Wounded, Volume 1

by Amy Lane

  “Ouchie,” Cory whispered, and Bracken stepped out of the shadows so Nicky, Max, and Renny could see what had upset the other two so badly. His hair, which had fallen thick and straight past his shoulder blades, was now short. Not military short, but cut straight and shaggy, parting in the middle and falling to the sides and over the slender, curved points of his ears, barely brushing the collar of his T-shirt. It wasn’t a crew cut, but to the European sidhe, who usually grew their hair long past their hips, it might as well have been.

  Cory walked up to him, distressed, and put her hands to the shorn ends of his hair, her finger brushing the sensitive ear-point. “Oh jeez…. Why?”

  “It’s just hair,” Bracken said gruffly, avoiding her touch. But Cory wouldn’t be avoided. She placed one hand on his chest and ran the other through his hair, her hands shaking.

  “It’s not just hair… it’s… like your birthright, or something…. Jesus, Bracken, why?” She asked again, and he shrugged, avoiding everyone’s eyes.

  “You can’t feel bad about it anymore,” he said at last. “You can’t carry it like a weight on your chest. I cut it, this time. Me. It’s short, it’ll grow, and you can let it go.”

  Cory ran a trembling hand over her face and then thumped his shoulder hard. “You asshole,” she muttered. “You didn’t have to do it like this—you didn’t have to do this to hurt me. You were doing a good job of it already.” She thumped him again, and Green saw a look of sorrow cross Bracken’s face. He hadn’t planned on this, Green thought. He had wanted to get her attention. He had wanted to erase the past, when he was just “big brother Bracken.” He had wanted to be a different person than the one who’d been jealous of Cory’s relationship with his friend, and then of his friend’s intimacy with Cory. But Bracken had never been subtle, and in spite of his usual sexual successes, he had never been particularly romantic. He had wanted to make Cory look at him differently and had hurt her badly instead.

  With a quick motion, Bracken pulled her to him and waited until the angry tension in her body melted against him. Green watched the silent apology with a happy, aching heart. It would never be easy between the two of them, he suspected, but there would be a two of them, and that would make his own relationship with Cory that much sweeter. Bracken bent his head to hers, and Green listened shamelessly to him saying gently, “I would never hurt you.”

  Cory shivered then, and drew back. “You just did,” she replied. Then, as though becoming aware that she had an audience, she stepped back. “Come eat,” she said quietly. Bracken made his way to the silent table and sat down just as Grace was coming out of the hallway.

  “Green, the sprites are awfully keyed up about something…,” she was saying. “Holy shit, Bracken, what in the hell did you do to your hair?”

  There was a low rumble of laughter at the table, breaking the tension, and Grace sat down in the one empty seat. They all looked at Green, sitting at the head of the other end of the table, and he held out his hands. They all joined hands somewhat sheepishly, but they relaxed, felt warmth, felt love. Green looked at all of them and smiled.

  “Lovely Goddess, Merciful God,” he began. “Please watch over us, lost as we are, holding our separate griefs and far, so far from home. Let us be loyal to each other, and kind to each other. Keep us safe from our enemies and from the betrayals of those who should be our friends. Let us be strong, let us be safe, and let us show those who would hurt us that we are your children, and you will not forsake us. Blessed be.”

  “Blessed be,” they all replied, and suddenly the awkwardness and pain that had haunted the table for the last several moments disappeared. Max and Renny argued companionably over how often Renny should turn feline in the course of a day, and Nicky got his two cents in about why it was easier to turn into birds. (They stored their clothes in the oils that covered their feathers—that was why he wasn’t naked when he changed back.) Cory and Bracken cast each other dark, unreadable looks while they quietly bantered about when Cory got to cut her hair. Grace gave them all a ration of shit for arguing, and Green listened kindly to everybody’s bickering, throwing out occasional input to one side or another. He watched them, when he wasn’t speaking, with quiet satisfaction. He had wanted a formal dinner tonight—he had needed them, this impromptu household, to remember the feeling of home.

