by Rhys Ford
“She dreamed it. Very vividly. But I’m good. I’ve had worse.” My throat closed up, and my mind welled with memories I’d left behind me. We passed a set of windows, and I skirted around the light, half expecting the yellow glow to reach out and slice into me. Cowardly perhaps, but I was at the better safe than sorry point. “Bitch.”
“That’s something we can agree on.” Ryder laughed. It was a bitter sound, soured by experience. “Do you want to rest? If you’re too tired….”
“Nah.” I shook my head, opening the outside door carefully, holding it back before it hit the sleeping dog on the stoop. “Right now, the only way I want to see Elfhaine is in my rearview mirror. Go grab your human, Ryder. I’m going to go find my shotgun.”
“SHIT, RYDER!” I hissed under my breath. “She’s about to pop!”
He glanced at the woman, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly as he loaded a satchel into the back of the Mustang. Alexa was helping the very pregnant Shannon out of the glider. The sidhe commander gave me a guilt-filled look before turning back to offer her passenger a hand.
I’d needed to wash the old woman off my skin, so I’d used the pod’s facilities while Ryder waited outside. He’d shouted for me when he saw his cousin’s glider clear the gates. I pulled on the last pair of clean jeans I’d stored in the Mustang’s voluminous trunk and shoved what I wore into Elfhaine into a bag, wondering whether it would be easier to just burn the clothes rather than wash them.
“You can see her belly button! Through her clothes! That’s unnatural.” I poked Ryder in the ribs. “It’s sticking out like one of those red things people shove into roasting turkeys.”
“I never knew you could cook. Will wonders never cease?” he teased and turned, holding his hands out to the woman. “Shannon, this is Kai Gracen, our guide. Kai, this is Shannon, my sister’s friend.”
She gave me a tight smile, barely looking me over as she descended. Her belly shifted and swayed under her shirt. She was older than I’d expected and definitely did not look like someone who’d be cowed by conservative parents. Clearly a member of Frisco’s turning-wheel movement, she wore a peasant shift made from green sari material. It fell from her shoulders, loose ruffles scalloping over soft, round breasts. A pair of leather sandals covered her feet, silver rings tucked on nearly all her toes.
Shannon didn’t strike me as a woman on the run from her family. If anything, strip off her hippie clothing and dress her in a waitress uniform, and her hard face looked like she could sling hash at a truck stop with the best of them. Somewhere in the story Ryder told me, lying was involved. My gut told me something was off, but I couldn’t be sure what. My experience with pregnant women amounted to picking up things for Jonas’s wives when they craved something and he was out of town, mostly kimchee dip, but once in a while, something odd like peanut butter cups.
“Hey.” I moved to take a small, light travel bag from her hands. “Let me shove this in the back. Um, unless you need it for something? In case you get sick?”
“Ryder, would you mind if I took the backseat?” She looked me over, lines wrinkling her forehead as she covered a yawn with her hand. Her lashes fluttered, too much to be only fatigue. “I’ll probably pass out. Baby carrying takes it out of me.”
“If you’re sure you’ll be comfortable back there, then I don’t have a problem,” he answered.
I moved the seat forward. “Probably safer back there. If something’s coming through this much steel, then….”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Ryder said, giving me an evil look.
“I can stretch out,” Shannon murmured, rubbing her belly as she ducked her head. “It’ll be nice for the ride down.”
“Nice, she says,” I muttered, sucking the last of the toothpaste from the roof of my mouth. “You know she’s going to give birth on the way down, right?”
“No, she’s not,” he growled back at me. “She’s not due for a few more weeks.”
“Law of pregnant women, they always give birth at the worst time,” I argued. “Jonas told me. He should know. He’s caused enough of them.”
A long shadow fell over me as I grabbed a few bottles of water from the trunk. The ground heat would still be rising as we crossed into Pendle, and we’d need to keep hydrated until the night cooled the ropy black paho’eho’e lava covering the area. I smelled Alexa in the wind, the unique bittersweet of her sidhe scent hitting me before I turned around.
