by Rhys Ford
“Not for this. It was a single question. Just a slit across his eyes and a dip of my finger into the fluid there.” She stroked at my hand, and I knew she was wishing she could do something for me, but human magic was nearly useless on an elfin, much less a chimera like me. “Mom taught me that a long time ago. Never thought I’d use it. Didn’t think it would really give anyone anything, but it did what I needed it to do. It gave me an answer.
“I needed to see if he’d gotten anything from Dempsey. That’s what I scried. I couldn’t do anything else for him, so I figured I might as well do something for you.” She sighed, then looked up as a thin thread of pixie fireflies spiraled above us. “Dempsey didn’t send him anything. Ever. Just money to live off of, and not even a lot of that. I don’t know what to tell you, Kai, but it looks like whatever you were hoping to find is lost forever.”
Nineteen
CARI GAVE me about half an hour of arguing before she finally relented and dropped me off at my warehouse, promising to deliver the Scout back to Jonas once I got inside. Trying every angle, she cajoled, scolded, and threatened, but the day had already worn off any patience I had left, and my temper rose quickly, shutting her down before we got out of the understreets.
“At least let me come inside and help you,” she said, pulling up into the warehouse’s driveway. The puppy-dog-eyes trick she learned as a kid was deployed once again—a wide soft gaze and a flutter of lashes—but as much as I loved her, I needed to deal with everything without any coddling or fuss. “Kai, you’re hurt and—”
“I’m going to be fine, mija,” I murmured, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. She grumbled under her breath, a mingled spit of Mexican and German she could have only learned from her mother, but eventually she sighed and nodded. “Get rid of the Scout and go home… or go to the Court and have a few drinks with Alexa. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got this.”
I waited until she pulled away and was down the street, the Scout’s crimson rear lights fading off when she made the turn to get onto the freeway. Then I activated my link. Standing beneath the stars, I weighed the possibilities for the rest of my night, turning over everything I’d learned since Dempsey’s death and scraping at who I thought I’d been.
Because, while everything I thought I’d known as a solid truth pretty much turned out to be a lie, the people and who I made myself was still as solid as the moment I stepped out onto that faraway lava field to go chase fire-assed chickens off a ledge.
The city lights drowned out the stars, and the moons hung over the horizon, nearly all crescents and coy behind a layer of frothy clouds. A hint of sugar lingered on the breeze as the malasada bakery a few blocks away kicked up its early evening fry. My stomach was still tender, but the eggy bread scent was a delectable whisper on the wind. Scrubbing at my face, I winced at the barely healed-over skin along my cheeks, sensitive from where the ainmhi dubh’s acidic kiss left its mark.
My hand was nearly done healing, much quicker than I’d thought it would, but Cari put forth a theory that I’d pretty much lanced it like a blister and most of the iron Valin called to its swollen flesh had oozed out onto the cavern and on the ainmhi dubh. My three fingers were still fused, but it was mostly skin, a thick webbing holding them together rather than flesh. I could move each independently as far as the skin would stretch, and if I liked swimming, I imagined it would be a great way to power through the waves pounding the bay’s shoreline.
Since I didn’t submerge myself into water all that much, I was looking forward to getting the use of my hand back. Studying the webbing, it seemed easy enough, something a bit of booze would help with, and since I’d already had that on my evening list of things to do, I could take care of my hand while I did it.
Oddly enough, my warehouse home looked the same as I’d left it, a tall two-story brick square with steel rolling bay doors hiding the garage space I’d built up and its heavy wood door with its Celtic knotwork and glass inserts gleaming despite the faintness of light around it. An oil stain on the cement driveway looked too much like the blood I’d smeared on the centipede we’d killed, and I stared at it for a long time, wondering where I was going to go next in my life.
Worn down to the bone, I drank in the sight of my city, glad I’d made San Diego my home. After years of crawling over the long SoCal freeways, looking for monsters to kill, whiskey to drink, and a warm body or three to keep me company for a few nights, I found myself more than content to stand on the doorstep of a place I’d made my own.
Even though it was time I took one of the largest, scariest risks I would ever take in my lifetime.