  The peace was sweet, but it wasn’t meant to last. Bracken, who had been Cory’s stud taxi for part of the day, was eating more salad and pasta, and Renny and Cory—always undernourished when they used power in any form—were on their second helping of everything when the buzzer by the call box rang. Green stood up to answer it and wasn’t surprised when a voice—oddly undistorted by the call box—called out, “Mist, to see Green, Lord of Leaves and Shadows.”

  “We are breaking bread,” Green replied, his voice congealing. “Would you prefer to wait in my hall, or remain where you are?” He noticed that the others were looking at him in surprise. It was unheard of for a guest in Green’s home not to be invited to break bread at his table. Then Green saw Cory’s eyes narrow with comprehension, and she glared fiercely at Green.

  “The garage!” she mouthed urgently. Bracken looked from Cory to Green. Then his eyes widened and he nodded as well, echoing her silent words.

  Green smiled, shook his head, and listened to the shocked silence on the other side of the speaker.

  “I suppose I’ll come up and wait in your sitting room,” Mist said at last, obviously stunned by the insult.

  “Very well,” Green told him crisply and hit the buzzer next to the intercom. As he sat down in the charged silence, he watched Cory push her plate away, muttering something about not being hungry anymore.

  “Please eat, dearest,” he said gently. Then he grinned. “In fact, feel free to eat that extra-rare piece of cow still sitting on the trencher—but wait until Mist comes in to see you.”

  Cory grinned weakly back, and Green saw her take in the confusion of the rest of the table. She looked to Green, reminding him gently, and he nodded.

  “The elves here in San Francisco knew about Sezan,” he said bluntly, feeling their hurt all over again. “They knew he was a danger to Adrian—a danger to us—and they directed him to Folsom. They even”—his mouth twisted—“gave him the silver net.”

  Cory looked like she might vomit right there, and Green could have kicked himself. Well done, he thought grimly, and prepared for damage control. He needn’t have bothered. Her face had turned nearly green, and she was staring glassily at the pile of food she’d been about to demolish, when Bracken seized her arm and growled, “Don’t you do it. You’re too damn weak not to eat. You sit here and you let the blood run down your chin and you let this fucking arrogant sidhe know that you are someone to fear.” Bracken looked across the table at Renny, and Green saw to his surprise that cop-fuck Max had it covered.

  “You too, kitten,” Max was saying grimly. “You let him know that you could rip out his liver if he ever goes belly up.”

  Renny and Cory both locked glances, pulled up their bootstraps mentally, and pulled back their plates physically, and their faces flushed with anger and purpose. When Green heard the knock at the door, they were both eating as though nothing had happened to disrupt their appetites, and Nicky and Max were making a concerted effort to maintain a conversation about fishing in North America in order to cover up the fact that no one else at the table was speaking.

  Green opened the door and Mist came in, meeting his gaze evenly. Standing, Mist was a good six inches shorter than Green. Cory blinked in surprise and then looked at Bracken. “I didn’t know you guys came in different sizes,” Green heard her whisper.

  “Yours are all sized extra large,” Bracken replied, so straight-faced that Cory had to look twice to see if he meant what Green was sure he did. A small smile tilted Green’s features as he turned toward Mist, but when he saw the other elf’s disdainful expression, his own features hardened.

  “We’ll be with you in our time,” he sai
d coolly and was rewarded by watching an angry flush spread over Mist’s features.

  “I am not accustomed to waiting on… carnivores… little Green,” Mist spat.

  “I am accustomed to dining with my people,” Green replied, feeling an immense satisfaction in the other elf’s fury. With measured steps, he resumed his place at his own table, laying a hand on Cory’s shoulder to encourage her to eat.

  “Really, Green,” she said, trying to sound natural, “I’m not that hungry.”

  “Cherry pits,” Bracken sang, standing up and beginning to clear the table. Green seemed to recall a disparaging remark regarding the size of her breasts and what happened when she got too thin. Excellent, Bracken. That’s the way to sweet-talk a girl!

  “Bite me,” Cory snapped, shoving a chunk of steak in her mouth and chewing loudly. As Bracken had requested, she let the juice run down her chin—for about a second, anyway. She wiped her mouth after that, trying not to look sheepish.

