Blood Thorn

by A. S. Green

  “Aren’t I supposed to be out here?”

  He shrugged. “Go wherever you want to go, but I’m bringing you breakfast.” He raised the plate he held in his other hand. “And the table is on the patio.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. I got distracted, I guess.”

  “What were you doing?”

  Ainsley broke off a piece of the artemisia. “Thinking about whether this would work best in an oil, or in a soap.”

  “Soap,” Knox scoffed, his disappointment in her clear. He gestured for her to sit on the grass, then he sat beside her putting the plate between them. He grunted as if he’d been stabbed, then gingerly pulled a fork from his pants pocket.

  “The leaves are growing thicker just since I sat down,” Ainsley said, taking the fork from him.

  Knox rolled his eyes. “Too bad Alex didn’t bring you here to be his gardener.”

  Ainsley understood his less than thrilled tone. “You expected more out of me than this.” She flung the broken foliage onto the ground.

  “We expect a great deal from you.”

  Ainsley nodded, feeling miserable. “I let you all down.”

  “I didn’t say that. Did you know three of us went out to feed last night? First time in nearly twenty years.”

  Ainsley’s body went tight. “Are the…” She didn’t know what to call them. Victims? Prey? Hosts? “People all right?”

  “Yes. All six of us are doing spectacularly, though the three human members of our party won’t remember much about the evening.” Then his expression got serious. “You’ve helped us, Ainsley.”

  “I wasn’t able to help Rory yesterday.”

  “He didn’t kill you, did he?”

  “Obviously not.” Her skin prickled with the memory of his razor-sharp teeth skittering along her neck.

  Knox shrugged. “Sounds like a win.”

  “I doubt Alex would call it a victory. He thought I could improve things…somehow.”

  “Who knows what McKee thought, or ever thinks. He doesn’t do anything the way he’s supposed to, and when I say we expect a great deal from you, the opposite is also true. You should expect a lot from us, too.”

  “I don’t need anything from you.”

  “Don’t you?” His bright blue gaze was penetrating. So much so, she had to look away. She did need something, something she couldn’t name, but she knew instinctively that it was something only Alex could provide.

  “Maybe you don’t have the vocabulary for it,” Knox said, “but you are a queen. Isn’t there something you feel, on a cellular level, that you’re supposed to have but aren’t getting?”

  That perfectly described the way she felt about Alex, but Ainsley doubted that was what Knox was getting at.

  He leaned back on his hands, his clubbed hair resting against his shoulder. “I was talking to the professor about something.”

  “Who?”

  “Callum. I call him ‘the professor.’ He doesn’t like it.”

  “Then why do you call him that?”

  “I just told you. He doesn’t like it. Anyway, he thinks you should be practicing your skills while you’re in the garden.”

  “I guess I was.”

  “Sure, but the bigger stuff, too. You had a positive effect on Rory, even if it didn’t seem like it. He is improving, just very slowly. If you pushed yourself, you could speed things up. You could affect change in bigger ways, faster.”

  “Okay, but how?”

  “Like I said, by practicing. Here.” He pulled a knife from the sheath at his belt, then narrowed his eyes at Ainsley when she flinched. “Christ, I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Ainsley released a breath, then Knox rotated his other arm, palm up, exposing the thistle tattoo on his forearm—the symbol of their family unit that they all bore.

  He gave her a quick grin, then Ainsley watched—horrified—as Knox sliced open his palm with the knife. “Knox!”

  “Fix it.”

  “But—”

  “Do it. I’m starting to drip.”

  Ainsley took his hand gingerly in hers. She remembered the lady bug with the busted wing. She’d blown on that, but she couldn’t imagine how breath could fix this. He’d sliced himself clean open.

  Going on instinct, she drew the pad of her thumb across the wound, once, twice, three times. Knox winced. The skin drew closer together, but the blood still flowed.

  Then she slipped her hand into his, palm to palm, and closed her other hand over the top. She closed her eyes and squeezed, saying a silent prayer. Her belly heated, and the warmth rose into her chest.