“Stalker Gracen.” Her fingers found the hair at the nape of my neck, stroking at the soft skin there. “I did not mean….”
“It’s okay,” I said, pulling away to look at her, and she moved in, pushing me into the car. “Hey, not like I don’t like a woman against me, but I’m not in the mood for this.”
“Please, Kai. I did not know….”
“Yeah, about breeding me like some cloned sheep? You’d better check with your grandmother before you make any plans for purple-eyed babies.” I cocked my head. “She might have different plans.”
“My grandmother does not dictate my life, Kai,” Alexa replied. “I would not have taken you to her if I had known she… she trapped you, using your blood to hold you. At the least, it was rude.”
“Rude?” I almost choked. “It felt a hell of a lot more painful than rude. She was trying to peel the meat from my bones.”
“She has lost Ryder’s trust.” Alexa’s mouth softened. “And mine. She has shamed me by hurting you, and I am sorry that my family caused you any pain. I am asking for your forgiveness, if you can give it.”
“You have your arms around my Stalker, cousin,” Ryder said, coming around the car. “I have plans for him, most of which involve him being in San Diego. With me.”
She met my eyes once more, and I shrugged, unsure about practically everything since I’d gotten into my car and left San Diego. Whispering into my ear, she said, “I am very sorry.”
“Yeah, okay,” I replied softly. “You can’t choose your family. I know that.”
Alexa gave her cousin a look I couldn’t read, then turned on her heel. Hopping into the glider, she gave Ryder either a sidhe salute or a suggestion about what he could do with his donkey. He stood there, nodding as she drove off, the glider kicking up a dirt storm into our faces.
“Let’s get out of here.” Ryder shut the trunk.
I tossed him half the bottles and replied, “That’s the best idea you’ve probably ever come up with.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WE DROVE into Pendle on one of the northern roads, curving up toward the mountain range instead of hugging the coast. Ryder noticed the change in course, grunting from his slouching sulk in the passenger seat. I refused to let him drive, wanting to put as much distance between me and Elfhaine as possible, and he’d taken it as an insult.
There was no use telling him I needed to take some control over what was going on around me, especially since he seemed to be someone who expected others to hand their lives over to him without question.
“Why are we going this way?” He looked behind him, checking on Shannon.
She’d fallen asleep nearly as soon as we entered the forest, her round belly facing us. During the drive, her skirt rode up, and I was sure I saw a hand pressed up against the thin skin stretched over her womb. Ryder told me I was being silly, but he periodically glanced back to see if she was comfortable. I didn’t believe him. It made more sense that he was checking on the fetus in case it decided to break from its prison and eat us alive.
“The dragon’s body will still be across the middle of the road. It’ll take days for scavengers to eat through its meat,” I explained. “I won’t be able to get Oketsu around that. This way is longer but safer. Last thing I want to do is drive past a lizard buffet.”
“You could show some respect for them,” he sighed. “Pretend there’s some sidhe left inside you.”
“I’d have preferred it had died off the road so we got down to San Diego quicker. As it is, we’ll be crossing the border around
two in the morning. Sparky’s going to kill me for waking her up that late.”
The paho’eho’e roped close to the road, covering a lane or two in some places. At some point, the military had bulldozed the center divide, opening up the old freeway a bit. Not as traveled as the main road, the northern route was rougher, crinkled in places from seismic activity. Moonlight shone bright, making it easy to spot the rock extrusions ahead of us. They rose from the asphalt, dark-rainbow hematite gargoyles, eyeless sentinels as we passed. I slowed the Mustang down as it banked into a curve. Unable to see around the bend, I didn’t want to plow into something unexpected.
“Seems like a good time to talk about Grandmother,” Ryder said softly, swiveling around in his seat to face me. Like the freeway, Ryder’s words and face held unexpected dangers, and I risked taking my eyes off the road for a brief second, spotting the hardness in his green eyes. “Unless you want to talk about other things, like Alexa.”
