by Tay LaRoi
At that moment, Jaffa knew she would have died for this girl’s sake.
There was a huge element of boredom in looking after someone who lived in the middle of nowhere. Rhiannon went to school, to ballet class, and came straight home. On weekends, she and her aunt Anwen went to a local faerie prayer circle. Jaffa, used to high-stakes undercover assignments, thought longingly of New York.
Of course, she’d always been tough; her name was Jaffa, after the city. As a beast pup, she’d been raised by a scrappy Ashkenazi pack of newspaper boys and partisans, still as scruffy and hard-edged as they’d been when their aging slowed down. It was a household where the pantry lead to a secret escape tunnel and every discussion turned into a friendly argument in at least three languages. It was an upbringing that had prepared her for anything. Except spending an entire summer in a small Midwestern town where the only place to cut wild was the county fair.
If not for Rhiannon, she would have died of boredom, watching shitty reruns on the old shoebox-sized TV all night. Most children were scared of her, but Rhiannon didn’t care. She invited her bodyguard to play Disney princess death match in the treehouse, brought her to school as a substitute gym class teacher, and whispered hilarious stories about all the backstage gossip of Nutcracker rehearsals. Having someone so interesting to look after helped her suppress the instinct to run wild.
“Tell me a story?”
So Jaffa talked about roaming half-wild in the Catskills, and how she’d stolen a neighbor’s chicken for show-and-tell. How she’d followed her foster parents into the mercenary business, and the three surreal months she’d spent undercover as a mortal fundamentalist to take down a baby-trafficking ring.
“You’re brilliant,” Rhiannon always said. “I want to hear more.”
At night, Jaffa crouched at the window with her sniper rifle, shooting down the occasional hunting party of demons or extradimensional mercenary. She left at the end of the summer, when Rhiannon and Anwen moved to a more secure safe house and the attacks ended. And although she was damn glad to be around other adults, she still caught herself looking at wildflowers and ballet slippers and wondering what Rhiannon would think of them.
Ten years was a short time in a shifter’s life, but it had made all the difference in that sunshiny kid. She’d grown into her power, emerging into near immortality. The innocent teenager she’d felt so protective towards had grown up—and out—into one sweet little shot of whiskey. And feisty, too.
No more oversized band T-shirts and hand-me-down cargo pants; her current outfit was just as simple, but it fit her body, hinting at generous breasts and hips.
Down, dog. Don’t even think about it. This innocent creature was under her protection, and it wouldn’t be fair or right to make a move.
She noticed Rhiannon was studying her. “So…uh…how you feeling about going back to Faerie?”
“’Tis less-more mad where the glitter woods run, as I might sling syllaslang had I been caterpillared behind the Borderbrook’s rush.” Her voice fell into the sparkling, singsong tone that young faeries often affected, half music and half mischief.
Jaffa nodded. “Not bad for someone raised with humans.” It was a pitch-perfect imitation, and she couldn’t help chuckling.
“All my allowance and birthday money, for my whole life, went on buying smuggled magazines from a secret mailing list. I keep up well enough with the important news and the biggest trends in pop culture, but I don’t remember what it’s like to feel that bright air on my face or drift for hours in a sunbeam—just a few blurred memories of colored streamers waving overhead, fried pastries, dancers on stilts. I’ll wake up every time I hear a bicycle messenger or a unicorn rider because I’m so used to cars. I bet I’ll still reach for my phone even though everyone in Faerie wears a communication crystal. In the way I walk, the way I dress, even the weather I’m used to, I’ll seem as human as could be. But I’ve never fit here, either. Could never. Too much magic in my blood, too much flickering faerie whimsy. I laugh too easily, and I eat foods none of my friends have even heard of. I haven’t grown up with the same lullabies as them or even the same holidays. Sometimes I feel like I don’t fit anywhere.”
She’d never thought of her sunny faerie as having problems, but now she knew Rhiannon had suffered too. She felt genuine regret for a world that had forced a young girl to flee for her life. “That’s real tough, kid. I wish things could have been different.”
