One Blood Ruby

by Melissa Marr

  “And if she is, what’s that going to do for the peace accord?” Nick asked in a wheezy voice. He was either struggling with the pain or blood was getting into his lungs. “Creed, I’m trusting you. She comes here and all hell will be breaking loose.”

  “Abernathy Commandment #4: Weigh the consequences before beginning a course of action,” Creed told Nick. “You have my word.”

  Nick nodded once and after a visible shudder he said, “Erik.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Handle it.” Nick closed his eyes then.

  And Creed wasn’t sure if he was dead or not.

  “If you let me out, I’ll do whatever I’m told,” Creed said, realizing he sounded desperate but unable to help himself. “Just let me out to help him.”

  No one even deigned to reply. They simply ignored him. His girlfriend’s father was unconscious or dead on the floor, and he was unable to do a thing.

  Erik’s hand went to Nick’s throat to check for a pulse. He resumed holding the jacket to Nick’s wound to staunch the blood and told them, “He still has a pulse.”

  “Where’s the fucking ambulance?” Creed punched the glass again. He couldn’t help, couldn’t do anything but sit in a cell and watch Lily’s father bleed.

  thirty-eight

  WILL

  Will wasn’t surprised to see his mother when he was escorted out of his cell and into the police station. He wasn’t even surprised to see Creed still in his glass cell or Erik Gaviria there already. What did shock him was seeing the man bleeding on the floor . . . and the realization that the man in question was Lily’s dad.

  “Who shot him?” Will asked softly.

  A fae man with a sword turned and studied him. “I do not know. A human.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Rhys, son to—”

  Erik coughed loudly, eliciting a frown from Rhys. The faery had been on the verge of admitting that he was the child of the faery queen who had been waging war on humanity. It wasn’t the sort of lineage that would encourage the police to ask questions first, and today of all days, it might incline them to shoot.

  “Is the ambulance coming?” Erik asked, worry obvious in his voice.

  “Yes,” an officer answered.

  “I will keep him safe,” Rhys said in a voice that would not carry. “Go seek the shooter.”

  With a single nod, Erik turned and walked outside.

  As the guard released Will from his cuffs, his mother walked toward him, her pace a little closer to hurrying than she ever allowed in public. She stopped in front of him and reached up. Her hands stroked his hair back and cupped his face, tilting his head from side to side to examine him.

  “I’m fine,” he told her truthfully. “Creed took all the attention off me.”

  “Indeed,” she said with an assessing look at his often-belligerent friend. “What are the charges against the other boy? He goes to school with my son and—”

  “You’re not Mr. Morrison’s mother, now are you?”

  Will watched his mother’s shoulders go back in the way that usually meant she was about to dig her feet in and be difficult. He reached out and put a hand on her back. “He’ll be fine. Please, we should go. Whoever shot Mr. Abernathy . . .”

  . . . was still nearby.

  It didn’t need to be said aloud. His mother let him lead her away.

  Rhys was still standing guard over Lily’s father, and in that position it was abundantly clear that he was so far removed from human that he was as different as lions are to house cats. “It is best to not tell my niece of any of this. We don’t know who did this or why. Until we know more, we have no need to inform her . . . as long as he is alive.”

  “Lily will be furious,” Will pointed out.

  “Lily?” his mother asked.

  The air around them grew solid, creating a barrier that allowed them to speak safely. No one addressed it aloud, but Will suspected that the only one not to feel it was his mother.

  “The new heir to the Hidden Throne,” Will told her quietly. “Lily Abernathy.”

  His mother startled and glanced at Lily’s dad. “He’s . . .”

  “Nick Abernathy,” Will supplied, knowing full well that she was quite aware of who he was.

  “Oh, William,” she sighed. She gave him a small sad smile and patted his cheek in that affectionate way that she rarely allowed herself. Then she straightened again. “I knew the day would come when my life and my career would be at odds. You’re not going to jail, Will, because of a gift from Mr. Abernathy years ago.”

  “Oh.”

