Knight in Leather

by Holley Trent

  “She’s amazing.”

  “She’d have to be if she’s one of ours. Just don’t let your guard down or think you can go slack on courting her. She’s not a fairy. She’ll need more time to settle into the groove.”

  “She seemed fine this morning.”

  “Why, because you fucked her?”

  Ethan grimaced.

  “Thought so. Things often seem shiny and simple after a good fuck. Keep your vigilance. Watch her carefully.”

  “I don’t want to stifle her, and stifling is exactly what I’m wired to do.”

  “So don’t. You have plenty of people around you to take cues from. Watch Heath, or Oliver if you get the chance. Although they rarely seem to be without their mates, they have a knack for knowing when to step away. Relationships need air.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. I don’t want you to mess this up.”

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “What the hell are you doing with the water, anyway?”

  “Summoning an old associate who might be able to help with our mer-problem.”

  “But they’re taken care of. Princess Simone’s father has Quinton under lock and key, and Laurel—”

  “Heath said that all they did with Laurel was evicted her from the motel. Do you have any fuckin’ idea where she is?”

  “No. I assumed they sent her along with her brother.”

  “They didn’t, because they needed her to be able to share what had happened to her with whoever’s been planting seeds of stupidity into her brain.”

  “She’s just going to distort the story and assert that she was in the right.”

  “And that’s fine. There are going to be people who believe her and people who don’t. Either way, they’ll know that Simone isn’t going to let anyone trifle with the blokes in the crew.”

  “How do we get rid of Laurel?”

  “Two-prong approach, I imagine. We’ll get her own people to try to call off the dogs and keep her away from Rhiannon while they’re at it, and if that doesn’t work, you could always wait for Dasha to get pissed enough to take matters into her own hands.”

  “I doubt that’ll happen. She’d be more likely to walk away. She was pretty pissed last night when Laurel harassed me in the parking lot.”

  “Laurel has seen you with her?”

  Ethan grunted.

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah. That.” Ethan didn’t know what he’d do if Dasha walked away, but he couldn’t imagine his actions would be pretty. Often, when he lost control of his emotions, he’d shapeshift into some beast and destroy things. He needed to avoid that at all costs. He had no way of knowing if Dasha would be as patient with him as his mother had been with his father when he got into those raging moods.

  “Perhaps she would walk away,” Thom said quietly. “She wouldn’t stay away for long, though.”

  Ethan cut him a look. “What makes you think that?”

  “Because she has a full-blooded fairy as a mate. I think she’d be unable to avoid the pull to you just as you are to her.”

  Oh.

  Ethan certainly hoped that was the case, though the theory wasn’t one he wanted to put to the test. As much as he enjoyed the sight of his wife’s backside, he didn’t want to see it walking away from him unless he was following.

  “I think we’ve stirred him.” Thom shook the water off his hand and stood.

  “Him?” Ethan furrowed his brow.

  Thom grunted and gestured to the water. “In there.”

  “Anyone I’d know?”

  “I don’t believe so. I only met him twenty years ago the first time I had to track an absconder through this part of the country. We don’t keep in touch for the most part. He and Sídhe don’t get along so well. The relationship is a sore spot for him. Don’t bring it up.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  Something bobbed to the surface of the middle of the small body of water. At first, Ethan thought a massive snake had emerged, but then the creature lifted its head and between a curtain of dark hair were two black-as-night eyes set in a pale face, narrowed in annoyance.

  “The fuck do you want?” he asked as he swam closer, his iridescent gray tail slapping at the water.

  Thom bobbed his head in greeting. “Hello, Colin.”

  “You said you’d leave me alone.” The merman pulled himself up onto the bank, his tail transforming to a serviceable pair of legs in the process.

  That was how Ethan could tell he was pure. The mixed ones had to work to shapeshift and the metamorphosis took them some time. He’d never met anyone like Colin.

  “I told you I’d try not to bother you, but we require your assistance.”

  “Who is we?” Colin fixed his dark gaze on Ethan.

