by C. A. Storm
Chapter 30
Fates save me, Rik growled to himself as he forcibly disentangled himself from the clinging Sidhe bitch wrapped around him like poison ivy. Even the taste of her on his lips was toxic, and he really wanted to rinse his mouth out. It was Sam’s booming shout that distracted Evie enough that Rik was able to push her away.
Stumbling back away from her, Rik spared his so-called friends a quick glare before turning to find his anam cara stalking angrily down the stairs toward them. Even her ponytail lashed angrily behind her as she marched up to them.
“Baby,” Rik started, but the deadly glare she shot him shut him up right quick.
When her eyes landed on Travis, they widened and she speared a finger in the wolf’s direction. “You? YOU?!” Releasing a pent-up, strangled breath, she glared at the pale wolf, who looked rather sickly even as he tried to manage a grin.
“Hey, Sammy girl,” Travis had his hands held up in front of him like he was facing down a cop, a guilty flush rising up his neck as he met the petite redhead’s burning gaze. “How’ve you been?”
Shaking her head angrily, Sam gritted her teeth. “No. Not right now. One thing at a time. You, sit, I’ll get to you later.”
Like a well-trained puppy, Travis did as she asked, moving posthaste to take a seat off-stage. When Sam’s glare swept the rest of the troupe, wordlessly they stumbled over themselves to do the same, quickly joining the werewolf to avidly watch the unfolding drama.
“And who’s…” Evie started, but was abruptly cut off when Sam gave her The Hand. Yep, The Hand was flashed, and it was effective, for at least a few heartbeats as the stunned Sidhe stared blankly at The Hand wielded so proficiently by a Mortal. “Why you little…”
Once again, Sam cut her off, “Look, we’ll fight in just a second. Give me a moment, I have a jerk to deal with, and to be blunt, he’s a lot more important than you are.”
Rik’s eyes were pinned by Sam’s icy glare, but he could no more stop his chest from swelling with pride at her claiming his importance than he could have stopped what happened next.
The sound of a sharp slap was a loud crack as Evie’s hand met Sam’s cheek with enough force to send Sam’s glasses clattering across the stone floor of the stage. Another boom of thunder roared overhead. Rik launched himself forward, grabbing Evie’s arm and throwing her away from Sam with a true lion’s roar tearing out of his throat.
Rik’s glamour surged, thick and angry, surrounding him in the façade of the leonine aspect his family drew their strength from. He felt fangs emerging from his mouth, claws exploding from his fingers, and he ached with the need to rend the flesh of the one who had dared lay a hand on his cara.
Before he could spring, however, Evie met his fury with a calm smirk, her own glamour wrapping sinuously around her as she said in her precise, clipped accent, “I challenge the Mortal for the hand of Rikard Leon.”
“No!” Rik roared, but he was drowned out by Sam’s shout, “Bring it, bitch!”
Rik turned around, glaring down at Sam with horror. Reaching out trembling hands, he gripped her shoulders tight, “Baby, no…you don’t know what’s going on. I have to explain what’s really…”
“Too late, Rikard,” a cold, emotionless voice said evenly, drawing all eyes to a tall, dark stranger. Dressed entirely in an obviously hand-tailored suit of the darkest black material, with a black shirt and onyx tie, the man exuded power and elegance. Rik’s experienced eye instantly recognized the suit having been made in London’s Saville Row, the obsidian buttons hand-carved with the distinctive logo of a legendary tailor. He had a moment of disorientation as he tried to place the man. He knew most of the movers-and-shakers of the Fae world, but this man was a complete and total enigma.
The man’s long black hair gleamed with indigo highlights in the sunlight and hung loosely down his back, and a neatly-trimmed beard graced a strong, commanding face. Tall and broad shouldered, the man could’ve been a body builder, the suit emphasizing the raw, potent strength in his body. The man’s eyes were concealed behind a pair of pitch black sunglasses, but Rik felt those eyes pinning him where he stood.
More than all that, though, was the sheer force of the personal glamour that oozed from every pore, a force that nearly drove Rik to his knees. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that he wasn’t the only one so affected. Nearly the entire crowd that had been gathered had either been driven down to their knees or were forced back into seats. Only he, Sam, and Evie remained standing. Rik saw four imposing red-haired men straining to move forward, toward Samantha, but even they were forced to a crawl by the man’s power.
