by Kate Pearce
A loud knock on the door had Tess clutching her chest, Nadia reaching for her knife, and Thom moving fast as light to get between Heath and the opening.
Thom put his hand on the knob and checked the peephole.
“Probably overkill, guys,” Tess said. “It might just be some drunk who locked himself out of his room and thinks this one is his.”
Thom guffawed and opened the door. “What the fuck are you doing here, man?”
Tess craned her neck to see whom he was talking to, and her heart fluttered when a bruised and bandaged Ollie stepped into the room and did one of those complicated, rehearsed handshakes with Thom, and then gave Heath a man-hug.
“I could ask you the same question,” he said.
Harvey stepped into the room after him, owning a few more stitches and bandages than the other man, and looking rather chagrined. He walked straight to Tess and pulled her against him. “What the hell are you doing, letting strange men in? And why’d you leave?”
What? She’d expected that their next encounter would start with a fight about what happened in Ollie’s garage, and what she’d done to them. What she’d done was unforgivable for so many reasons. She’d lost control.
She opened herself back up to the Afótama web and tugged on its silks yet again, smoothing its edges down in her mind.
There was Harvey, front and center waiting for her, and his thoughts weren’t of anger, but of regret. He thought this was his fault. Maybe it was in some ways, but Tess hadn’t played nice, either. She’d used excessive force because she only wanted to have to use it once. She wanted them to know the taste of it so they’d learn to combat it, if need ever arose.
“We stopped by the Longship on our way out of Fallon,” Thom said. “Place was a fuckin’ mess, and we asked why. Jeff said the Afótama queen was in town, and some of the ladies had their panties bunched over it. We asked around to see if she was still here, and of course, you all own half the town, so finding her wasn’t all that hard.”
“Fuck,” Nadia muttered.
Heath nodded. “Like I said, the queen always has guards. Perhaps now you understand why.”
Harvey wrapped his arms around Tess’s shoulders and rested his chin on top of her head.
Tess wrapped her hands around his and let relief wash over her.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Heath pushed his hair back again. “Heath Horan, prince of the Sídhe high court. That guy by the door is my lieutenant Thom. We go way back with Oliver.”
Ollie grunted. “Yeah, I do a little work for them here and there. I tune up their bikes whenever they’re in the area.”
“Oh, ho ho.” Heath thumped Ollie on the shoulder and flopped onto the corner of Nadia’s bed. “The bloke’s always undervaluing himself. He does a lot more than fixing our bikes. Have you ever seen this guy swing an axe?” He whistled and shook his head. “None of my boys fight like this guy. None of the girls, either.”
“Ha ha,” Ollie said.
“It’s true. I’m not old enough to have seen your kind before they left Europe, but I can’t imagine they’d be any more terrifying.”
“I’m a big old teddy bear, and you know it.” Ollie chuckled and moved farther into the room, closer to Tess.
She expected Harvey to project some offense at his proximity, or Ollie his, but neither did. If they were thinking any black thoughts about the other, they were doing it subconsciously.
“That’s high praise coming from a man who can suck off people’s life force,” Ollie said.
Heath shrugged. “Only if I can get them to hold still long enough. So, what are you doing here? Wanted to see the queen for yourself?”
Ollie grunted a no and pulled Tess free from Harvey.
He let her go, and when she turned to him with a questioning look, he just grinned at her.
She didn’t trust that grin one little bit.
“Tess is mine,” Ollie said. “Why else would she come to this dump? It’s not exactly a prime vacation spot.”
“You’re pulling my leg,” Thom said.
Ollie shook his head. “I’m as serious as a heart attack.”
“Then what about that guy?”
Harvey took the uncomfortable chair in the corner and crossed his legs at the knees. “She’s mine, too.”
“Uh… I’ll just stand here and wait for the other shoe to drop. Don’t mind me,” Tess muttered.
