by Selena Page
"So, next town away?" She glanced over at Jack. "Do you think that's far enough?"
"The far ends of the earth wouldn't be enough. But it'll give me a moment to breathe and to get them off your trail."
"My trail?" She knew it, but she had to ask. "Why are they interested in me at all?"
He sighed. "Because they think you're my consort. Which is ridiculous."
"Ridiculous?" She raised her eyebrows at him. The road was clear. She glanced at him and forced herself to look at the road again. She didn't want to get into a crash over this jerk. "What's so special about you that it's ridiculous I could be your consort?"
"What, do you want to now? Because twenty minutes ago you didn't want anything to do with me."
"That's not it!" Was he always this annoying, or was he bringing it out especially for her? She stole another glance. There were burns on his jeans and leather jacket, and a smell of greenery was interfering with his usual scent. "It's just, why am I such a ridiculous choice?"
"A small town librarian?" he scoffed.
"Archivist," she couldn't help but correct him.
"Either way. Small town girl who happens to smell nice. No. That's not what I need. I need someone like A.B., who has wealth and power and--"
"And beauty. Yeah, you said." Why was she jealous of a probably-centuries-old stranger? He was right; it wasn't as though she wanted him.
"What?" He was eyeing her sidelong.
"Well," she hedged, "it sounds like you're describing Princess Charming the Dream Woman."
She barely caught the edge of his grin, but it was enough to set her teeth on edge.
"That's about right," he agreed. "I mean, A.B. isn't technically a princess, but she's close enough, considering her power, that . . . well, look. I need to find someone like her, preferably her, and I need to do it fast."
"Before the palace guard catches up with you."
"Before they drag me back to Their Majesties, at least. Once I'm back in New York City, it'll be way too late."
"You seem in a pretty good mood for someone running away from, what, they're not witches. They're not lycanthropes."
"How do you know that?"
"Let's just say I know where the local lycanthrope monarchs are."
His eyes narrowed, and he muttered under his breath for a few minutes. Then his eyes glowed white, and the car grew colder.
Amber didn't think he was attacking her, but she slowed the car and glanced over at him. "That's not exactly reassuring."
"You're not a lycanthrope," he told her.
"I didn't say I was. You're not, either."
He smiled without humor. "I didn't say I was."
"Not with magic like that." She gestured vaguely since he wasn't doing anything magical. "Oh, I grabbed the scrapbooks with your A.B. in them; they're in my bag. So we can do a little better than just 'probably north,' once we get a chance to stop."
"What are you?"
Amber pretended she didn't understand the question. "An archivist?"
"An archivist that happens to know where the local lycanthrope monarchs are?" He put air quotes around her words. He seemed decidedly unhappy with the world, or at least with her, which wasn't fair all things considered.
"I'm a very thorough archivist. There's no point in filing something under coyote attack when you know for certain the local cougar-shifter population has been having parties for their new year. So it helps to know when their new year is." She wrinkled her nose. "Even if that means talking to obnoxious people. Feline shifters are the worst."
"You smell like a bucket of raw power, you know when the cougar-shifter New Year is, and you don't want anything to do with me. What are you? Who are you?"
He could tell she had power, and he wanted to know who she was. Amber hedged. "I'm an archivist. Sometimes book-restorer." Amber pressed her foot harder on the gas pedal. "I like antique stores and estate sales and the lost sections of big libraries, and I like tracking down local history. And that is all I am. I am also stupid because I am driving you away from the pleasant law enforcement people who came to get you, whom you assaulted."
"They're not law enforcement. That's thinking like a human."
"So what do you think like?" She wondered if he was worked up enough to take the bait. She wondered if he'd figured out that she knew what he was already.
"Asks the woman who talks casually about cougar-shapeshifters?"
"Yeah, that would be me asking. I know quite a few things. It comes with being an archivist."
"The scent that comes off of you doesn't come from old papers and older knowledge. You smell like power," he insisted.
