And he’d—
He….
He buried his face in his hands, thinking of when he’d woken up in that alley. He was used to the feeling of people looking at him but not seeing, frozen into their own little worlds. Everyone he’d known in Vegas used each other to their own ends and nothing more, and that was the bargain. He had thought he was okay with that.
But that day, she’d shown up right away, protected him, seen him. He hadn’t been seen in so long.
Stupid fucking girl.
He had been an idiot to fall for her trick. Her apparent earnestness to be good had lulled him into a false sense of security; he’d let himself relax, let himself think it felt nice to be a part of something.
She’d lied. Even if he didn’t know why, that was the only explanation. How else could she have changed so quickly, suddenly not trusted him or Astrid anymore?
That Norn. Don’t fucking trust her. No one goes to Zaedicus’s parties who doesn’t belong there.
What about Tilda? What about me?
Fuck Tilda. And fuck me.
His heart twinged a little at his own reply, and he twirled his empty glass. He didn’t want nothing to do with the Reach anymore, but … maybe he should go tell Astrid, just to warn her. If it was the Norn’s fault, maybe she could fix it. If it wasn’t….
But he didn’t feel like seeing Astrid. He didn’t feel like seeing anybody. He was busy licking his wounds, and it made him feel weak. Edie had been playing the long game, and he’d fallen for it like a little bitch. While he’d been getting comfortable, she got comfortable, too. Turned out she was comfortable hurting people.
Is that really true, though? Her?
Cal tapped the bar to ask for another shot, but the bartender shook her head. He sighed heavily and refrained from laying his head on the bar. Instead, he half-turned, glancing out the window.
Across the street, a preteen girl sat on a bench next to her dad. Her arm was in a cast, probably fresh considering how vibrant it was, but she was swinging her legs and smiling. For some fucking reason, Cal found himself transfixed. She and her dad held matching ice cream cones, and though Dad looked tired as hell, he was smiling, too. Whatever crisis had caused the broken arm had been dealt with, and this was their prize: a second of peace.
Cal glared. Fucking Hallmark movie bullshit. No one really had a life like that, all happy and secure. It was a lie they told to make themselves feel better, an act. Chances were her dad had been the one to break her arm in the first place. That was what people did. They hurt each other.
He turned back to the bartender. If she wasn’t gonna serve him, he’d go somewhere else and start fresh. But might as well try. “Hey, one for the road?”
She glanced at him, and her smirk made her septum piercing flip up slightly. “I saw you driving around in that Eldo. That’s a nice car. I wouldn’t want you to wreck it.”
He groaned. “Ahh, I’m not even drunk. You can tell, can’t you?”
“That’s kind of my job. Also my job to make sure you don’t drink yourself to death.” She glanced out the window, sighed, and looked back at Cal with a shrug. “Okay, fine. You can hold your liquor. One more.”
“Thanks.” Cal tipped the glass appreciatively once it was filled.
“So”—the bartender crossed her arms on the bar, leaning forward—“why the day drinking?”
“It’s past five o’clock in Ireland.”
Her eyebrows disappeared behind her bangs. “Wow, I’ve never heard that one before.”
Cal lowered his glass, glaring at her. With all the piercings and dark makeup, she reminded him of Edie. He hated that he was lowering his guard because of it. Edie was the enemy now. She’d put herself there. “Oh, so are you gonna do the barkeep thing where you pretend to care about my problems, now?”
“Sure.” She shrugged, peering at him deeply. “Let me see if I can guess.”
He huffed incredulously. “Seriously?”
“Is it a girl?”
“No. Well … kind of. She’s a kid. A girl kid.” Cal knocked back his drink. He’d need it if she was really going to insist on talking to him about this.
She didn’t look convinced, but conceded nonetheless. “All right, so what happened?”
“We had a … fight. She doesn’t trust me.”
“Why?”
He threw up a hand. “I don’t even fuckin’ know. She thinks I’m using her or tricking her or somethin’. She says I don’t do anything unless I get something out of it, so why would I be helping her?”
“Sounds like she’s been let down in the past,” the bartender said thoughtfully, checking her nails. “Maybe someone who didn’t turn out to be who they said they were.”
Well … she was right. It wasn’t the first time someone had lied to Edie about who they were. “But I’m not lying to her. I’ve never lied to her, only tried to help her.”
The bartender looked up skeptically. “Is that true? A hundred percent?”
Fuck. Cal looked down at the bar. There were still things he was keeping from her. Edie wasn’t stupid. She’d begun to notice.
“No secrets at all?”
“Everyone has secrets,” he snapped. “But I don’t mean her any harm.”
“And how’s she supposed to know that? Have you told her why you wanna help her? Like, your motives?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“’Cause they’re none of her business. I do what I do because— just—” Cal clenched his jaw. “I have my own reasons.”
“So … you’re doing it for you, like she said.”
A heavy sigh, and he glanced at the ceiling. “No.”
“What are the reasons, then? I won’t tell her,” the bartender said with an amused tone.
Cal stared her down, but she didn’t even flinch. After a long moment of silence, he shifted in his seat, looking away. “I’m … scared … for her. I don’t want her to end up like her dad. Guess I thought maybe if I was around to help….”