“Keep waiting,” Nadia projected. “The Fae have very open ideas about sex and relationships. If there’s anyone who wouldn’t give a shit, it’d be them.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
“Nah. It’s more entertaining for me to see you get surprised by stuff.”
“When we get back to Norseton, we’re going to work on getting you a life.”
Nadia flicked a certain finger at her cousin and offered a gamine smile.
“You son of a bitch, good for you,” Heath said after picking his jaw up off the floor. “I always did tell you to aim high if you were going to bother at all. Hey, maybe she’ll take me up on that favor, then?” Heath said.
Ollie shook his head. “Forget the favor. You needed help, and I gave it to you. You don’t owe me anything for that.”
“I’m Sídhe. Come on, I make good on my debts, and you turned the tide for us in that fight. You didn’t have to stick your neck out like you did. If you won’t let me repay the debt to you, then she can take it.”
Heath skirted around Ollie and made eye contact with Tess. “I owe you a boon. You’ll help me balance the scales, won’t you?”
“What exactly did he do for you?”
Ollie gave her a squeeze. “Not important.”
Heath’s brow furrowed. “Was so important. Look, love, I’m in charge of this gang and we’re in charge of keeping order in secret communities like ours. Whenever people go rogue or do things that threaten to make our world public, we get dispatched to deal with it. For Sídhe of a certain age, it’s a mandatory service period.” He sputtered his eyes and added in a mumble, “Gonna abolish that shit as soon as I take the throne.”
Tess wondered when exactly that would be, because she suspected he was a hell of a lot older than he looked. How long did the Fae live, anyway?
“Listen, Ollie lends us a hand every now and then. I would beg him to come on full-time if it weren’t for the boys. You’d be taking away a lot of my angst by letting me do you a favor.”
“Angsty fairy,” Tess whispered. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
“Not everything,” Ollie whispered back, and there was a thread of warning in it that made her wonder if she actually wanted to hear what he was saving up for her. She eyed Harvey, and he nodded. She could make some good come of this partnership.
“Maybe you can do me a small favor,” she said to Heath.
“There are no small favors to the Daoine Sídhe,” Ollie said.
Heath blew his hair from his face. “And people say fairies are dramatic. Tell me what you need, love, before your man tosses me out on my arse.”
“And you’re so fucking close to it, Heath.”
Heath made a very unprincely gesture at Ollie and bore a charming smile as he did it. He and Nadia were apparently cut from the same cloth. She must have noticed it, too.
“I like you, Heath,” she said.
“Thank you.” He bowed.
Tess groaned. “Okay. You get around a lot, I’m guessing?”
Heath nodded.
“Had you heard that many of us were abducted starting around thirty years ago?”
“I had heard. I would have helped investigate if your grandmother had asked me to.”
“I’m asking you to. I don’t have anything to lose by doing so, and I was too young to remember anything.”
“No problem, love. Give us, oh, a few weeks to see what shakes out. Shall we visit you at Norseton?”
“I think that would be best.”
“Great. Let the ogre at the gates know we�
�re coming, will you? They always act like we’re going to move in and trash the place.”
“You mean like that one time?” Ollie asked, voice deadpan.
Heath’s thump on Ollie’s back was probably meant to be consoling. “Better prepare the rooms.”
Oh boy.
Heath and Thom took their leave, and Ollie spun Tess around so she faced him.
“Got any more surprises for me?” she asked.
“A few. Do you have any more for us?”
“Look, I thought you both deserved it at the time.”
“Oh, we absolutely did,” Harvey said. “Even if we’d known you were capable of it, we still would have been assholes. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“So, you’re just going to forgive me for it?”
“It was my queen’s prerogative to enforce order in the matter she saw fit,” Ollie whispered into her right ear. He skimmed his hands down her arms and a surge of anticipation settled into her core.
Were they really going to do this?
Harvey stood and lifted her hair from her neck on her left side. He kissed the crook between her neck and shoulder, and up to her jaw.