Amber sighed loudly. She was going too fast down Route 96, and she knew it, but she was too agitated to slow down. "Look. I live in a small town where nothing annoying ever happens. I have a nice, tame life. I like my life. I like reading about coyote attacks and knowing they're probably were-cougar celebrations from a safe distance. I like having a boring apartment with no iron over the door and no rue and wolfsbane in the spice cabinet, OK? I like being normal."
"Normal people don't know about were-cougars." He had to point that out. Of course he did.
She sighed again. She made herself take a couple of level breaths and lifted her foot off the accelerator, letting the car slow to a reasonable speed. "Look. Can you just accept that I want to be normal?"
"Not when you smell like bait for every mage and werewolf, vampire and . . . and were-cougar out there. You smell like a seven-course meal."
"You're so flattering," she cut him off. It wasn't like she hadn't heard this sort of thing before. "I bet you're a lovely date."
"I wouldn't know." He twitched his shoulders. "I'm not the sort of man that women usually date."
"I have a hard time believing that." And not just because he smelled like an all-you-can-eat buffet of sexiness.
"Yeah, well, what do you know? You're an archivist."
"Yes, I am. And you're fae. High Court of New York City, I'm guessing. Can we stop arguing about this now?" She glanced in the rearview. "I half-expected police on the road by now. Or those guards. You didn't kill them, did you?"
"Why? They're not your people." He didn't deny being fae, she noticed, or that he was High Court.
"How would you know what my people are?" She pursed her lips. "They're people."
"Most humans who know about the supernatural don't think they're human." He sounded like he was fishing.
Amber pulled over to the side of the road. She carefully put the car in park and shifted in her seat so she could give him her best possible stare.
She didn't get to use her stare often, but she had practiced it on her brothers and sisters, on her cousins, and on jerks at school. It was a pretty good stare. And, after a moment, even Jack-who-smelled-of-weirdness-and-power started to squirm.
"What?" He turned so he was looking at her. "We can't wait here for long, you know. Not with the Palace Guard on my tail."
"Our tail. Or I'd just let you out here and see if you could trick a deer into giving you a ride."
"Our tail," he agreed reluctantly. "Why did you stop?"
"Because it's one thing to be cagey and not tell me where you're from or why the guard is on your tail or why them thinking I'm your consort might lead to more trouble. But it's an entirely different kettle of fish to pretend that I'm some moron who didn't see you flinging around magical power as if it were silly string. I might not be some rich, powerful, beautiful woman you're chasing, but I'm not a moron!"
It was his turn to stare at her. Amber shifted. Sure, she'd just yelled at him, but she yelled at lots of people. "You could see that?"
"Well, duh. I mean, it wasn't exactly subtle. And I didn't spend the whole time hiding under a car or screaming with my hands over my eyes."
"No, no. I mean, OK." He smiled ruefully at her. "Lots of women would scream and hide when things got rough, and you went for your car. That was clever."
"Thanks. I mean, I wanted to g
et out of there, too." She wanted to blush and simper like a teenager. She made herself keep staring at him instead. This was ridiculous.
"And I appreciate it. I'd still be fighting those iron-kissers if it wasn't for you."
"Well, they were going after me, too."
"They were." He suddenly sounded serious. "And they won't be kind to you. So we should get going. Once we get to a big enough town, we can split up, and you can double back. Maybe spend a night somewhere else, but that should get them off of your scent." He coughed. "So to speak."
Scent. Amber narrowed her eyes and glared at him. "You're trying to distract me, aren't you?"
"I was succeeding in distracting you. What did I slip up on?"
"'Scent.' Because you smell like a supernatural. And you were talking about my scent, too."
"Oh, for . . . do you always pay this much attention to everything?"
"Archivist, remember?" She smirked at him, and then her smile slid off her face. "Damn, you did it again, didn't you? Do you have a magical power of distraction or are you just really practiced at it?"
