Hard Frost- Depths of Winter

by Thia Mackin

  Everyone seemed content with the answer, but Rankar had glanced my way when I mentioned the contract lengths. Hand on his leg, I squeezed reassuringly. Yeah, I’m working on that, love.

  “Do you know an Elizar Stone operating in Mystor? I used to do business with him,” Kismet asked, helpfully setting his wife’s empty plate on the ground at her behest.

  I ran the name through my mind, staring at the fence in the distance. “He owns the Dancing Dagger, right? Openly smuggles interplanar goods in and out of his shop, but they can’t ever catch him in the act.” I almost asked Kismet what kind of business but decided that now was a good time to not ask stupid questions at the sparkle in the eldest Sirach’s eye.

  “Speaking of being caught—or not—in the act,” Kismet began, placing his plate out of the way also. “Has our dad told you about the things Rankar did as a kid?”

  Rankar glanced over, narrowing his eyes. “Most of the time I was in trouble, you were right there.”

  I noted then that all four of the Sirach boys had their father’s innocently pleased, cat-ate-the-canary grin. “Yeah, but you already told my wife all of them, so…” Kismet shrugged innocently, and Xander snorted.

  If I were a betting person, I’d lay money that Kismet had been waiting for the opportunity to tell on his little brother for a while. A good friend would enable him, fulfill his dreams. “He hasn’t had the chance. What’s your favorite?”

  For a moment, Kismet’s eyes unfocused as he likely flipped through a mental catalogue of memories. Then his eyes softened slightly. “Rankar was around three years old. I was eight or so. We went to the Sirach Sithen for the first birth there in years. Some of the younger Sirachs were being assholes about our mom and my father, but I ignored them. Rankar? He heard them muttering. Angrily, he shifted into the most adorable cougar cub I’d ever seen in my life. He bit the ringleader in the ankle—the only thing he could reach—and peed on the other one’s shoes.”

  I snickered, and the cub-no-longer linked his fingers through mine.

  “I couldn’t figure out how to shift back,” Rankar interjected. “I’d never done it before.”

  “So I grabbed him up in a makeshift baby sling and took off running through the halls with these two idiots chasing us. We ran into Ari, and she escorted us safely to Mom.”

  “Arianrhod—Ari—is Asher’s soulsibling,” Tiernia added for my benefit.

  “We only ever went back to the Sithen for training and coronations,” Rankar finished.

  I rested my head against his shoulder, slumping slightly for comfort. “I’m an only child, and I grew up outside the Sithen. I was an adult by human standards before I met any Tuatha de beyond my parents.”

  Tiernia smiled. “So your friends were mostly humans?”

  I sipped from the bottle of water. “I trained with Dad and my uncle for fun, mostly. After my parents died, my uncle raised me primarily on Elysii.” Frown lines appeared between her brows. Kismet rubbed the small of her back, as though she were upset. I hurried to reassure her. “Those are my fondest memories. I had the best family.”

  Tiernia appeared relieved, but she slid from her husband’s lap and began collecting the dirty dishes. Kismet’s eyes watched her move, and he followed her into the house.

  “What did I say wrong?” I asked Rankar in a whisper.

  He kissed my forehead. “Tiernia had an unconventional childhood also. However, her memories aren’t as fond. She just needs a second to compose her thoughts.”

  Someone pecked on the kitchen window, and in front of Kismet’s grinning face sat two blue drakyn watching us longingly. The poor birds couldn’t come outside during the day, because any neighbor nosey enough to pay more than passing attention would know they weren’t ordinary pets. When the couple came back out, they distributed cold drinks all around.

  After the sun began to sink, everyone began carrying leftovers inside. I rose to help, and five people stared at me until I sat back down. When the men came back without their wives, Rankar said the duo was separating the food out so that everyone had lunch the next day, since no single person would be able to finish it all. “I want to be able to help,” I whisper-growled.

  “You’ll be healed soon enough,” Xander assured. “Wait until we have one at my house. Faela is possessive of the kitchen. She doesn’t even let Tiernia and Li help.”

  As the outdoor lights kicked on, Faela and Xander stepped into the darkest corner of the patio and Gated out. We walked Tiernia and Kismet to the front door, where the fae woman hugged us both with inhuman strength before they climbed in Kismet’s car—Baby, Rankar advised me was its name—and backed out of the driveway.

  Chapter 16

  I lowered onto the couch, noticing that my leg didn’t ache like normal. Probably because you haven’t pushed it the past few days. In the kitchen, Rankar finished loading the dishwasher and putting away the odds and ends. Beneath the sound of water running into the machine, his footsteps approached the doorway to the den.

