by Karen Lynch
I yanked my arm out of her clutches, ignoring the pain that shot through my shoulder. I was fed up with faeries trying to tell me what I could and couldn’t do. I wasn’t some piece on a game board they could push around as they pleased.
“Glamouring a human is against the law, but I’m sure you know that. Attempting to glamour a bounty hunter is just plain stupid.”
She laughed arrogantly. “I am a royal, and we both know I’m above the laws of this backward realm.”
“Why are you here if you hate our world so much?”
“To protect what is mine, of course.”
“Of course.” I shook my head. “I think we’re done here.”
“Yes, you are,” she snarled.
I didn’t see the intent in her eyes until it was too late. She raised her hands, and pale green magic shot from them to encircle my throat. Her hands curled into fists, and the magic tightened like fingers around my throat, choking off my air. I clawed at the invisible fingers, but there was nothing to grab.
Dariyah grunted, and I could see the strain on her face from using so much magic. She would exhaust it soon, but before or after I was dead?
I drew back my good arm and punched her with every bit of strength I could muster. Her head snapped back, and I heard the crack of a bone as she flew backward. She landed hard a dozen feet away, and I sucked in air as the magic around my throat disappeared.
I stalked toward the faerie, who lay sprawled on the sidewalk. Her mouth was bloody and her eyes stared up at me with a mix of shock and fear. She’d recklessly used too much magic, and she was completely at my mercy.
“I’m a… royal,” she stammered, spraying blood all over her white top.
I stood over her. “I couldn’t care less if you were the queen of Seelie. You come at me like that again, and I’ll have you in shackles so fast your royal head won’t stop spinning for a week.”
I was tempted to shackle her now, but I didn’t know what the iron would do to her in her current condition. Leaving her on the ground, I stomped up the steps. At the top, I looked back to where she still lay, too weak to stand. I uttered a few choice words and took out my phone to dial a number.
“Angel,” Faris said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. He was a lot more energetic now that he was healed.
“I need a favor.” I didn’t bother to scold him for the use of the nickname.
“Anything. What kind of favor?”
I watched Dariyah trying futilely to sit up. “The kind you can’t tell Lukas about.” All I needed was to have to explain to him that his potential mate had tried to kill me.
“Dare I ask why?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.” I moved my bad arm and bit my lip against the shooting pain in my shoulder. “And if you could hurry, I’d really appreciate it.”
I hung up and looked at Dariyah, who was still lying where I’d left her. Heaving a sigh, I walked over to her and hooked my arms under hers to lift her to her feet. She was so weak she couldn’t walk, and I had to literally drag her to the building and prop her up on one of the steps. I stayed on the sidewalk, keeping an eye on her while she shot me death glares. I didn’t bother to tell her she was wasting her time. She was far from the scariest faerie I’d met.
Twenty minutes later, when a silver SUV drove up the street and stopped in front of me, I was surprised to see one of said faeries get out.
“I thought Faris was coming,” I said irritably.
Faolin walked around the front of the SUV wearing his usual annoyed expression. “I was closer. He said you need a favor that requires some discretion.”
“And you rushed right over.”
“I didn’t break any speed laws.” He gave me a once-over. “You don’t appear to be bleeding to death. What’s the problem?”
I stepped to one side so he could see who was behind me. If it was possible for eyebrows to hit a hairline, I think his accomplished it.
“Dariyah, what are you doing here?” he asked in the harsh tone that used to make me cringe. I didn’t miss the answering flicker of fear in her eyes.
She didn’t respond, and he cast a questioning look at me.
I stuck my hands in my pockets. “She and I had a little misunderstanding, but we got it all sorted out. I think she’s stayed too long in our realm, though, and needs to go home to recharge.”
Faolin’s scowl deepened, but he said nothing as he went to Dariyah, picked her up, and carried her to the vehicle. I opened the door for him, and he deposited her on the passenger seat.
