by Mel Sterling
Thomas leaned down, not really knowing he was going to kiss her until suddenly that peony mouth was beneath his, and her words had stopped, and her eyes flared wide and then fluttered closed.
Her lips burned in a way the Queen's shackle never would. A sweet fire, electric, without the thistly prickle of the bone and gold on his arm. The skin hunger surged even more powerfully than it had when Tess first touched him last week. How long had it been since he'd kissed a woman, someone not fae...someone not the Queen? Decades.
It was Tess who closed the gap between them, taking a step toward him. Her face tilted. Her mouth pressed his firmly, and when he reflexively put a hand at her back to steady them both, he felt her lips part under the pressure of his own.
She was sweet and salty together. As he tasted her, tongue sweeping slowly between her lips, his fingers slipped the thimble into a pocket of his oilskin. Her hands came up and clutched at his lapels. He cupped the side of her neck and jaw in his empty palm, his thumb on the pulse beneath her ear, where he could feel the blood throb past in a quickening tidal rhythm. Her breath hitched in a gasp and he caught her even closer.
His fae nature flared for a moment at the taste of her, but it was his human side that swamped his iron control. Her hair caught between his fingers as he kissed her ever more deeply. He had to lock his knees when her arms went up around his neck. She was lithe and lissome, swaying with him as he swayed, both of them blind to their surroundings. Portland and Underbridge and his dread for her sake all swept away. There was only the places where they touched, skin sharing warmth and the wonder of what it meant to be human again, to live and want as humans did.
It was the overpowering urge to whisper Tess's truename as his lips grazed along her jawline that finally pried him loose. He needed all the control he had, bolstered by the increasing sting of the band, to lift his head and step back. She gazed at him, speechless, eyes dazed and dark.
"I won't apologize, because I've wanted to do that since we met, but I've got to go, and I didn't want you to think I was rejecting you, when it's my own forgetfulness that's the problem."
Tess's fingertips came up and touched her mouth, and Thomas swallowed hard. "I'll see you soon. Remember to be careful."
He turned on his heel, almost running.
At the next corner, Thomas looked back over his shoulder. She was still standing under the streetlight, fingers to her lips, watching him hurry away.
He wondered how long it would be before she noticed he hadn't returned the thimble. He melted into the shadows out of sight, let the trow-form with all its strength and speed and magic surface, and raced to Forest Park.
The Queen was in a rage. To a casual observer, she might have appeared coolly aloof. But Thomas knew the signs, the little tell beside her eyes where a flicker came and went in rhythm with the fist that clenched, hidden by the cobweb drape of her sleeve.
"You touched one of my things, Thomas."
"I did, my Lady."
"You moved it."
"I did, my Lady."
"You moved it, when you knew it was mine. You must have known I would discover you, bound as you are to me."
"I did, my Lady." He stood, the trow-form uppermost, legs apart, head bowed, hand out, thimble rocking in his palm with his pounding heartbeat. He had every expectation she would kill him without a single qualm or warning. "I have it here, safe."
"Why did you touch it?"
"A human had hold of it. I took it back."
The Queen hissed, and her pupils slitted to a snake's. "You have caught the thief! Did you kill him?"
"I did not catch the thief, my Lady. Merely someone who stumbled upon its hiding place by accident. I saw it happen."
The Queen stepped down from her bristly throne, her eyes on the slow-quaking thimble. Thomas flicked a glance at her countenance and saw that he would not die tonight. Now if only he could distract her from questioning too closely about Tess. Thomas could not lie to the Queen, but like any fae he wouldn't necessarily give the whole truth. It was a neat trick he had learned over the centuries, dissembling. It was what passed for courtesy and social lubrication among the fae. The fae of the Unseelie court were masters of it, though every fae Thomas had met seemed to possess the skill to some degree.
I find the oddest, most interesting things down here.
Tess's words kept echoing in his ears.