  She glanced past them all to the paramedics coming into the building with Erik. “Over here, gentlemen.” Professional mien fully intact, she gestured at Nick. “I am Senator Parrish. This man is under my direct care. No one sees him or moves him without my authority.”

  “Is he dangerous?” one of the paramedics asked.

  “No, but I will be if he’s injured or imperiled during his convalescence,” the senator said.

  Will smothered a smile.

  Erik nodded and said quietly, “My family is in your debt.”

  “Gaviria, I presume?”

  He bowed.

  “Criminal syndicates and fae guardsmen,” she murmured softly. “This is why I’ve kept my legal credentials up to date.”

  “She was an attorney first,” Will explained to Erik.

  They escorted Lily’s father to the ambulance, creating an odd procession of sorts: the Unseelie prince, the senator, the criminal, and Will. Everything felt far more manageable, though, when Will saw Roan standing at the edge of the crowd. He felt like a thousand weights fell from his shoulders. Roan was alive and uninjured.

  He started toward him, but saw Roan’s eyes dart toward the others. It wasn’t exactly a secret in either of their families that they were a lot more than just friends, but there had always been an unspoken accord that they would not be demonstrative. After Alkamy’s death, Will couldn’t continue to do so. He pulled Roan in for a kiss as soon as he could reach him.

  For a moment, the world—both worlds—and the troubles at every corner vanished. The boy he loved was safe. They were alive and together, and maybe that was all they had, but as they kissed, it felt like enough.

  “I love you,” he said as they separated.

  Roan grinned. “You too.”

  They interlaced their fingers as they walked over and waited for the stretcher to be loaded into the ambulance. Cameras were turning their way.

  “You sure about this?” He squeezed Roan’s hand.

  “Completely. It’s far from the biggest scandal of the day,” Roan said lightly. “How’s she going to be with this?”

  “She is not deaf, boys.” Senator Parrish was clearly in full presence. That was the way Will often thought of her—there was the senator and his mom.

  Smiling broadly for the cameras, she leaned in and kissed both of their cheeks. Then she told Roan, “My son has excellent taste. I can give you the ‘don’t hurt my child’ lecture later. I’ve been practicing it, so it’s quite intimidating.”

  No one seemed to know what to say, though, until Erik spoke. “I will escort the senator to the hospital and summon our attorneys to meet you here.” He looked at Will and Roan. “Tell Rhys the gunman was long gone.”

  The ambulance doors closed.

  Erik was clearly hesitant to go, but he was a human. Someone ought to be at Mr. Abernathy’s side, and Erik would be safer at the hospital, where it was easier to avoid both bullets and fae. Will and Roan, while not exactly immune to bullets, were in the company of a faery who was more than adept at protecting them.

  Will wasn’t sure whether they were going hunting a shooter or trying to rescue Creed. Either way, it was best that the three humans weren’t there. He met Rhys’ gaze and asked, “Do we have a plan?”

  thirty-nine

  ZEPHYR

  Zephyr had stepped outside to give Eilidh and Torquil privacy, as much as they could have i
n a glass tower. In part, he had left because seeing them together made the stabbing in his heart grow sharper. It wasn’t that he wanted everyone else to be miserable. He simply didn’t want to see what they had and he had lost.

  Several fae were waiting outside the tower, some boldly watching him and others staring upward. They weren’t reacting to his presence any more than they had when he and the others had arrived, and it occurred to him that this was . . . normal for them.

  “Do you do this often?” he asked.

  “Watch?”

  Zephyr nodded.

  The faery shrugged. “We all do sooner or later. She was going to be our queen. Now, she is one with the sea.” He gestured to the water. “When she is angry, it roils in temper. When she is calm, it moves like music.”

  “The land too,” a female faery added with a nod toward the rose and vines that seemed to be twining around the tower and the jagged rocks below it. They were things that should not survive under an onslaught of salt water, but the blooms were as big as dinner plates.

  “Once, before these regents,” a new voice said, “the land chose the ruler.”

  Zephyr glanced at the new arrival. The Seelie king’s eldest son stood there. He wasn’t any more intimidating than Zephyr’s father, but he was Seelie-born. And Zephyr was the Unseelie queen’s grandson.