He closed the door and went around to the driver’s side. “He should know about this.”
“You know about it.”
A smile ghosted across his face, and he gave me a head tilt before he opened the door and got in. The short exchange was the most meaningful conversation we’d ever had, and the closest to an apology I’d probably ever get from him for the whole Rogin thing. I could live with that.
* * *
“I could have driven us home,” Dad said for what had to be the fifth time since we left the treatment facility two weeks later.
I spied a parking spot and headed for it. “I know, but I’ve gotten very attached to this Jeep.”
“Oh, no. You are not keeping my Jeep.” He patted the dash affectionately. “I’ve missed this thing.”
“Okay, but I have no idea how I’ll fit the cage in Mom’s car.”
He laughed as I pulled into the spot and turned off the engine. I looked over at him, and he smiled. There were new lines at the corners of his mouth that hadn’t been there before, along with some more gray in his hair. Goren took its toll on the body, but the doctors said he hadn’t been on the drug long enough for serious long-term effects. A few gray hairs were nothing.
We got out, and I grabbed his suitcase from the back. He protested when I left him with the smaller bag, but it fell on deaf ears. One of the stipulations for him getting released early was that he would not overexert himself. He was supposed to spend the next few weeks resting, and slowly ease back into regular activity. I’d finally gotten him home, and I wasn’t letting him do anything that might put him back in the facility.
Halfway across the street, I realized Dad had stopped walking. I looked back to find him staring at the building.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“It feels like forever since I saw this place. It looks exactly the same.” He lowered his gaze to mine. “I don’t know why I thought it would be different.”
“When you go through an ordeal like yours, it’s hard to imagine the rest of the world not changing with you.”
He caught up to me. “When did you get so smart?”
“At birth.” I smirked, and he laughed.
We entered the lobby, where Mrs. Russo was standing in her doorway, waiting for us with a plate of brownies for Dad. He hugged her and asked how she was doing, and I remembered the last time the three of us had stood here talking. That had been back in November, and it felt like another lifetime, which in some ways it was. My life would forever be divided into before and after the day my parents went missing.
“Jesse did a fine job taking care of the building while you were gone,” Mrs. Russo said. “She even hired a nice man to fix the pipes.”
Dad smiled proudly at me. “I never had any doubts.”
We said our goodbyes and leisurely climbed the stairs to our floor. If he knew I was deliberately taking my time for his benefit, he didn’t mention it. After a month of training with Faolin and the others, I could run up these stairs carrying two suitcases.
“I should warn you that Finch doesn’t know you’re coming home today,” I said in a low voice as I unlocked the door. “I wanted to surprise him.”
I opened the door and entered first. “Finch, Aisla, I’m home.”
Two little faces appeared in the tree house doorway. Aisla took one look at Dad and disappeared. It took Finch a few seconds longer to realize I wasn’t alone. His eyes bugged out, and he began
to whistle crazily as he leaped from the tree house to the couch to the floor. Dad went down to his haunches, and my brother literally dived into his arms.
It was several minutes before Finch calmed down enough to sign legibly. Dad sat with him on the couch while I tried to coax Aisla out of hiding. She was great with Violet, but she was afraid of men. I suspected it was because a man had kept her in a cage her whole life. Once she got to know Dad, she’d love him as much as we did.
Dad looked a little tired, so I told him to relax while I made dinner. To celebrate his homecoming, I’d bought some thick steaks and put them in to marinate before I left to pick him up. Instead of baked potatoes, I made a healthy salad because the doctor said Dad needed lots of fresh vegetables and leafy greens in his diet.
I had invited Maurice to eat with us, and he arrived as I was turning the steaks over. Hearing the two of them talk and laugh together in the living room made me smile as I finished cooking and set the table.
