The Ruby Kiss

by Helen Scott Taylor

  “Dev,” Twister shouted, his voice thin with strain.

  “I’ll go and find a rope, Twister.” Devin pelted back into the Assembly Rooms.

  “Strewth!” Ruby collapsed to her knees and held her head. Tears squeezed out beneath her closed eyelids. “Twister’s animals are going mad in my mind,” she hissed at Nightshade. “Help him.”

  “Ruby,” Twister called from below.

  Nightshade swallowed back his jealousy and leaned forward to check how Twister was doing. The king’s fingers had slipped. He wasn’t going to be able to hang on much longer. “Shit,” he whispered to himself. Whatever he thought of Twister, he couldn’t just stand there and let Fenrir fall to his death.

  “Don’t worry.” He glanced back into the Assembly Rooms for Devin, but there was no sign of him. With a sigh, he cupped a reassuring hand around Ruby’s cheek then stepped off the cliff. His wings struck out, wrenching the aching muscles of his torso. Pain radiated through his body and he bit down, grunting between his teeth with the effort; for a moment he didn’t think he had the strength to carry his own body weight. He dropped faster than he intended, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. He tasted blood in the back of his throat. It would be ironic if he tried to save Twister only to fall to his own death.

  Twister had closed his eyes in concentration, one hand gripping Fenrir, the other hooked over a rocky point, white and bloodless with the strain.

  “Nightshade, be careful.” Ruby’s voice sounded far off, her words swept away by the wind. He couldn’t think of her now, though. He couldn’t think of anything except the next minute, the next second. He counted his wing beats to stay focused and hold back the burning lethargy invading his muscles.

  “Twister, I’ll get Fenrir up on the ledge,” he promised. Twister’s tense mask of concentration flickered for a second, indicating he’d heard.

  As Nightshade approached the old man, Fenrir started twisting and kicking to get free. Maybe the poor devil understood what had happened to him and couldn’t face the future. Maybe it would be kinder to let him drop to his death . . .

  He clasped the old man’s sinewy body, taking the weight from Twister; then, with the last of his strength, he beat his wings and lifted Fenrir back up onto the rocky ledge. He collapsed beside the old man, gasping for breath.

  Twister dropped out of sight and a moment later his golden eagle form soared up and landed on the rocky shelf. The air shimmered and he regained his human shape. He immediately embraced Fenrir, ignoring the blows the old man rained down on his head.

  The others were still twenty feet above, but Nightshade flopped back against the rocks, his muscles like cotton wool. The shadowy glen swam in his vision.

  Twister had behaved disgracefully in bonding with Ruby against her will and forcing her to face the huge wolf his father had become, but as Nightshade watched the king embrace the filthy, rag-clad body of his sire despite the bites and vicious punches raining down upon him, Nightshade’s anger faded. Twister’s efforts might have been misguided, but he’d clearly acted out of love. And had Nightshade’s own behavior toward Ruby been any better? When he’d first met her he’d thought of her only as a suitable mother for his son. He’d planned to mate with her and form a blood bond, then take her back to Cornwall. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask her if she wanted to leave her home to be with him or if she wanted to have his child. That hadn’t even been love. He’d been selfish beyond belief.

  “Carry Fenrir to safety,” Twister said, a thread of desperation in his voice. “In eagle form, I’m not strong enough to do so.”

  “Sorry, I haven’t the strength to fly myself up there let alone carry anyone.” Nightshade glanced at the ledge twenty feet above and discerned the pale shape of Ruby’s face.

  Someone shouted, and a leather thong slithered down. Nightshade would have laughed if he’d had the energy. How ironic, that he should be saved by a whip.

  “Fenrir goes first,” Twister said.

  Nightshade lifted an eyebrow, but he was too groggy to care. He helped the Unseelie king loop the leather cord around Fenrir, who had finally stopped struggling and sunk into a morose trance.

