by Kate Pearce
“You’re hiding from me. That’s not good.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to pull my thoughts together.” It’d been hard before, and still was, but for different reasons now. The full barrage of the Afótama web hadn’t hit her. Fuck, here it was.
She screwed her eyes shut and concentrated on pushing the buzz to the back of her head like Ótama said.
It wasn’t working. She could still hear the discordant, wordless chatter of too many people speaking all at once. Given the late hour, they must have all been dreaming.
She rubbed her eyes. “God. Or gods. Whatever.” Maybe the best she could do until she spoke with her grandmother was to try to ignore it.
She pressed her fingertips to his cheek and concentrated hard on the sound of her own thoughts and sought out the sound of his.
His sharp inhale told her he understood the point of the connection, and he grabbed her wrist and pressed her hand tighter to his face. “There you are.”
She nodded. “There’s…there’s so much noise.”
“I imagine there is. It’s always been there for me. It just got a little louder when I came here. In time, it’ll become a part of you.”
Did she want that?
She pulled his hands onto her lap and squeezed them.
When she’d been with her grandmother, she’d thought this was no big deal and that she was ready for this. She’d wanted this rebirth as someone more powerful and important than before—someone worth respecting. When she’d left Ótama, she’d been certain she could do it and that she’d been born to. But, now that she was back in the real world with her brain feeling like an overblown balloon, all that confidence seeped away.
“Yeah,” she said. “In time.”
6
Oliver Gilisson avoided sleep the same way some people avoided saturated fat and alcohol. It was bad for him; however, it wasn’t his body suffering for overindulgence, but his mind.
He couldn’t sleep without her popping in for a dreamtime visit…and he hadn’t even known who she was. She’d been haunting him for six years, even before his wife died. He would have felt guilty about the carnal nature of his dreams, but he wasn’t the one controlling them. How could he be, when he’d never seen the woman in his life? Besides, the only good things to come out of his marriage were his sons. Everything else added to the heartache.
Kristy, his wife, had been broken. She was an aberration amongst people programmed to mate for life—to not inflict emotional harm their lovers. She’d put on a good act, and he thought he’d felt her love for him. But, she’d turned out to be a psychic liar. She’d clouded her own thoughts and emotions and projected what she wanted people to hear and feel, and not what was the truth.
When she’d had her accident, he’d had a hard time finding any tears for her.
He knew he shouldn’t think ill of the dead, but she’d undermined his trust with what amounted to a throwaway lover. And then did it again. Again. And Again. He lost track of just how many others there were, and what made it all worse were the calls on the landline phone from men asking for her.
Matt would just hang up on them, but Lyman was only twelve. He didn’t bounce back so well when folks asked for his dead mother. Ollie had had to change the number recently, which created quite the administrative clusterfuck for his motorcycle repair business.
Jeff, owner of the Fallon, Nevada bar frequented regularly by their kind, pushed a shot across the bar at Ollie. “What’s crawled up your ass today? I’m getting a lot of mental static from you.”
Ollie pulled the shot of vodka closer and stared into the clear liquid as if the surface would give him answers. “You know what today is?”
Jeff grunted. “How can I forget? The lead-up’s the same every year. You act like everything’s okay, but then I don’t hear shit from you for two weeks because you’re at home feeling sorry for yourself, and then you finally drag your ass out on the anniversary to drink your sorrows away.”
“Am I that predictable?”
He caught Jeff’s shrug in his periphery. “If it were me, I might be the same way. That’s why I don’t fuck with our women anymore. Life’s easier that way. There’s something wrong with the women out here. You notice it? They all seem defective like that.”
“I honestly haven’t paid too much attention.”
“Think about it.” Jeff leaned in close and pretended to scrub a stubborn spot off the gleaming oak bar. “You ain’t been so tuned in, but it’s happening more and more. Bunch of cheats, the lot of them. I don’t know if it’s them being led by example, or if it’s something in the blood.”