  “Prince Heath and the rest of the crew. Given your isolation, you may not have heard, but we defected from the realm last year. Rhiannon’s been giving us some problems.”

  “I couldn’t give a shit about Rhiannon. She can’t bother me here.”

  Ethan crinkled his nose at the sour smell of the swamp and muttered, “No one would want to bother you here.”

  “Obviously you do.”

  Thom grunted. “The trouble is with your cousins.”

  “I have no cousins.”

  “Whether you wish to claim them or not, you do, and we need your help putting them in check.”

  “Why would I want to do that? I don’t give a shit about them, either.”

  “You don’t give a shit about anyone, but handling this mess before the realm collapses and more of their kind end up on this side would be in your best interest.”

  “The hell are you talking about?”

  “The magic holding the realm together is destabilizing,” Ethan said. “The gods who we’re friendly with project it’ll implode in the next several months. Rhiannon likely knows and is keeping that information suppressed from the masses to keep the panic at bay.”

  “Sounds like her.” Colin leaned back onto his forearms and, unabashedly nude, crossed his legs at the ankles. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “We need you to go into the realm.”

  Colin threw his head back and laughed. “Fuck that.”

  “You’d be undetectable,” Thom said, undeterred. “Rhiannon’s counting spell only tracks fairies, and you’re not a fairy.”

  “Nah, I’m the son of a forgotten god that nobody cares about until they’re drowning or there’s a drought or some such water-related nonsense.” He rolled his eyes, and said in a high, feminine voice, “Save us, Poseidon! We’re dying! Waaaah.”

  “You’re a piece of fuckin’ work, you know that, right?” Ethan asked.

  Colin shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Are you going to help or not?” Thom asked.

  “I’m still not hearing what you’re gonna do to make the hassle worth my while.”

  Thom opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, Colin wagged a finger at him. “Nuh-uh. Don’t give me that ‘We’ll promise to leave you alone’ line, because you used that once and obviously the promise meant nothing to you.”

  “What do you want, money?” Ethan asked.

  Colin dropped his chin to his chest and glared up at Ethan through thick lashes. “How much have you got? Unsurprisingly, Daddy Dearest cut me off eons ago. I’ve gotta hustle on my own.”

  He didn’t look like he was doing much hustling in Ethan’s opinion, but Ethan didn’t like to judge. “I’ve got a little. How much would you need to make the so-called hassle worth your while?”

  Colin shrugged and tipped his head back as if to expose his pale neck to the sun that most certainly wasn’t reaching through the trees. “I’ll have my accountant crunch the numbers and’ll get back to you.”

  “Stop fucking around,” Thom barked. “You need to come back with us now. This is a limited-time opportunity, and once we leave, we aren’t coming back to fetch you.”

  Colin snorted. “Well, don’t get your panties in a wad
. I’m still not certain what you expect me to do.”

  “I don’t care how you do the job,” Thom said. “I don’t care who you need to recruit. Pass the buck to someone else if you need to and come back to your swampy pit and put your feet or fins or whatever up. I just want results.”

  “Results in…”

  “You deal with your ilk. Get them square and off Ethan’s back and out of the prince and princess’s hair.”

  “What, precisely, has my ilk done that’s gotten your dander up so?”

  Ethan rolled his eyes again. “You’ve got to know they were never quite stable to start with. They always show up wherever there are Sídhe of any power whatsoever seeking partners to deepen their genetic gene pool. They’re not shy about resorting to less than ethical means to get what they want.”

  “Mmm.” Colin nodded sagely. “Well, that’s because they all have scrambled eggs for brains. We can’t just mate with anyone, you know. Fuck around and put your dick where it doesn’t belong and you end up with a family tree full of addlebrained bastards who can hardly think well enough to get themselves to a pot before they piss. They really shouldn’t be allowed on land.” He clucked his tongue at the apparent shame of it all.

  Ethan ground his teeth and was about to reach over and strangle the guy, but Thom put a hand to his chest and kept him back.