  She waited for the heat to shoot into her fingertips, and when it did, she opened her eyes to find Knox looking at her with those crystal blue eyes.

  A small smile played at the corner of his lips. “Did that do it?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  He pulled his hand out of hers and turned his palm up for inspection. The skin was closed under the red smear. “Nice. We should practice some more.”

  “I thought a queen was supposed to stable your minds, not fix physical wounds.”

  “Yep.” He tapped his finger to his temple. “Consider me stabled. I won’t be slicing my hand open again.”

  “You’re making a joke?”

  “Weird, isn’t it. Now, try this. See that wisteria tree in the center of the garden?”

  “Obviously. But it’s a lot bigger than these little plants.”

  “Pull up a root.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Try it.”

  “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Imagine that you do. Just give it a tug.”

  Ainsley closed her eyes and concentrated on the heat in her belly. It filled her chest but didn’t seem to be going any farther. “Is it working?”

  “Nope.”

  “How about now?”

  “This would be a lot easier for you if Alex wasn’t keeping you from coming into your full power.”

  She opened her eyes, and the heat dissipated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He hasn’t bonded you.”

  “Oh. Well…given that there’s someone else in his life—”

  “McKee doesn’t have anyone else in his life. He just won’t pull the trigger with you.”

  “What? Why?” Her relief was brief and quickly overcome by confusion.

  “Because he thinks it’s keeping you safe. Tell me how that’s working out for you.”

  “I can’t believe this.” She was getting sick of Alex parsing out information, him calling all the shots on what she was capable of handling. Her chest heated with indignation, and her fingers tingled. The ground began to vibrate.

  Knox chuckled. “Whoa! That’s enough. I didn’t think you could really do it.”

  “Do what?” She looked around. There were no exposed roots, but it did look like a large rodent had tunneled under the grass, starting at the tree trunk and making a bee-line in their direction.

  “McKee will kill me if I mess up the grounds. I mean, if you mess up the grounds.”

  At the mention of Alex, heat flared in her cheeks. As soon as she saw him again, she was going to set him straight about what she could and could not handle.

  Her phone vibrated, and she looked at the screen. It was a text from Harper.

  Dancing. Tonight. Code Red! Wear somthin sparkly

  Ainsley had to smile. She only owned one sparkly nightclub dress, and that was because Harper had bought it for her. She’d never before had the guts to wear it, but right now she could stand to burn off some steam. Maybe a night out with Harper was exactly what she needed.

  “Can you give me a ride home? I need to smooth things over with my mom before the day gets too late.”

  “Anything for you, my queen,” Knox said with a grin. “I’ll get the car.”

  26

  Alex tilted out of the faerie ring to his next stop in Chicago, alerting the small group of fae that had settled on Lake Michig
an to the potential for Black Castle holdovers. Then he moved on to the smaller settlement in Copper Harbor, which took more time. He’d never been to Michigan’s U.P., so he couldn’t tilt there directly and had to make hop-skips to the few familiar spots that put him on a northward trajectory, while running at full speed in between.

  By the time he was able to tilt home, it was eleven o’clock at night. Four of his five brothers were lounging about. Finn and Rory were watching a Twins game on the big screen. Knox was sitting in the corner of another couch, scrolling through his phone, while swirling a beer can around in his other hand. Callum pushed himself off the archway casing, where he’d been leaning.

  Alex scanned the room again, thinking he’d missed her, but Ainsley wasn’t among them. “Is she sleeping, then?”

  Knox shrugged without looking around. “What do you care?”

  “Jesus, Knox,” Callum said. “Alex has reasons for his decisions. You need to trust them.”

  “Has she come down at all?” Alex asked. He appreciated Callum’s support, but he didn’t need it.

  “Down,” Knox said. “Out. Gone.”

  Alex frowned, but not in response to Knox’s insubordination. “What do you mean, gone?” His eyes lifted to the ceiling, as if he could see the floor above him.