  “Ignore him, dearest,” Green told her, his eyes twinkling. “They’re apricots, at the very least.”

  Grace snickered, although the jest hadn’t been one of his best. At least it helped break the tension. Nicky, Max, and Renny followed, and finally Cory and Bracken, eyeing each other with grim amusement, joined in the laughter. Bracken finished passing out pie slices and they finished dessert, talking of quiet things, like how many more finals the three students had and how few classes they could afford to attend between that day, Monday, and the next week. Renny and Nicky were in good shape, but Cory was looking so worn out by the end of the meal that Green made a mental note to call Professor Cruikshank and see what could be done to minimize her involvement in school for the next two weeks. It was just too hard that she should have to be defender of his people and college student at the same time. But at the moment, Cory’s school was the least of his worries.

  With a gesture meaning for the others to follow him, Green stood and pushed back his chair and the rest of the table followed suit. Cory took Green’s arm, and like the faerie kings and queens of old, they descended into the sitting room as regally as any prince and princess of Storyland, in spite of the fact that they were both barefoot and wearing sweatshirts and jeans. The rest of the table fanned out behind them like a court, and when Green and Cory sat down, with the exception of Bracken, who sat at Cory’s feet, the others sat evenly spaced on the throw cushions throughout the room. They looked like the courtiers in Mist’s hall—except, Green thought, none of them looked afraid.

  “So, Mist,” Green said when all were settled, “what do you expect by showing up here?”

  The other elf was still flushed with irritation, and his words were cruel and demeaning. “I expect an apology, little brother, for what happened to my emissary today. It’s not bad enough you burst into my court without courtesy, but you sent a… a….”

  “A werecat,” Renny murmured dryly.

  “A werecat!” Mist exploded. “You sent a werecat after Morana, and she says it drew blood!”

  “Like I’d actually want to taste that woman’s tight ass!” Renny burst out, until Green shushed her with a look.

  “You made me wait upon your dinner like a reigning monarch, while I was forced to watch your current bedmates eat cow….”

  “You were never invited here, Mist,” Green said mildly, “and you are still not welcome. That I meet with you at all is courtesy—a repayment, of sorts, for smashing into your court this morning. But otherwise, I have no apologies to make. You and Morana not only welcomed a dangerous enemy to me and mine when he arrived here, you provided him with a weapon that he used to kill several of my people. You never declared war. You never claimed responsibility. What—did you think my people would fall apart and you could simply move into the foothills like a new Oberon? What did you hope to gain with this? Did you think we’d just sit by and let you kill us off as you saw fit? I mean, I know the cost of housing is skyrocketing in the foothills, Lord Mist, but if this was a gambit for power it was poorly done.”

  As Green spoke, Mist sat haughty and tense, his eyes occasionally darting to Cory. Cory was sitting upright in spite of her weariness, her eyes flat, hard, and dangerous.

  “My intentions are my business,” Mist said when Green was done. “And to suggest that I would do it for your…‘territory’ is a little absurd. Even the humans disdain your little ‘cow-town,’ as they call it. Morana and I sat at Oberon’s court—we do have our standards.”

  Cory blinked. “Bracken,” she said quietly, “I think this guy just trashed our hometown.”

  Bracken smiled from his seat at Cory’s feet, one long-fingered hand wrapped casually around her bare ankle. “When San Francisco gets a basketball team, he can talk,” he replied in the same dangerously amused kind of way.

  “Then why?” Green demanded, ignoring the byplay. “Did you expect us to sit back and take it, when you don’t even have a reason why?”

  Again Mist’s eyes darted to Cory, and there was something in them—hatred, disdain… despair?—that Green couldn’t identify. “You remember politics from the old days, Green,” Mist said smoothly, in spite of his preoccupation with Cory. “Things get… muddied. We have no interest in your little conclave up in the hills. You must be delusional to think otherwise. In fact, that’s why I’m here. You blew into my home like a mad wind, you sent Morana running from your embassy when she did nothing but give you unwelcome news. The loss of your little blood toy seems to have made you unbalanced. I came to see if you were still fit to run your… teeming lot of… Goddess get.”