  Twister waved an arm, and those above hauled the old man up the cliff. Fenrir bumped into the rocks as they raised him; he did not attempt to protect himself from injury. Twister pressed his forehead against his drawn up knees and clenched his fists among his dreadlocks.

  “I was wrong to change him. So totally, unbelievably wrong.”

  Nightshade remained silent. It would do no good to say “I told you so.”

  At length, Twister looked up and gripped Nightshade’s arm. “You have been a better friend than I deserve.”

  Nightshade turned his head and sucked in a breath. He felt sorry for Twister, but he couldn’t forgive him for endangering Ruby. For having bonded with Ruby.

  The leather thong lowered again, and Nightshade knotted the strap around his waist. Lethargy invaded his body and brain. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay awake. Even when Twister waved his arm and the thong snapped tight, he barely had the strength to brace his hands against the rock face to hold himself clear. As he was hauled up, sharp granite grazed burning scratches across his arms and chest. The scent of his own blood filled his nostrils, and the gusts of chilly highland air cut into his marrow.

  Nightshade’s eyelids dropped and his head flopped forward. Time stretched—an endless drag of buffeting wind and unforgiving rock while the twilight faded into night. He only jolted back to consciousness when warm hands gripped him beneath the arms and hauled him onto his back.

  Ruby’s worried face appeared above him. Her fingers brushed back his hair, touched his cheek. He tried to say her name but his mouth wouldn’t work; the word echoed in his head then faded. Next time he opened his eyes, her face was only inches from his. She kissed him. He smiled inside but he wasn’t sure if his face responded.

  The long dark coats of the Whips swished around him. In the distance he heard the cry of Twister’s golden eagle. Nightshade tried to move to ease the discomfort of his squashed wings. Ruby helped him to roll onto his side. Nightshade had almost forgotten about Fenrir, but now he saw the sad old man huddled against the wall. He was staring out into the night sky.

  His golden-brown eyes were the same color as Twister’s. Strange, to think this filthy and ragged man was Troy’s brother. Yet beneath the layers of dirt, his features were fine and he must once have been handsome.

  The Whip who was watching Fenrir turned to answer a question. His attention left the old man for only a moment, but Fenrir’s empty gaze sharpened. Nightshade cried out a warning, but he was too late. Without making a sound, Fenrir leapt toward the precipice. An instant later, Twister’s anguished cry rent the air.

  Nightshade closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Ruby hurried along the corridor toward Twister’s rooms. She needed to return his Magic Knot to him before she departed, so she’d reluctantly left Devin watching over Nightshade. She and Nightshade were getting a ride back to her home to pick up her car. From there she would drive him to Cornwall.

  Fear hung like a shadow over her thoughts. Nightshade was getting sicker by the minute. She wouldn’t relax until she delivered him into the hands of the Cornish pisky healer he’d spoken of with such trust.

  She knocked when she reached the door of Twister’s study. When her second knock went unanswered, she nearly returned to Nightshade. But Twister’s Magic Knot was too important to just leave on her bedside table to be found; she had to hand it back to him.

  “Twister,” she said through the door, “it’s Ruby.” She could no longer sense the Unseelie king through their bond. After Fenrir had thrown himself to his death, Twister had shut her out of his mind.

  She finally pushed open the door without invitation, and dismay flashed through her at the state of the room. Unbearable sadness tightened Ruby’s throat at the senseless destruction of what must have constituted years of painstaking wor
k and dedication. All the small metal perpetual-motion devices had been ripped off the walls and lay wrecked in a sad heap on the floor behind the sofa. The room was eerily quiet. Only the odd ding or hum broke the silence, the mechanisms giving last gasps of life.

  Twister sat on the sofa facing the fire, elbows on his knees, forehead propped on the heels of his hands. Streaks of dried blood marked the recent damage Fenrir had inflicted. It occurred to her that when Fenrir shifted to human form his face had been dirty but unmarked. Twister must have loved his father very much to suffer years of attacks without ever retaliating.

