by Amy Sumida
“Then why are we even talking about this?”
“Because I want to know what I'm walking into,” I said as if it should be obvious. “I don't want to stride into this woman's den of inequity unprepared and watch her saunter up to you and lay a wet one on you.”
“But you can deal with that if you are prepared?” Daxon smirked.
“Yes; I can,” I huffed.
His smirk disappeared.
“I thought I meant something to you?” Daxon snarled.
“Hold on; now you're jealous?” I blinked in surprise.
“No; just hurt,” Daxon shoved the words out between his clenched teeth. His chest was rising and falling in angry bursts.
“Because I can handle seeing a woman kiss you if I'm prepared for it?” I asked with shocked disbelief.
“Yes!” He snarled. “Because if you can handle it—prepared or not—then I don't mean anything to you.”
“You do mean something to me,” I snapped. “But I would never hold you accountable for something done to you, without your consent. So, if you tell me now that you don't have feelings for her, I know that no matter what she pulls with you, it won't mean anything; to you. That's why I can handle it.”
“But if I do have feelings for her?” Daxon whispered; all of his anger instantly gone.
“Then I will need to be prepared for a fight,” I growled as I grabbed him by his belt and yanked him to me. I lifted my face to his to say, “Because I'm not going to let some underground strangler take my man.”
Daxon inhaled sharply and bracketed my face with his hands. His fingers threaded through my hair as he angled me into his kiss. My hands slid up his back and then clutched at his shoulders as Daxon growled into my mouth. Heat rose between us, along with his manhood, and I ground myself against both. Daxon's hands slid down to circle my waist, and he lifted me off my feet as his kiss deepened. He tasted like whiskey and man; a primal fire. Everything else disappeared as the Call of Danu boiled through us, drawing us even closer together.
“I suppose this is what I get for leaving you alone,” Raza drawled.
Daxon and I broke apart, panting and staring at each other in shocked longing. We knew what we had between us, and we could usually deal with it. But it had been a few weeks since we'd kissed, and I could see that Daxon had been affected by our separation as much as I had.
“Raza,” I whispered as I tore my gaze away from Daxon. “I'm so sorry; we didn't mean to.”
“I know, mo shíorghrá,” Raza said gently as he took my hand. “But we need to be careful, especially now. That”—he waved his hand to include both Daxon and me—“cannot happen again until we clear up this mess.”
“Understood.” Daxon cleared his throat. “I will do my best to control my ardor around Her Majesty.”
“Do better, Tromlaighe,” Raza growled. “You're best doesn't seem to be good enough.”
“Raza,” I chided him. “That wasn't fair. It takes two to tango.”
“I know.” Raza leveled his stare at me. “And that's why I'll be watching you myself.”
Raza pulled me out of the house, away from a forlorn Daxon, as if we were star-crossed, teenage lovers from some Shakespearean play. And damn if my heart didn't ache as if we were.
Just as we reached the door, Daxon called out to me, “Seren!”
I turned back.
“I don't have feelings for her.”
Chapter Eight
I had envisioned what No Dice—Sileas' gambling den—would be like on the long walk there. After experiencing the leaning Tower of Silver with its magicpunk decor, I had imagined something that might have been found in the Wild West; one of those saloons with women in red satin and black fringe and card tables covered in worn green felt—perhaps with some magical enhancements. I couldn't have been more wrong.
No Dice was in the classier section of the Underground. This was evidenced by the cleaner streets and homes (and people), and the fact that no one went running when they saw us. Passerby nodded respectfully, some even daring to offer a greeting to us royals; but always—always—they would give Daxon his due first. Raza and I may rule kingdoms in FR, but that didn't matter as much to these fairies. There was no question who ran the Underground, or the amount of power he wielded over its inhabitants. Men lowered their gazes and nodded while women stared longingly, but everyone treated Daxon like a king.