He looked startled for a half a second. "Most people don't catch it twice. Now, my mother and older sister, they took three or four times before I could really distract them. But most people, most people don't even catch it once."
"I have brothers," Amber answered dryly. She took a breath. "You're amazingly good at that, but you've still changed the subject three times and the question remains: why would you pretend you weren't flinging around magic when it was obvious to anyone with eyes?"
"The thing is, it isn't." His answer was mournful enough that it might actually be serious. "It's not obvious, it's not even visible to most people."
Amber sighed and resisted the urge to bang her head against the steering wheel. "I'm never going to get away from it, am I?"
"Not if you don't put your foot on the gas and drive again."
"Not them." She gestured back at the rear window. "Not even you. Just . . . magic."
Jack frowned again. "Most people would die for a chance to get their hands on a little bit of magic."
"That's the problem." Amber threw her hands up. "You haven't figured it out by now?"
"Maybe I'm slow."
"I think that goes without saying." She glared at him, and he glared right back. "Here's the problem. I'm not normal. I'd love to be. I'd love to be even close to normal. But that's not an option, is it? Jerks like you just walk into the shop where I'm trying to enjoy some coffee, and what do you do? Sniff me and ruin everything again!"
He was staring at her. Amber shifted around until she was facing the steering wheel and started the car up. "Let's get you to your lovely ancient lady, who is probably also fae, isn't she? That will solve both our problems."
"Hopefully," he muttered. He settled back in his seat as Amber pulled onto the road.
If they were worried about being followed, she should be on the back roads. Luckily, her car had decent suspension. She turned right at the next intersection and bounced the car down a road that had probably been paved at one point, although that was more likely to have been in Jack's A.B.'s lifetime than in Amber's.
Chapter 4
"Why would you want to be normal?"
They'd been bumping down back roads for ten or fifteen minutes, moving through a convoluted path that the Palace Guards might have trouble tracking, especially if her little Japanese car had any iron in it at all. She'd pegged him for fae without batting an eyelash, and continued to complain about being normal, and it was driving him bonkers. "I mean, well, I mean . . . why?"
"Why?" Amber glanced at him. Here in the car, it was even harder to ignore her scent. She smelled like dawn on a wet spring day, bubbling over with possibility. It made him want to ask her to pull the car over right here, right now.
He rolled down the window and took in a few deep breaths. He gave her his best charming smile. "Yeah. Magic is great. Being powerful is great." Sometimes, it wasn't great at all. But that was different than not having it. "Why would you want to be normal?"
"Because I don't have magic. My father does, sure. Sometimes people do in our family. But I'm ordinary, and I'd rather not spend my whole life around people rolling in power and not having it. It's easier to be normal, to hang out with everyday people and enjoy everyday things."
"Like looking at old newspaper clippings from a thousand years ago?"
"Well, that's less non-normal than a lot of things. Like finding out your boyfriend's a werewolf, for instance."
"Oh, some of my best friends are werewolves, but--"
"But it's a bitch when they start getting in dominance wars with your father? Yeah. It wasn't a lot of fun, let me tell you. At least you don't want to date me."
"Look, in my current situation, dating really isn't an option." He wasn't sure he wanted to date her, but he certainly wanted to something her. "Wait, your father stood up to a juvenile werewolf?"
"Well," she smirked at him, "he's an adult werewolf. That helps."
"And you didn't shift?" He eyed her sidelong. It happened. It happened more than half the time when a werewolf or a werewolf's mate managed to carry a child to term. "You had siblings, you said?"
"I told you, we're unusual. My brother shifted. But the rest of us? No. We're Caprices through and through."
Suddenly he understood. "Caprice! Why didn't you say so?"
She shot him an irritated glance, just before she ran over a series of potholes that were nearly as big as the car. "Because when I say something like that to someone like you, I get a reaction like that."