She squirmed between the two of them, so aroused, and yet so embarrassed at her body’s rapid response. In front of an audience, to boot.
Nadia pointed to the door. “Hey, know what? I’m going to give you a good night’s sleep. You’ve been listening to me grind my teeth for days, and you probably deserve a break. There are plenty of open rooms. I’ll go get one.”
Tess opened her mouth to rebut—it was Nadia’s room, too, and putting her out seemed selfish—but Harvey kissed her. He invaded her mouth and teased her tongue into submission while pulling her against him.
The door clicked closed behind Nadia, and Ollie worked his hands up the back of Tess’s shirt. She loved the rough feel of them. Their gentle rasps sent titillating frissons to her already aching sex, and she remembered how good they’d felt when they’d been inside her weeks ago. He’d stoked her into a heated frenzy it’d taken days to come down from.
And then there was Harvey at her front. He nudged down her bra and flicked her nipples with his thumbs.
“What are you doing?” she asked one or both. It didn’t really matter who answered, as long as at least one of them was had the correct head screwed on straight. They’d tried to kill each other a few hours ago, so their close proximity now struck Tess as highly suspect.
“Worshiping you,” Ollie said. He unhooked her bra, and Harvey took advantage of her breasts’ freedom by palming them.
“I-I don’t think so,” she said. She told her feet to get moving—to get away from them and their mouths and hands, but instead, her head fell back to give Harvey greater access to her neck and throat. Her back bowed and ass ground against Ollie’s thighs. He was so damned tall, that was all she could reach. Her brain said walk, but her body wasn’t having it.
“Why not?” Harvey asked. “I thought this was what you wanted, sweetheart.”
“It is what I wanted. What I want, but…” She batted Harvey’s roving hands away only for Ollie to put his where Harvey’s had been. “Quit it, or I’ll steamroll you both, and you know I can.”
The men paused, as if they needed to think about the warning, and slowly peeled their hands off.
“Good choice.” Tess ducked out from between them, and her traitorous legs wobbled like JELL-O beneath her. She managed to make it to her bed before collapsing under the weight of her lust.
They started toward her, and she held up a finger in warning.
“Less touching, more talking.”
“Talking is what got us into trouble last time,” Harvey said and Ollie nodded in agreement.
“Real cute,” Tess said. She crossed her arms over her peaked nipples. Her body may have been inviting them to touch, but for now, she needed her brain to have the upper hand. As long as they stayed away from her, she should be fine.
Harvey adjusted his bulge, grinning at her, and she had to close her eyes.
“I’m going to talk, and you two are going to listen. No butting in, no touching. Those are the rules, simple though they are. If either of you chooses to break them, I’m walking out and bunking with my shin-bruising cousin. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” they both said.
“Fine.” She opened her eyes and gestured to the two chairs on either side of the room. Maybe they needed to stay away from each other, too. For all she knew, they were plotting amongst themselves as she spoke.
Harvey retook the armchair near the window, and Ollie took the desk chair close to the bathroom.
“Okay. First of all, you two look like so very much shit. Ollie, you’re supposed to be spawn of He-Man. How did Harvey manage to get that many blows in?”
Ollie cleared his throat and cut his gaze to Harvey. “He gave me the worst damn migraine ever, and I don’t mean little pansy headache. I mean light-hurts-my-skin agony.”
Tess saw her startled expression in the mirror across from her, and immediately smoothed it off because she was very unattractive when her eyes bulged like that. She snapped her fingers at Harvey, who was busy studying his bruised knuckles. “Is that new?”
“Not exactly. I’ve had the proclivity for a very long time, but the talent strengthened right around the time you stepped into the queen role. Your uncle told me it’s typical.”
“In what way?”
“Most Afótama have latent gifts they just don’t know how to manifest. We’re all telepathic to more or less the same degree, but there are also secondary abilities that have pretty much all died out. It’s in all the literature. I’ll summarize it for you when you have time, or maybe Ótama will fill you in.”
