Knight in Leather

by Holley Trent

  Ethan nudged Dasha toward the passage.

  “Quit it, fairy,” she said.

  “Go.”

  “No.”

  “Dasha—”

  “Ethan, I swear I’m not trying to give you a stroke. I’m going to go. Just not yet. I want to make sure Katie comes back out. I have to for Simone. If anything happens to Katie or Fergus…”

  “Okay.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “All right. I’m not going to let you wait too long, though. If there’s any chance at all that Mielikki will have to close the portal, I’m pushing you through.”

  “Noble, but unnecessary.” Dasha waved Owen on through. He was carrying so much gear, including Moira’s trunk. She wanted to make sure those heirlooms got to the other side. Maybe that was selfish of her, but her kids would inherit some of that fairy silver one day.

  She pointed Moira in right after him, and had her take the hand of a stray child no one was claiming. Someone would need to find that kid’s parents, but she was pretty sure that wherever they were, they’d want the kid safe.

  “Is that okay?” Dasha asked Mielikki. “I know you said one at a time, but that baby can’t go through alone.”

  The goddess nodded. “Fine. The child is small enough.”

  Dasha sent them on. “See you on the other side,” she said to Moira, and added in a mutter, “I hope.”

  When the group, lined up in front of the misty portal, parted, Dasha craned her neck to see Fergus hobbling toward the queue with a woman’s limp body in his arms. Reaching the front, he turned to Katie who’d followed him up. “Take her, please.”

  Katie shook her head at her father. “Dad. Go.”

  “I can’t go. Not yet. I’ve got—”

  “Dad, go. What’s the bloody use of you staying here now, huh? You’ve been the keyman long enough. You don’t need to stay and try to rip any new portals from the earth when she’s trying so hard to actively suppress your magic. You’re done. Go. Take Mum through. I’ll scoop up anything from the house you might need.”

  Fergus shifted his weight and looked back at the group.

  “Go, Dad. Get in touch with Simone as soon as you get there. Nicholas will tell you how.”

  Fergus glanced back at the group of waiting fairies again and pulled his scarred face into smile. “Sorry for…cuttin’ line.”

  “Go,” they all said, waving him in.

  Katie wove through the group and nudged this person and that person toward the portal.

  When she pushed Dasha toward the entrance, Dasha dug in her heels.

  “Come on, Katie. I don’t want to argue with you, too.”

  “Look around you, sweetheart. There’s just me and you and all these men left.”

  “And Laurel.”

  “Who’s Laurel?”

  Dasha sighed. “She’s…gum on the bottom of my shoe, but she doesn’t deserve to get left behind. Something’s wrong with her, and no one near the palace is going to care if she gets left.”

  Colin cocked a brow and muttered something under his breath. Then he waved Caryl and Daryn’s father through. He couldn’t have known that’s who the man was, but Dasha would have recognized him anywhere. Caryl had taken cell phone pictures of all her family members the last time she’d been in the realm. She’d printed them off and stuck them to the refrigerator in her suite. Colin would certainly have a proper introduction with the man soon enough.

  “She’s stubborn,” Ethan said to Colin. “Why don’t you go on ahead, Katie?”

  Katie shook her head. “I’ll get out. Don’t worry about me.”

  “How did you get in in the first place? No one’s been able to make any new portals in or out in weeks.”

  She smoothed her bright red hair over her ears and then clasped her hands in front of her belly. “Rhiannon has never been much of a forward thinker. When she puts obstacles in place, far too often she works alone or has one person do the job for her. She doesn’t know what teamwork means—she doesn’t understand that there’s strength in numbers. I couldn’t make a new portal on my own, and neither could Simone.”

  “But together…” Dasha said.

  “With some help from Heath. He gave Simone all the energy he had to spare, and that made the difference. His magic made me being here possible.”

  Ethan let out a ragged breath and shifted his sword to his other hand. He had to know what it meant for Heath to have transferred so much of his energy to his wife. The prince was going to be out cold for days, and if they were going to have to wage a battle, they’d be down one of their best fighters.