“Okay, Ciméara, got to stop just surviving. Valin was right. Everything you’re living’s an illusion. Time to jump in and do something.” I stared down at the communications bracelet on my wrist as if it somehow held the answers to my universe. Maybe it did. Either way, I wasn’t going to know unless I finally did something about where I was going and what I wanted. “You’ve killed dragons, for Pele’s sake. This isn’t going to be any different.”
A few button pushes and my link rang up, only to be answered before the second burble ended. I kept my eyes on a helicopter angling in to land on Medical’s tallest tower, its blades whirring about, chopping through the air to bring in a life to be saved. The voice on the other end was strained, eager to know I was alive, perhaps, or just tired of waiting. I wasn’t sure, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.
Not now at least. Maybe not ever. It all depended on how things worked out.
“I’m home,” I said softly, hearing a heavy sigh of relief through the speaker. “At my place. Why don’t you head over here. And oh, don’t forget to bring my cat.”
I WAS down about a fourth of the whiskey bottle when Ryder came through my front door.
After stopping long enough to put Newt down and then attend to my cat’s caterwauling about the empty food bowl on the kitchen floor, he finally stalked through the warehouse to stand in front of me with a bag in one hand and a look of horror on his face.
To be fair, I’d just taken a deep swig of whiskey, picked up a pair of pinking shears, and snipped through the second bit of webbing connecting my ring and middle finger together as he walked up.
There were a lot of things in my life that gave me pause. Most of them came with fangs or claws, with the worst ones having wings as well, but seeing Ryder’s face drain of all color definitely made me stop and contemplate the world for a moment.
“I didn’t know elfin could turn green.” I picked up the knife I’d balanced over a glass container filled with candle wax, its wick burning bright and high enough to nearly touch the blade lying across the rim. “Hold on a second. I’ve got to do this before the skin heals together again. Seems like webbing likes to stay webbing. Surprised all of us aren’t sea elves cavorting in the ocean or something.
“Then again,” I murmured, thinking about the raging waters off of the shoreline and the creatures living in a briny world no one really knew. Laying the hot steel against my sliced-apart skin, I bit back the hiss jerked up from my belly at the searing pain and blew away the rising wisp of acrid steam coming off the sealing flesh. “Maybe there used to be sea elfin and they got eaten by everything nasty in the Underhill waters or they’ve gone deep into the trenches, happily living their lives until the Merge hit, and now they’re stuck with giant squid and angler fish.”
The pain was a clean one, a kind of sharp, raspy ache followed by a sense of relief as it edged back into a dull throb. I chased the sear with a shot of whiskey, wiping away the thickness on my tongue from the sudden shock of the quick cauterization and the smell of my own skin being grilled under a blade I used to skin ainmhi dubh. Newt screamed from the kitchen, probably interested in whatever I was cooking in the living room, but I shushed him with a cutting retort he probably dismissed with a twitch of his whiskers.
“What in Morrigan’s name are you doing?” Ryder croaked out, unsteadily gripping the couch arm, then sliding over on
to the seat next to me. “And why are you doing it?”
I often forgot how insulated Ryder’s world was, and a little bit of my resolve crumbled, eaten away by a slap of doubt. Shaking it off much like Newt’d done to me, I brandished the blade, then placed it back over the candle to heat up again.
“Valin did this. Well, he did a lot of things, but this is kind of what’s left over,” I said, picking up the snips, snicking the blades to make sure I hadn’t gotten anything caught on their edges. “I’ll tell you about it while I finish this up.”
“Stop.” Ryder placed his hand on my wrist, holding me still before I could make the next cut. “Don’t… for gods’ sake, don’t do this to yourself. Or at least don’t use that knife to seal the wound. I brought some salve with me. Cari called. Told me you were hurt but… this is beyond hurt, Kai. This is—”
“Yeah, not the worst he’s ever done to me.” I shrugged. “Hell, nothing compared to what Tanic’s done. I mean, I give Valin credit for thinking on the spot, but it’s all rinse and repeat of times back in the cuid Anbhás homestead. This time I was able to get myself out of it… with Cari’s help. Owe that girl a lot for pulling my ass out of the fire today, I can tell you that.”
