by Jane Kindred
“Topping...”
“Oh my God. BDSM! Bondage. Discipline. Dominance and submission. Ringing a bell yet?” She made a little motion with one of the empty cups like she was ringing a servant’s bell.
Heat rushed up his neck to the tips of his ears. And there was nothing he could say in his defense, because he remembered Faye now. Faye had treated him like a plaything—and he hadn’t objected. He remembered crawling on all fours for her, sitting up and begging like a dog while his cock raged, her angry, willing standard raised between his legs. He’d licked his own cum off her boots.
Rhea went back to putting things away. “I’m beginning to see why it didn’t work out between you and Theia. If you even suggested anything kinky, she’d throw you out of a moving car on the highway without looking back to see if you’d gotten road rash. She can be surprisingly prudish about sex.”
“Which you’re not, I take it.”
“Me?” Rhea turned away from the shelves, glaring fire. “Who the hell said anything about me?”
“I—Nobody. I just meant—You sounded dismissive. I wasn’t trying to—This isn’t about you and me.”
“Oh, heaven forfend!”
“Heaven...what?”
“Fuck off, Leo.” She grabbed the tablet from its stand and dropped it into the bag she kept behind the counter. “You can close up tonight.” She turned back at the door. “I mean lock up. By yourself. Since that’s your thing.”
Chapter 10
Rhea sat in her car and screamed for five minutes before starting the engine. She didn’t even have a real reason for being mad at Leo. It wasn’t like he’d chosen the memory deliberately. She couldn’t say why his habitual cluelessness had pushed her over the edge, but if she’d heard one more of her own words repeated back at her as if it were in a foreign language, she’d have lost it. Like she was losing it now.
As she started the car, she remembered she’d meant to call Ione about Leo’s Nazis. Christ. Not his Nazis. The Nazis who’d shown up...around the same time he had.
Rhea frowned, warming her fingers while she waited for the window to defog. Was there some connection? Leo’s reaction to the incidents seemed genuine. She didn’t harbor any suspicion that he was part of it. Not directly. But it did seem to be centered on him. The graffiti, the poster, the random white supremacist he’d run into on the street who’d provoked Leo into punching him in the face. What were the odds some guy Leo had met at a conference in Flagstaff would run into him on the street in Sedona a few weeks later? Not astronomical, she supposed, but still.
She took out her phone, thumb poised over Ione’s number. Maybe she should call Phoebe and let the Carlisle grapevine do her dirty work for her. Not for the first time, she wished she could call Theia and tell her about all this weirdness. Ask her what she’d do. WWTD: What Would Theia Do? It was a mantra she’d fallen back on many times. Instead of going off half-cocked as she was prone to, she’d pause to think for a minute how Theia would respond to a situation. Theia was the thinking one, the one who looked at something from all angles before making up her mind about it and the one who gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.
Rhea was the one who said the first thing that came into her head, no matter how inappropriate. It sucked not having Theia on her side. She felt like she was missing a limb. Or like she was no longer grounded, and she might float up into the air and dissipate in the atmosphere if she didn’t maintain constant vigilance.
She had to suck it up and call Ione. But maybe it could wait until morning.
The setting sun was throwing purple shadows over Snoopy Rock. Leo’s “episode” would be starting soon. And the other Leo wouldn’t remember anything that happened between her and daytime Leo. Probably. As she contemplated going back upstairs, movement in the shadows caught her eye. A dog sat on its haunches, staring. A wolfy-looking dog with pale blue eyes. She’d seen this hound before—the vision of the Hunt that had overtaken her on the highway. Which begged the question: Was she having a vision now?
There were no other indications of magic in the twilight. Snow had begun to fall. The wolf-dog stared at her. Her windshield wipers thumped quietly as she put them on intermittent. No trumpeting horns sounded. No great white birds flew at her. No thundering hooves.
“Shoo.” Her window was rolled up. It wasn’t as if the dog could hear her. “Go away. Go home.”