Ollie found that observation interesting. “Matt’s girlfriend dumped him last week. Confused him. At that age, they’re pretty much guaranteed to stick.”
Matt was nearly eighteen. That was usually when they paired off, when they felt the pull to find their mates. That’s when Ollie had taken his, but maybe he wasn’t such a shining star example of matrimony.
“See? They’re not sticking like they used to, and I ain’t gonna let none of them chew me up. No fuckin’ way.”
Ollie chuckled and picked up the shot glass. “You’re getting old,” he said, switching back to normal speech. He tossed back the shot and gestured for another one.
Jeff poured it. “Same age as you, motherfucker. Maybe I’m just not cut out to do the daddy thing. By the time I get around to having them, gods-damned arthritis will probably have set in and this beautiful Nordic mane of mine and the matching carpet will have gone gray.” He gave his long blond braid a sassy flick over his leather-clad shoulder and wriggled his eyebrows.
Ollie groaned and poured the second shot down his throat. Most of the men of a certain age in their crew liked keeping their hair long enough to braid, but Ollie preferred having his short. It was probably a leftover tendency from his Air Force days. Shit, he hadn’t even been out all that long.
“Nah, I’m good. I gotta…” Ollie clamped his lips and pushed the glass at Jeff. “You pegged me on one problem, but I have a bigger one.”
“Oh, shit. Hold on. Let me deal with this fucker waving an empty bottle at me.” Jeff moved to the other end of the bar, and Ollie turned his hands over and stared at the set-in stains from motorcycle grease and the scars from his handling of bladed weapons. His old man had been big on tradition and had Ollie sparring with an axe long before he bought him his first gun.
Ollie’s ex-wife had hated his rough hands. She’d never said as much, but now that she was gone, her revulsion had been clear. She apparently liked her men pretty, so what had she wanted with him in the first place?
Jeff plopped a cold bottle of water in front of Ollie, and Ollie grunted his thanks.
Jeff started wiping that invisible spot again. “All right. Lay it on me.”
“All right. Have you been keeping up with the news from the group in New Mexico?”
Jeff did the psychic equivalent of a chortle. “Yeah, I read the newsletter. Muriel found her girl. Good for them. They’re big on their hierarchy, ain’t they?” He made a moue of distaste.
Ollie understood Jeff’s revulsion. Their group had no such structure. They’d isolated themselves from the Afótama community pretty much from the time they stepped foot on North American soil. Yeah, they’d ended up in the southwest just like them—and others of their kind—but that was coincidence. They’d fled toward the frontier, and they just happened to be going in the same direction.
The Afótama were just too fucking caught up in order and rules, and sometimes folks needed room to stretch their wings. Ollie had had enough bosses in his life, having done his stint in the Air Force. He was his own boss now, and hadn’t wanted a queen.
And then he saw her. He knew she was his.
Ollie put the water bottle to his lips and took a long swallow. “Yeah. Contessa. They call her Tess. She’s the real deal. They had the DNA checked and everything. They’re set to inaugurate or whatever they do for the queen tomorrow. Word is she’s going
to pick a consort, too.”
Jeff’s silver eyes went wide and he stopped scrubbing. “Damn, they move fast. Efficient motherfuckers, aren’t they? She’s either already knocked up or she found one of their guys on the outside and brought him in. Well, good luck to her. Learning curve is going to be a son of a bitch for someone who’s been out of the loop all her life.”
Ollie’s fist had tensed around the water bottle, sending the contents puddling onto the counter, but he’d barely noticed the mess because Jeff’s words were that distracting. No way could she be mated already. No fucking way.
Jeff sighed. “Giving me something to clean up for real, huh?”
When Ollie didn’t answer immediately, Jeff turned his back and fiddled with the canister he used to store peanuts.
“You’re defensive about her. Why?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Come on, man. We go back to preschool days. If you say it, I’ll believe it. Try me.”
“Well, you asked for it, so I will. That’s her.”
Jeff turned. “What’s who?”