“I don’t.” Her dark eyes fixed on Jaffa’s. “There was no other way. This way, I’m alive, free to have problems and worry about whether or not I fit in.” She tapped her phone on the dashboard, her expression growing impish once again. “And I should be able to pick up some decent money when I sell this at the Goblin Market.”
Jaffa wanted nothing more than to swerve over to the side of the road and give Rhiannon the biggest hug of her life. She now knew that Rhiannon was wise beyond her years, that the trials of her life hadn’t made her bitter. There was still something pure in the world. “You’re…you’re really something, you know that?”
She ducked her head, smiling. If her skin was lighter, she probably would have blushed. Jaffa tightened her grip on the steering wheel, preparing to weather another honey blast of common-sense-melting magic. Instead, the smile faded.
“Still, I can’t help worrying.”
“About what?” Jaffa wondered if she could punch whoever or whatever had upset Rhiannon.
“If my bits-and-pieces childhood has robbed me of the ability to truly fit anywhere.”
Okay. She could metaphorically punch this. For a moment, she forgot her old wounds. “I mean, I was raised by immigrants, and I think of it this way—maybe it’s taught you to make friends anywhere. There will be outcasts and dreamers and lonely souls wherever you go. Anyone with your kind of sympathy, who can be kind to people who feel left out… I don’t think you’ll have any trouble making friends. Show some sympathy for people’s shit, and you’ll never get shit-faced alone.”
“That’s actually really reassuring.”
It felt strange to have a pretty girl smiling at her. “I’m just telling the truth.”
“I know. That’s why it helps.”
A few hours of starlight later, they were driving across a gravel road in the Pine Barrens. Jaffa winced at each bump. It had been a while since she’d seen a healer, and her old scars were starting to ache, warning of nearby danger and dark forces. Was there a real threat, or was her body just on high alert for the sake of its own unconscious paranoia? She had no idea.
Rhiannon looked at her, concerned. “Are you all right? You didn’t get hurt earlier, did you?”
“Let’s just say that the Syndicate…once they’ve got you in their crosshairs, they don’t let up…not until they’ve had their fun, or they think you’re no longer a threat.”
“What happened to you?” Rhiannon asked, shaking her head. “No—I shouldn’t be prying. If you’re not comfortable talking about it, I understand. You don’t have to tell me anything you’d rather keep secret.”
It was a mature and selfless response, and she couldn’t help but consider how the little faerie had been forced to grow up so quickly. Jaffa had spent years keeping secrets so close to her chest; now she wanted to share a fragment, even if it was just a minor detail. “I ended up on their radar when I stopped a sprite-smuggling operation. They’d taken over some catacombs, rigged a portal, and were selling the little creatures to mortal collectors in glass bottles.”
Compassion and concern filled Rhiannon’s tone. “That’s horrible. I’m glad someone did something about it.”
She’d felt the same way, willing to risk anything to end the atrocity. “I thought I’d made it out with my cover intact, but let’s just say it was a while till I made a clean getaway.”
Rhiannon didn’t press her for details, just nodded sympathetically, her face solemn.
And if she knew the truth, would she still feel safe in a car with me, Jaffa wondered. She
wanted to change the subject, quick as she could. “Anyway, kid…”
“About your last letter!” Rhiannon piped up. “I couldn’t help wondering—you promised to tell me about the fire-eaters, but I haven’t been in one place long enough to summon a bird.”
“For starters, let me just say you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a flame nymph twirl flames on her tits.”
Jaffa wasn’t just a brilliant storyteller, she was a brilliant listener. She listened to Rhiannon’s descriptions of every elderly dog her school had fostered, every quirky customer she had to wrangle with in job placement class. At last, Rhiannon was too tired to talk, and she curled up in a little ball as Jaffa hummed along to the radio. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she woke up at 3:00 AM when they pulled into some cheap motel.
“One room, one bed,” Jaffa told the sleepy-looking clerk, who blinked in surprise and looked them up and down before shrugging acquiescence to their request.
“Why was she so surprised?” Rhiannon asked in the elevator. “I mean, sharing a bed is cheaper, right?”
