by Rhys Ford
“How is he?” Ryder carefully reached down between us and picked up the whiskey bottle I’d set there. He refilled my glass first and added a splash of the potent amber liquid to the tumbler of ice he’d brought out with him. “Does he still refuse to leave Jonas’s house?”
“Yep, asshole says if he’s at my place, I’d be forced to stay with him. Me staying put means I’m not out on runs, and that stops the money coming in.” The whiskey did nothing to wash away the bitterness I’d been left with after an incredibly long fight with Dempsey, and I’d skulked over to Balboa, a bottle of Jack in my hand and a whole lot of anger in my belly. “I’ve got enough cash to float me for a couple of years if I want, especially since that jackass won’t let the doctors do anything. Not good enough for him, got to be out there fighting the good fight and holding back the monsters. Damned stupid stubborn asshole.”
Ryder knew me well enough to let me drink in peace for a few minutes, and I appreciated it. The silence between us wasn’t as heavy as it once was, and other than the sound of kids screaming as they played somewhere in the compound, the Southern Rise was pretty quiet.
While we’d been gone, the towers had continued their steady rise, stretching outward and upward as the Sidhe architects manipulated the grounds with their sculpting powers. The land hummed with the arcane energy that flowed through it, and the ivory walls were growing more and more solid as delicate filigree gold banisters and sweeping balconies shaped themselves around the curved spires and stone mushrooms dotted with glittering lace.
Except for one.
There was one tower that refused to mold itself into the overtly beautiful Sidhe aesthetic, and I kind of liked it for fighting to remain apart from the rest. The stone mages railed and ground their teeth over it, trying to force the spire into the shape they wanted. At first it responded, but then one day it decided to say fuck it and took on a life of its own. The rooms were high and square, a defiant deviation from the gently sloping ceilings the Sidhe preferred. The doors were thick and wooden and turned golden as they formed. Their metal hasps and latches inched toward completion, all embossed with intricate knots and folds. It wasn’t even close to being done, and every time I came over, something was different or the tower was sucking back a wall or closing up a window, apparently not happy about where it had gone.
What I liked most never changed, and it was becoming one of my favorite places to go when I needed to lick my wounds or talk something out with Ryder. The half-circle balcony off the main room was massive, dwarfing the grounds below and throwing most of the garden beneath it into a heavy shadow. Copper and steel knitted together into railings at the top of the balcony’s short wall, its expanse riddled with an Asian weave design. Every time I saw it, the tower was different, shifting until it found its own way, but the balcony was always sturdy, and I felt as though it was eager for me to sit down, anchor my feet against its wall, and push my chair back while I stared out onto the city beyond.
I tried to ignore the fact that it was attached to Ryder’s living space and that, no matter how much I denied it, the tower was trying to make me a place at the court. It was a fierce silver-flecked spire baring its metaphorical teeth at the very people who were trying to coax it into existence.
I also really liked the pearl-embedded wingless dragons the spire was shaping around the railing supports. I patted them periodically and felt foolish when I praised the tower for adding them, but I secretly hoped they stayed.
“What are we going to do about Valin?” Ryder finally spoke up. “I don’t like the idea he’s in the Dusk Court.”
“Somehow I don’t think Bannon’s going to be too happy with you riding in to rescue her on that white horse you’ve got stored in the stables,” I replied. “She seems like the kind of woman who’d sooner skewer you with her sword than let you fight her fights. ’Sides, we don’t know if he’s still down there. That could have been something he created and lost control of. It was a shitty black dog. Tanic would kick his ass if he saw it.”
“That’s someone we don’t need here,” he grumbled. “In fact, I’d prefer it if he and my grandmother were as far away as possible. Can you imagine the havoc they would bring if their magics were even a hundred miles from each other? I’d sooner try to mate with a dragon.”
“Or they’d kill each other and we wouldn’t have to worry about either one of them again.” Another grunt from Ryder and I looked over at him, concerned at his discomfort. “Hey, did you let the healers get at you?”
“No, not yet. The children need their help more. It will take some time to undo the damage done to their bodies from lack of food and… well, everything else. I’ll heal. Just like you do.” Ryder hissed and then sipped at his glass. “Just not apparently at the same pace. While I envy your stamina, I’d like to never get stabbed again.”
“Should have let me kill Kerrick, then, because that’s one bastard who’ll be knocking on your door again.” The Jack was old, but it hadn’t lost any of its bite. If anything, the burn in my throat was nearly as hot as a bullet passing through my flesh, but the numbness it left behind eased the aching bruises that were yellowing over parts of my torso and legs. I rocked again, careful not to tip myself over.
“Do you really regret not killing him?” Ryder asked carefully, his hooded emerald eyes fixed on some point among the city’s glistening skyscrapers. Sunset was a few hours off still, but the afternoon light washed a buttery glow over the downtown upper level and gilded its nest of tall buildings and arching roadways.