  “I can’t fault the prince for his choice,” Ethan said, as if he knew precisely what Dasha was thinking. “I might have done the same thing.”

  “Where’s Simone?” Dasha asked.

  “On the other end.” Katie waved another fairy toward the swirling white mist. “She wanted so badly to come, but I made her see reason. She was far too weak. I pray I…never have to pull so much from my child like that again.” She grimaced and stared into the tunnel. “Feels bloody awful. I hope you’ll never have to do anything like it.”

  Dasha gave her shoulder a squeeze. “She’ll forgive you.”

  “She’s forgiven me for so much already. Perhaps for too much.”

  The last of the men went through, and both Ethans, Katie, and Mielikki all turned to Dasha again.

  Swallowing, she shifted her weight and pled to Mielikki with her gaze, but Mielikki wasn’t looking. Mielikki was staring out across the field at something in the distance.

  Dasha turned, as did the rest of the entourage.

  The hoard in the distance was unmoving, but they certainly saw Dasha and the rest as well as they could see them.

  “She knew there’d be a way out here,” Ethan said.

  Ethan nudged Dasha toward the portal.

  “Stop!” she snapped.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “If I shouldn’t, neither should you.”

  Ethan shook his head. “In spite of the way I feel about Rhiannon, I’m sworn to protect the people in this realm, and there are thousands here who still need rescue. At the very least, they need to know what’s happening to the realm so that if they can’t get out, they can make their peace with the impending collapse.”

  She looked to Ethan Senior for support, but his attention was locked on the encroaching hoard coming from the palace portal and the blonde running out ahead of them.

  The blonde was Laurel, and though she might have peppy and enthusiastic about her mission before, as she ran over, she was wide-eyed and absolutely panic-stricken.

  “What happened?” Colin grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a slight shake.

  “She told me ‘run or die.’ She knew there’d be a portal. She’s coming.”

  “Yes,” Katie said quietly. “We can see that.”

  She straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and walked with resolve toward Rhiannon.

  Dasha moved to pull her back, but Ethan Senior—having shifted in the shape of a great bear—got in Dasha’s way and gnashed his teeth at her.

  She stumbled back onto her ass and quickly scrambled back to her feet, only to find that Ethan had had shifted, too, and she’d missed the transformation.

  She’d never seen him like that. Massive, and snarling, and…terrible.

  He pressed his nose to her belly and kept her moving back.

  “Ethan, wait.”

  Colin gave Laurel a push through the portal and then followed Katie.

  Ethan put his head down and rammed Dasha toward the mist.

  “You can’t stay here! Don’t send me back through there alone. Please.”

  Another push.

  “Are you even understanding me?”

  He likely understood her just fine. He rammed her again, and she fell more than backed into the portal, and then the light went away.

  “Ethan!”

  The exit was gone.

  He was gone.

  “Ethan.
” She pressed her hands into the cool mist beneath her and rocked herself onto her feet. “Goddamn him.”

  “Brr! Cold in here,” came Laurel’s voice from somewhere in the distance.

  It was cold. Dasha chafed her arms and then got slowly to her feet. “Stupid man. Why would he do that?”

  What the hell am I going to do with a couple of fairy kids if he doesn’t come back out of the realm?

  She scoffed and nudged her purse strap higher up her shoulder. “Survive as always. Just sadder and more pissed.”

  She moved in the direction of Laurel’s voice and hoped the man knew what he was doing, because Dasha certainly didn’t.

  Please come soon. We haven’t had our shot yet, and that’s all my fault.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “So this is what he felt like, huh?” Dasha huddled on the sofa under a couple of blankets in the innkeeper’s cottage and watched Simone’s expression devolve from its usual neutral blank to a grimace.

  Dasha had been back at Hearth Motel for three days, and they’d yet to hear a peep about Ethan and the others. When Laurel had volunteered to go fetch word, no one had tried to stop her from leaving. Her frenetic energy had everyone on edge, and Dasha preferred for the fish lady to find and nag the hell out of Ethan than for her to be sitting around lovesick and pathetic.