He told himself that didn't mean she was the thief, but the pit of his stomach lurched each time he visualized Tess kneeling by the lamppost, the thimble in her hand. But what if she was? How could he keep her safe from the Queen's anger? He had to find a way. It was a good thing the Queen couldn't read his thoughts, but he'd have to guard carefully against revealing his suspicions. He didn't want to examine his motives for protecting Tess too closely. He preferred to put it all down to an evening spent drinking lattes with a kind, friendly woman, assuaging his longing for human contact. Not the kisses, or the concern for her well-being that he was rapidly beginning to feel.
"Shall I put it back for you, my Lady?"
The Queen pursed her lips and lifted the thimble from Thomas's palm. "I will give it thought, but no, not at the moment. I'll keep this with me for a time." The glowing thing vanished into the folds of her skirt. She trailed a tender hand down Thomas's cheek. "You have done well." Her hand cupped his jaw, then his throat.
At her touch, his human form surged outward, pushing aside the trow in an instant. She had always preferred to look at his humanity, though she both tempted and punished him with the trow's abilities and appearance. He could feel her long, curved nails lingering where his pulse beat in the hollow of his collarbone. She held his eyes with hers and drew her nails—bird claws, owl talons, cat claws, the ragged nails of a crone—down his shirt, slicing it open from neckband to belt. She put her hand beneath the jersey fabric and used her claws around the nipple closest to his heart.
Thomas's body betrayed him, reacting with the same mix of fear, loathing and impossible desire the Queen always roused in him. She was a horror, a painful ecstasy, a bitterly intoxicating drink. And when she tugged at his belt and led him to her couch of thistledown, he went.
"Pleasure me, Thomas," she whispered, her face shifting between the beautiful, luminous young woman who had led Tess's friend away at the riverbank, and the nightmare of fury that was her normal face. "Please me well enough, and in return..." Her owl's talon lingered on the bone and gold band. "One strand will part."
"Two, my Lady." Thomas followed her down onto the deeply cushioned surface, his knee between her legs, pressing upward in a way he knew she liked. "One for services already rendered in returning your possession, and one for services about to be rendered." It was only at times like this, when she was indolent and distracted, that he could bend her will.
"Ah, my beautiful boy." She stroked his cheek, then reached into his trousers and took hold of him. "Drive your bargain...this hard bargain of yours..." She gave him a wicked squeeze, and laughed when he gasped. "And then perhaps we will see."
The world turned red, and though he was choked with pleasure and bleeding from the scrapes on his back, it was ordinary brown human eyes that swam before him. Only fear made him remember to call out his Queen's name.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"WERE YOU ABLE TO FIND the knick knack Rory Morris pocketed the other morning?" Seated at her office desk, Tess spoke into the phone.
"No, Ms. Gordon." The day-room attendant's voice seemed certain and a bit annoyed that she was still harping on the issue.
"But it must be there. I have no idea what he did with it, but it's got to be there. I don't know what's in it, and I'm concerned it could do him, or another resident, harm."
"Oh, but there's been a tremendous improvement in patient Morris. I'm not at liberty to give you details over the telephone, but he's had a breakthrough."
"A breakthrough? What?"
"Like I said, I'm not at liberty—"
"I know, I know—federal law prohibits you, and I'm not
his physician." Tess sighed in irritation.
"Sorry," the attendant said. Then he laughed. "Maybe your knick knack was magic."
"Ha," said Tess. "Well, thank you, I guess, and please let me know if you find the thing." She hung up and stared at the telephone. Rory, a breakthrough? She wondered what that meant. She thought she'd glimpsed a moment or two of clarity, but since she had only observed him through their counseling sessions, and not during his hospitalization, she didn't have a good behavioral benchmark against which to compare.
Maybe the damage the drug had done wasn't permanent. Maybe there was hope, hope for Aaron, hope for the other young men who'd been in her care, and for the unknown others whose families didn't have the money to spend on private rehabilitation. Rory had been at Ridge Manor for nearly six months. A former client, Anthony Sparks, had been hospitalized elsewhere for even longer, but for the last month she had not checked on his progress. He was no longer the responsibility of the rehab center.