I had to think about it, but eventually I sighed. “No, I don’t regret letting him live, but right then I could have peeled his skin off his body and wouldn’t have even blinked. Not going to apologize for that. I’d have felt the same if he stuck Cari or Alexa. You’re all… mine. And I know that doesn’t make sense, but that’s just how it is. Going to promise you, though, he does it again and nothing you say is going to stop me. He comes after any of mine again and I’ll end him. Simple as that.”
Ryder chuckled, and I stared at him, a bit surprised at the silly smile on his face. Frowning, I sniffed at the whiskey and wondered if I’d brought something too strong for him to handle.
“Stop snuffling at your glass. You sound like an anteater.” Ryder nudged my shoulder with his. “I’m just laughing at how things have changed so much since the first time we met.”
“Yeah, well, you were an asshole.”
“You didn’t want to let me in your house.”
“That’s because I knew you were an asshole. Still are sometimes,” I drawled. “And my cat still doesn’t like you.”
“Well, the feeling’s a bit mutual, isn’t it?” Ryder tapped his glass against mine. “I don’t like the iron you have on your table.”
I snorted and reminded him, “Ah, but see, it’s my table. My iron too.”
A peacock screamed back at the children, it was that or something was mounting an all-out assault on the compound. Either way, someone else would be taking care of it. I was done fighting off monsters for the evening. The kids were settling in and choosing names, trying out different sounds and meanings. Ryder reassured me it would take them some time and not to get used to a particular name until it hung on for more than a few days.
“I’m glad you didn’t kill him, but Sebac will send someone else, someone who might break my hold on the court,” Ryder responded softly. “Next time it might not be so easy to throw them back.”
“Yeah. The way I see it, you’re a lot like Bannon,” I shot back. “You’re bucking the system, and people are pissed off about it because they can’t see that things are going to shit unless stuff changes. And I don’t know if she’s got anyone who’s got her back, but you do. So, no matter what happens, lordling, I’ll be here to send those assholes packing, and not just because I like the view from this damned balcony.”
Maybe it was the whiskey or the afternoon sun, but there was a vulnerability in Ryder’s expression, a fracture in his arrogance and self-
confidence. I didn’t have family. Well, I had Dempsey, and even though he’d shot me a time or two, it was by accident and we’d been on a run. As shitty as it was for Kerrick to drift down to San Diego hoping to shove his way into the court, he was still Ryder’s blood.
But then so was Sebac, and she’d invented treachery and backstabbing.
So I did what was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my life… even counting that one time I ate meat from a five-week-dead bison we found floating in a river while we chased ghost wranglers.
I leaned over and kissed Ryder on the mouth.
He tasted of whiskey and melancholy with a dash of brightness that I figured he’d soaked up from the sun, and as my lips touched his, he stiffened. Scared I’d stepped over a line, I was about to pull away and apologize when he brought his hands up and tangled them into my hair and pulled me in closer.
We’d danced around it, exchanged brief flirtatious touches, but this was the first time we truly drank deeply from each other’s bodies, and my need for him flared and brimmed over the edges of my control until all I could see and feel was his presence, all gold, emerald, and warmth pushing through the darkness I cradled in my soul. If Bannon was a complication, then Ryder was a catastrophe. I would lose myself in him, give up every bit of humanity I’d held on to, and finally surrender my tooth-and-nail fight against my elfin blood.
I needed space… room to breathe… but I also didn’t want to let go—not yet, not now. But the sensations flowing through me were too much. If he’d gotten my blood surging before we touched, my nerves were now drenched in a symphony of falling stars.
All from a simple kiss.
The ground shook, and the balcony trembled under us. A whisper of rolling stone breached the mind-numbing stillness we’d pulled around us, and the sky erupted with spikes of deep shadows as the court thrust up enormous spears of ivory stone into the air, and their massive honeycombed shafts pushed back the thick soil and heavy foliage of Balboa. The forest rolled back away from the compound. Ancient trees crashed down to the hungry ground that waited to be fed. Sweeps of evergreens and oak stands fell beneath the court’s ravenous need, easing down into the rich dirt to wait to be pulled into the towers by the architects of the Southern Rise. Boulders sank beneath the surface and opened up a wide expanse of soft, rolling hillocks dotted with smaller trees and exposed underbrush.
A wave of birds took flight from their disappearing roosts and landed in other trees, only to move again when those fell as well. Breathing heavily, I tried to make sense of what was going on as the shafts thickened, straightened, and settled into place around the established buildings of the court. Archways were beginning to form between the shafts—slender granite tendrils that unraveled from the structures and reached out to connect to the framework nearby. There was a flash of black-and-white fur gamboling hastily across one of the new clearings, a roly-poly bearlike creature only visible for a second before it crashed into the thicker forest a few yards away. Herds of deer and smaller animals followed the lone panda, and then there was quiet as the court finally came to a rest.
There was shouting from the main compound, and Ryder stood carefully and took in the new expanse of woven bare shafts that now framed the court behind us. His eyes were huge, and he was speechless as he turned to me, as though I somehow had an answer for what had just happened.