For the first time, the bartender seemed to get that he really wasn’t talking about a girlfriend. “So who knows what’ll happen now that you’re gone, if she’s really got no idea what she’s doing. If she really needs you.”
He made a face. “I guess, but … she started the fight! She treated me like I was plotting against her or some shit.”
“Yeah, but how can she know what your intentions really are if you never open up and tell her about them? Trust is a two-way street.” The bartender pushed off the counter and grabbed a glass to clean, like she was Sam Malone or something.
“She still talked to me like I was shit. No one talks to me like that,” he mumbled to his empty glass, twirling it again.
“Maybe she was using it as a defense mechanism.” She quirked a brow. “Like you.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about.”
The bartender practically cackled. “Case in point. You’ve been deflecting and belligerent this whole conversation.”
“Yeah, well….” He trailed off and sighed, glancing out the window again. The dad and daughter were gone, and a couple crows were picking around the bench, looking for scraps. “I don’t need her.”
“Sometimes what you need isn’t the most important thing. Or, at least, it isn’t the thing you thought you needed,” the bartender said, setting down the glass she was holding. “Everyone these days is obsessed with self-care … and sometimes you have to get away and do things for yourself, sure. But then you’ve got to come back and take care of your people.”
She sighed and rolled up her sleeves. Cal didn’t know if she was just getting warm or if she was trying to show him her scars—either way, he caught sight of them. He looked at her face, then behind her, at the bar mirror. There were a couple of photos of her and another, younger woman there. They could be sisters.
“Humans aren’t designed to be alone, y’know? It kills us. We turn into assholes. Sometimes you need someone to take care of
to realize your own worth. And the people who return the favor? They’re part of your DNA. You are who you love.” She sighed, rubbing her elbows. “Everyone needs someone to keep them from going crazy.”
Cal was still lingering on those scars. He didn’t even know this woman and he wanted to yell at her for having hurt herself. Christ, if Edie ever did that, he’d kill her.
Wait…. He paused when he realized the bartender was comparing him to herself. Why? He looked at his own arms.
“There’s lots of different kinds of self-harm, you know,” she said, pursing her lips at him. “Not just the kind that leaves clues you can see.”
Shame weighed down his stomach. He was about to tell her she was spouting some bullshit when, suddenly, a gale of panic washed over him. Fear. His head hurt; his vision was spinning. Someone was coming to kill him. Something nearby was dark and wet.
Holy fuck!
When he focused hard, forcing the world back into perspective, none of those things were true. He was in a pub at mid-afternoon, arguing with a bartender.
But this wasn’t his first rodeo. The vibrations of fear running up his spine and through his brain were familiar sensations. There was only one explanation for what he was feeling.
“I gotta go.” He slapped a fifty-dollar bill on the bar and grabbed his jacket. “Keep the change.”
Cal stomped down the street toward Ghost, trying to quell the feelings Edie was bulldozing into him. I get it, I get it, you’re in trouble! But he was too far away to send her any assurances—and too far away to feel exactly where she was and what was going down.
He slid behind Ghost’s wheel and fished his stupid phone out of his pocket. He should have texted Satara sooner, so she and Astrid knew Edie was out there alone, but he hadn’t even looked at his phone for a couple days. Squinting at his screen, he brought up their conversation.
[1 Unread Message from SATARA]
Well, shit. He was in for it now.
[Satara]: Hi. Astrid, Edie, and I are going to meet with Indriði. She finally said yes.
If Cal’s heart had been beating, it would have sped up. He checked the time stamp of the message. Three hours ago.
“Fuck!” He slammed a hand on Ghost’s wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, I fucking knew it!”
If he’d been right, if the Norn was what had Edie so panicked at the other end of their connection, they were in deep horse shit.
Ghost started up on cue, and they screamed down the road toward Alderdeen. He circled the block a couple of times before driving slowly down Olive Street.
The pain and fear were real here. He could hardly feel anything else as he cruised past the townhouse.
There was no doubt about it. Edie, and probably Satara and Astrid, were trapped in there. That bitch had been feeding Edie bullshit, training her not to trust them, and she’d led them right into the Norn’s web, the fucking dumbass. How could she have been so stupid?
Cal gritted his teeth. He was still pissed at the kid, yeah—but was he really prepared to wash his hands of her and let her and Astrid and Satara possibly die?
Cursing, he sped off. If he was gonna go, he couldn’t go in guns blazing. He needed backup.
He turned the car around, praying that there was still one person in this town willing to help him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mercy sighed as she slid into the heated pool, tension releasing from her muscles. Slowly, her back, her neck, her aching hips and legs relaxed, unclenching. Though she had slipped into the shallow end, she kept a firm grip on the edge of the pool, not wanting to take any chances.
She didn’t need to worry for too long, though. The pool’s sole occupant sensed the vibrations of her movement and the change in the water, and he surfaced a second later, a needle-toothed smile on his face.