“I suspect Ótama will have her visitation privileges revoked soon for being a mouthy little ghostie, but let’s not get distracted, here. You’re a migraine machine?”
“I guess that’s a good way to put it. The skill got stronger when you took me as a consort. Joe says its because the people nearest the queen need to be the strongest.”
“If that’s true, then Nadia should be demonstrating epic-caliber scariness.” Not that Nadia needed any help with that.
“Give it time,” Harvey said.
Tess turned to Ollie. “And what about you? Got anything to share, axe man?”
He shook his head. “I’m a warrior, remember? Psychic warfare was never a part of our skill set, beyond the memory erasure thing. Most of the fancy shit is unique to you Afótama.”
“You need to figure out a way to become proof to the fancy shit. You may not always be able to keep swinging through it if you’re being assaulted from every direction.” Or if Tess lost control again…no, when, she lost control again.
“I’ll work with him,” Harvey said. “It’s very specific part of the brain. Once you isolate it and know it’s a weak spot, there are things you can do to seal it off.”
“You’ll work with him?” She didn’t bother disguising her incredulity, because again—they’d tried to kill each other just hours ago. Harvey shouldn’t have been concerned about Ollie’s wellbeing, not even a little bit.
“Yes, Tess. I’ll help him.”
“Excuse my skepticism, but, why?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Because the people nearest the queen have to be the strongest?”
“Don’t throw my words back at me.” She stood and walked to Ollie. He raked his hungry gaze up her body, and by the time it reached her eyes, she was hot all over. How the man could affect her with just a glance, she had no idea. Maybe he was holding out on them and had some magic after all.
He lifted his hands as if he were going to pull her closer by the thighs, but dropped them when Harvey whistled.
Ollie cringed.
“Interesting. You two were all about hólmganga earlier, so what’s going on?”
“I changed my mind,” Ollie said. “The challenge isn’t necessary.”
“I’ve known that all along, but I’m
skeptical of quick about-faces. What made you change your mind? Don’t tell me it because you beat the shit out of each other and got it out of your systems.”
He shook his head. “No, not that. Listen, Tess. I brought some baggage into the relationship with me, and I don’t mean my boys. We’re supposed to be incapable of cheating, but I married a woman who refused to be true. I couldn’t tell she was lying, Tess, and that’s one of my few gifts. I know you’re nothing like her, but seeing you with Harvey was difficult for me because I felt like I did as a younger man every time I heard about another one of Kristy’s men. I never felt more powerless…ashamed. It’s easy to feel like you’re not enough man when you’re in that sort of relationship.”
“Shit.” No wonder this was so hard for him. Afótama were supposed to be unable to cheat, and she imagined it should have been the same amongst his group. She couldn’t conceive of stepping out on her boys, or even looking at anyone that way. Why would she go looking when she already had everything she needed?
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know I want you, but I have to ask. Can you be tolerant of me having and needing two men? There’s no room for jealousy in this relationship.”
“I understand that, Tess. I’m not going to pretend this is easy for me, because it’s not. All those old burns come back up to the surface when I’m feeling shut out. I see how happy he makes you.”
“But, you make me happy, too.”
“I know, baby. That’s why I’m here. I know what you feel for me. You never make me feel like I’m the other man. Hell, you fought over me.” He grinned. “My hang-ups are all my own.”
“You’re tied for first place.”
“I like that.”
“Not more than me. Trust me. I’m getting the better end of the deal.”
The way a man of nearly forty could grin like that and make Tess think “boyish” would never cease to amaze her.
He hissed and wiped a bead of blood off his split lip. It must have cracked when he smiled.
“You two are falling apart at the seams, and yet you wanted to have sex?”
Harvey slumped down in his chair and put his head over the backrest. “Sex has healing qualities.”
“Bullshit.”