  “So, which shitty little enclave of the mer-fairy family tree do I need to go harass and intimidate?”

  “The O’Cuilinn bunch.”

  Colin collapsed onto his back and curled his upper lip. “Ugh. Are they still spawning?”

  “They’ve added a couple of twigs to the family tree in the past couple hundred years, sure.”

  “Well, they’ve got no power, to speak of. Best I can remember, they’re just persistent. They’re like piranhas. They’ll swarm you and kill you over time with dozens of tiny little vicious bites.”

  “What’s your price?” Ethan asked impatiently. He’d left his mate back at the motel and wanted to get back before she got any harebrained ideas about leaving for the realm before he saw her.

  “Stop rushing me,” Colin whined. “A man’s got to fuckin’ think.”

  Ethan twined his fingers and cracked every single knuckle twice. “Don’t delay me. I’d really like to see my mate today before she goes gallivanting through the same portal we need to toss your insufferable ass through.”

  “You wound me.” Colin put a hand to his chest and blinked. “I swear, you Sídhe and your mates…”

  “The same sour grapes as always, aye?” Thom said.

  Colin held up a particularly distasteful finger and narrowed his eyes. The black of them had completely overtaken the whites, making him look even more otherworldly and ominous. “You bastards just stumble onto your matches la-di-dah and men like me wait around for eons for a suitable person to come along who’s not too daft.”

  Thom scoffed. “You think we have things so easy?”

  “Don’t you? I’m certain all of you bastards will find your mates in the next fifty years or so. Obviously, one of you already has.”

  Ethan cut Thom a look—a should we tell him? look. The crew so far had a pretty damned high batting average. Having four of the men find their mates in less than a year defied all odds, and they didn’t doubt the reason was because they’d earned back their blessings from the patron gods who’d pulled their favor from the Sídhe centuries ago.

  Prince Heath and his crew finding their matches suited the gods because they would serve them in opposition to the ones who still granted Rhiannon favor. Apparently, Rhiannon pulling the strings no longer suited all of them. They may not have been able to directly interfere with the affairs of the Sídhe, but they could send them their mates. That was never an item of contention in their rules.

  “All right. I’ll do it.” Colin sat up and rubbed his palms together suspiciously.

  “Oh, here we go,” Ethan muttered.

  “Here are my terms. I want a hundred thousand dollars in liquid assets, preferably U.S. dollars, though I may be amenable to comparable value in Mexican pesos, I’d like an apartment in…” He narrowed his eyes and clucked his tongue some more. “Ohh, I’ve heard nice things about Miami. Beachfront, of course. A guy’s gotta get his tail wet every now and then. Also, my choice of the prince’s treasures. I’m certain he has lots of pretty baubles for me to pluck from to satisfy my price.”

  “How about,” Thom said, “you help us out of the goodness of your fucking heart and we’ll put a real roof over your head at a motel on the Outer Banks.”

  Colin hissed and shook his head. “Not even close.”

  Ethan got to his feet and swatted some of the mud off his jeans. “Screw this. We shouldn’t even waste our breath. I mean, it doesn’t matter who deals with the O’Cuilinns, but I’m certain whoever does will make Hestia quite happy. She hates people fuckin’ with the princess.”

  Colin straightened up. “Hestia?”

  Thom stood, too. “Mm-hmm. She’s our princess’s patron.”

  “You got Hestia to come out of the woodworks?”

  “She really likes our princess.”

  Colin groaned and stood. Propping a fist onto his waist, he cocked his hip. “You bastards get all the luck.”

  “Maybe some will rub off on you,” Ethan said.

  Colin grunted. “Perhaps at the very least, Daddy Dearest will be driven a bit bonkers to know I was rubbing elbows with her. She refused him eons ago, you know. I’m not sure he ever got over the snub.”

  “So, we have a deal?” Ethan asked.

  Colin gnawed on his bottom lip and tapped his foot as he pondered the proposal. “Guy’s gotta eat. I’ll take your deal plus pocket cash.”