"Why do you keep saying 'someone like me?'" Jack was startled to realize that she pricked his pride. "It's not like you know me. How can you know what I'm like?"
Her frown shifted to an amused smirk. "I thought you were going to say something arrogant and ridiculous like 'there is nobody else like me.'"
"Well, is there?" He couldn't help but grin. "I mean, I've never met anyone like me."
"What, arrogant, pretty, powerful, and dangerous?"
"Pretty? Pretty?" He managed to sound indignant about that one, although he couldn't quite feel it. She thought he was good-looking?
"Handsome," she allowed. "You're quite handsome. It makes you dangerous."
At least she noticed that part. "What I am makes me dangerous. The fact that Palace Guards are chasing me doesn't help matters."
She wrinkled her nose at him as if she'd heard it all a thousand times before. Jack was beginning to think maybe she had. "That's what endangers you. It's what makes you a danger to people around you, maybe. But what makes you dangerous to me is that you're handsome, and you smell like power, and you're charming, in an asshole sort of way."
Jack didn't know whether to be flattered or offended. "So, my best qualities make me a danger?"
"Exactly. Because--" Amber navigated around a turkey in the middle of the road "--if I had any sense at all, I would have left when you were fighting the Palace Guards."
"I think you're quite sensible." Wait, what? Jack twisted his face. "I mean . . ."
"That's the nicest thing anyone like you has ever said to me."
"Would you stop saying that?" He glared at her. "Would you stop pretending I'm just another run-of-the-mill monster?"
"Well, why don't you tell me what makes you so much more special than all the other monsters, then?" He could almost hear her mockery when she said monster. "Because irritating some fae royalty doesn't make you all that unusual, as far as I can tell. I mean, most people who encounter fae royalty end up irritating them one way or another, and that is the sort of thing that makes a good story. So--why aren't you just like the rest?"
She wasn't even looking at him. She was driving, watching the road, not seeming to care about his answer one way or the other. She checked her rearview twice before turning on a blinker and switching lanes in the empty road. Even when she checked her blind spot, her eyes passed him without seeing him. It was maddening.
"Pull over.
"
"What?" Now she looked at him. "The Palace Guard?"
"We have a few minutes. We pulled over for you to yell at me, didn't we?" This was mad. But he was going to do it anyway.
"Yeah, well, I didn't want to hit something."
"You'll want to have your hands free for this, too."
"What?" She frowned.
"You said you wanted to know what made me special, compared to all your other monsters. So pull over and I'll show you." For some reason he was nervous. This was ridiculous. This whole idea is ridiculous. But he was committed now.
Amber frowned. "All right, I'm pulling over. But this had better be good."
"Trust me, it will be." He hoped. This girl had him second-guessing simple, basic things about himself.
She grumbled as she brought the car to a halt and put it in park, then grumbled more as she took her seatbelt off and turned to look at him. "Well?"
She'd picked a nice spot in the shade of an old maple tree, between a field full of wheat and a field full of corn. There was nobody else on the road, and the sky over her shoulder was a perfect shade of blue.
Jack took his seatbelt off and leaned over, glad she drove an automatic. He moved quickly, putting a hand on the middle of her back and pushing her toward him while he leaned in.
She had room to stop him if she wanted to. She didn't. A small noise escaped her, which only made him pull her closer. Her scent filled his nose and stroked his soft palate with the mixed taste of vanilla and flowers. The noises she made sounded like a summertime melody. He kissed her, lightly at first and then, when she didn't pull away, with more eagerness. She tasted like heaven.
When he finally pulled back a few inches, her eyes were closed. She opened them slowly.
"Damn it," she muttered, and then, with what seemed like a bit of reluctance, she smiled. "That was . . . that was nice."
That was pretty dull praise.
He held his breath, and after two beats' silence, she spoke again.
"You are certainly . . ." She swallowed and licked her lips. "You're something else." She leaned in and kissed Jack back.