“Unfortunately, your cara has accepted the challenge,” a faint Scottish brogue danced amongst the stranger’s words. “The Laws require it be fulfilled, or she will be forced to relinquish her bond to you.”
As if the stranger’s presence wasn’t ominous enough, his words daggers tearing into Rik’s heart, overhead dark, boiling clouds rolled in like a rampaging army, carrying wicked lightning and biting winds.
“Evie, please,” Rik begged, turning his burning eyes toward the blonde Sidhe. “Drop your challenge.”
“Only if you cast aside your Mortal, Rikard,” Evie purred, her lips twisted in a triumphant smirk. Her expression turned to an ugly sneer as she glared at Sam. “She’s short, fat, and human. I mean, really? Really? You chose her over me?”
“Maybe he was afraid of sticking his dick in crazy,” Sam shot back. “I’ve heard it’s as contagious as the herpes on your lips.”
Evie gasped in outrage, making once more to throw herself at the smaller woman, when the stranger spoke up once more, “Enough!”
Making a circular gesture with an upraised finger, the stranger summoned forth a wave of midnight glamour, and a curtain undulating with brilliant flashes of violet and cerulean coiled around the stage. Pacing forward, placing himself between the two women, the stranger looked between them both and said simply, “Choose your seconds.” He turned toward Evie, “Evangeline Grace, your second?”
“Connor!” Evie called out over her shoulder, where a small group of her own troupe had gathered.
“What the fuck, Evie?” Connor, a slender, dark-haired man hollered back. “Hell no, you crazy bitch, you’re on your own! I refuse to second.”
“I’ll do it,” a sultry voice called out eagerly, and Rik had to close his eyes when he saw Mona saunter onto the stage. Of course, the Fates hate me, he thought as another of his ex-lovers decided to come out to play. Mona, like Evie, was a Sidhe of a very minor clan. Wearing a pair of Daisy Duke shorts and a crop top, her lush figure was a walking wet dream for any straight man in the audience, and Rik swore he heard a few catcalls of appreciation.
“And you, Samantha Kelly?” the stranger asked politely, his voice not unkind as he glanced over at her.
“I’m her second,” Bertie’s deep, sonorous voice exploded from overhead, filled with barely leashed fury, as he performed a textbook superhero three-point landing, his massive dragon wings spread out behind him. Bertie was in his battle form, his façade blown apart to reveal his true, monstrous form. Upright, he towered at nearly nine feet in height, his skin a solid gray and inlaid with a glistening, complex knotwork of obsidian tattoos set into his stony flesh. His eyes were the glowing blue-white of lightning, his thin lips parted to reveal ivory fangs long and sharp enough to make any vampire weep in envy. Clad only in a battle kilt and leather harness, with a huge Claymore strapped between his outspread wings, Bertie’s every imposing muscle was literally carved from stone, and were truly impressive as they flexed and bulged ominously.
Glamour was going to be working overtime to keep this debacle from going public, Rik thought bitterly as his eyes locked on Sam’s determined face. When she met his gaze, he could see the anger and hurt swirling in those pale depths. Taking a step toward her, needing to comfort her, Rik suddenly found himself unable to move as the stranger’s glamour chained him in place.
“You cannot interfere
, Rikard,” the stranger said simply as he removed his sunglasses and turned to meet Rik’s eyes. The stranger’s eyes were a silvery-white, gleaming bright against his darkly-tanned face, and Rik saw both sympathy and implacability in those moonlit orbs. “I’m sorry, but as you are the prize, you are going to have to stand there and just look pretty.”
Glaring into those unnatural eyes, Rik growled, “And just who the fuck are you anyways?”
“Killian Sinclair,” the stranger said simply, then smiled faintly, “Or, you can call me the new Lord of the Gray.”
Fuck my life.