Ollie’s shoulders fell. “The woman. The phantom who has been inflicting me with pernicious blue balls for the past six years. The one who haunts my sleep.”
Jeff shook his head and tossed his rag onto the counter. “You are so fucked.” He cringed, and added telepathically, “Even if Muriel lets you into her home, I doubt she’d let you anywhere near her granddaughter because of that whole pariah outcast thing. Remember that? When our big brawny guys left their skinny asses on the coast with the wee baby Sævör and told them to fend for themselves?”
“She’s mine, Jeff. I know it.”
Jeff leaned his elbows onto the bar top and scoffed. “Wouldn’t that be just your fucking luck, dude? Defective wife, and now a mate whose grandma ain’t gonna let you near her heir.”
“She’ll have to. I know the rules.”
Jeff scoffed. “Rules? You’re real forgetful today. We ran from them rules.”
“No, our ancestors did. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know them. She’s mine, and I want her. She’s my match.”
“Okay. Sure you do, and sure she is. What are your boys gonna say?”
As if Ollie hadn’t given that any thought. He’d been thinking about nothing but the consequences ever since that e-newsletter from the Afótama information office hit his inbox. “The boys are going to have to get over it.”
Ollie tossed Jeff a few bills for the water and the shots, and slipped his leather jacket on. “I’ll call my aunt to check in on the boys. That’s a fifteen-hour ride from here. I’m leaving now to get there before one of those suburban pansies stakes a claim on her. If they touch her, I’ll…” He pinched his lips together on the words he knew he’d regret uttering.
He knew what he was and what his father’s line was bred to be. He was meant to be big and ruthlessly violent—a defender. But, his mother had raised him to be a gentleman. He’d abide by the customs and hold his fucking temper in check or else. He hadn’t lost it in all those years with his late wife, and he wasn’t going to lose it now, although, for some reason, it was becoming so much harder to tamp down.
No, he knew the reason. It was because it was Contessa. She was going to steamroll him, and he didn’t care one bit.
7
Nan led Tess down the wide aisle with their arms hooked, waving at the Afótama in congregation.
“Smile, child,” she projected.
Tess sighed and put on the happiest face she could manage. She was doing all she could to stay upright.
The capitol’s assembly room had been cleared of its tidy rows of heavy wood tables and hard-backed chairs to make space for a standing room-only gala.
Long live the matriarch. Long live the queen.
Tess hadn’t known what to expect. Not a coronation of any sort. It’d been obvious from the moment she’d stepped onto the tarmac at the local airport that her grandmother wasn’t that kind of queen. There wouldn’t be crowns or scepters. No thrones to sit on.
There was a dais and a microphone stand set behind a large, tasteful floral arrangement, and that’d been it.
Nan had said a few words, but Tess hadn’t heard a single one of them. There had to be a thousand people in that room, all eyes on her, and their thoughts crowded her head like sharks in a chum-filled tank.
Too close.
Too many.
She didn’t need ceremony to take on the queen’s burden. That had started the moment she’d taken Harvey to bed. Her brain had been a confused muddle before, but now it was a non-stop hum of voices that increased in volume with every new connection she made.
The receiving line had been a special kind of hell.
Gods.
Nadia caught up to them at the end of the aisle and grabbed Tess’s free arm. “You’ve got to stay up late and party with the little kids. There are balloons and face painting and everything. Come on, it’s traditional. It’ll be a good chance for you to network with some of the mommies and kids our future heir will rub little chubby elbows with.”
Tess nearly tripped over the hem of her ball gown, but Nan and Nadia kept her upright. “Why do you hate me so much? I can’t do it. No fucking way. If one more person touches me tonight…”
“What makes you think I hate you?” Nadia asked. She pulled the top of her strapless leather dress up a little higher over her tits and crossed her arms over them.
“You’re joking, right? If I were drowning, you would wait an extra five seconds to see if I figured out how to rescue myself, and then if you did save me, you’d bark at me for causing your make-up to smear.”
“Not true. Nan would kill me if I let you drown.”