  “I’m certain Prince Heath will make sure you’re flush.”

  “Splendid.” Colin shook Thom’s hand and climbed up the bank. “So, where’s my chariot?”

  Thom closed his eyes and quietly counted to five. “You’re riding on the sissy seat of my motorcycle. Don’t get too excited.”

  “Ooh! How delightful. I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”

  “And this will almost certainly be the last time you’re on mine.”

  They were almost all the way back to the road when Thom snapped his fingers and turned to Colin. “Do you have clothes?”

  Colin sucked his teeth. “Sure, but who the bloody hell knows where they might be?”

  Thom pulled in a deep breath, then let it out and gave his short hair a tug.

  “Don’t stress yet,” Ethan said. “I might have some spare pants in my bag. They’re gonna be too big, but at least they’ll cover his bits.”

  “Shirt in there, too?”

  “Maybe. If not, you’ll just be extra white-trash-looking with him on your bike on the way back to the beach.” He gave Thom’s back a slap and laughed all the way to his bike.

  “Bastard.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Dasha was in the storage room with Simone, collecting supplies for Dasha to schlep through the portal into the realm, when the rumble of motorcycle engines shook the office walls.

  Simone poked her head out the office the door, and said, “Huh. Ethan’s back.”

  “Why is that surprising?”

  “Eee!” Simone ran outside squealing and, curious at her friend’s sudden improvement of mood, Dasha followed.

  Thom had barely gotten his helmet off before Simone launched herself at him.

  He laughed and gave her a tight squeeze as the bare-chested stranger still on his bike looked on curiously.

  “Hello, Princess,” Thom said. “Miss me?”

  Simone shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

  “That hurts.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you. Did you bring…” Simone let her words off and cut her gaze to Dasha then back to Heath’s second-in-command.

  “No. Still at home.”

  “Boo.”

  “What am I missing here?” Dasha asked.

  Ethan dropped his
arm over Dasha’s shoulder and kissed the top of her head. “I’m certain she’ll tell you about her recent exploits and conquests in due time.”

  Simone cringed.

  “Simone…” Dasha scolded.

  “What?”

  “What have you been up to?” Dasha had always suspected there was a little something-something going on between Simone and Thom, but she hadn’t wanted to meddle. Still, Dasha had found strange the fact that Heath didn’t take offense to Simone and Thom’s undisguised affection for each other. Dasha was more convinced than ever that there was something happening that she hadn’t grasped.

  She looked up at Ethan, who whispered, “Everything’s fine. I promise.”

  Dasha wanted to trust her friend, but trusting was hard to when she was missing a huge chunk of information.

  Simone twirled the end of one lock of her curly hair and cleared her throat. “Not really a conversation suitable for…uh…public consumption.” She cut her gaze to the pale, black-eyed, barefooted, dark-haired stranger on Thom’s bike. “So, who’s this?”

  “Who are you?” the stranger asked. “You’re not the princess.”

  “She’s Prince Heath’s princess,” Thom said.

  The guy’s eyes bulged. “Heath has a mate?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Wait. And you bloody do too, don’t ya?”

  “Yep.”

  “You fuckin—”

  “I’m sorry,” Simone said through clenched teeth. “Who are you?”

  “Fuckin’ Colin, is who.”

  Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a breath. “He’s going to help us with…a problem. Dasha, he’ll be going through the portal with you, but he’ll do his own thing on the other end.”

  Colin slid off the bike and hauled his too-large pants up.

  “Uh…does he need something to wear?” Dasha eyed the guy from head to feet. He was tall like Ethan, but leanly muscled. He had a swimmer’s build rather than a quarterback’s. “He might be able to fit something of Perry’s.”

  “Is Perry around?” Thom asked.

  “Maybe not,” Dasha said. “I think he and Matt were going to go get haircuts. If he’s not in the room, he probably wouldn’t mind you taking what you need. He’s probably the most laid-back of you beasts.”