  Without hesitation, Zephyr drew his sword. He didn’t raise it in confrontation, but he held it in his hands. There was no way he’d have the skill to best the Seelie prince, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to defend himself.

  “Ah, yes, Rhys’ human child,” Nacton said in a dismissive voice. He lifted his sword into a high guard, a vom tag position, not quickly or even with any degree of concern. He moved as if there were exactly no chance that Zephyr would know how to respond.

  The attacks he used were the standard master cuts that any proficient swordfighter would know. The zwerch hau, the crosswise strike, was the master cut intended to “break” that guard. Four of the five master cuts were the logical offensive move against an individual strike. The fifth, the zorn hau, was arguably viable against all of the guards.

  “Not completely useless, then,” Nacton said musingly.

  Zephyr was debating whether or not there would be reason to engage when he realized that Nacton was merely provoking him. He felt a bit like a mouse, toyed with by a bored cat.

  Then Nacton swung.

  The fae who had been watching the tower were silent as Zephyr and Nacton crossed blades.

  “My father has been training me.” Zephyr didn’t feel compelled to add that he’d been taking lessons since he was a small boy. That was obvious. Admittedly, though, he had only lived less than two decades. Nacton was centuries old.

  “You are not incompetent.”

  “And you aren’t as bad as Rhys implied.” Zephyr grinned, despite himself. This was what he needed, this clash of steel and surge of fear. It made him feel less broken. Provoking the Seelie prince was admittedly stupid. He knew it as he did so—and perhaps that was part of why he did it.

  Nacton lowered his sword suddenly and voided the attack.

  Zephyr stumbled slightly when he swung to find only air meeting him. He started to ask, “What . . .”

  Torquil stood there. “If you hurt this one, you will not be so easily forgiven. Eilidh tortured your brother. Do not think she would be hesitant to do the same to you.”

  Nacton spoke a word Zephyr did not know, or even know the language of, but it was obviously rude if his tone was any indication. Then he added, “So this is what you’ve become? You are no longer Seelie if you can speak so easily of torture.”

  “Zephyr is her nephew. His beloved was Seelie-born, and she was killed. He mourns, and Eilidh is not calm of late,” Torquil said, as if Alkamy’s loss was so easily mentioned. It hurt.

  “She was Seelie then,” Zephyr said.

  “She was very Seelie.” Torquil stared at Nacton.

  “His?” Zephyr asked, with a horrified glance at Nacton.

  “No,” both Torquil and Nacton said in unison.

  Zephyr’s relief was short-lived, as Torquil added, “Family to him, though.” He met Nacton’s gaze again. “Did you know you had a sister, Nacton?”

  The Seelie prince pivoted and walked away.

  To his back, Torquil added, “She loved Zephyr. Your sister loved Rhys’ son despite their separate courts. Surely, your spies knew as much. Surely, you knew.”

  Nacton continued on, and Zephyr stared at his departing form and then at the fae watching them as if this were a pageant for their amusement. They had watched the brief swordfight, and they had watched Torquil threaten and then chastise Nacton. There were politics here, but Zephyr wasn’t sure what exactly they were.

  “Come, nephew,” Torquil said gently.

  That, too, was politics. Torquil had reminded all and sundry that Zephyr had the protection of the former heir, that he was the son of the Unseelie prince, and that he had been beloved by . . . the King’s daughter?

  “Alkamy was . . .”

  “Leith’s child,” Torquil finished.

  Zephyr scowled. She’d had a father, a powerful one, and she had felt alone but for the diamonds. “He never thought to claim her or bring her home?”

  Torquil sighed. “My king had plans. He liked the possibility of the queen’s grandson wedding his daughter. Her missions were light in order to keep her safe, and he lobbied the queen to allow you to wed the girl when she was of age. She would’ve allowed it, I believe.”

  For a moment, the possibility of a future with Alkamy made Zephyr smile. They’d wanted that, but the thought of it had seemed like an impossible dream. To think that it could’ve been reality was almost too much now. The pain in his chest doubled over on itself. Alkamy would never know how close they’d come to claiming their dream, and he did know. Right then, he wasn’t sure which of those facts was worse.