“There are a lot of LGBT people on the East Coast, but this is the cheapest no-name place to get a bed within state lines. It’s butt o’clock in the morning, you’re walking like you’re drunk, and you’ve got sleep hair. Let’s just say gal pals probably didn’t go through her mind.”
“Oh!” Rhiannon covered her face, laughing from the awkwardness. Then she snuck a look at Jaffa. Did she mind that the clerk thought they were sleeping together? Would she want to go out with Rhiannon, or did she still just see her as a scruffy kid in overalls?
But Jaffa’s face was unreadable, as always. Rhiannon decided to turn up the flirting a little and see if she noticed.
Okay, it’s stupid to flirt with my bodyguard—my biker-chick-sexy-shifter bodyguard. But I’ve spent my entire life being so careful. She’d never even gone on a date because she didn’t want to draw too much attention to herself. Now life was offering her the chance to be a normal young faerie, to eat Wing City street food and make flowers blossom in public. Maybe a normal stupid crush on a hard femme who was way out of her league was just what she needed.
The room was run-down, but it looked like it had been cleaned recently, and Rhiannon didn’t notice any cockroaches or rats. While Jaffa made a security sweep and checked for bugs, Rhiannon took her suitcase into the bathroom. Back in LA, her friends had always tried to talk her into dressing more revealingly, saying it would help her snag a hot girl. She thought she’d never wear the vintage slip dress that Sofia had talked her into accepting as a going-away present, but since she’d thrown it in mid packing frenzy…
Rhiannon stepped out of the bathroom, the nightgown swaying against her legs. She’d brushed her brown hair until it shone in the starlight. Maybe Jaffa would be stoic and unreadable no longer. Even if her flirting made things awkward, at least she’d have a distraction from the constant threat of death.
Except Jaffa was already fast asleep.
Fine, Rhiannon thought. Good thing faeries are early risers! She slipped under the quilt and closed her eyes.
The next morning, Rhiannon leaned over Jaffa as the sun peeked through the curtains. She thought of the brightest, most glittery things she could to make her aura even more inviting: walking barefoot on the LA beaches, the smell of county-fair food.
Waking up my bodyguard in three, two, one…
A hand closed on Jaffa’s shoulder. One thought pierced through the fog of sleep: those bastards, I won’t let them get me again. She grabbed the person by the throat and slammed them against the wall before even opening her eyes. So the Syndicate thought they could mess with her again? She’d fucking show them.
Rhiannon stared at her with eyes full of fear. Instantly, she released her grip, seething with horror at herself. “Shit.”
“You’re such a heavy sleeper, I wanted to see if I could wake you…” Rhiannon swallowed hard, touching her bruised throat. The movement drew attention to the low neckline of her nightgown, a silky slip dress trimmed in lace. Did she know how tight it was? Twin dark circles showed through the pastel fabric.
Fuck. Jaffa ran a hand through her hair. Spending so much time around the faerie’s unshielded aura was seriously getting to her, like some sort of crazy secondhand high. “I’m a heavy sleeper until I register a threat. If I’d sensed there was anyone watching us, I would have gone from zero to sixty in an instant. You set off a false alarm. It’s not your fault. Change out of that, and we’ll grab breakfast. I’m going for a smoke.” Around humans, she smoked normal cigarettes. The tobacco chemicals bounced right off her immortal metabolism, not even touching her racing thoughts; it was another part of her persona. But around other immortals, she lit up the real stuff—elfweed spiked with pixie dust, all charcoal and maple smoke. I could do with one now, Jaffa decided and got out of bed.
That is, she tried to.
“Are your old injuries hurting badly today?” Rhiannon’s doe-brown eyes filled with concern.
“No. I’m…fine.” She tried to pull herself out of bed and stifled a cry of agony. The spells implanted in her bones hadn’t throbbed this badly in months. Evil forces were nearby…looking for Rhiannon, possibly. Well, they won’t find her here. I’ll get her to a safe haven. But first to get out of bed.
“I can’t take your pain away, but I can turn a bad day into an average day,” Rhiannon hinted.