Dinner felt almost like old times, except for Mom’s noticeable absence. Finch ate in the tree house with Aisla while Dad, Maurice, and I spent the meal discussing work. A few days ago, Maurice and I had talked about how we would bring Dad up to speed on certain things such as the ke’tain. We had no idea what might trigger a memory, so it was better if he heard about it from us instead of someone else. I watched him closely, but he showed no sign of recognition when Maurice told him about the artifact.
“A one-hundred-thousand-dollar bounty?” Dad stared at us like he was waiting for one of us to yell “Gotcha!”
Maurice cut a piece from his steak. “And every idiot with a license from here to Mexico is after it. Two nights ago, I had to break up a fight between a pair of Texas hunters and a team from Florida. The four of them had more attitude than good sense.”
“Were the Texans a blonde and a brunette?” I asked.
He grinned at me. “You’ve met them?”
“You could say that.”
Dad set down his fork. “Jesse, I don’t like the idea of you being mixed up in this. Hunting is one thing, but there are people who will go to any lengths for that kind of money.”
“You don’t have to worry. I was looking for the ke’tain, but Lukas convinced me it would be safer to let him go after it.” I didn’t elaborate. He did not need to know what had led to Lukas taking over.
“Lukas, huh?” Dad gave me a searching look. “And how often do you see the Unseelie prince?”
“Not often. I think he spends most of his time looking for the ke’tain now.”
I assumed that was what Lukas was doing. The last time I’d seen him was the day Tennin took the photos of us. I still went to his place to train, but he was never there, and he hadn’t been here since the night we’d kissed. None of his men mentioned him when I was there, and I didn’t ask, even though his absence from my life felt deliberate. Maybe he had figured out I had foolishly developed feelings for him, and he was doing the honorable thing, as Dariyah had put it.
I hadn’t seen her either since the night she’d attacked me. The next time I’d seen Faolin, he’d told me Dariyah would not bother me again, or she would have the royal guard to answer to.
Dariyah might be gone, but the things she’d said had stayed with me. As much as I disliked her, she hadn’t been lying about the future king needing a consort. The more I thought about Lukas choosing a mate who could give him blue-blooded babies, the less I wanted to know about it. I wasn’t naïve enough to think for a second that there could have been anything between us. But the thought of him with someone like Dariyah really pushed the knife deeper in my gut.
I was cleaning up from dinner when Bruce showed up. Word had gotten out that Dad was coming home today, and a bunch of his friends had wanted to throw him a welcome home party. I’d nixed that idea because of the doctors’ warning that he had to take it slow. Bruce and Maurice were his best friends, and they wouldn’t let him overdo it.
“Did the doctors say when you can go back to work?” Bruce asked as I rinsed the last plate. I turned off the water to hear them better.
“Not for a few months,” Dad said. “I’m going to manage the business from home until they clear me, and Jesse will do the hunting.”
I dried my hands and walked into the living room as Bruce said, “She’s a natural hunter. Is she still planning to go to college?”
“Yes,” Dad and I said together, and we all laughed.
The bathroom window banged, announcing Gus’s arrival. Bruce was the only one who started at the noise because I hadn’t told him about my new pet. If you could call Gus a pet. He came and went when he pleased, never listened to a thing I said, and seemed to barely tolerate me. The only time he came near me was for food or when he crept in to sleep on my bed every night.
The cantankerous drakkan walked into the living room and bared his teeth in a hiss when he saw all the people there. Tiny wisps of smoke issued from his nostrils, and he flapped his wings in agitation before he disappeared down the hallway again.
“He’s hungry,” I explained. I went to fill his bowl with raw chicken and carried it to my bedroom. Gus’s tail stuck out from under the bed where he was sulking. He did that whenever he was unhappy. I’d learned there was no use trying to coax him out, so I set the bowl on the floor and left. The smell of raw meat would draw him out soon enough.
“You’re supposed to turn in your captures, not keep them,” Bruce joked when I returned to the living room.
“Tell that to Gus.” I sat next to Dad on the couch, and he slipped an arm around me. I snuggled against his side like I was ten years old again, happy to sit quietly and listen to them catch up.