After seeing the way the people respected, feared, and even loved Daxon, I was a little shocked that anyone would oppose him. But then again, Tiernan and I had fairies rebelling in Seelie too. It didn't matter how well you ruled, or even how much you were loved, you can't please everyone. There will always be discontents. How you handled those discontents determined how much respect you were given, and how long you stayed in power.
“What the hell is that?” I asked as we stepped up to a... construction.
“That is No Dice,” Daxon said.
The homes of the Underground were unusual, but the shops were even stranger, and we had to pass through the Underground version of a strip mall to get to No Dice. There were hollowed out tree trunks, anthill-esque adobes, and even a building made of old tires. It was as if human kitsch had combined with fairy design. The shop owners were using every gimmick they could think of to get the customers off the streets and into their shops. One store specialized in creating liquid-environments (their term, not mine) for water fey to put in their homes. A big sign proclaiming: Water Works, was affixed to the glass of a giant aquarium that had a small building perched on top of it. I had peered through the glass in fascination at the shopkeeper who was showing off his underwater displays to some customers while another man greeted more fairies in the building above.
Still, none of the stores had shocked me as much as No Dice. It looked as if a giant had blown a bunch of bubbles and arranged them in an artistic pile. There was one large sphere forming a foundation with several more piled on top precariously. They were translucent with an opalescent sheen, but they were also lined for privacy. Only certain sections were left clear all the way through—serving as windows—while the rest of the structure was lined in white. Nothing seemed to support the frothing framework, and I was having second thoughts about venturing inside.
“It's magically enhanced Plexiglas,” Daxon said as he stared up the mountain of bubbles.
Now that we were closer, I could see tubes connecting some of the spheres, but still; not an inch of rebar in sight. Was the thing held together by Plexiglas alone? Even aquariums had metal reinforcements. They should have got the guys from Water Works to help them build their gambling bubbles.
“It doesn't look very safe,” I noted.
“It looks ridiculous,” Raza huffed. “I don't know if I wish to be seen entering such a... dear goddess, I don't even know what to call it.”
“You're welcome to wait outside, Your Majesty,” Daxon said with a smile. “Seren and I can handle this.”
“That's not happening.” Raza wrapped my arm more securely around his. “And you know why, Tromlaighe.”
“As you wish,” Daxon murmured; his gaze falling on my arm, where it was wound with Raza's.
“Raza,” I whispered. “Daxon will need to show strength in there.”
Raza looked down at where I had tapped his arm. “Whether I hold your hand or not, it is likely that this woman will already know that we are married, Seren.”
“I know,” I said, casting a look Daxon's way. “But making a show of it will give her fodder.”
“She's a criminal, correct?” Raza asked. “What do we care what she thinks? We're here to arrest her.”
“We want to do more than arrest her,” I explained. “We need to know if she's the only one selling as well as her reasons for doing so. We need information from her.”
Raza stared at me.
“I'd like for this to go as smoothly as possible,” I added. “This isn't for Daxon; it's for me.”
Raza sighed and mimicked Daxon's earlier statemen
t, “As you wish.”
He let me go with great reluctance.
“I will make this up to you later,” I promised.
“Better than my birthday?”
“Equal to, if not better,” I amended. “Your birthday was... well.” I cleared my throat and looked around self-consciously—there were a lot of interested stares. “Let's just say that all the conditions were right.”
Raza's eyes lit up—literally. “I will hold you to that, mo shíorghrá.”
“I'm sure you will.” I chuckled.
Raza, Daxon, and I stepped up to the rounded, double door entrance of No Dice together; me in between the men. The doors were see-through, and the doormen opened them for us with perfect timing. They were both spriggans; in their tall and slender forms. The spriggans bowed to us as we passed. We didn't make it three steps into the gambling bubble before a djinn approached us. He bowed respectfully to the three of us as a whole and then gave a special nod to Raza. In a way, they were related, though this djinn wasn't from Raza's branch of the family.
“King Daxon,” the djinn said, “welcome back to No Dice. How may we serve you and your illustrious companions today?”