Shaken to my bones, I stood and looked around. Finally I whispered, “Well, fuck.”
More from Rhys Ford
The Kai Gracen Series: Book One
Ever since being part of the pot in a high-stakes poker game, elfin outcast Kai Gracen figures he used up his good karma when Dempsey, a human Stalker, won the hand and took him in. Following the violent merge of Earth and Underhill, the human and elfin races are left with a messy, monster-ridden world, and Stalkers are the only cavalry willing to ride to someone’s rescue when something shadowy appears.
It’s a hard life but one Kai likes—filled with bounty, a few friends, and most importantly, no other elfin around to remind him of his past. And killing monsters is easy. Especially since he’s one himself.
But when a sidhe lord named Ryder arrives in San Diego, Kai is conscripted to do a job for Ryder’s fledgling Dawn Court. It’s supposed to be a simple run up the coast during dragon-mating season to retrieve a pregnant human woman seeking sanctuary. Easy, quick, and best of all, profitable. But Kai ends up in the middle of a deadly bloodline feud he has no hope of escaping.
No one ever got rich being a Stalker. But then few of them got old either and it doesn't look like Kai will be the exception.
The Kai Gracen Series: Book Two
Kai Gracen has no intention of being anyone’s pawn. A pity Fate and SoCalGov have a different opinion on the matter.
Licensed Stalkers make their living hunting down monsters and dangerous criminals… and their lives are usually brief, brutal, and thankless. Despite being elfin and cursed with a nearly immortal lifespan, Kai didn’t expect to be any different. Then Ryder, the High Lord of the Southern Rise Court, arrived in San Diego, and Kai’s not-so-mundane life went from mild mayhem to full-throttle chaos.
Now an official liaison between the growing Sidhe Court and the human populace, Kai is at Ryder’s beck and call for anything a High Lord might need a Stalker to do. Unfortunately for Kai, this means chasing down a flimsy rumor about an ancient lost Court somewhere in the Nevada desert—a court with powerful magics that might save Ryder’s—and Kai’s—people from becoming a bloody memory in their Merged world’s violent history.
The race for the elfin people’s salvation opens unwelcome windows into Kai’s murky past, and it could also slam the door on any future he might have with his own kind and Ryder.
Ink and Shadows: Book One
Kismet Andreas lives in fear of the shadows.
For the young tattoo artist, the shadows hold more than darkness. He is certain of his insanity because the dark holds creatures and crawling things only he can see—monsters who hunt out the weak to eat their minds and souls, leaving behind only empty husks and despair.
And if there’s one thing Kismet fears more than being hunted—it’s the madness left in its wake.
The shadowy Veil is Mal’s home. As Pestilence, he is the youngest—and most inexperienced—of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, immortal manifestations resurrected to serve—and cull—mankind. Invisible to all but the dead and insane, the Four exist between the Veil and the mortal world, bound to their nearly eternal fate. Feared by other immortals, the Horsemen live in near solitude but Mal longs to know more than Death, War and Famine.
Mal longs to be… more human. To interact with someone other than lunatics or the deceased.
When Kismet rescues Mal from a shadowy attack, Pestilence is suddenly thrust into a vicious war—where mankind is the prize, and the only one who has faith in Mal is the human the other Horsemen believe is destined to die.
Readers love The Kai Gracen Series by Rhys Ford
Black Dog Blues
“Awesome book that I’ll absolutely recommend to fantasy lovers.”
—It’s About The Book
“I'm in awe over this Urban Fantasy world that Rhys Ford has created and I want more!”
—Rainbow Book Reviews
“This story is everything a fantasy should be.”
—Love Bytes
Mad Lizard Mambo
“Mad Lizard Mambo is an outstanding sequel. Once again we are drawn into this crazy world author Rhys Ford has so lovingly created and carried away on an adventure beyond our imagination.”
—Joyfully Jay
“Go get this book RIGHT. HECKIN’. NOW. It’s a visceral urban fantasy adventure (with the barest flavor of future romance) set in a fascinating world peopled by compelling characters.”
—The Novel Approach
RHYS FORD is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and is a two-time LAMB
DA finalist with her Murder and Mayhem novels. She is also a 2017 Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Florida Authors and Publishers President’s Book Awards for her novels Ink and Shadows and Hanging the Stars. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.
She shares the house with Harley, a gray tuxedo with a flower on her face, Badger, a disgruntled alley cat who isn’t sure living inside is a step up the social ladder as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep of a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.
Rhys can be found at the following locations:
Blog: www.rhysford.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author
Twitter: @Rhys_Ford
By Rhys Ford
KAI GRACEN
Black Dog Blues
Mad Lizard Mambo
Jacked Cat Jive
INK AND SHADOWS
Ink and Shadows
Dim Sum Asylum
7&7: A DSP Publications Anthology of Virtue and Vice
Devil Take Me Anthology
Published by DSP PUBLICATIONS
www.dsppublications.com
Published by
DSP PUBLICATIONS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dsppublications.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