  “Didn’t you get my text?” Callum asked, sounding confused.

  Alex blinked, then he slipped his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen. Callum had responded to the text Alex had sent that morning before he left: We gave her breakfast then took her home as she requested.

  “What do you mean, you took her home?” A wave of panic hit his chest, so intense it nearly winded him. He tilted to his bedroom, saw the unmade bed, the clothes missing from the bathroom, then tilted back to the living room.

  A roar came out of him, the likes of which he’d never heard before. “Please tell me Alastair is outside her house, guarding her.”

  “Her mother’s with her.” Knox crushed the beer can in his hand and chucked it into the bin in the corner. “But maybe if you’d bonded her, seeing as she was in your bed all night long, she’d be right up there waiting for you.”

  “Haud yer wheesht, if you know what’s good for you.”

  “I think I’ve been quiet about this long enough,” Knox replied. “A queen should not wake up alone. The last time you acted so out of line, we lost Orla. Clan mates died. Bloodwives died.”

  Callum flinched.

  Alex reached into his pocket and slapped the Black Castle threat down on the coffee table in front of Knox. “I’m not the one who let her leave when there’s a maniac out there, stalking her.”

  Everyone else gathered around the coffee table.

  “Oh, shit,” Finn muttered.

  “Christ,” Knox responded. “First you fail to supervise Rory, now this.”

  “Yes,” Alex said, leveling his eyes on Knox. “And now this. Callum, bring her home. To this home. And no tilting. She’s been through enough in the last twenty-four hours.”

  Callum raised his hand in the air while striding for the door. Finn tossed him a set of car keys as he passed.

  27

  “You’re killing it in that dress, Lee-lee,” Harper said. Her blue eyes sparkled with an unspoken I told you so as they headed toward the ladies room at the back of Code Red. It was nearly midnight and the place was jumping. Red lights flashed, cut by a white strobe that pulsed with the pounding bass beat.

  “Thanks!” Ainsley yelled over the music as she tugged at the hem. Her Renaissance fair dress had been revealing in the cleavage department, but this black sequined number was on a whole new level. In fact, Ainsley had been so resistant to leaving the house, Harper had practically needed a crowbar to get her out the door.

  “Quit tugging,” Harper said. “It’s not as short as mine.”

  “Nothing is as short as yours,” Ainsley said. “But I’m going commando under this thing.”

  Harper laughed, but Ainsley wasn’t being facetious. The halter-style dress had cut-out triangles at the hip that made underwear impossible. Her self-consciousness was only lessened by the tequila shots Harper’d bought when they’d first arrived.

  Ainsley had slammed them down and was pleased to find that the alcohol had the added effect of dulling her irritation with Alex, which had been festering all afternoon.

  Harper pulled open the bathroom door and they stepped inside, the sound of the music muffling as the door swung closed behind them. Ainsley let it metaphorically muffle her thoughts of Alex, too. She was here to have a good time, and she wouldn’t let him ruin that.

  They stepped up to the giant mirrors over the long row of sinks. Ainsley finger-combed her curls. Sometimes her hair turned out more sexy than crazy, and fortunately tonight was one of those nights. “This place is pretty amazing,” she admitted.

  “They renovated it last year,” Harper said, sounding worldly, like she came here all the time. She leaned into the mirror to check her eyeliner, the lights catching on her engagement ring.

  Then she took off her shoe and checked the back of her heel. “Damn. I got a blister.”

  “Let me see.”

  Harper pulled up her foot, and Ainsley squatted down, taking it in her hands. Without even thinking what she was doing, she dragged her thumb gently over the broken skin on Harper’s heel. Heat flooded her chest, then pulsed down her arms and into her fingertips. The redness immediately faded, and the skin tightened until it was flat and healed.

  The success made Ainsley feel a little smug. Not bad for someone who was being kept from her full power.

  Harper jerked her foot away. “How did you—?”

  “Whoa!” Niesha said, as she strode through the bathroom door, followed by Melody and Chelsea. “This place is cuh-ray-zee.”