“I need to see Sileas,” Daxon said.
“The lady is... indisposed,” the djinn evaded.
“Interrupt her activities and tell her I'm here,” Daxon insisted. “Or I will, Wendal.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Wendal bowed. “Would you care to wait in your usual room?”
“That would be fine.” Daxon nodded.
“Travis, see to Their Majesties comfort,” Wendal instructed a goblin with grayish-red skin and bulging eyes.
“Yes, sir!” Travis the goblin stepped forward as Wendal hurried away. “This way, Your Majesties.”
Travis led us deeper into the bubble, past glass gaming tables where glamorous fairies, dressed in gowns and suits, played games I didn't recognize. There was a version of cards, but they had strange symbols on them instead of numbers, and the fairies placed bottles, gems, and pouches into the betting pile in the center of the table. And that was the most recognizable game; the rest were far more complicated.
“Would you care to gamble while you wait for the mistress?” Travis asked me as he waved at the tables we passed. “We've got your traditional card games like Beese and Trackit, but we also have some more hands-on entertainment like this here game, called Fetch.”
Travis stopped near a table that was more of a basin. It was a long trench of glass, perhaps a foot deep, filled with water and set on four legs. Sinuous creatures swam through the basin, their scales glistening violet and green in the soft, underwater lights. The fairies around the edges of the table held golden cords with loops on the ends, which they tried to lasso the creatures with. There was a lot of splashing going on, and several of the players were wearing plastic robes over their clothing, but the fairies loved it; laughing as their prey slipped free of the loops. A burly cu-sidhe oversaw it all, collecting bets, distributing winnings, and replacing any caught creatures back into the water.
“No, thank you,” I said to Travis.
“No? How about betting on the antwigg races?” He pointed into another room. “It's very exciting, Your Majesty, very exciting indeed.”
My gaze followed his motion to another table with lanes of racing track marked down its length in gold lines. Shrieking reptiles the size of ferrets ran within the lines while fairies shrieked even louder, urging the reptiles—the antwiggs—on.
“Are these creatures being treated humanely?” I asked Travis with a glare.
“Humanely?” Travis gasped. “We would never be so cruel to our employees. No, Your Majesty, we treat them very respectfully. They are well fed and pampered in exchange for their service. They don't even try to escape.”
I blinked in surprise, not sure what to say to that, while Raza laughed.
“If you don't wish to play the living games, perhaps the Shadahn?” Travis offered as he led us further into No Dice.
“No,” Daxon growled low.
“But, Your Majesty,” Travis stammered, “it's very popular.” He looked at me again. “Even if you don't win, you win; you see?”
Travis motioned into another spherical room; the last one on the main floor. The interior was darker than the other areas, most likely to showcase the game board. This one had only a narrow table set before a long bank of glass cylinders. Players sat in swanky chairs before the cylinders and inhaled glowing vapor through rubber tubes coming from beneath the table. Once prepped with vapor, the players exhaled into a mouthpiece set at head level before them, which connected to one of the cylinders. The vapor filled the cylinders at different levels, causing some kind of chemical reaction that made them spark, and, in some cases, ignite. There was no shouting or shrieking, not even when the winnings were passed out. The players looked very content to just ease back into their seats after exhaling.
I gave Daxon a confused look.
“You don't want to know,” he said to me. Then Daxon gave Travis a firm stare. “We are not here to gamble, Travis. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Majesty!” Travis hurried off.
He led us to a wooden wall with a single door set into it.
“Your suite, Your Majesty,” the goblin bowed us through the golden door.
Daxon went first, and the rest of us followed. The door didn't open onto a suite at all, but a small space, barely big enough to hold the eight of us. The goblin bowed and pressed a button on the wall outside the room. A door slid shut between us, and the room started moving. The golden walls gave way to transparent ones as it became clear that we were in an elevator. We surged upward through a clear tube, bubbled levels falling away around us, and then slid up into another golden receptacle. The layered doors opened, and Daxon led us out.