It gave her one more look before standing and trotting off, swallowed up into the darkness. Its tail curled over its rump. Maybe it was part basenji. Because sure.
Christmas lights were sparkling to life around the shopping center as she backed out of the parking space. She loved this time of year. It wasn’t religious for her anymore. That ship had sailed a long time ago for everyone in the family except Ione. The pagan high priestess. Not that Ione let that keep her from going to church. But the lights and pageantry, even the stupid holiday music, both secular and religious, made Rhea happy. She hadn’t bothered putting up a tree at her new place, but now she was regretting it.
Before she pulled out of the lot, her phone buzzed. Rhea glanced at the message on the screen. Theia.
Just wondering about your holiday plans. Phoebe says you’re really busy with your new business (congrats!) and might not make it for Christmas Eve dinner.
The screen went black.
Rhea reached for the phone, her thumb reactivating the screen. Maybe she was being stupid about Theia’s secrecy. Maybe it was time to let it go. Another text balloon appeared.
I heard from Laurel. She’s not ready to do a big family holiday or anything, but she says she’ll meet me for coffee the day after Christmas.
Rhea jammed her thumb against the button and tossed the phone facedown on the seat beside her. Unbelievable. She felt like screaming again. How could Theia even consider that woman family? Had she actually invited her? Dinner was going to be at Phoebe’s—because there was no way Ione would have people eating food in her cream-colored fortress of solitude. Phoebe, whom Laurel had tried to freaking murder.
It didn’t matter to Rhea that Laurel had been under Carter’s influence, poisoned by Carter’s lies. And it didn’t matter that she’d thought she was only consigning Phoebe’s soul to the underworld to give Carter control over her. “Soul death,” Rafe called it. Murder was murder. And you didn’t invite your sister’s would-be murderer to Christmas dinner, for God’s sake, or have fucking coffee with her. She didn’t even know Theia anymore.
The last of the sunlight had faded by the time Rhea hit the road, and the glow of the luminarias at Tlaquepaque as she drove by to take a peek had the look of a sacred ceremony under the deep cobalt sky. As the blue turned to black outside the city limits, the little pockets of cheery holiday lights along the highway seemed all the cheerier, and yet somehow lonelier at the same time.
Thunder rumbled in the distance despite the falling snow. But of course it wasn’t thunder. Rhea pulled over to the side of the road preemptively. Sure enough, the rumbling grew louder, the ground shaking with the impact of hooves. This time, a rider on horseback, who looked wholly human, barreled out of the brush from a trail up ahead and began galloping down the highway, throwing panicked looks over his shoulder as the first of the Hunt emerged from the trail moments later to the sound of horns—car horns, this time, because the rider they pursued was going the wrong way in the opposite lane of traffic.
Presumably, the drivers who honked and swerved around the startled man and his equally startled horse saw only the one being pursued and not the terrifying assembly swiftly gaining on him. From Rhea’s vantage point, she saw the leader of the Hunt charge forward, ignoring the oncoming traffic, and beside him, the woman Rhea had seen with the Hunt before, hair covered this time with an impressive horned helmet, her gown pieced together with some kind of flowing metal armor. She pulled ahead of the leader and came alongside the terrified
rider, mere feet away from Rhea’s car, and with a sweep of her deceptively graceful arm, she dragged him from his horse and onto the back of her own.
The leader of the Hunt raised his sword in the air with a wild shout, and Rhea stared openmouthed as the female warrior’s horse galloped past her MINI into the air. Wings stretched out behind the warrior, not from the horse rising into the air but from the back of the woman herself, the wingspan broad—and bright white.
The riderless horse panicked, ears thrown back and eyes wild as it galloped toward the swerving traffic. Someone was going to get killed here. And if Rhea wasn’t careful, that might include her. After the next car passed, she pulled out onto the highway and tried to overtake the horse, with no idea what she was going to do about it if she did. But before she had to confront the stupidity of her lack of a plan, the leader of the Hunt drew up beside the horse on the other side and leaped from his spectral mount onto the living one. The horse immediately calmed as the hunter took the reins, while the rest of the Hunt, including the hounds and the leader’s own mount, rose into the sky and thundered away after the female warrior and her prize.