  Even Hestia had taken pity on Laurel, and had somehow mustered up the right kind of magic to send her back into the realm.

  Dasha had been trying to keep her worries to herself seeing as how she wasn’t the only person with a loved one at stake, but she couldn’t hold the anxiety inside anymore.

  “I know you’re scared,” Simone said. “And nervous and perhaps even lonely, even with me sitting here. So, yeah. That’s what he felt like in all that time he was waiting for you. I know because that’s how I feel every time Heath is away for too long, and the feeling doesn’t go away when he calls to check in. I don’t stop feeling like that until I can see him in the flesh.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  Simone shrugged. “When I feel like that, the best plan is to stay busy, and there’s always plenty to around here. Lots of planning and organizing.”

  “Lots of laundry.”

  Simone giggled quietly. “Yeah. Always a lot of that.”

  Dasha forced out a breath and rubbed her sour stomach. “I guess I could take Moira to meet my folks and explain all this fairy shit to them. That way if Ethan ever comes back, some of their shock would have already worn off.”

  “Yeah. Wouldn’t hurt. I’ll go with you, if you want. Maybe they’ll feel better knowing I’m a fairy.”

  “Probably. They know you and trust you.”

  “Let me just check on Heath, and then we can go.”

  Heath still hadn’t waked from the energy transfer he’d made to Katie, but at least he was moving in his sleep. Simone claimed that was a good sign and that soon, he’d be able to open his eyes and ask for some food or to be fucked or something. He’d pull a little energy off Simone and get the rest of what he needed from the sun and the air over the course of a few days. He’d be good as new, but no one in the crew particularly relished the idea that he was so vulnerable for the time being.

  Dasha fought her way out of her blanket pile, grabbed her purse from the floor, and then padded out the door.

  Although Ari and Owen had opted to stay at the North Pole until they could figure out their next move, Moira had traveled down to the beach with Dasha, thinking the Ethans would likely go there first should they emerge from the realm. They kept convincing each other they’d be out soon, and Moira kept talking to her husband’s sword, but he never talked back.

  Simone had put her into one of the newly painted and furnished suites. She should have been very comfortable there, but almost every time Dasha stepped into the suite, the woman was perched stiffly on the edge of the sofa staring at nothing. Dasha had tried to show her how to work the television and other cool gadgets in the very modern space, and Moira had nodded and thanked her, only to go right back to staring.

  She had to have been feeling exponentially worse than Dasha. Moira had been with her husband since the Middle Ages. Of course, she had to be feeling his absence keenly.

  Before Dasha could make her way to the stairs, however, she was rendered frozen in the courtyard by the distant sight of a familiar black-haired demigod rising nude from the ocean, pulling an equally bare Laurel behind him.

  “What the hell?”

  Dasha grabbed a couple of pool towels from the rack and hurried out onto the sand, looking both ways, and relieved that there was no one nearby on the beach. The aggressive and noisy construction at The Hearth was likely deterring most people from getting too close.

  “Colin!” she called as her bare feet pelted the soft sand.

  “Hell of a swim,” he called back. “Got dropped into the middle of the fuckin’ ocean,” he said breathily. “Where are the rest?”

  Dasha handed Laurel—who looked a bit blue and was shivering violently—a towel, and furrowed her brow. “What do you mean, where are they? And who?”

  “The Gotches. Katie.”

  “They’re not here.”

  Colin rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and swayed a bit. “Fuck. Got separated. I figured we’d all get dropped in the same place, but I realized that wasn’t the case when I swam up to the surface and saw only Laurel in the water with me. We got dropped from a portal about thirty miles off the coast here.”

  “Dropped by whom? Mielikki?”

  “No. My father. I assumed he’d grabbed all of us, but I could have been wrong. Things were so chaotic when he scooped us up. Someone else may have transported the others out. The realm is a fuckin’ mess right now.”