We were in one of the bubbles on top of the mound, and the whole front portion was unlined, giving an unimpeded view of the Underground. I went forward across thick, gray carpet, past sleek, white couches, glass tables, and an enormous, round bed to the curving, clear wall. The Underground spread out for miles around us; its strange buildings poking up in spires, towers, and precarious piles like this one. Flashes of magic went off intermittently, looking like fireworks as the sunstrips slowly dimmed. Night was falling above ground, and so it was mirrored down there.
“As you can see; human culture has influenced the Fey on Earth,” Daxon noted as he joined me. “There is a clear separation between classes here.”
“There are social classes in Fairy,” I protested. “I mean; hello.” I waved to myself.
“Not like this,” Raza said as he stepped up to my open side. “Tromlaighe is right; this hierarchy is about wealth, not nobility. In Fairy, people aren't divided by how much money they have. That's a human quirk.”
“Power is different here.” Daxon shrugged. “It's one of the major things we must acclimate to. In Fairy, the most magical are revered. In the Human Realm, it's the most wealthy. But in our Underground, you must have both to live at the top: magic and money.”
“That must make things difficult,” I mused.
“At least we're not subjected to the whims of a king or queen,” a feminine voice came from behind us. “Oh, wait; we are. I've just been summoned in my own house.”
Daxon rolled his eyes at me before he turned around. “Hello, Sileas.”
“Hello, King Daxon,” Sileas said pointedly. “It's been awhile since I've had the pleasure of your company. To what do I owe this great honor?”
Sileas was a willowy woman, as most sidhe were, with the midnight skin of an unseelie in a shade lighter than Raza's, and creamy jade hair that looked nearly white against her skin. Her eyes were a much deeper shade of green, and they focused on me with clear hatred. I can't say that surprised me. Sileas sauntered forward in a slinky silver dress with a deep V that clung to her pointy nipples like they were all that was holding it up. The men tensed as she approached, probably a subconscious move; the woman exude
d a dangerous appeal.
“Your Majesties; Raza and Seren of Unseelie, this is Sileas Trachd,” Daxon introduced us.
“Yes, I know who they are, Daxon,” Sileas murmured as she stopped directly in front of Raza. “And I'm thrilled that you've brought them to me. Well”—she glanced at me—“at least one of them. King Raza, it's an honor to meet you. What you have done for Unseelie is miraculous.”
Sileas extended her hand and dropped into a deep curtsy that showed Raza all she had to offer. No exaggeration; her dress dipped forward, and we could see all the way down to her lady bits.
Raza took Sileas' hand, shot me an amused glance, and kissed her fingers. “My lady,” his voice dropped to a low rumble. “You have the silliest, and yet somehow the most lovely, establishment I've seen in a long time.”
Sileas giggled as she straightened and fluttered her eyes at Raza. “Your Majesty, you're far more charming than the rumors say you are.”
I glanced over at Daxon and shared a wide-eyed look full of laughter. When I glanced over at the Elite, I found matching expressions on their faces. This was not what any of us had expected.
“I hope you continue to think so highly of me after we question your involvement with magic-dealing in the upper world,” Raza said smoothly.
Sileas stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
“The information was given to us under a star-crossing,” Raza narrowed his eyes on Sileas. “Do not dissemble with me, Ms. Trachd. I have no patience for liars.”
“What trouble have you brought me now, Daxon?” Sileas hissed.
“Only that of your own making,” Daxon said and then hardened his voice. “And it's King Daxon to you, traitor.”
“I never betrayed you.” Sileas held an affronted hand to her chest. “Whoever told you that I have, is lying. I don't care if they said it under a star-crossing. I have done nothing wrong.”
“I would have been inclined to believe you if you hadn't gone after King Raza as soon as you spotted him,” Daxon said. “But you zeroed in on the one man with enough power to protect you from me, and you made a play for him. That, more than anything else, tells me you're guilty.”