It ate at her, gnawing like a rat at a wall that separated it from food, to have failed so utterly. The center had come too late to cases like Rory and Anthony, but Tess couldn't help feeling she still had a chance with Aaron. He was still walking, thinking, experiencing the world. Whereas Rory and Anthony were locked away in their own minds, to say nothing of the hospitals. They were silent, distant, not present in their own lives. No longer taking the drugs, whatever they were, but not able to return from those personal nightmares. What kind of drug could do such damage?
Tess fished in her locked file cabinet for Anthony's folder, then hastened back to her desk to make another telephone call.
Fifteen minutes later, she was no closer to solving the mystery of Rory's breakthrough. Anthony's condition had not changed in months.
She doodled on her notepad, listing the names of the young men with Aaron's symptoms who'd come through the rehabilitation center. There seemed to be no link between them except their rapid declines, the delusion that they were elves or sprites or other magical creatures, and the unresponsive state their addiction ended in. She knew of no common schools, friends, jobs, interests or neighborhoods.
But something had to be at the root of the evil. A point where all of them touched. She couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with the people under the Burnside Bridge.
She tore off the doodles and wrote Aaron's name at the top of a fresh page. She underscored it twice, as though the bold strokes would summon a solution. Then she listed everything she knew about his condition, including the confusing mentions of the lady and a brief description of the girl he'd met along the river in Waterfront Park. She also listed the young man who'd offered to chat with her—the one Thomas had driven away.
Which brought her to the topic that hadn't been far from her mind since the night before—Thomas's kiss.
It had left Tess bemused and pleasantly shaken, warm with arousal. She hadn't expected the kissing, but it hadn't been unwelcome, even though it was only their second meeting. Her lips parted even now with the memory.
What a long time it had been since she met a man whose company she enjoyed and whose touch didn't make her wary. Their encounters had been unconventional, but she looked forward to their coffee and dinner Friday night.
Thinking back over those few minutes together, she remembered the green glass thimble and wondered what Thomas had done with it. He had probably forgotten he had it, given their embrace and his sudden departure. She'd have to ask.
Tess shook her head to get herself back on track. Aaron, "the lady," the Burnside Bridge. Rory too had reacted to mentions of the lady and the bridge. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered: had Rory met the same woman, perhaps? Or was "the lady" a slang term for a new street drug? Was Aaron's paramour also Aaron's pusher?
She accessed the center's appointment schedule on her computer. Her appointment with Aaron was not until next week, but what if she spoke to him before that, got him to meet her somewhere they could talk in complete privacy? What would he tell her then? Or did she dare follow him a second time, see if he went back to the bridge and met the woman again? Could she even come up with a remotely plausible reason for being where Aaron was, filled with obsessive questions about whom he was seeing, and whether the woman knew Rory or Anthony or any of the names on Tess's notepad? A reason to insert herself into his personal life? Question his girlfriend, demand to know if the woman had introduced Aaron to something devastating?
Tess rubbed her eyebrows, trying to press away the headache that was building as her questions piled up and up.
She knew what her colleagues would say: don't let it get personal. Don't get sucked into their lives, their delusions, their private nightmares. Before she knew it, she'd be trying to do Aaron's thinking for him, trying to shield him from all harm, trying to be his cure instead of helping lead him to it. He had to want to get better for himself. She could not make him do it—he would only backslide.
Like any other addict, her colleagues would remind her.
Aaron had to hit bottom, she could not point to it and say, "There it is. Walk away from it." His family had staged their intervention by bringing him to rehabilitation. And while Aaron claimed to want to get better, he nevertheless insisted he wasn't on drugs, even as he declined week after week.
She couldn't say why it seemed like a personal failure, except that here was a case where nothing had worked, not even for a few days or weeks.
Nothing.