“Nope,” I said. I wanted to drive, letting the Mustang carry me back to my life. I allowed the night to fill me, inhaling the smell of leather and the mountain air as I drove. There was serenity in losing myself in the soft hum of the road under the car’s tires, and Ryder’s incessant poking at sore spots wasn’t what I had in mind for entertainment on a long drive. “Siao liao. Leave off, lordship.”
“You can’t keep avoiding me, Kai.”
“No, really. I think I can.” Shrugging him off got me a filthy green-eyed look. “Watch. San Diego’s a big city. I can avoid you if I try hard enough.”
“We live in the same city,” he said pointedly. “And you’re….”
“Sidhe?” I shook my head, watching for the freeway’s crackled painted lines ahead of us. “Look, you want to talk about something, let’s talk about that. The sooner you get it into your thick head that I’m not going to fall into step with the great sidhe empire you’re building, the better off you’ll be. I’ll stay dockside with my cat, go out and eat noodles or a bean burrito. I’ll go to strip clubs to watch humans take their clothes off, and sometimes I’m going to hit the red lantern district for a couple of hours of sweat and skin. Once in a while, the Post will drop me a line about a job, or I’ll go out and do a bounty on some black dogs.”
“That’s not a life, Kai,” Ryder said with a sigh. “You can do better than that.”
“That’s my life, Ryder. And that’s the life I want to lead. Whatever you’re doing or whatever you’re thinking, that’s on you,” I said softly, trying not to wake Shannon up. “I’m not going to wake up one morning and suddenly decide dragons are holy. They’re meat. The sidhe are meat, and so are humans. We’re born, live dirty, and then die, but when it’s all said and done, we’re just meat. And I’m going to live my life the way I’ve always lived it, without the elfin, their politics or mind games. Got it?”
“I’m not trying to forge a traditional Court,” Ryder replied, leaning back against his seat. The leather squeaked when he rolled down the window. Resting his arm on the door, he watched the horizon, the shadows on his face diving under his cheekbones. “We’re in a different world, and I don’t think we can exist without humans. If anything, humans are our only chance at survival.”
“Humans don’t even help themselves survive.” I was being honest, or as honest as I wanted to be. “Do you really think they’re going to hold a hand out to the elfin?”
“Who made you bitter? None of us can survive without one another,” he said. His face grew distant, recalling a time when only the sidhe existed. “The unsidhe are our enemies, rivals for land and resources, and our Courts were constantly fighting humans when they weren’t fighting with each other. Then suddenly we were here and everything changed.”
“Yeah, there were humans to fight here,” I said bitterly. “Who knew that was all the elfin needed to join the Dusk and Dawn?”
“It’s not that simple.” Ryder’s open window let in the sulfur stink bubbling up from the steam vents along the freeway. “The elfin reacted. They’re people too. No matter how long someone lives, they’re still going to be… people. There’s going to be anger, fear, and even irrational hatred. What we do with those emotions will define us. The Dawn hide in their cities, and the Dusk gather in the shadows until they feel safe. Divided, we are going to die out. We need to change.”
“And you’re the one leading the charge?”
“I’m going to be, yes.” He nodded. “If people will let me.”
I wasn’t sure if he was naïve or delusional. “In San Diego? At this court you’re making?”
“Yes.” He laughed, a throaty sound caught in the wind from the open window. “At Southern Rise. We’ll do our best.”
“You think the elfin, either side, are going to let you tear down eons of stick-up-the-ass politics and war because you think it’s time to gather around the fire and tell love stories?”
“No, they don’t like it at all. Grandmother included,” Ryder replied.
“Nice work-around there.” I laughed. “I figured we’d get back to her soon enough.”
“She’s a problem,” he said, smiling. It faded quickly, turning to dust on his lips. “I am sorry. I never wanted you to be pulled into this.”
“See, the funny thing is, she wouldn’t have pulled that kind of shit if I were human.” The road shifted, and I banked to the right, avoiding a fissure the size of a rhino. “The sidhe are good at saying we’re all equal, but today she just confirmed what I already knew: some are more equal than others.”
