by Amy Lane
Cory gasped and laughed a little, covering her mouth with her hand. “Arrogant bastard,” she said, but it was clear she was delighted. A human couldn’t have done the move with strength alone, and Bracken’s nude body had been so very beautiful as it had hovered between the silver moon and black lake before the impossibly graceful roll.
“He likes the water,” she said into the silence when they’d recovered. “I think it’s the only thing that makes the heat bearable for him in the day.”
Teague had seen this too—and her obvious worry at the height of the sun, when her normally strong, hale lover became lethargic and weak.
“How do you deal with the worry?” Teague asked bluntly, and not for the first time.
“You remember the strength,” Cory answered automatically. “But that’s not what you want to talk about.”
“No?”
“No. You want to talk about why you haven’t bonded yet.”
Teague sucked wind in through his teeth. She was right, but she was so casual about it. “It’s not funny,” he said. “In fact, it’s damned embarrassing.”
“I wasn’t laughing, not even a little tiny bit.” She turned her tired, wide-boned face toward him, her dark hazel-brown eyes fathomless and kind.
“It’s not your problem.”
“You’re my friend,” she retorted. “And I can be just as much a terse, laconic asshole as you can, so let’s just cut the shit, shall we?”
“I thought it was shoot the shit and cut the crap,” he said mildly, and she laughed.
“Anything besides talking about yourself—right, Teague?”
“You wrote the instruction book, my lady. I just follow it.”
“Fuck you,” she laughed again. “Or better yet, grab your balls in one hand, your wanker in the other, and man the fuck up.”
Teague sighed. It was fun—they could probably go back and forth for hours—but she was also right. “Okay, why haven’t I bonded?” he asked, although, given his conversation with Bracken in May, he was sure she already knew.
She sighed, and her knitting stilled. Then one hand came out to run through her drying hair, which immediately erupted into a cluster of curls.
“You know the old Knights of the Round Table, Teague?”
“Urm.” He’d heard of them.
“Well, most of them weren’t just dedicated to fighting at Arthur’s side, right? Most of them were dedicated to protecting the queen.”
“Mmmhm.” It was a different sound altogether, and she flashed him an arid grin, glinting in the starlight, to let him know she heard the difference.
“So Lancelot—when he and Guinevere got it on—well, he’d violated sort of a horrible code—”
“I’m not—”
“I’ve already got a Lancelot, Sparky. Cool your jets.”
“Thank God.” Beat, beat. “Bracken?”
“Yup.” There was a pause, and then she relented. “When… when Bracken was courting, I guess is the word—” She laughed as though there were no words for her and Bracken. “—Green told me that Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot could have made it work, if they hadn’t been living with a bunch of people who told them it couldn’t. All Green’s people knew it could. We’ve been blessed.”
“So… it didn’t matter.”
“That he violated the code? That he fell in love with me the minute his brother showed me to him and said, ‘She’s mine’? No. But you’re not Lancelot, Teague. You’re… I don’t know. Gawain. Tristan. Galahad. One of the others. Maybe Gawain—he made honor hurt too. You have lovers, and you’d die for them, but the thing that makes you think you’re worthy of your lovers is that you serve your queen. So that whole werewolf mating thing, it’s not going to work for you. I don’t know. Your sense of yourself is wrapped up in being our alpha. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing—not for you. But….”
She peered at him in the darkness, squinting because her vision was ordinary and mortal, like so very much about her. He could feel her searching for the right words—the entire reason she’d stopped, he figured, was because she’d been going too smoothly, talking too much like a queen and not enough like a college kid, and she’d forgotten for a second that she was still pretending to be just a college kid. When he didn’t roll his eyes, or snort, or even laugh, but simply regarded her steadily back, she felt safe enough to continue.
“You need to believe in yourself enough to convince Jack and Katy that it doesn’t matter.”
Teague snorted. “Jacky won’t buy it.”
“Bullshit.”
Teague looked at her. “I’m sorry, have you met Jacky yet?”