The Lord of the Gray. Ruler of all Sidhe and Fae that chose to support neither the Seelie nor Unseelie Courts here in North America. Audrick Gunvald had served as the de facto Lord, but as a dragon, he preferred to remain out of Fae politics. He must have finally found someone not only willing to serve as the ruler of all the Unaligned, the Gray Fae, but one powerful enough to stand-up to both the Seelie Queen and Unseelie King.
Oh, and this was the guy that Rikard was going to have to swear fealty to.
Great. Fucking great.
Ignoring the shocked silence that had fallen over the onlookers at his pronouncement, Killian turned back to the challengers and their seconds. “If that is settled, then we must discuss the terms of this little duel. Seconds, take your Firsts aside and discuss your options. Bertrand, please inform Ms. Kelly of the rules of a Fae Duel. Once you are both ready, the seconds will meet with me here in the center to offer terms. Once a deal is reached, the duel may begin.”
Supermodel Sidhe on one side, a feisty redhead with a Gargoyle on the other. What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter 31
There was too much going on for Sam to fully process anything.
First, some skanky twatrag had been kissing Rik. That had pissed her off.
Second, "The Bastard" was here, in the flesh, and apparently not only knew Rik and was acting all buddy-buddy with him, but was most likely the other candidate for the Landsmaster position that had brought Sam here in the first place. She had hoped to never lay eyes on the betraying son-of-a-bitch again, and given that she had long known that he was a werewolf—couldn’t hide his true nature from her Sight, even if he, like everyone else, seemed to want to leave her in the dark—he really was a son-of-a-bitch! Heh.
Third, the Superskank had slapped her. Hard! Sam still had a ringing in her ears and she knew her cheek was red.
All of this coming on top of Sam just barely having forgiven Rik for abandoning her this morning, finding out that her father and brothers had tracked her down here, and now some tall, dark, mysterious stranger throwing magic around like confetti, had Sam’s head reeling.
Stalking over to one corner of the stage, the massive Bertie-Beast lumbering behind her—and how cool was Bertie in his gargoyle form?—Sam winced as she met the angry glares of her family.
“What the feck is going on, Sammy?” her father growled, his fist pounding uselessly against the shimmering curtain of living twilight.
“Long story, Daddy,” Sam sighed and rubbed her face, squinting as she looked around for her glasses—any excuse not to meet her father’s accusing gaze. “But basically, fairies are real, I’m in love with a Sidhe who doesn’t know that I know what he is, and now some skank from his past has decided to fight for him.”
Sam looked up—way, way up—into Bertie’s concerned, ugly face. “That sound about right?”
Bertie crouched down, resting his sculpted ass on his heels as he leaned forward, planting a fist on the ground for balance as he protectively tucked his wings around them, screening them from the other side of the stage.
“Approximately,” Bertie grumbled, his voice lower and deeper than normal, a basso rumble to his normal baritone. “But the ‘skank’ is a Sidhe. Unseelie. She’s one of the regular performers each year here, and an expert with bladed weapons. She’s called the Queen of Blades, and she’s earned a reputation for being a wicked duelist.”
“Great!” Sam threw her hands up in frustration as her brothers, and father, growled behind her. She shot them an angry glare. “Shut it! This is my mess, let me deal with it.”
“I’ve got my sniper rifle in the truck,” Brian said casually, his dark blue eyes fixed firmly on the women on the opposite side of the stage. “Just give me a few and the problem can go away.”
Seamus slapped his son upside the back of his head with one hand and wrapped his scarred knuckles against the barrier with the other, “Don’t be stupid. I told you boys about the Fae, they ain’t going to let you interfere like that.”
Sam blinked at her father. “You told the boys about the Fae?” Her tone was deceptively casual, but it caused her father’s shoulders to hunch as he shot her an apologetic look.
“Sorry, baby girl,” he muttered, “Your mama didn’t want you involved in any Fae stuff, and once your gramma died, your mother bundled you up something fierce.” He scowled, “You know your mother, she hates magic and fairy tales, and I had to respect her wishes.”
“Discuss this later,” Bertie said. “We do not have time for this now. Samantha, as the challenged, you have the right to choose the terms of the duel, the weapons used, and the conditions.”
“And if she’s the Queen of Blades, then knives and swords are right out,” Sam rolled her eyes and sighed. “Not that I’m any good with those, anyway.”