  Ainsley stood up, grateful for the interruption. “I know, right?”

  Harper continued to stare at her with shock and confusion while Chelsea went into one of the stalls. The other two leaned against the bathroom counter. Niesha freshened her plum-colored lipstick.

  “Ugh,” Melody said, grabbing the complimentary bottle of dry shampoo off the counter. “It’s so hot out there, I’m going completely limp.” She bent over and sprayed her roots before flipping her hair back to create maximum volume. “I wish I had your hair, Ainsley.”

  “Just wait until the humidity hits this summer,” Ainsley said, “and you won’t be saying that.”

  Niesha grabbed a paper towel and blotted her lips. “You haven’t said anything about your new job, Lee-lee.”

  “Oh.” Niesha’s comment rocked her as thoughts of Alex rushed back in. “It’s definitely not what I was expecting.” Ainsley decided to stick close to the truth. “But it’s been…interesting, for sure.”

  She forced a smile even while her heart shriveled. She wondered where Alex was, and who he was with. She wished she could talk to her girlfriends about him. They’d probably tell her he didn’t deserve her and that she could do better than someone who played Jekyll and Hyde with her emotions. Her mother had warned her of this her whole life.

  “I checked out the company website,” Chelsea said as she exited the stall and went to the sinks. “Harper said the CEO was smokin’, but there wasn’t a picture of him.”

  “Huh?” Harper looked up from her healed foot. “Oh, yeah. He’s definitely hot. I met him at a fundraiser my dad took me to last summer.”

  They all looked at Ainsley expectantly. For a second, she thought about lying and bursting their bubble, but there wasn’t any point. She let out a sigh. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s even human.”

  Harper laughed, apparently having decided not to question the blister incident, and they all headed out to the bar again. Chelsea ordered them more kamikaze shots and Ainsley sailed into happy-drunk mode, where every stranger was a friend and world peace was possible.

  The DJ cranked up Usher’s Love in This Club, and Harper threw one arm up in the air. “Come on. Let’s dance!”

  S
he pulled Ainsley through the crowd, even going so far as to push right through the center of a group of guys who’d congregated at the edge of the dance floor. They hooted and cat-called after them.

  The other girls followed behind and they quickly formed a small dance circle near the center of the floor. Soon, they were surrounded by at least a hundred people, some coupled off and grinding against each other, the rest with their arms up, hips dipping and swaying.

  Ainsley’s stomach warmed, remembering how it felt to have Alex’s stupid body flush against her back, moving down her legs, or the slide of his sheets against her skin. By then, the alcohol and the music had joined to drug her bloodstream, dragging her deeper into her fantasies until she was letting it all hang out.

  She sidled up against Harper, the two of them gyrating against each other, laughing, losing themselves in the music, the beat, and Usher’s decadent lyrics. Ainsley could feel the weight of appreciative male gazes, and that took her even higher. At least someone was attracted to her.

  Chelsea leaned into Ainsley’s ear, yelling to get over the music. “There’s more than one seriously hot guy with his eyes on you.”

  Ainsley just smiled and put on more of a show. Melody shook her head in amusement, and Chelsea leaned in closer. “Who are you and what have you done with Ainsley Morris?”

  Ainsley rolled her eyes as if they were being ridiculous, but she couldn’t deny the rush of adrenaline.

  Niesha’s eyes went wide and she bit down on her lip.

  Ainsley raised her eyebrows to ask, What’s wrong?

  Chelsea put her hand on Ainsley’s shoulder and drew her close, yelling in her ear, “Hot guy alert. Two o’clock.”

  Ainsley shot Chelsea a conspiratorial smile, then swung her ass out in a wide, slow arc. She’d no sooner finished the move when she felt a presence at her back.

  “Hey, red,” said an unfamiliar voice. The stranger’s hand was on her hip, and he was moving with her. At first Ainsley was surprised, but her girls didn’t look alarmed, so she went with it. This was a club. They were all having fun. This is what normal people did on a Friday night.