“I’d like to disagree with you, but I can’t.” Ryder shrugged helplessly. “She hopes that I’ll fail, spectacularly if possible, so she can look to the others and say ‘Look what happens when we integrate with the humans.’”
“And you want to succeed because it’ll piss her off.”
“That’s definitely a bonus in the plan,” he admitted with a chuckle. “But more because I believe we need to.”
“The sidhe can’t breed with humans, so that’s out,” I said. “That would have been your best bet.”
“It would have been,” Ryder said. “But we’re barely successful with each other. The humans have other ways, other things, to offer us. We just need to be able to listen and learn.”
“And what are you going to give the humans?”
“Give to them?” He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You want their help in fitting in? What are you going to give them in exchange?”
“Perhaps magical tutorage,” Ryder explained. “Some of them have shown promise in that area, especially healing.”
“Healing? Or the kind of shit your grandmother pulled? Because I can tell you, the last thing humans, or anyone really, need is another way to kill one another. That shit hurt.”
“No one can dictate how someone uses a power. That’s up to the individual. We can guide, but that’s all we can do, Kai.”
“Well then, your lordship, you might have a problem, because from what I’ve seen, humans like to see how something will kill before they want to see how it heals.”
“Are you including yourself in that ‘human’ equation?”
“Yeah,” I said curtly. “Because I’ll be honest with you, if I’d had a way to slice open your grandmother’s throat when she caught me in her trap, I would have used it. I don’t care that she’s the oldest sidhe or the head of your Clan. I would have cut her damned throat.”
“If I had my way, Kai,” he said before turning to stare out the window, “I would have given you something to use as a knife. It would make all our lives much easier.”
A RED gleam amid the brush and the black stone was my first hint that something wasn’t right. We were three-quarters into Pendle, our progress stopped by a small herd of antelope rabbits bounding across the road. I let them pass, much to Ryder’s disgust. Unlike dragons, the antelope rabbits weren’t trying to eat me alive, so I didn’t feel like running them over. Since they weren’t sacred to Ryder, plowing through them seemed like an okay plan to him.
I was driving, so only my opinion counted.
And I thought they were cute. There isn’t enough cute in the world. I take it when it’s offered to me.
Shannon stirred when we stopped, sitting up and blearily asking if we’d reached San Diego. Her eyes widened when she spotted the antlered bunnies hopping slowly across the asphalt, pointing out the wee babies scrambling after their mothers. Too young to grow a full rack, their furry heads were dotted with tiny nubs, soft with protective velvet.
“Oh, they’re cute!” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the front seats. Her belly pressed between the space, bulging out over the center console I’d installed over the shifter. “I’ve never seen one. There must be close to a thousand.”
“’Lope bunnies own the place, more than the dragons, really,” I said, shifting the car into park to wait out the herd’s migration. “You can usually see them at night. That’s when most of their predators are asleep, and they can get down to new feeding grounds without having to dodge death.”
“None of them are black,” Ryder observed. “Just spots here and there. I’m surprised they survive out here in the flows.”
“They’re only passing through. They live down in the grasslands, up mountain, or ocean side. The flows are just a corridor. You can’t really see them once they hit the weeds.”
The furry migration was coming to an end. Spotting the wide branches of the male ’lopes rising above the hopping wave, I shifted the car back into drive, and the rear guards sat up on their haunches to stare into Oketsu’s lights as the last of their charges bounded along, the yellow gleam of their eyes turning lime as they turned their heads. The remaining few lazily made their way across the road, closely followed by the sentries, and I let the brake off, pulling Oketsu forward.
We’d gone about four yards when a hillock of paho’eho’e blinked, tiny red gleams appearing over its ridge. They followed, popping up periodically as the Mustang roared along the road. I flipped off the high beams, dropping the headlights down to pick up the ground ahead of us. I knew those gleams and wasn’t too happy to see them bobbing up and down behind us.