Only the corporeal horse and the leader of the Hunt remained on the highway, while Rhea’s car kept pace with it. As distant headlights grew larger, she realized she was going to end up getting the poor horse killed—and who knew about the hunter?—if she didn’t get out of the way. She picked up speed. In her rearview mirror, she saw the horse pulling behind her into what was at least the right directional lane. And following it loped a smaller, dark shape: the black wolflike hunting dog.
The hunter turned his mount onto a trail and disappeared into the darkness, but the dog somehow kept up with Rhea’s car. She was driving cautiously, but she couldn’t imagine how it was trotting steadily behind her at forty miles an hour. She started to feel guilty, even though she hadn’t encouraged the dog to follow her. How did she even know it was part of the Hunt? It didn’t look spectral. Maybe someone’s dog just—happened to be running with a ghostly hunting party. Because sure. She couldn’t shake the feeling, though. And she couldn’t shake the dog.
Rhea slowed as she turned into her neighborhood, and when the dog continued to follow, she pulled into a convenience store parking lot. If it was rabid or something, or some crazy shape-shifting necromancer, at least there were bright lights and people around. The dog simply sat on the pavement watching her, its tongue out, panting, while her engine idled. She supposed she’d be panting, too, if she’d been running behind a car for twenty minutes at forty miles an hour.
After a moment, she opened the car door, carefully watching the animal as it watched her. It didn’t look rabid. Then again, she wasn’t sure she knew what rabid looked like. Didn’t they say rabid animals showed no fear? This wolf-dog—jämthund, maybe—certainly wasn’t showing any. She put one foot outside the car, the toe of her boot on the pavement, and the dog stood. Rhea yanked her foot back inside and slammed the door. Its blue eyes blinked deliberately before the dog nonchalantly trotted around the side of the building. Rhea took a deep breath and backed out of her parking space, slowly cruising around to where the dog had disappeared. There was no sign of it.
It occurred to her as she drove home that the dog was perhaps the least weird thing in this whole bizarre scenario. A winged woman warrior had just swept some dude off his horse and flown away with him, accompanied by spectral hunters, and the leader of the Hunt had ridden off on the dude’s horse.
She unlocked her door to find the weirdest part of it, in fact, sitting in her living room.
Rhea jumped when she switched on the light. “Vixen.” She’d almost managed to convince herself the fox had been a hallucination.
The Guardian of the Hunt sighed with annoyance. “You’re distracting him.”
Rhea dropped her bag onto the chair by the door and folded her arms. “Distracting whom?”
“The Chieftain. You have him worrying about stray horses. He ought to have dealt with the prey himself. He is the leader of the Hunt.”
“Dealt with how? And what does it have to do with me?”
“He should have taken the head as a trophy for the pleasure of the gods. As for you...” Vixen studied her and shook her head, clearly finding Rhea lacking. “You don’t believe in the gods. You are not a huntress or a warrior. And yet you are in the middle of this hunt, and so you are a part of it, worthy or not.”
“So why doesn’t anyone else see this stupid hunt? If you don’t think I’m ‘worthy,’ why can’t someone else who’s more suited to it have the Hunt revealed to them and deal with it themselves?”
“You see because you have the gift of second sight.”
Rhea laughed. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but a lot of people in Sedona have the gift of second sight.”
“None like you.”
“Well, that’s flattering. I guess.”
“It wasn’t meant to be flattering. There is some aspect of your gift the Chieftain has clearly responded to. Something he needs.”
Rhea’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten all day and she was tired of talking to this stupid fox. “Maybe he needs someone who’ll distract him from taking people’s heads as trophies,” she offered as she headed to the kitchen to get a frozen dinner. “That was a human being, you know.” She spoke into the freezer as she worked a box out of the ice. “So what did he even do? Why was he being hunted?”