  Even this close to Twister, she couldn’t sense him and had no idea what he was thinking. It was unsettling how quickly she’d grown used to their bond, but now he’d shut her out. In a weird way she missed the strange mental connection, as if some deep part of her craved the unexpected intimacy, although she would never have sought out such a thing with the Unseelie king.

  “Twister,” she said softly. Her boots crunched on tiny metal springs and cogs scattered like fragile bones over the carpet. She sat on the sofa at his side, but he didn’t raise his head or acknowledge her.

  She unhooked the gold chain from her neck and pooled it in her hand around the three emerald-green stone rings of his Magic Knot. She extended her hand so he could see what she offered.

  She’d expected him to be eager to reclaim his Magic Knot, but he made no move to take it. With a catching, agonized breath that sounded as though he was sucking his life back from the abyss, he roused and lifted his head. He stared into the fire rather than at her.

  “I can’t bond with anyone else now that I’ve given you my stones. That’s it for me,” he said with a dejected note of finality.

  Ruby’s hand tensed beneath the Magic Knot, and she reined in her desire to toss it onto his lap and escape. She didn’t want to add to his pain, but she refused to give him false hope that she’d stay with him. She didn’t have time to be gentle. Nightshade was waiting for her. If she were going to share the intimate connection of a bond with anyone, she would choose him.

  Please don’t ask me to stay.

  She had to distract Twister from his grief. She tapped a fingernail against one of the rodent skulls in his hair. “Why do you have these?”

  “They’re creatures I ate when I was in owl form.”

  Ruby rocked back in her seat. Just when she thought she’d heard everything . . . “Yummy.”

  Twister cast her an oblique look through his hair, and the corner of his mouth twitched. He closed his hand around hers, trapping his Magic Knot between their palms. “I’ll miss you.”

  The calluses from his wolf-paw pads scratched her hand, but she didn’t flinch away. “I can come back and visit.”

  “Do that,” he said, but his tone said he thought she wouldn’t.

  She rotated her hand, pouring the gold links and green stones into his palm with a flutter of relief. When she stood, a ball bearing rolled away from her foot.

  “Why?” she asked, pointing at the debris.

  “They were Fenrir’s creations. He was a learned man, on par with the greatest academic minds in history. I kept them for him.”

  Tears pricked the back of Ruby’s eyes. She crouched and sorted through the pile of broken metal cases, picking out three devices that had survived almost intact. She stood and handed them to Twister, who accepted them silently, his golden-brown eyes unreadable.

  “Keep a few. You’ll regret it if you don’t,” she said.

  When she reached the door, Twister spoke. “I hope Nightshade recovers.”

  Ruby’s heart got the better of her. “So do I,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ruby blinked sleepily as she maneuvered her car along the narrow Cornish lanes. Nightshade lay wedged on the backseat beneath a blanket with Ares and Apollo curled atop him. He had slept most of the ten-hour journey from her home in Scotland, where she had packed some clothes and collected her car, to Cornwall.

  He heaved himself up on his elbow with a grunt and glanced out of the window. “Nearly home, thank the gods. Turn left between the two granite pillars coming up.”

  Ruby followed a winding route between banks of rhododendron bushes, down a dip into a wooded valley and over a stone bridge spanning a stream. The car topped the brow of a hill and broke from the trees. She swung around a small pool containing an ornate fountain and pulled up outside the front door of a rambling granite manor house.

  “Never thought I’d be so pleased to see Trevelion Manor,” Nightshade muttered.

  Ruby gripped the top of the steering wheel and rested her forehead on the backs of her hands. She badly needed a comfy bed. She felt as though she’d sleep for a week.

  The front door of the house burst open, and Devin led a group of people toward the car. How convenient, to be able to disappear in a puff of smoke and travel instantly to your destination like he did. It was a pity the djinn couldn’t have carried Nightshade here.

  Ruby’s door was pulled open. Ares and Apollo scampered out over her, leaping from her lap to the gravel like kamikaze pilots, their little ribboned topknots bouncing.