She must have looked dubious, because Rhiannon continued. “I know about pain. Sometimes it’s worse and sometimes it’s better, right? But it’s always there. And everyone thinks you should either be in bed crying helplessly or just get over it…but you keep going because you’re a fighter. And that’s what you do.”
In the morning sun, she seemed so old, and yet so innocent. Jaffa wished she’d done more to protect her. “You sound like you know a lot about pain.”
“One of my poetry teachers had late-stage Lyme disease. I couldn’t get her out of the wheelchair, but I helped her stay out of the hospital until treatment kicked in. No organ failures on my watch.”
“That’s all? Really?” She hadn’t meant to ask. It just slipped out. But Rhiannon sat on the edge of the bed, letting out a small, melancholy sigh.
“Sometimes it sucks being on the run. I’ve had to leave California behind, switch what I’m studying, even change my name. I just want to go home and swim in the town pool, volunteer a few shifts at the library. I’d ask my neighbor how her rose garden is coming along and Sofia and I could do each other’s nails and I could pet Carmen’s pugs. Instead, I can’t even log into my old social media because some greedy technomancer might decide to use my BFFs against me. And it sucks so much ass.” She looked straight at Jaffa with a tremulous smile. “But I’m living with it, even though it hurts.”
“Yeah, kid. I getcha,” Jaffa said softly. In that moment, she would have done anything to make a home for her old friend. One that Rhiannon would never have to leave.
Then Rhiannon laid a hand on her, and the magic rushed through her like a drug. She didn’t know they were moving closer together until Rhiannon’s forehead touched hers. Didn’t know they were kissing until she heard herself moan.
Jaffa tasted like smoke and spice and dark chocolate, and her skin was as warm as blankets and the dawn. Rhiannon wanted to melt into those hands gripping her shoulders, into the blissful dizziness.
“Yes,” Jaffa gasped, and when she growled and buried a hand in Rhiannon’s hair, as if it were a tantalizing treasure to hold fast to, wanted to live in this moment forever. She hardly dared to breathe. Jaffa’s long hair swept over her, brushing against her collarbone, the swell of her breasts. She heard herself sigh, a deep shiver of untamed sound—
“No,” Jaffa said, her voice sharp as barbed wire. “We can’t do this, we can’t ever do this.”
Rhiannon fell back against the headboard, her mouth open. Emotions swirled through her: exasperated, upset, confused. “But…why not?”
If she’d been
awkward or angry or even ordinarily polite, Rhiannon would have known how to feel. Instead, Jaffa smiled a strange half smile and chuckled a razor-blade laugh, a laugh that seemed to mock the world as much as it mocked herself. “I’m too old for you.”
“You can’t say that and really mean it. I’ll live to be at least two hundred. Can’t you make more sense? At least tell me if you like me or not—or let me know if I’m a bad kisser.” Heat flared over her cheeks, and only her olive skin was saving her from a humiliating bright-red blush.
“I know the High Fae measure age in full moons because those are the only things they know how to count. But there are other immortals—the extraplanars, the undergrounds—who measure age in what a person’s seen. What they’ve been through. And if you view it that way, my soul is older than yours will ever be.”
Jaffa said it so matter-of-factly. From anyone else, those words would have seemed ridiculous. But there was nothing of drama or pretension in the contradiction of her smile. She stood up and ran her hands down her body as if to erase any evidence of Rhiannon’s touch. “I’m going out for a smoke. Get your stuff. We’ll leave in ten.”
“What about the free breakfast buffet?”
“Fuck the buffet.” She slammed the door behind her, and the glass rattled in its frame.
Rhiannon took the pillows off the bed and threw them across the room. At least she wasn’t a High Fae—so fragile and ethereal that she could barely tolerate the intense vibrations of the human world—but now she could imagine how it felt.
She’s going to see me as a child the rest of my life.
Something chimed from inside her tote bag. She opened it. It was the burner phone she’d gotten for Aunt Anwen to contact her in case of emergency.
Instead of saying, “Hello,” she said. “What’s the password?”
“Pear juice.”
Their password—Rhiannon’s favorite human drink—protected against impersonation.