I waited until he dug out the salve infused with Sidhe healing and probably a little more than a few tablespoons of fragrant oils. It glistened and sparkled, a bit of glitter in the gloom next to the rebar knots resting on the old steamer crates I used for a coffee table. The iron tangles were a reminder of what my life’d been like before Dempsey, and after they’d been pulled out of my back, I’d twisted them about in a bonfire, then placed them in the middle of my home. They’d become something my friends often picked up, running their fingers over the bumpy surfaces, the same textured rods that once shaped the black-pearl dragon wings sculpted into the scarred skin on my back. Ryder hated the sight of them and probably wasn’t going to like what I had to tell him about Kenny, Valin, and the ainmhi dubh that my brother dragged up from death to hunt me down.
It took longer for the salve to work than the knife, but I could tell it was easier on Ryder. The snips did the job quick enough, and the whiskey was beginning to taste sweet. That could have been because Ryder’d joined me in drinking, his mouth on the bottle’s rim adding a bit of sugar to the slap of booze when I drank after him, but that was probably all just in my mind. He listened as we waited for the salve to work, ignoring everything around us, including my cat, who’d found something with a bell to bat around the floor, its incessant jingle guaranteed to wake the dead if I left him to it during the night.
While the glittery potion slowly knitted the cuts shut, I told Ryder everything, including what Cari dragged up out of Kenny’s corpse.
“So Malone was the one who shot that kid?” he finally asked, leaning on his knees and watching the flame dance about in its glass prison. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“The cops took him in. As soon as he realized he’d hit the kids, he hurried over. Well, as much as he could hurry over, because he’s still kind of banged up from pancaking in the parking lot. But by the time Malone got there, I’d already gone after Kenny,” I explained. “He’d spotted us at the marketplace and figured I needed protection or something. Damned kid really can’t aim for shit. He was trying to nick Kenny in the leg or something to slow him down. Malone’s dangerous as he is. I dropped Samms a line to see if he’d be willing to take the kid in as an apprentice. Samms might be an asshole, but he’s a good Stalker. If anyone’s going to scrape off Malone’s rose-colored glasses, it’ll be him.”
“Is Cari okay?”
“Yep. Right as rain.” The snips were in my hand again, and Ryder stared at the webbing connecting my ring and pinkie finger. “You can look away. Only takes a little bit to cut it apart. Just blink really long, and it’ll be done before you know it.”
“Why are you doing this? By yourself, I mean?” Ryder gestured in the general direction of Balboa and the Southern Rise Court. “There are healers there who could at least do this for you. Even if you won’t let them do magic on you, they could—we could go up there now. Or in the morning. You said it doesn’t hurt. Why are you—”
“Because tonight, when I make love to you, I intend to be able to use all of my fingers to coax you with, lordling. I want to run my hands through that golden hair of yours and feel it on my skin. I want to be able to stroke you and not have my pinky finger dancing about because it’s attached to the one next to it. So yeah, that’s why I’m doing this,” I said softly, making a snip through the stretch of skin between the first two joints. “Why am I wanting us here? Now?
“Think about it, if one damned kiss made the place grow like mushrooms after a thunderstorm, imagine what the hell’s going to happen once we finally do this?” Nodding toward where the Court lay on the mesas above downtown, its spires reaching up for stars it could never touch. “The first time I’m with you, I want it to be between us. No Court, no one else but you, me, and hopefully a cat with a belly full enough he won’t bother us for at least eight hours so I can do everything I’ve ever dreamed about doing to you. Just tell me… yes or no. Because I’m tired of just breathing. I want to have the taste of you on me, on my tongue, in my hair, and if you’re not ready for that, it’s okay. I can wait.”
Luckily I didn’t have my finger anywhere near the shears when Ryder twisted his hand into my hair. I let myself be pulled in close until our mouths brushed, and he whispered into my parted lips, “If you think I’m not going to say yes to you, then you’ve not been paying attention, áinle. For someone who makes his living watching the shadows, you do not see the things that are right under your nose.”