  “You made it.” Devin offered his hand, helping her out while the dogs circled his feet and yapped with excitement.

  Ruby’s leg muscles trembled with fatigue after the marathon trip. She hadn’t dared stop for longer than a few minutes at a time, just in case someone saw Nightshade. Her brain wasn’t up to explaining to any curious police officer why her passenger had wings.

  The piskies looked reassuringly normal. The two women and two men who’d rushed out were all wearing regular clothes and didn’t have pointed ears or anything. The most unusual detail about them was that the two men were extremely attractive identical twins with the brightest blue eyes she’d ever seen.

  “My half brothers and their wives,” Devin said. “Niall, Michael, Rose, and Cordelia.”

  “Hi,” Ruby muttered. They glanced up and nodded in greeting, but all four of them were focused on helping Nightshade out of the car.

  Michael angled in and gave Nightshade his arm to lean on. “What’ve you been up to, boyo?”

  “Not what I went for, bard.”

  “Didn’t you see Dragon?” Cordelia asked.

  “I saw him all right.” Nightshade’s gaze met Ruby’s, and disappointment and frustration flashed across his face. “Dragon took back his Magic Knot, and I was in no fit state to stop him.”

  Rose gripped his hand tightly. “You know we’ll never let him take Rhys. We all love him. Goodness,” she realized, pressing a palm to his forehead. “You’re burning up.”

  Cordelia stepped forward. She laid her hand over Nightshade’s heart and closed her eyes.

  Nightshade grumbled, but he was obviously pleased with the attention. “Can’t you women let me get inside before you start groping me?”

  Cordelia’s eyes opened. She bit her lip and looked at Michael.

  “What’s the matter with him, sugarplum?”

  “I need some quiet time to examine him before I’ll know for sure. Take him up to his bedroom and make sure you take it easy. No roughhousing.”

  “Would I go doing a thing like that?” Michael flashed a megawatt grin at Ruby, but it fell away, quickly replaced by lines of worry.

  Cordelia turned to Ruby and touched her arm. “You’re well, are you, Ruby? Devin’s told us what you’ve had to endure.”

  “Are you the healer?”

  Cordelia nodded. “For my sins, yes.”

  “Please concentrate on making Nightshade well. All I need is a good night’s sleep.”

  Devin slipped his hand beneath Ruby’s elbow, and she leaned against him, grateful. His exotic smell of incense had become familiar, and it even had a comforting effect on her now.

  “You not going with them?” she asked Devin when Michael put an arm around Nightshade and led him to the front door. Rose and Cordelia walked beside them.

  “I’ll catch up late
r.”

  Nightshade paused at the door and looked back. “Ruby, come and see me before you go to bed.”

  “Of course I will.” She smiled. But she felt like an outsider intruding on this happy family.

  Niall remained behind. His extraordinary blue gaze roamed over her, coolly assessing. He had an innate air of authority, even though he was dressed only in jeans and a checked shirt. And when Devin fetched her bags from the trunk, Niall approached.

  He inclined his head in greeting. “I’m Niall O’Connor, king of the piskies. You must be Ruby.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “Will your healer be able to cure Nightshade?”

  Niall glanced after the others. “The wise woman is a good healer. She will do her best. It would help if we knew what caused his illness.” He raised one eyebrow.

  Ruby lifted a shoulder and let it drop, almost too weary to think back over all that had happened.

  Devin came up beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I don’t think Ruby knows any more than I do. Nightshade was injured, but we don’t think this sickness has anything to do with that.”

  Ares and Apollo appeared and sidled up to Niall, their little bodies twisting as they wagged their tails. The pisky king crouched and stroked them.

  “My boys would love you two little rascals.” He glanced up at Ruby with a smile that transformed his face, making him look more friendly and approachable. “How do they get on with small children?”

  “They’ve never met any kids.” Ruby blinked and sleepily struggled to raise her eyelids.

  Devin noticed. “Why don’t you take the dogs, Niall? I’ll show Ruby to her guest room before she keels over.”