  “How so?”

  Colin sucked in a breath and shifted his weight. “That’s…a long story. Did what was necessary to keep Rhiannon inside for the time being. Listen, I don’t mean to put you off, but I haven’t had more than two hours of sleep at a time in three days, and I’m going to keel over soon. You mind if I share later?”

  Dasha cringed and put up her hands. “Fine. I’m sorry, I’m just—”

  “He’s fine,” Colin said. “I have no bloody idea where he is, but I’d bet good money—if I had any—that he’s on the way here now.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Dasha forced a swallow down her parched throat and moved her gaze to Laurel. Still blue, still shivering.

  “D-d-do you have a b-b-bed for me? A warm t-tub?”

  Dasha looked to Colin, who leaned in and whispered, “She’s clearheaded for the first time in probably forty years. Don’t worry about a recurrence. I fixed her for good. You owe me for that, friend.”

  Whatever the cost of the service, she’d find a way to pay it…or make Ethan.

  Dasha canted her head toward the motel and tried to put on a smile for the trembling waif. “I think we can find something for you. The motel’s light on guests right now.”

  Laurel nodded and started across the strip of sand.

  When she was out of earshot, Colin leaned in again and whispered, “She had a complete meltdown yesterday, and I had to drop everything and get in her head to get her to stop shrieking. I think the trauma finally caught up to her. Mermaid mood crashes are fuckin’ awful.”

  “So, she doesn’t know anything?”

  “Well, she knows who she is, but nothing about ever being with Ethan or of ever giving you a hard time.”

  “I’m glad she’s okay. I won’t say anything if you won’t.”

  “My lips are zipped,” Colin said. “Did everyone make their way safely to King Nicholas’s?”

  “Yeah. They’re all accounted for at King Nick’s. We hope to start processing some of them out soon to other places. It’s going to get crowded there soon. They can expand the castle a little, but not as fast as we might need them to.”

  “Everyone should start giving some serious thought to where they’re going to go. We tried to get word out the b
est we could, but there are going to be a lot of people popping up who don’t know anything about the modern world, and they could get themselves into some real trouble if we don’t catch up to them and get them squared away quickly.”

  “How would we even know where to look?”

  “Leave that to the crew. Heath and the gang have been rounding up fugitive fairies for decades. Now they’ll just be looking for folks who aren’t running, but who are simply lost.”

  Dasha nodded. “I’d better go tell Simone we need to delay our trip to my parents’ house.”

  “Probably for the best if everyone stays put for the time being.”

  Dasha wanted to be there when Ethan got back. She wanted the first thing he saw when he stepped foot into the decimated Hearth parking lot was her smiling face.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t what he got. When he finally made his way to The Hearth, she was sitting behind the desk in the office. Sleeping the slumber of the absolutely pregnant, actually. Her head was down beside the keyboard, and she opened her eyes and felt the drool pooled beneath her cheek.

  And Ethan, with his arms folded atop the counter, stared down at her.

  “Sweeting,” he said.

  “Shit.” She swiped her sleeve across her cheek and pushed back the chair.

  She didn’t see him move, but he must have, because he grabbed her in his arms and held her tight against him.

  He didn’t say anything. He just held her for a long while, breathing into her hair and occasionally pulsing his arms more tightly around her.

  And that was fine for her. Perhaps her body was convinced he was back, but her brain was still trying to catch up. She couldn’t quite believe he was there. Couldn’t believe he’d sent her away, knowing how being away from him would tear her up on the inside.

  Growling, she kicked his shin.

  “Ow!” He set her down and bent to rub his hurt leg. “What was that for?”

  She scowled at him and crossed her arms over her chest. “You sent me away.”

  “I didn’t see where I had a choice.”

  “Do you know what you did to me?”

  “Of course I do! What I did to you I was doing to myself. I didn’t have many good choices, and I would have had you safe here and angry with me than in a place where magic rules and you had no good defenses. I wouldn’t risk my wife and children to a place where you didn’t belong.”