by Tanya Huff
The smile in his voice drew Graham’s gaze off the calendar to see a matching expression.
“Dragon Lords are like cats, easily bored; amuse them and they’re all over you. Catch the attention of one, and the others want to know why. The Gale girl has pulled at least some of their attention off the hunt.You…”
The smile disappeared as a blunt finger stabbed toward Graham. Even with nearly a meter between them, he felt it connect with one of the larger bruises on his collarbone.
“… stay away from the store. Stay away from her. I don’t want them noticing you any more than they already have. If they take you out, there’s nothing between me and death.” Frowning, he gestured at Graham’s forehead. “You’re still wearing her mark.”
He clenched his hands and kept his fists by his side. “I walked out before she could remove it.”
“Did you? What happens if she calls and begs you to come back?”
Not likely to happen; she’d honor his choice, but Graham didn’t feel like sharing that with his boss. And if he’d known what it meant, could he have walked away from a man who’d given him the world and the skills to make his way in it? The man who’d been there for him when his family had died and… and he never thought about his family. What the hell was up with that?
“I’ll make my own decisions,” he said at last. “The way I always have.”
One dark brow rose. “You’ve always done what you were told.”
“I’ve always chosen to.”
The silence that followed extended long enough, Graham nearly opened his mouth to explain. Nearly. He’d learned that lesson early on, too.
Finally, after what seemed like half a lifetime, Kalynchuk walked to the inner door and paused, hand holding it open about five centimeters. “Well, come on, then,” he growled, “you’re no good to me hobbling about like an old man. At the very least, I’ll need to fix your legs. Should hardly hurt at all.”
“That,” Graham muttered, reluctantly following, “is what you always say.”
The pie should have provided the mindless familiarity Allie needed.
It hadn’t.
Given the way her thoughts had been circling, she was a little afraid to have anyone eat it.
Plus, she’d definitely overworked the pastry.
She’d punched in half her mother’s number when she realized she had nothing to say.
“I met someone, but he chose to leave.”
Could she be any more pathetic? It was like Michael all over again, only this time even the sex hadn’t been enough to hold him.
In the end, she headed downstairs to enter the egg cups into her catalog database. Michael went back to the loft, Roland went back to Gran’s paperwork, and Joe went back behind the counter in the store. She needed her head to shut up for a while, to stop nattering at her about who and why and how and what she was going to tell David when he got here tomorrow.
At least she wouldn’t have to explain about Graham. A sorcerer and twelve Dragon Lords and the imminent arrival of a “little bad” involving all thirteen of them was quite enough.
And she still had no idea of what Gran was up to even though that, not sorcerers, not Dragon Lords, not… reporters, was what she’d come out here for.
Had Gran seen this coming and bailed because she didn’t want to deal?
Or had Gran been removed before she could send up flares to the rest of the family?
The Dragon Lords were probably strong enough to hide her death from the aunties-shoving the body through to the UnderRealm would do it. Kalynchuk was strong enough to get himself involved with Dragon Lords and assume he could win-that said power even if he hadn’t been in the game very long. As unlikely as it sounded, had Gran discovered and then underestimated him?
It wasn’t that Allie wanted her gran to be dead, but if she wasn’t, they were going to have words. And if things continued the way they were, some of those words were going to be four letters long.
“Allie?”
She set an egg cup shaped like a panda with the top of its head unevenly trepanned back on the shelf, dusted her fingers against her sleeve, and turned.
Joe rubbed at fingerprints on the glass. “Charlie told me before she left and, well, I’m sorry about you and Graham.”
“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but it was familiar. She stared at the mail cubbies behind his head and frowned. Most of them were full to overflowing. “Why hasn’t anyone else come in and picked up their mail?”
“They don’t like change. You. Your cousins. You’re new. It’ll take a while.”
“How long is a while?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t know. Are you mad at me?” he asked without looking up.
“Should I be?”
“I knew they weren’t dragons, that they were Dragon Lords, and I didn’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I thought you knew. It sounded like you knew, didn’t it?”
“Then why would I be mad at you?” She sighed. “It’s not your fault. We’ve all come into this, whatever this is, with assumptions.”
He looked up then. “I heard your grandmother say once that assumptions makes an ass out of you and of me.”
“But not her.”
“What?”
“It may make an ass out of you and me, but not her. It’s an auntie thing,” she added when Joe stared at her in confusion. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter what Gran would say because Gran’s not here.” Sighing again, she saved her file and looked around the store. “Gran’s not, but I am.”
Actually…
“Allie?”
“Gran’s not here. But I am.” Allie closed her laptop, set it on the shelf and walked over to the counter. “Bottom line, here and now, this place is mine.”
Mine.
The word slid into empty places on the shelves, hung itself by the paintings on the walls, burrowed into boxes of odds and ends, and just generally made itself at home.
