Heir of the Dog
Page 20
He tilted his head. “Real what?”
“Eye-opening.” I scuffed my feet, ready to go but having trouble leaving. “Do we hug or what?”
He eyed my knee. “You’ll understand if full-body contact with you makes me nervous.”
“Fair enough.” I waved at him while I backed toward Diode. “You’ll be in touch, I assume?”
Rook cleared the distance between us in two steps, hooked an arm behind my back and lifted me against him. His head dipped, those hungry eyes of his daring me to protest. “Sooner than you think.”
His mouth feathered over mine, his unexpectedly tender kiss dragging a soft moan past my lips. That sound of encouragement had his grip tightening, his hands molding me against him. His tongue slid between my lips, hot and wet and reverent in a way that set a little warning voice screaming in my head.
I broke the kiss, twisting out of his grasp and crushing my eyes shut against the implications.
Diode’s roar peeled them wide open in time to see him lunge at me. I dove aside, rolling over the mossy ground, shoving to my feet and bolting toward Mom. With her tucked behind me, I sought out Diode, who wrestled with a thorny snake. Made of vines, it hung from the arbor. It was thicker around than my waist and striking faster than my eyes could track. A second snake—or its second head?—hissed at Rook.
“Stay inside the arbor,” he shouted at me.
“Not hardly.” I didn’t know how to work a tether. If that snake swallowed Diode or Rook, I was stuck here with Mom, and she wouldn’t stay in her trance forever. I grasped her shoulders. “Stay put.”
She blinked but offered no resistance. Please let one thing go right.
Shoving fear for her aside, I murmured my Word and peeled the glove from my hand. The snake raised a thick hood around its head. Venom dripped from its fangs. Its strikes came faster and faster.
No time to worry about them either. While Diode and Rook distracted the sharp end, I had to find its body. If I put my hand on it, I could kill it. Probably. I had never tried killing a plant, let alone a sentient one.
I shuddered. That was one skin I wouldn’t be taking home with me.
Darting behind Rook, I ran into the forest and circled back through the trees until I stood in front of Diode and behind the snake. Its body was thick and scaly, its flesh the bright color of new growth. As I crept sideways, I tracked its movements until the vine wrapping the trunk in front of me flexed.
“Got you,” I whispered.
Lunging for the base of the tree, I closed my hand around the vine and force-fed magic down its length. Mottled flesh turned black. Brittle roots pushed from the ground and hardened under my feet. The great snake coiled in on itself and died. Once it stopped moving, I jogged around the tree trunk.
I examined Mom, then Diode and then Rook. “Is everyone okay?”
Mom continued gazing at whatever image her mind’s eye conjured for her. Diode shook out his fur then limped back to her side. Rook scooped pale blue gel off his face, revealing pocked scarring.
He caught me staring. “The venom burns, but I will heal.”
“Thierry,” Diode called. “Where there is one, there will be another. Thorn vipers nest in pairs.”
“He’s right.” Rook wiped his hands on his pants. “Get inside and I’ll send you home.”
Home. I hungered for it so much the word made my mouth water. “What about you?”
His swollen lips twitched. “I’m surprised you care.”
“Don’t be.” I huffed. “You helped sweet-talk the consuls into a twelve-month reprieve, which I won’t thank you for—not because you’re fae—but because this was your fault in the first place.” I pointed a stern finger at him. “Be useful and do something about the other thousand-plus months left in the bargain.”
As I stepped under the arbor and linked my arm through Mom’s, Rook activated the tether.
The last I saw of Faerie was my fae husband’s melancholy smile.
I couldn’t sleep. After five hours of cross-examination by the magistrates, I ought to be exhausted, but I was wired. I still had a job. That was the good news. Whether they let me back into the field with my new status was up for debate.
They offered me an office job, but paper pushing wasn’t my thing. I wouldn’t last a week behind a desk, even with Mable for company. Plus, no bonuses.
I yawned long and loud, trying to fool myself into being tired. No dice. I was wide awake.
The night had ticked past in silence until I couldn’t stand the quiet. I had to escape my apartment. As glad as I was to see Mai, my heart felt scoured. I was too raw inside, and not even her stash of Sweet Dreams wine quieted the chaos revolving through my thoughts. Rook, the Hunt, Mom, the High Court, Shaw, Rook, Macsen, the dead princes, Shaw. Rook, Rook, Rook. The mantra had pushed me into the elevator and up to the apartment over mine.
If the door had been locked, I might have gone back to my room. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t.
That’s how I found myself taking comfort from the worn brocade couch Rook had abandoned in the same spot as where he conjured it, staring out his window into the calm dark of the sleeping city.