“He’ll believe it if you will,” she insisted, looking at the night sky. Suddenly she stood, stretching, and moved to the end of the pier, bouncing on her toes at the edge. She reached her arms over her head and grunted a little as the muscles gave, then turned and felt the mild roll of the dock under her feet with the motion.
“What? I’m just supposed to say ‘I’m broken. This is just one more thing you have to put up with because I’m… flawed. Fucked up. Too much damage to repair’?” The disgust in Teague’s voice was embarrassing, but all he had.
“We’re all broken, Teague,” Cory told him, her voice gentle in the dark. “You think I’m not broken? You think Green isn’t?” Only the hesitation in her voice before she said his name told Teague how hard the three-day distance had been on her.
“Bracken seems just fine,” he said, trying to be funny. Her snort told him that he’d fallen flat.
“You think Bracken isn’t broken? He could have lived forever, Teague. He could have had anyone, anytime, anywhere. Sidhe are like exposed sex nerves, you know? A walking clitoris with a hormone chaser. A true binding—like the one we have—almost never happens. One couple in every twenty years, if that. I talk to the old sidhe—they tell me. Do you think he’d have needed a binding with just me… do you think my health would be so dependent on him and Green, or that Green would need me quite so bad, if Adrian hadn’t hauled off and gotten killed and broken us all?”
“You’re dealing,” Teague said numbly, wanting to stick his head in the lake and keep it there until he passed out.
“Of course we deal. We’re pretty fucking happy, actually. But we’re still broken. You should know that better than anybody—our being broken almost got you and Jacky killed this winter, remember?”
Ah, Goddess. Cory had stayed home during a showdown with werewolves, because the elves had insisted she not try to relive a “bad shit anniversary.” Teague couldn’t blame her—not really—because they’d been right. The shit that had gone down had been heinously bad—particularly the shit in Teague’s own heart when Jacky had been injured in the fight.
“You got there in time,” he muttered, not knowing what else to say. He’d been the one dumb enough to let Jacky come.
“Yeah, but we’re still fucked up. We’re not perfect—we’re not even whole. All we really have is our faith that we’re all trying. Nicky too. So you get boners when you don’t want to? Welcome to the human race, werewolf. Didn’t you ever spring wood as a mere mortal?”
Teague flushed, his body warming the cooling night, and Cory closed her eyes tight. “Your thing with Jacky surprised the hell out of you, didn’t it?” she asked perceptively.
“Nunghan…,” he replied coherently, and she laughed a little.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t know what that feels like, to be attracted to someone when you think it’s wrong… you know, like my boyfriend’s old lover or something,” she said. He just shook his head and looked away.
“You’re a real smartass. Anyone ever tell you that?” His voice came out as a bass growl, and she laughed, the sound tired but whole for all her talk of being broken.
“No, Teague, you’re the first,” she said with a totally straight face, and he rolled his eyes. Suddenly her stretch was done. She came toward him earnestly, not touching him—because Jacky would smell it and lose his ever-loving mind—bu
t getting close enough for him to see the expression around her eyes.
“Green sleeps with anything that moves. It’s part of his job. They’re all beautiful too—even the freaking vampires and shape-changers. It’s like some sort of fucking law. And I am plain. My face is plain, my body is plain—I am ordinary, and half the time, I’m fighting a losing battle against being a real bitch. But I have not doubted his love for a moment, not even a nanosecond. If Adrian had lived, one night—maybe not in the first year, but definitely in the years that followed—he would have needed to spend a full-moon night in the room they won’t even let me in because they think I’m still too innocent to know about it. And I wouldn’t have doubted his love, either, not even for a nanosecond. Bracken would have joined us eventually, and I would have watched all of them stay young and beautiful while I got old and gray and wrinkly—leaving them behind as perfect and as lovely as when I’d first stumbled into their lives. I wouldn’t have doubted their love even then, not even for a minute. They wouldn’t have let me doubt it, and you learn to take some things on faith. You were broken, Teague, and you fixed yourself. There’s no shame in that. But you’re treating it like there is—like you’re ashamed, like you’ve done something wrong. That’s why Jacky thinks you’re doing it on purpose. You just need to tell him you’re not. He’s passive-aggressive, and I can see how this would have gotten out of hand, but….” Her mouth quirked, and when she spoke next, he heard Katy’s unmistakable accent in her voice. “It’s not like you talk too much, right?”