“And because this place is mine now…” She grinned, riding the rush as her sudden epiphany stuffed itself into the bleeding hole in her heart. It didn’t fill it, it didn’t even stop the bleeding, but it was a start. “… there’s going to be some changes. Joe, pass me those salad tongs.”
“These?” The ends were sticking out of a box of old silver plate. He tugged them free and passed them over.
Allie slid the back of the cabinet open, grabbed the monkey’s paw with the tongs, and lifted it out, maintaining a two-handed grip, just in case. “This is not the sort of thing you just have lying around. Or, more specifically, it’s not the sort of thing I just have lying around.”
The paw squirmed and tried to twist out from between the tarnished silver paddles.
“So, what are you going to do with it, then?”
She stared down the length of her arms, down the length of the tongs at the grubby, gray paw. An excellent question. “You wouldn’t know where there’s a lead box, would you?”
“Uh…” Joe’s gaze darted left and then right, as though there might be one close to hand. “No.”
“That sugar bowl, then. It’s silver.”
“Please don’t be using that thing to gesture.”
“Sorry.”
The sugar bowl looked big enough, but only just. The tongs and the paw wouldn’t fit past the rim together, she’d have to drop it in. Joe held the lid as Allie lined things up and let go. The monkey’s paw hit the edge of the sugar bowl, slid down the side, and angled off the handle as Allie grabbed for it with the tongs. It bounced once on the counter and rolled under the nearest set of shelves.
“How does something so nonsymmetrical roll like that,” Allie muttered, dropping to her knees and peering under the shelves. “Joe, do we have a flashlight?”
“I think I was after seeing one in the garage.”
She twisted around to look at him. Apparently he got more Irish when there was an evil, wish-granting, simian amputation rolling around loose.
/> It took him a moment to catch on. He flushed. “I’ll go get it, then.”
“Good plan.”
Head resting on her outstretched arm, she fished around with the end of the tongs. The paw wasn’t technically mobile, so it couldn’t move anywhere under its own power. It wasn’t like it was going to hide behind a box of glass doorknobs or something. Just to be on the safe side, though, she moved the box out into the aisle.
There was no mistaking the feel of it once she touched it, but there wasn’t enough clearance under the shelf to open the tongs.
“Never mind the flashlight,” she muttered, without looking up as footsteps stopped beside her. “Just slam that sugar bowl down over it when I knock it clear.” She heard the footsteps head for the counter and when they got back she smacked the paw out toward the edge of the shelf. “Get ready!”
Once again, it moved pretty damned fast. Emphasis on damned.
“Joe!” Allie scrambled sideways as it headed straight for her…
… and was cut off and confined by a direct hit from the upturned sugar bowl. She thought she heard it scratching against the inside curve before it subsided in a sulky silence.
Releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, Allie looked up.
Way up.
And smiled.
“David?”
NINE
Nearly two weeks after ritual made it safe enough for hugging, so Allie launched herself off the floor and into David’s arms. He felt like home, and under the faint scent of what was probably very expensive cologne, he smelled like…
… the woods. Like trees and leaf mold and growing things and rotting things, and since the paper tag on his suitcase suggested he’d just gotten off a plane and then, knowing her brother’s aversion to being without wheels, out of a rental car, that wasn’t good. It wouldn’t have been exactly wonderful if he’d walked the Wood to Calgary because the last thing David needed to do right now was start exhibiting wild talents, but it would have been better than the alternative.
She backed out to arm’s length to stare up at him only to find him frowning down at her. “What?”
David shook his head, breaking the light around him into patterns that suggested more than the movement of his hair. “Something’s…”
“Allie?”
It was almost funny to watch David’s expression change. He wasn’t used to people being able to sneak up to him. Although, technically, Joe wasn’t people.
“I found the flashlight.” He held it up, looking from her to David, brows drawn in. He had to know David was a Gale. The Fey always knew. “Did you get the… you know.”
“It’s okay, Joe. He knows.” Allie touched the overturned sugar bowl with the edge of her shoe. “This is my brother David. David, this is Joe.”
“The leprechaun?”
“Yes, the leprechaun,” Joe sighed.
“You’re tall for a leprechaun.”
If Joe had been impressed by David’s potential-and most people who could sense it were-that canceled it out. He set the flashlight on the counter and rolled his eyes. “No shit.”
David studied him for a long moment; long enough that Joe began to fidget and Allie began to think about interrupting. Then he turned toward her, one dark brow rising. “You gave him a key?”
Joe’s right hand jerked forward and down, covering the front pocket on his worn cords. Allie, used to not being able to hide things from David, sighed in turn. “Yes, I gave him a key.”
“So you’re staying.”
Staying? That seemed a little extreme. Although, if Graham had… But he hadn’t. “I’m not leaving.”
Her turn to be studied. Just as Allie was about to demand an explanation, he said, “I see.”
He saw more than she did, and he seldom shared.
“I hate it when you do that.”
“I know.” He grinned then and stepped past her, holding out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Joe. Welcome to the family.”