I NEVER got the last bit of skin snipped. It was everything I could do to get the salve on the first cut I’d made before Ryder hooked his fingers into my hair and pushed me down onto the couch. Something hard dug into the small of my back, probably something Newt dragged up into the cushions, but I wasn’t going to complain. Not with the stretch of Ryder’s lean body on me and the concentration I needed to pull his clothes off without tearing anything.
Since I wasn’t so great at the not tearing anything, I resigned myself to having to make sure the pants I gave him in the morning were at least clean.
“Are you sure about this, Chimera?” Ryder lay on my bed, dragged up the stairs with a bit of persuasion and a lot of kisses meant to steal his breath. They’d worked, or at least they looked like they did, judging by the rough pinkness of his lips. Naked, he was a sheath of golden shades against the black sheets, his eyes as bright and vivid as spring breaking through a dismal winter. “Because as much as I need you, it would kill me to know you’re not ready for this. For us. Because once we start this, I’m not going to let go. And you know how long our kind live.”
He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t breathe.
“Never been more sure about this in my life,” I murmured, resting on my knees at the end of the bed to drink in the sight of him. There was a fear in me so great I nearly couldn’t speak, but to appreciate the gift of Ryder in my life, there on my sheets, wasn’t something I could let go by in silence. “I can’t tell you I’m great at this. Relationships and you—you need them. So—”
“We’ll work it out, áinle,” Ryder murmured, reaching for me. “We shall definitely work it out.”
We started slow, exploring each other until all I could taste was popcorn green tea, vanilla, and Sidhe. I found a spot where he couldn’t stand my teeth dragging across his skin—a sensitive triangle along his hip and then its twin on the other side. His fingers and tongue traced my scars and tattoos, and he sighed over the marbled, puckered ribbing on my back and stroked at the ink down my thighs and hip.
He was sleek beneath me when we joined, his back glistening with sweat and his lower lip clenched between his teeth while I took my time with him. Ryder pushed up to seat me, nearly breaking my vow to prolong every enjoyable moment. So I bit the tip of his ear, burying my face in a tangle of metallic gol
d hair, and chuckled.
“We have all night, lordling,” I whispered, using the tip of my tongue to trace down the scallop of his ear. “You’re the one used to living forever. You’d think you’d be the one with patience.”
His link chimed once from its resting place on the milk crate I had beside the bed, then again, falling into a syncopated dance beat only a stream of messages could make. He went to grab for it, but I stopped him, lightly sinking my canines into his forearm.
“Could be important.” His plea was soft, carrying with it the weight of a Sidhe Lord with a new Court and a lot of responsibilities. “Let me at least look.”
I waited while he scrolled through, then took the thin gold bracelet from his hand, not looking at the screen. “Anyone dead? The girls are okay?”
“No,” he said, making a halfhearted grab for the link. “And yes, they’re fine. The Court is—”
“Far enough away and well enough to take care of their own shit for right now,” I told him, tossing the link toward the pile of mostly whole clothes on the floor. “Right now, it’s just us, remember?”
The slivered moons were our only company when we finally touched our own stars, hitting the zenith of our bodies’ peak after hours of teasing and love. I wasn’t sure who’d fallen first. In the end, it didn’t matter. I plunged down into the sweetness of our blood’s aria, succumbing to the enticing melody he’d offered me from the moment we first met. It was nearly too much, carrying me away from everything other than the bed I shared with a Sidhe Lord who had more heart than common sense.
Inside of me, something shifted, something unfettered I’d not known existed. It reached for Ryder’s soul, his heart, and entwined me through them. I felt him with every breath I took in, had his touch warming my skin even as his fingers left me. I wrapped my fingers around his, my palms pressing the backs of his hands down into the mattress when I took him over the edge, following close behind with every bit of darkness in me fleeing under the light he’d brought with him. Ryder clenched and pulled me in. We were tangled and wrapped around each other until we were slick against each other’s skin and I smelled of his Sidhe scent, happily drowning under his touch.