“Perhaps you should ask the Chieftain.”
“And how am I supposed to do that, exactly?” Rhea popped her dinner into the microwave and set the timer.
Vixen pursed her downy muzzle. “It seems the Chieftain has chosen you as his earthly protector. When he travels by night, he is vulnerable. You have the power to protect him or destroy him.”
Rhea’s hand dropped to her side. “Wait...you don’t mean Leo Ström is the Chieftain?”
Vixen ignored the question. “Because of your disruption, Kára was forced to take the lead.”
“Kára?”
“The warrior who took the prey as her prize.”
The microwave timer dinged and Rhea opened the door to take out the steaming little tray and stir the half-frozen noodles in the center. “So what’s she going to do with him now that she has him? Is she planning on taking his head for her own trophy?” Rhea popped the tray back in and punched in another minute. “Or is she taking him to Valhalla?”
“His kind does not belong in Valhalla.” Vixen’s voice was tight with disdain and anger. “Valhalla is for heroes, for those slain in battle, not for cowards.”
When she looked up from pressing the start button, Vixen was gone.
“She’s a Valkyrie, though, right?” Rhea said to the empty room. “I totally nailed it, didn’t I? That was a Valkyrie I just saw.” She shook her head with a sigh. “And now, not only do I have conversations with talking foxes, I’m talking to myself as if I were having a conversation with a talking fox. Because that’s totally not weird.”
It was clearly time for alcohol.
Chapter 11
Rhea woke in the morning with a throbbing headache and an upset stomach. Microwaved macaroni and cheese and Guinness in a can apparently didn’t mix.
She was late getting into the shop but found the door locked and the lights out. Leo wasn’t there. Rhea realized she didn’t even have his cell phone number. She looked up his application on her tablet. He hadn’t provided it. Maybe he’d decided to bail after she’d ribbed him for being Faye’s boy toy. Maybe she’d done a little more than rib him. Maybe she was a bit of a jerk, and now she was out a perfectly good employee. And a hot, mysterious nutjob her subconscious clearly wanted to ride like she was a rodeo queen.
He’d helped her out a lot already, though. The place was even cleaner than when she’d come in yesterday, inventory was officially counted, and the accounting system
was all set up and ready to go. She might actually be able to get this business off the ground. All she needed now were some clients.
As if she’d conjured one, the door jingled open and someone walked in. Someone who was not Leo. This guy was a much better dresser—if not quite as sexy in his natty suit—and his hair lacked the undisciplined chaos of Leo’s.
She gave him her best professional smile. “Looking for a tattoo?”
The natty dresser smiled back. “I saw one of your flyers and thought I’d come check it out.” He glanced around at the flash Leo had helped hang on the walls. “Is this all your work?”
“None of it is, actually.” Rhea came out from behind the counter and picked up the leather-bound book on the coffee table. “This is my portfolio, if you’d like to take a look. We’re not officially open yet, but I’m taking appointments beginning the first of the year and I’d be happy to do a consultation if you see something you like.” She handed him the book. “I’m Rhea.”
“Brock.” He held out his hand, his face lighting up with a genuine smile of interest. The handshake was firm and brief. No nonsense. The day was looking up. “Are you the only tattooist?”
Rhea’s smile faltered. “I’m hoping to bring in some other artists once I’ve opened, but for now it’s just me. Is that a problem?”
“No! Sorry, no. I was just curious.” He opened the book, looking embarrassed.
“Why don’t you have a seat? I’ve got tea and cocoa if you want to take your time looking it over.”
“Cocoa sounds great, thanks.” Brock sat and flipped through the book while Rhea took the kettle into the back to fill it. He raised his voice to carry to where she was. “This one’s interesting.”
Rhea came back out to set the kettle on the heating plate and leaned across the table to see what he was looking at. It turned out to be Theia’s sacrum tattoo: a multicolored sunrise with dark curls of filigree in front of it.