“Uh, thanks?” Joe glanced over at Allie, looking a little nervous as his fingers disappeared inside David’s grip. She didn’t blame him. Joe might be tall for a leprechaun, but David was big for a Gale and everything he could become was right there on the surface.
“David!”
He wasn’t as big as Michael, though. Allie grinned as David moved Joe carefully out of the way just before Michael charged through the back door and caught him up in a hug. Michael had matched David’s six one at sixteen but had still been skinny and muscled like a whippet, the fastest running back in their high school’s history. By twenty, at six five, he’d begun to put on bulk and by their graduation, he had the size advantage in every way that mattered. Michael was just Michael as far as Allie was concerned, until times like this when he had his arms wrapped around David’s torso and the force of his embrace lifted her big brother’s feet off the floor.
“Michael. Tool belt. Ow!”
“Sorry.” He backed up a step, smiling so broadly both dimples were as deep as they got. “I thought you weren’t going to get here until tomorrow!”
“If I’d arrived tomorrow, you’d have been ready for me.”
“Well, if you’d arrived earlier today, you’d have been able to…”
“Michael,” Allie growled. “His choice.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Michael spread his hands, flashing the pale green paint smeared across one palm. “I guess we’re not hiding anything. We’re not hiding anything are we, Allie?” he asked leaning out around the blockade of David’s shoulders.
She was hiding a sorcerer from a dozen Dragon Lords and the aunties, but since she planned on telling David about that, it hardly counted.
“No,” she said brightly, “we’re not hiding anything.”
“Liar,” David snorted.
“You can’t count things you haven’t been told; you just got here. But since you are here…” Allie put one foot on the sugar bowl as it rocked from side to side. “… help.”
“There’s a better chance of success,” David told her, dropping to one knee, “if you have a plan going in.”
“Foreshadowing,” Allie muttered. When he glanced up at her, she smiled. “What?”
His eyes narrowed.
“There’s tongs,” she told him. “They’re silver.””
“Technically, a monkey’s paw is a neutral relic.”
“I don’t care. It creeps me out, and it’s staying in the basement.” David stopped so suddenly on the landing that Allie nearly ran into him. “What?” Leaning around, she realized he was staring at the charms. She’d gotten so used to them that she barely saw them anymore.
“Strong protections.”
“You think?”
“It’s unlikely Gran was this afraid of something.”
About to remind David that the aunties didn’t so much not know the meaning of the word fear as redefine it for their own uses, Allie traced one of the three charms that locked into the wards and suddenly understood. “Not fear. Gran had no family here to support her. She knew something was coming, and she knew she’d have to face it alone. This… All this…” Allie waved a hand at the door. “… is just a way of filling in the empty spaces. I mean, she might have gone wild, but she was still a Gale.”
The force of David’s regard drew her attention off the charms and up onto his face. “What?” she sighed.
“You’ve changed.”
“Oh, for…” Allie decided Joe had the right idea with the eye rolling. Gales produced the most self-centered males in the universe. The moment they weren’t the center of someone’s attention, that someone had to have changed. “Roland said the same thing.”
“Did he?” David was wearing his puzzle solving face. “What did he say about these charms.”
“Nothing.”
“And Charlie?”
“I don’t think she noticed them.”
“You don’t think that’s strange?”
“Maybe.” Allie shrugged. “It’s Ch
arlie.”
David considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Fair point. But Roland is all about details. He should have had an opinion. A theory.”
“He’s not you.”
“Clearly.”
That sounded so obvious, David had to mean something else. “And?”
“What distracted him enough that he missed all this?”
“Does it matter?”
He made a face Allie didn’t recognize and opened the door.
Looking past him, she saw Roland rise, turn…
… and charge forward.
The first impact rattled the windows. The second…
Allie threw herself between them, a palm flat on each heaving chest. “Stop it! Now!”
She shouldn’t have been able to hold them, not with the amount of horn they were showing, but David backed up a step, breathing heavily through flared nostrils and Roland held his ground, one hand rising to wipe at the blood trickling down from his forehead.
Allie took a deep breath and turned to face her cousin. “What got your sweater vest in a twist?” she demanded.
To her surprise, David answered. “You. Odds are, he’s been on the edge of manifesting since he got off the plane.”
“That’s ridiculous. He’s second circle.”
“And you’re crossing.”
Allie spun on one heel to glare at her brother. “I am not.”
“Then explain this,” he growled, his gesture took in the obvious outline of antlers rising over Roland’s head and her position between them.
Her impossible position between them.
Unless she had another cousin hiding in the sofa cushions, something had sent Roland into full-on protective mode in the presence of another male. A more dominant male. Who wasn’t a part of the second circle.
“Coming up the stairs, that sounded like…” Michael paused just inside the door, took in the tableau, and said, “Allie, do you need me to get David out of here?”
“What?” Allie glanced between her brother and her cousin, realized the implications, and stepped back, allowing the two men to put some distance between them. And her. “No. We’re good.”