  Unexpectedly, it was Cory who broke the horrified silence of the foothills folk with laughter. “We can crush you as you sit,” she said bluntly when the others had joined in with her and then subsided.

  “I’m not speaking to you.” Mist dismissed her and turned again toward Green.

  “You’re speaking to me, because you’re not worthy of speaking to our leader,” Cory retorted. “Your people kept information from us that hurt our people. That’s betrayal, isn’t it? I may be just a ‘bedmate who eats cow,’ but I’m pretty sure I’ve got that down. My leader found out that his own people betrayed him. The only reason you’re not dead is because he’s a better person than I am, and so are the people who look to him.”

  “A vampire and his shape-changers,” Mist said, as though that explained everything. “They’re… get… that’s all. Goddess’s get. How can our actions against a bastard accident of fate qualify as betrayal?”

  “My people,” Green said quietly, before Grace, Renny, and Nicky could grow long teeth and danger right there in that moment.

  “Not after the way you treated us…,” Mist snorted.

  “No, Mist,” Green explained patiently. “Your people suck your toes and kiss your ass and I could care less about them. The vampire and his shape-changers were my people. They were under my protection. I tried to explain this to you this afternoon, but you wouldn’t listen long enough to hear. But you’re in my embassy now, aren’t you? You said you didn’t plan to ‘cause me any pain’—aren’t those your exact words? Well, cause pain is exactly what you did. You hurt everyone in this room, and we’re not people you want to dick with. There’s not a person here prepared to let you leave until you understand what it is you’ve done.”

  The elf cocked his head and eyed Green as though he had materialized out of thin air. “What would they do about it?” he said, genuinely curious. Green felt Cory’s hand then, reaching for his own, and knew that Bracken was gripping her calf tightly from where he sat. Quickly, he caught her sweatshirt-covered wrist in his hand and raised a meaningful eyebrow at her. “Wait,” he mouthed, and she nodded.

  “Do they need to do anything?” Green asked, turning toward Mist. “You’ve effectively killed their dear ones—and yet they’re here, prepared to help you with a very tricky little problem. Don’t you think you owe it to them to stay, out of courtesy?” Odd thing, Green reflected, that a charge of courtesy could discomfit his bret
hren far more quickly than a charge of murder.

  “I thank them for their intent,” Mist grudged, “but we don’t need their help.”

  “That’s funny,” Grace snorted, “because word on the street is you’re getting your collective ass kicked. Goshawk could have his birds shit on you until you drown in it before you agree that he’s even a threat.”

  “And you’re playing right into Goshawk’s hands,” Nicky said seriously from his position next to Bracken. “He told us that there was no leadership here. I think what he meant was that the leadership was too fractured to ward him off.”

  Mist went absolutely still. “You know Goshawk?” he asked intensely. Then, toward Green, “No wonder you’re weak enough to attack—you let your enemies live!”

  “Oh, that can change in a hot second,” Cory spat, and Green continued the struggle to keep her wrist still in his hand without hurting her. After a second’s hesitation, he wrapped his long fingers around her bare wrist and whispered in her ear, “Close your mouth, cup your hand, and use your will.” She startled for a moment, then met his eyes. He could see from her expression that it was building within her, that between her desire for revenge and the sex and love that he and Bracken were pumping into her with their touch, her power was massing in her chest, making her skin prickle, threatening to blow the top off her head if she didn’t use it. As he turned his attention back to his unwelcome guest, he could feel her struggle as she gathered from himself and Bracken and then, by force of battered will alone, constrained the power building in her chest to her cupped hand.

  “Nicky is not our enemy,” Green said gently. “The captain who commanded him to battle against us is. Just like Sezan was not our only enemy—the force that gave him succor, strategy, and aid is also our enemy. You comfort yourself with the idea that because the people he killed weren’t your kind of Goddess’s children you have done no wrong. What you fail to realize is that you sent him to attack a stronghold of Goddess’s children—and no matter how diverse we are, we reacted to this attack as one. And many elves nearly died in the backlash.” His fury bubbled up inside him, fueling Cory, giving her impetus to do what she did next. “And six shape-changers and one vampire did die. We mourn them. And we hold you responsible.”