Teague found he was smiling fondly. “I guess I’m not the only one to come talk to you, am I?”
Cory flushed and backed away. Teague had reminded her that she was more than a friend, she was an authority figure—and she really didn’t like that.
Tough.
“Thank you, Lady Cory,” Teague said, taking her hands in his. He kissed them—a courtly, old-fashioned gesture, that of a knight to his queen—and then bowed. He knew he was making her as uncomfortable as hell, and he couldn’t help smiling about it anyway. She was wonderful—not wonderful like his mates were wonderful, just… just like a real queen, and a real friend.
“Go!” she laughed, and he shook his head.
“I’ll go for a swim first—that way Jacky won’t get too worked up when he smells you on me. Besides, you and I both know Bracken will jump up here as soon as I get in the water. Right, Bracken?”
There was a splash, and the dock rocked subtly under Bracken’s weight.
“She’s getting tired, wolfman,” he warned. His voice was friendly, but he was also serious, and Teague could see that too.
“Thanks for letting her stay up late with me,” he said sincerely, and Bracken gave a bow. Even though the young sidhe had probably never seen a real court, that long, muscular body looked like it was made for executing grand and courtly gestures.
“Our pleasure, Teague. Go swimming. Go enjoy your lovers. You have done nothing wrong.” He turned to Cory. “And you, beloved, you’re so tired you’re making the fish yawn!”
She giggled, just like a little kid, and Bracken wrapped his arms around her, dripping lake water and all. She didn’t complain, just whispered low in her throat and let him lead her away, leaning almost drunkenly on him, probably from sheer exhaustion.
Teague watched them go thoughtfully.
They didn’t look broken. She didn’t seem broken.
Maybe surviving was the ability to take your damage and make it work for you. That thought cheered him—he had plenty of damage to make work for him. Suddenly the swim sounded lovely in spite of the smallness of the hour, his werewolf metabolism making up for the vague chill of air that had dropped to the low eighties.
With one memorable exception, Teague didn’t do naked in public, so he was wearing his shorts and T-shirt when he made a clean slice into the water. There was something pure in the darkness, something cleansing in the red dirt that scoured his skin with the wet. The thought wasn’t coherent, but it was pervasive as he stroked as far and fast as he could. Maybe it would scour him of his damage. Maybe it would make his skin clean and good enough for Jacky and Katy to touch.
He pushed his muscles a little farther and a little farther, and when he turned around, he was out in the middle of the lake, the cabins small in the starlight, two heartbeats in them almost red in his vision—calling him, chanting that home was where they were.
His body was loose and happy enough, he decided. He enjoyed every stroke of the swim home.
Arturo: Bishop Panics
GREEN’S HILL was missing its joy while Cory was gone, there was no doubt about it.
Green hid it well, but without his beloved, he was a pale shadow stalking the halls of his merry home and looking grimly determined not to let anyone feel sorry for him because this time Cory was gone and he was left behind.
“You are making me crazy,” Arturo snapped at last. It was the night after Cory’s grand entrance to Rafael’s kiss, and they were supposed to be doing accounts—Arturo’s least favorite chore, but one Green wanted out of the way before Cory returned. He had plans for that moment that had nothing to do with sales figures or property deeds, and the more he finished now, the less he had to worry about when she was back. The two of them worked very hard to make sure they had time that was theirs and not the entire hill’s. Arturo, who knew about royalty, would do everything he could to help.
But Green had just reworked the same figure six times. Dammit, the man had to get out into the fresh air and remember how to think and breathe again.