Mom was tucked into her bed at her house, sleeping off the hellacious vertigo she blamed on the cruise ship. Courtesy of the conclave, her yard was sporting a half-gnome bodyguard able to keep her property under surveillance twenty-four seven. Yeah, I laughed too until the cherubic lawn ornament quadrupled in size and lifted my car over his head...with one hand. Sven Gardener was one scary dude.
The sharp trill of my current ringtone had me patting down the cushions to find my cellphone.
“Hello?” I breathed against the screen while sliding it up to my ear.
“Thierry.”
“Shaw?” My heart thudded painfully. He had been the one face missing from my welcome party. I even called him when he didn’t call me. All I got was a canned message from his cell carrier. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“It’s broken.”
Relief that he hadn’t been avoiding my calls slid over me. “What happened?”
“I ran over it with the truck. A few times. Once I heard you had been taken.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said gently. “No one could have anticipated any of this.”
“I should have made the case a priority. I should have checked my phone more often. I should have—”
“No.” I pushed up straighter. “This was not your fault. None of it.”
“I shouldn’t have called,” slipped out on a tired breath.
Feeling hurt, I growled, “Why did you?”
“I thought I could...but I can’t. I might hurt someone.”
My pulse leapt again. “You’re hungry.”
No answer.
I rubbed my left eye with the heel of my palm. “I’ll tell security to let you up.”
Apparently Diode wasn’t enough to make the conclave comfortable. I had two new bodyguards. Mine were not as exotic as Mom’s gnomian guard. I had been issued a standard pair of sword-toting sidhe warriors. Unseelie, naturally.
“Security?”
“I guess you haven’t heard.” I pushed to my feet. “We’ll talk when you get here.”
“Thanks, Thierry.”
Don’t thank the fae sat on the tip of my tongue. Fae. I wasn’t all fae. I wouldn’t trade thanks for favors. That wasn’t me. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know if I could cash in markers even if I wanted to.
Tired of the caffeinated hamster running in the wheel of my thoughts, I swore. Enough semantics. I was too drained for this nitpicking, so I acted like a perfectly normal person and said, “You’re welcome.”
I hung up the phone before he got the chance to say more and padded over to the window. Whatever I hoped to see wasn’t there, and my chest felt heavier for taking that final glance. The temperature had dropped since I arrived, and standing so near the tall window meant that my breath fogged the glass.
Afraid my guards might ske
wer Shaw if he beat me to them, I turned to go. My hand was on the doorknob when a tapping sound made me turn. Black against the night, a large bird sat on the windowsill.
Above its head, in the fading puff of my chilled breath, was written a familiar endearment: a stór.
A neat trick for a bird, especially considering the condensation was on my side of the glass.
I crossed to him and ducked my head until I was at his eye level. “I’m not your darling.”
He fluffed his silky feathers and cawed once before vanishing into the darkness.
I don’t speak bird, but I think his cawing laughter called me a liar.
Thierry’s story continues in Lie Down with Dogs.
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Author’s Note
Dear Readers,
When I wrote Heir of the Dog as the first book in the Black Dog Trilogy, I planned Thierry's journey to span those three novels and no more. But then I attended the RT Booklovers Convention, and all that changed. Heir won the American Idol Contest, and that brought two agents with fresh ideas into the mix. The next thing I knew, the trilogy had expanded to include one more title – Dog with a Bone.
Dog with a Bone is a prequel to the series in the sense that the novella cuts a hole into the ceiling of Thierry's past and gives us a glimpse of those first steps that set the events of the trilogy into motion one year later.
With that in mind, I hope you have fun meeting Thierry as a bright-eyed cadet in Dog with a Bone and enjoy watching her mature through Heir of the Dog, Lie Down with Dogs and Old Dog, New Tricks into a woman who knows when laws are meant to be upheld and when they must be broken.
Best,
Hailey Edwards
About the Author
A cupcake enthusiast and funky sock lover possessed of an overactive imagination, Hailey lives in Alabama with her handcuff-carrying hubby, her fluty-tooting daughter and their herd of dachshunds.
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Hailey’s Backlist
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A Feast of Souls #2
A Cast of Shadows #2.5
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A Kiss of Venom #3.5
A Breath of Winter #4
A Veil of Secrets #5
Daughters of Askara
Everlong #1
Evermine #2
Eversworn #3
Black Dog
Dog with a Bone #1
Heir of the Dog #2
Wicked Kin
Soul Weaver #1
Copyright Information
No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author.
Heir of the Dog
© 2015 by Hailey Edwards All rights reserved.
Edited by Sasha Knight
Cover by Damonza
Interior format by The Killion Group