Tess stared at the computer screen, unseeing. She would meet Thomas for their dinner date in just a few days; she held onto that thought like a lifeline. She wasn't Aaron. She still had a life. She simply had to keep it that way. If not for Aaron, she would not have met Thomas. Maybe at their next session she could explain that to Aaron and pull him into reality, get him to confide in her, show him that life mattered more than fantasy, more than drugged dreams. Maybe it wasn't too late.
Her computer beeped for an appointment reminder. With a sigh, Tess cleared away her doodles, turned the leaf on her notepad, and buzzed the front desk to send in her next client, a young woman who'd been very successful losing weight on painkillers. So successful, in fact, that to get more prescriptions, she'd faked being struck by hit-and-run drivers in downtown crosswalks.
Twice.
Everyone's reality was different. If only those realities could also be healthy. Including her own. She bit her lip, then folded her hands and put on a welcoming smile.
The last client departed just after four o'clock. Normally Tess would have spent the remainder of her day with paperwork, but Rory's change in condition was never far from her thoughts. Ridge Manor had visiting hours until dinnertime. If she left now, she'd be able to get in to talk with Rory, see firsthand what had changed in the young man virtually overnight.
Ridge Manor was its usual peaceful self in the late autumn afternoon light. Tess checked in with the nurse at the front desk and was just about to pin on the visitor's badge the nurse handed her, when the woman blinked in surprise at her computer screen.
"Hold on a moment," the nurse said, busily clicking at her keyboard. "Rory Morris, you're sure?"
"Yes."
"It's probably just timing on the paperwork, but I guess nobody let your center know that Mr. Morris's family came to take him home just an hour ago!"
"Home? Today?" Tess repeated, startled.
"Yes."
"So...he's not here."
"No. Did you still want to go back?"
"I..." Tess floundered. Rory, gone home? "I—could I speak to his case manager, please? I'd like to follow up on this personally, not wait for the paperwork to come through. It's quite a surprise."
"A pleasant one. I'll buzz for you. Just a moment." The nurse smiled.
Fifteen minutes later, Tess was back in her Jeep, staring out at the salmon sunset sky. Other than hearing from the case manager that Rory had inexplicably emerged from his catatonia two days before, becoming quite lucid and insistent about conta
cting his family, she had no further information. She felt like she was trembling inside, burning with excitement. The next step was simply to contact Rory at home—tomorrow would be soon enough, but that task had gone straight to the top of her personal calendar—and speak with him and his family. Follow up for the rehab center's records.
Then she would apply what she learned to Aaron's case as soon as possible. It was good to feel hope again.
CHAPTER NINE
THOMAS HAD ALMOST FORGOTTEN WHAT pizza was like. One of those foods he'd never eaten as a human, living before pizza became so popular. He'd tried it off and on in the past few decades, the way he'd tried many things that changed with the times and kept his human side more or less current, always planning for the time when he would be human again and not trow. But of late his trow body had craved the sorts of things Sharpwit cooked. Fae food. Things that spoke of power in the dark, things that haunted, hunted, or hewed to the night.
But here, in this small Italian place Tess had chosen, he was downing slabs of the stuff, greasy with cheese, volcanic with tomato sauce lava, strewn with meat and vegetables. It sat heavy and warm in his belly, a deeply comforting sensation. Tess had matched him slice for slice until the last two on the platter, when she leaned back, her hand upon her stomach, and her smile wry.
"I thought I could do it when we ordered this pie, I really did." She reached out and turned her glass of beer on the tabletop, studying the bubbles that clung in lines and clusters to the glass. "I was starving, but I can't manage another bite. You?"
Thomas grinned. The ballast of the pizza helped anchor his human form uppermost, which was a relief. He might pay the price later for having consumed the cheese and processed flour, but for the moment he was contented, almost blissful. "I think I'm done for as well." He patted his own stomach and could feel the dinner mounding there as if he were a pup, full of milk and meat. "I could really go for a long walk on the beach to help settle this bulge."
"Or maybe through Forest Park. If only it were summer and sunny. This time of year, the trails are slippery. Leaves and rain and mud, mud, mud."