  Silently, he turned and walked inside. If he couldn’t fight with weapons, perhaps he could ask the questions that had been forming as he’d thought over the events at the pier.

  “They said the land responds to her more than to any other. That the sea does,” Zephyr said baldly as he returned to the living quarters where his words would not be overheard. “The queen and king, Lily, all of us were swept under by massive waves at the coronation. People died.”

  “Are you accusing Eilidh of treason?” Torquil asked derisively. “She’s the heir of—”

  “Former heir,” Zephyr cut in. “And she was at the coronation, possibly trying to drown the queen or Lily or . . . I’m not even sure.”

  Eilidh stared out the window of the tower, ignoring them.

  The tower was truly a magnificent place. The view stretched forever, and the sea appeared to want to reach up to touch Eilidh the more upset she became—and she was becoming upset. Zephyr hated doing it, but he’d seen those waves. They were immense. If they hadn’t been created by one of the fae regents, that meant that either there was someone powerful hiding there at the coronation or that the chaos was caused by Eilidh.

  “Was the idea of a new heir that unpleasant?” he prompted.

  Zephyr watched as the sea started to twist. He could see a funnel forming in the distance, and Eilidh seemed to not notice. She had the same vacant look that she’d had when she came out of the sea.

  Quietly, he said, “She really doesn’t remember, does she?”

  Torquil looked at him. “Nature is more a part of her than most of us . . . or she’s a part of it. I have never understood which direction it flows.”

  “Did she create the waves today?”

  Torquil lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Perhaps. Or the sea was strengthened by her presence. It’s impossible to know. Nature speaks to her and through her.”

  The princess walked past him as if she was being summoned by a voice he couldn’t hear. She stopped at the wall, but he suspected that was only because she could go no farther. Whether it was wind or water, some
thing in her affinity was speaking to Eilidh.

  forty

  WILL

  When Rhys hadn’t replied to Will’s query, Roan looked at him and prompted, “So? Creed now or something else?”

  Will nodded to himself. “Creed.”

  Rhys scowled. “I thought we were leaving him there? Was that not the plan you pressed for?”

  “Only while Will’s mother and Lily’s dad were there,” Roan pointed out. “For all their bluster, they were still in danger. Can you use the air as a shield?”

  “Of course.” Rhys looked affronted.

  “Good. We’ll go in, open the cage and remove Creed,” Will announced. He glanced at Roan.

  Roan shrugged, relaxed in a way that was contrary to logic for most people, but he was often relatively calm.

  Will was elated to be doing something so impulsive. He looked at Rhys. “We are aiming not to kill anyone.”

  Rhys deflated the smallest bit. “At all?”

  Roan and Will exchanged a look before Will carefully said, “At all. If possible, we would like that.”

  Roan added, “But if it’s that or us getting killed . . .”

  Rhys nodded and withdrew a couple smallish daggers. “You may use these.”

  The boys took the weapons and stepped so they were both slightly behind Rhys, and then they went into the police station.

  It wasn’t the worst plan, all things considered. They were outing themselves as fae sympathizers, but the fact that they were openly friends with the new heir of the Hidden Throne and several of their friends were likely outed made that more or less immaterial.

  Rhys pushed open the door, and they followed him inside.

  Creed’s expression as he saw them could only be described as alarmed. Will felt compelled to say, “It’s fine.”

  Creed frowned. He could probably feel the solidified air, and as he saw their weapons, his frown grew. “Bad idea.”

  Roan shrugged.

  “We require him to be set free,” Rhys announced. “Uncage him.”

  Will glanced over at Roan, who grinned at him. It was as good of a way to get a reaction as any. Police officers swarmed toward them. They ran up against the wall of air that Rhys was maintaining as a transparent shield. The initial sight of grown men running into seemingly nothing was funny, although it highlighted how little the things humanity knew would prepare them for dealing with the full fae—or even with a strong fae-blood like Lily.