“Sorry, Arturo,” Green said contritely, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m just….”
“Distracted, brother. Yes, I’ve figured that out.” Arturo rolled his eyes. “Look. Grace, she wants me tonight—what can I say, the woman’s insatiable.”
“Egotistical bastard,” Grace snapped from the small kitchen that sat adjacent to Green’s front room.
“Don’t deny it, woman. You know you want me!”
“You’re good in bed. What am I supposed to do, turn that down?” Grace came in with two plates of pasta covered in pecan-cilantro pesto, which she knew Green particularly liked.
“You could quit hounding me for it,” Arturo said mildly, just to hear her snort. The fact that she stuck her tongue out at him was a definite plus.
“Oh, please—‘Bite me, Grace, let me feel your hot fangs sinking into my flesh!’” Grace mimicked, and Arturo flushed. He admitted he had grown a taste for the passion of his vampire’s bite, but he didn’t think he sounded that needy.
But Green laughed at their antics, and Arturo thought he’d gladly hear Grace spill out any other embarrassing things he’d said just to see that wide grin split their leader’s clean-featured, narrow-jawed, anime-perfect face.
“Seriously, brother,” Arturo said as he was digging into the pasta, “you need to get out and talk to her.”
“I talked to her after her meet with Rafael! Hell, I was with her this morning,” Green said mildly, as though that meant he didn’t miss her in the flesh.
Arturo snorted. “Doesn’t matter. She won’t be back for real until at least another couple of days. We’ll get this done by then, I have no worries.”
“About this, you shouldn’t,” Green agreed. “But the thing I’m truly worried about, all I can do is wait.”
He was talking about Nolan Fields. They knew when he was releasing his photos, and they were pretty sure they knew most of the locales, but they couldn’t take steps to erase the pictures until near the release date. They couldn’t take the risk of not knowing who else he’d released to—or who he had contacted. No, it was best to discredit him so completely that he didn’t want to try to blackmail their people again. Arturo planned to kill the vermin before that thought even occurred to him.
Green might not approve, but he’d definitely forgive, and after months of living with this sort of submission, Arturo could live with a little disapproval.
Green was chewing thought
fully, the expression on his face wistful. This was one of Cory’s favorite dishes too—although she preferred hers with chicken. Arturo and Grace met eyes, and Grace nodded. If Arturo said it again, he’d sound like a nagging wife, but if Grace said it, she’d sound like a concerned friend. It wasn’t fair, but there it was.
“Are you done?” Grace asked abruptly, sinking down next to him with loose-limbed ease. Green looked at his plate and shrugged.
“I usually go for seconds of this….”
Grace snorted and bumped Green’s shoulder with her own. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll leave it out for you. Look, leader, I’m telling you this as someone who loves you. Go. Outside. You’re moping, and it’s pissing me off. Even worse, it’s depressing me. Get the hell out of the house. Let her into your head and enjoy the freaking ride. Anything but just missing her. You keep doing this, and the garden will turn brown—and the foothills look like shit as it is. Get the fuck out of here. I’m begging you. We’ll be fine without you. Please?”
Green was laughing before she was done, the sound of his chuckling echoing through the empty living room like chimes. Not only was Cory gone, but her entourage had emptied the front room of the people who usually stayed for her company—yet another thing that made the house lonely. He swallowed deliberately, wiped his mouth, stood, and leaned over to kiss Grace on the cheek.
“It’s good that you chose Arturo, sweet, because I can’t think of another man on the planet who is good enough for you. I’m going, I’m going—I won’t be long, it’s still hot out, but I’ll leave the hill without my moping. Will that suffice?”
Grace’s smile was gentle and maternal. “Since we don’t have the option of complete and total happiness, that will have to do.”
“Enjoy yourself, brother!” Arturo called as Green disappeared down the hall to change, and he chuckled as Green’s hand came up in a laughing salute. Arturo smiled happily as he went back to his pasta.
