldn’t hear my heartbeat, I’d be stunned. I waited. After several years, were we finally going to kiss?
“Your deal is accepted,” he said, and turned away without kissing me.
Disappointment crashed through me. “Clearly, I didn’t do enough research,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “At the time of my choosing,” he reminded me.
I’d wanted that kiss, wanted to know if it would melt my mind as I expected it to. I’d also hoped—perhaps irrationally—that it would fizzle and the tension between us would disappear. One kiss and I could, maybe, move on. I was braced, ready—and, yes, damn it, I was excited.
Now he had the right to kiss me, and I had to either think about it constantly to brace for it or be caught unawares. Either way, I was fucked. I’d done as every human in history had when they made a bargain with a fae: believed I was clever enough to come out the winner.