As much as I enjoyed their company, I wasn’t sorry to see Maurice and Bruce leave an hour later. Finch came down from the tree house to curl up on Dad’s shoulder, and the three of us watched an old western. The only thing that would have made the evening better was if Mom were here.
I took the next day off from hunting. After breakfast, Dad and I sat at the table with my laptop and went through the family and business finances. When I showed him Mom’s spreadsheet, which I had been maintaining in her absence, he was shocked at the number of jobs I’d done since I started.
“Jesse, you’ve brought in a hundred thousand dollars in just over three months.”
The pride in his eyes filled my chest with warmth. “I learned from the best.”
He shook his head as he went back to poring over the list of jobs I’d done. “I think you have more Threes and Fours here than your mom, Maurice, and I did in our first year together.”
“Not quite.” I grinned at him. “I checked.”
“Maybe I should let you take over the business,” he teased, the corners of his eyes creased with laughter.
I put up my hands. “Oh, no. I will admit I like hunting more than I thought I would, but I am quite happy being the nerd in the family.”
“You can be both if that’s what you want.”
“I know, but my heart is set on college.” After all the craziness of the last few months, I was looking forward to school more than ever. I daydreamed about ivy-covered buildings, nights at the library, lectures, and creating study schedules. Most people might find those things boring after the adventures I’d had, but I couldn’t wait to just be a normal college student.
I pushed up my glasses. “Besides, this job is hell on my glasses. How does Mom do it?”
He chuckled. “The Agency’s vision insurance covers unlimited replacements.”
“Now you tell me.”
He opened the file where I’d been keeping track of household expenses. “I know this plumber. How did you get him to replace the pipes for that price?”
I shrugged. “He quoted almost twice that much when he came out to give me an estimate. But when he sent me his invoice, that was what he charged me. I called him to make sure it wasn’t a mistake, and he said we were good.”
Dad frowned. “This doesn’t look right. The labor alone would cost t
hat much.”
A knock at the door was followed by, “I know you’re in there. It’s no use hiding from me.”
Dad and I laughed, and I went to open the door to Violet, whose arms were loaded down with bags. I helped her carry them to the table, and then she practically squeezed the life out of my father. Violet was a big hugger, and she loved my parents. Her eyes were misty when she pulled away and took a large Tupperware container from one of the bags.
“Mom made you quinoa salad with all kinds of healthy stuff in it.” She made a face. “There’s probably kale in it. You’ve been forewarned.”
He took the container and peeked inside. “Looks great. I’ll have some for lunch.”
“There’s grilled chicken breasts, too,” she pointed at a second container. From the other bag, she lifted a pink box with a neighborhood bakery logo on the side. “This is from me.”
I gave her a disapproving look as she handed the box to Dad. I didn’t need to look inside to know it was Boston cream doughnuts, his favorite.
She shrugged. “He’s allowed to splurge.”
“Yes, he is.” Dad picked up one of the doughnuts and took a huge bite. He looked happier than a man just released from prison.
Violet inclined her head at the laptop, “What are you two up to?”
“I’m bringing Dad up to speed on the business,” I said.
She scrunched her nose. “I’ll go hang out with Finch and Aisla until you’re done adulting. And then I’m going to tell you about the amazing night I had.”
“Lorelle?”
She pretended to swoon. “You know what they say. Once you go Fae…”
Dad coughed, sending bits of doughnut across the table. Violet giggled and patted him on the back. “Alright there, Mr. J.?”
“Yes,” he wheezed.
She grinned at me over his head and went into the living room. I sat in front of the laptop while he polished off his doughnut and licked chocolate from his fingers. The television came on in the living room, and I could hear Violet’s voice as she talked to Finch. Aisla still didn’t speak, but she seemed to understand us well enough.
“Hey, Jess, did I tell you my agent got me an audition for another big sci-fi film?” Violet called as she flicked through TV channels.