“You said she’s an experienced duelist, and focused on blades, right?” Dillon asked thoughtfully, running a hand through his thick hair as he considered the situation.
“Yes. Knives, stilettos, sabre, rapier, bastard and long sword…if it has an edge and a handle, she’s quite adept,” Bertie admitted, his voice regretful.
The brothers looked at each other, then turned matching, wicked grins upon their sister, who nodded and grinned back.
“You know what that means,” Patrick sing-songed as he lifted his fists in the classic fisticuffs pose.
“Time to show her why gingers are considered soulless abominations,” Seamus said in a laughing tone, clasping his sons on their shoulders as the entire Kelly family turned evil grins across the stage.
“Hand-to-hand?” Bertie inquired incredulously, “Remember, she’s a Sidhe. She’s not very powerful magically, but Sidhe are quicker and stronger than Mortals, Samantha.”
Waving a dismissive hand up at him, Sam said, “It’s fine! Hand-to-hand, no weapons, total MMA-style, to knock out or submission.”
With obvious reluctance, Bertie nodded his huge head. Rising back up to his full, prodigious height, he stalked toward the center of the stage, each step a boom of thunder as his bare, stone feet slammed against the packed earth. He was met center stage by both Tall, Dark, and Dangerous and the other Superskank, the brunette one.
“Sam?” Travis’s voice was low, hesitant, as he came up beside her family behind her.
With a last look toward Rik, who was looking at her like she was already a dead woman walking, Sam wrinkled her nose at her son-of-a-Sidhe and flipped him the middle finger before she turned to stare at "The Bastard."
“Travis,” she said evenly. Unfortunately, her father and brothers weren’t quite so even-tempered as they all turned to glare at the man.
Nervously, Travis scrubbed a hand through his hair and gave her a pleading look, ignoring her family, as he said, “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the best time, and there’s a lot I need to tell you, but I wanted to at least say I’m sorry. For everything.”
“I’m not,” Sam said. “Look, let’s get something out of the way first, okay? I’ve pretty much always known you were a werewolf.” Sam continued, ignoring the shocked silence and wide-eyed stare she got from both her family and said werewolf. “I also figured that we weren’t fated mates or true mates or anam cara or whatever you guys call it, so it wasn’t a big surprise that you chose your family over me.”
She raised The Hand to forestall Travis’s response.
“No, seriously, I understood. I didn’t have
to like the fact that you betrayed me, that you let your father ruin my career, and that you abandoned me, but I understood it. Believe me, I’ve read enough paranormal romances over the last ten years to know how this political shit goes. But this ‘Mortal’ is sick and tired of not only being left in the dark by everyone who claims to love her,” she cast a glare that encompassed both her family and the son-of-a-Sidhe, who paled at the look cast his way, “But also being underestimated by those same people. Well, fuck you all, I’m a big girl, and I can handle it.
“Now, all of you can sit down and shut up. We can have our arguments after I get done with this one, okay? Let me deal with one fucked up situation at a time!”
Spinning around angrily, Sam stomped away, seething and more than ready to put a hurt on a certain Superskank. She paused as she reached where Rik was bound in place, glowing violet bands of force chaining him where he stood.
Hands on hips, she glared up at Rik, who looked down at her with such an expression of hopeless fear and rage on his face, and she felt her heart thawing a little bit.
“Baby,” he rasped, his voice rough and his eyes gleaming suspiciously, “I’m so fucking sorry. I should have told you about all of this earlier.”
Nodding, Sam said simply, “Yes, you should have.”
Sam eyed him speculatively through narrowed, rapidly blinking eyes. Hunh, she thought, I seem to be getting used to this Sight stuff.
Rik was at a loss for words, licking dried lips and swallowing rapidly as he cast about for something to say, some magic combination of words that would make everything better. She let him stew for a few minutes, just staring at him silently as a sudden, dim memory of earlier this morning came to her.
“Did you mean what you said this morning?” Sam asked hesitantly, feeling suddenly abashed.
Locking his eyes with hers, Rik suddenly gave her a heart-melting, crooked smile. “You mean when I said, ‘I love you’?”