At the sight of Fisk, Mercy grinned back, and she let herself be scooped into his arms. She could already feel the heat melting the pain away, and the salt in the water had made Fisk’s scales vibrant and healthful again. Tilda had really outdone herself. Not only was the vampire dedicated to taking the greatest care with her charges, she was also really fun to hang out with.
“Ready for today’s session?”
“I am ready,” the vættr replied. “Let us get this bread!”
Mercy giggled. She’d explained the phrase to him the other day, but clearly, he hadn’t fully understood the context. Still, his foibles were endearing. Talking to him was like talking to someone from an entirely different planet, and in a lot of ways, that was refreshing.
Thanks to the brunnmigi medicine, Mercy’s casts had come off much quicker than anyone thought they would, but herbalism could only do so much. She still needed physical therapy. The pain in her hips, legs, and now back made her want to sit still and not move, but sometimes, that exacerbated the horrible muscle cramps.
Pool therapy wasn’t only a decent solution, she was starting to find it downright pleasant. She had always swum like a fish, and Fisk was familiar with hydrotherapy as something his people did.
And maybe it helped—maybe a little—that his affection was, perhaps, growing on her.
Mercy pulled away from Fisk, retrieved the kickboard she had left at the edge of the pool yesterday, then floated closer. She avoided looking at him as she did, trying not to admire his built chest. It was silly—he was a giant fish man, for god’s sake—but she couldn’t deny that she’d been noticing him a lot lately. And considering they now spent almost every waking moment together, that was quite often.
“Can we work on my legs again? Those stretches we did the other day made them feel so much looser.”
“Certainly.” His tone was cheerful as he carefully pulled her farther from the edge of the pool, so that she could stretch her legs out. In a movement as fluid and natural as the water around them, he slipped behind her. “May I?”
She nodded and relaxed forward, letting her legs float up. As he maneuvered between them, she rested her head on the kickboard and let her whole body relax, weightless. She found herself almost dozing as Fisk slowly stretched her legs, taking his time to work the muscles of her thighs and calves. He continued until she could comfortably stretch them all the way out by herself, then began to gently massage her lower back, her hips, down to her thighs, up her glutes.
Mercy closed her eyes tight and hid her face in her hair, fighting a grin. She tried to tell herself that the warmth beginning to course through her was only a side effect of being in a heated pool. Really, she knew better. She kept her legs stretched out.
Behind her, Fisk emitted a low, relaxed purr, stroking her sides and tracing the mermaid scale tattoos going up her thighs and flank. Some of them had been lost in surgery, but some remained, criss-crossed with scars. Fisk’s warm hands roving over the scar tissue, gentle and reverent, felt nice.
His large hands slid downward again until he was framing her butt, thumbs stroking her skin a little too close to her crotch to be just a friendly touch. She swore she could feel his heartbeat through his palms. It was almost as though he had sensed her body reacting to the massage.
Mercy knew she should stop him. She was a human, and he was essentially a fish. What would her parents think?
Then again, she’d dated a lot of humans, of all different varieties, and no one had taken care of her like this—diligently, gladly, as though it was his purpose, the only thing he ever wanted to do. Hell, Drake had literally kicked her out.
And really, he was better looking than most of the humans she’d dated, not to mention more intelligent….
He pushed himself a little closer, spreading her legs.
A jolt of pain went through her right hip, and she gasped, her whole body shuddering.
In a fraction of a second, Fisk had pulled back, removing himself from between her legs. With a sweeping movement, he floated in front of her again, warm hands on her upper arms. “Forgive me. Did I hurt you?”
“Just my hip.” She looked away, her face burning. It had only been a t
emporary shot of pain, but this moment highlighted what they had been doing.
Thoughtfully, Fisk extracted the kickboard from under her upper body and pulled her upright, flush against his chest. “Perhaps we should try a different exercise.”
Was that a come-on? Or was he actually suggesting something different? When she peered up at him to gauge his meaning, his face was close, head ducked to meet her eyes properly. He wore the most earnest expression, now practically cradling her.
Mercy felt herself relax into him. “Maybe….”
With another purr, he ducked his head lower. For a second, she thought he was going to kiss her neck, but instead, he nuzzled his jaw against hers. The action was foreign, but clearly a display of intimacy, and it sent a shiver through her. His hands found their way back to her thighs. Carefully, inch by inch, he pulled her closer until she had her legs wrapped around his waist.
Mercy pressed her mouth and nose into the crook of his neck, tracing his onyx markings. Maybe it was useless to keep denying her affection for him. He might be a mythical creature, but this moment seemed so simple. Everything that needed to be said was passing between them like water itself. Hot tears welled in her eyes. She closed them.
She already felt beautiful—she was glad that he thought so, too.
Fisk must have noticed the slight change in her breathing; he cooed and lifted a hand to her cheek. “Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know. You’re so tender.” She tried to blink the tears back, feeling like an idiot. “I’m used to other humans playing games with me, but you’re so honest.”
He smiled and hugged her close, and finally, the kisses came. He nuzzled her hair out of the way and placed a dozen little ones just under her ear, along her jawline, onto her cheek.
Mercy’s head spun at the light touches. She wanted him. She wanted this so bad, but—
No Earthly Treason Page 21