“See my point? Also, you stabbed me in the neck two weeks ago. Let’s not forget about that.”
Nadia shrugged. “So I jumped the gun. No one’s ever accused me of being tentative.”
“Do you need more cuddling in your life or something? Is that what it is?”
“I usually sleep with Nan when I’m here, but she kicked me out. She says I bruise her shins.”
Tess turned to Nan. “Is she kidding?”
“No. She’s like most of us. A bit…surly when she’s skin-starved. And, yes, she’s a bruiser. She needs to find a new bedmate, and if you’re not going to let Mr. Lang back into your suite, it may as well be you. Oh, she’s pulling your leg about partying with the kids, though. There’s no such tradition, but I must say the children are very curious about you. The boys think you’re pretty.”
“Good to know they have their priorities straight. And you know why I haven’t let Harvey in.”
“They’re Afótama. They’re like that from a young age. And, yes, I know the cause of your separation. Reconnect with him tonight, though. I know your head is a wilderness right now, but you’re queen. You need him to fill in your gaps. It’s important.”
“I’ll try.”
They stepped through the double-doors leading into the closed-off administrative offices, and the guard closed the door on them. The music in the assembly hall cranked up, and cacophonous laughter was heard in the small spaces of time when the rock and roll didn’t overpower it.
Finally, Tess could breathe. Her shoulders fell from her ears, and she rolled them back, moaning indulgently.
“They do expect you back in there to mingle,” Nan said, tipping her head toward the doors.
“But if we keep the champagne flowing they won’t give a shit,” Nadia said. “Break out the good stuff. How often do we have reason to celebrate shit around here?” She did a little shimmy that made Nan roll her eyes.
“Go on up to your suite, Tess,” Nan said. “I’ll bring you up some dessert in a while. It won’t cure your headache, but at least it’ll soothe your spirit.”
“Sounds good to me.” She stepped out of her pinching stilettos and grabbed them by the heels. “You’ll find Harvey and send him up? I haven’t seen him in about an hour.”
“I’ll find him,” Nadia said. “He’s probably hanging out with my dad and Jody talking about security stuff. That’ll be his job soon.”
“Right.” Tess curled her toes into the carpet and willed herself to take the few steps to the stairwell. She didn’t even have to look to know she had some fantastic bruises on her feet, and probably a couple of blisters, too. She’d been on her feet for three fucking hours, and not a sip of booze had passed her lips.
Torture.
“You need directions?” Nadia asked.
“Ha ha. I’m going as soon as the cramps in my feet wind down. Fuck you for picking out five-inch heels for me, by the way.”
Nadia somehow managed to properly curtsy in her ultra-tight dress. “Love you, cousin.”
“Hopefully no one thinks they’ve inherited a weak queen because I didn’t stick around tonight.” Tess shifted her weight from one painful arch to the other. “You know, I’ve been in much more stressful situations in the past. There was this one time I fled a police chase by running into the back door of a Miami strip club. I had my clothes off by the time I made it to the stage. The cops had walked from the back door, through the club—but they wouldn’t look up, you know? I guess they were too green and respectful. Had their blinders on and didn’t see a thing.”
Nan shook her head and waved a dismissive hand at them. “I don’t want to hear this. So, what happened next?”
Nadia cackled.
Tess shrugged. “Well, I finished the set and picked up a cool two hundred bucks. Then I grabbed my clothes, ran, and vowed from that point out to never again borrow a police officer’s motorcycle. That was different, though. I know how to run and how to fight, but this…” She gestured to the assembly hall and all the people within it. “I’m not wired for this.”
In the two weeks since she’d tapped into the web, instead of getting better at corralling its information, psychic snippets bounced around in her head like mechanized Ping-Pong balls. She couldn’t shut them off, and there was no switch to mute them. It was worse than a migraine she couldn’t shake. The only thing that gave her some semblance of control was to sit in a dark room alone with eyes, repeating things over and over again. Lately, Imagine Dragons lyrics were doing the trick.