  “Bedtime?” I asked, hopeful.

  He smiled at me, settling onto the cushions so he faced me. “After we talk.” He ignored my recalcitrant expression and continued, “Kinan, what questions do you have?”

  I set my hand on his leg, unconsciously looking for reassurance. “I don’t. You answered them earlier.”

  His fingers linked with mine. “Okay. Can you explain why you are upset?”

  I squeezed lightly as I looked toward the unlit fireplace, ignoring the tension building in my chest. “I’m not.” Hypnos chirped in my ear from his position draped across the back of the couch. “Fine,” I whispered, “I am. And I don’t know why. And I think I’m a complete idiot for crying for no good reason, but I’ll get over it, and it’ll be fine.”

  His voice was quieter too. “Did you feel this way before you asked about my romantic history?”

  “No.” Pulling my good leg up to my chest, I rested my other arm over it. Apparently, we were going to have this conversation whether I wanted to or not.

  He shifted slightly. “Are you upset that I was engaged once, that I didn’t tell you I was engaged once, or both?”

  Stubborn Sirach male, he refused to let this go, and every moment I drew it out only punished us both. My forehead against my knee and eyes closed, I retraced the morning. “I think—I think it started when I asked you about Alika and Asher in the car. Something in your body language told me there was more that I didn’t know.” I hurried on. “And that’s fine. We can’t instantly know everything about one another. But the feeling didn’t go away when I asked if you were married, so I pushed.”

  Raising up, I glanced at him. “I’m not upset that you were engaged once, Rankar. You were allowed to have a life before we met. I’m not upset that you didn’t tell me yesterday or a month ago that you were engaged. We are still learning about one another.” Easy to tell what didn’t bother me. “I’m sorry I asked a question that hurt you, and I’m sorry my guilt put unnecessary distance between us.”

  His gaze was direct. “Would you rather talk about Li or Bridget?”

  Both topics bothered him, and enough of that already went on today. “Neither.”

  He studied me, and I met his eyes, hiding nothing. “Then would you mind if I told you about Bridget?” A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You remind me a little of her, you know? How fierce you are; how determined. How much I love you.”

  Fully conscious, despite my screwup today, he loved me. So I answered the only way I could. “Please do.”

  “Her family was Irish. Her grandfather and his brothers came to America during the famine with their families and went west until her grandmother demanded they stop before she died of exhaustion or killed him, one of the two.”

  My lips twitched. I could imagine Karyn saying something similar to her husband.

  “Bridget was the oldest girl, but she had two older brothers who died. One died on the railroad; one died in the Army. The Dust Bowl forced her par
ents to move south and west to New Mexico, and her father worked on my parents’ ranch. That’s how I met her—she was bringing lunch to her dad when we were out with the herd.”

  I had an idea, but… “What year was this?”

  “1934.”

  My stomach dropped a little. Every time we talked about the past, the differences between our ages stood out in my mind. Did it ever bother him, make him rethink being with me? His family had status, support from the Sithens. To the fae there, I was still a child. With his one hundredth birthday approaching, he was not. And I won’t even be a quarter his age until next June. My nod must have held more emotion than I believed, because he squeezed my hand lightly.

  “It’s been a long time, Kinan. It doesn’t hurt to remember her or talk about her anymore.”

  I watched our linked fingers, enjoying the contrast between my fair complexion and his tan one as the images of him frozen at the sink and later staring into the horizon replayed in my mind. When I could speak, my voice sounded quiet—especially in the silence of the house. “Ran, that’s not how it seemed when I asked you about it earlier.”

  He exhaled softly. “That was more me feeling guilty than hurt. I wasn’t sure how you’d react to me being engaged lifetimes ago—either the engagement or the lifetimes ago. I realized when you asked that I couldn’t remember her face or voice or even the last time I’d thought much about her.”

  Pressing my lips together kept them from trembling. “I’m sorry.”

  “She caught tuberculosis and got sick at the beginning of ’36, after I’d finally received John’s blessing. Her two older brothers died in ’35, and she convinced her dad I’d take good care of her and the family if anything else happened to them.

  “She died a few days before her twenty-fourth birthday, as did her younger sister and a younger brother. John Cochran went from a proud father of six to a broken father of one in the space of sixteen months. After Bridget’s wake, he, his wife, and their surviving son packed up and left for California. I never heard from them again.”

  My heart ached for him, and I wondered if Eliecha could heal a human disease like tuberculosis. “Did she know you weren’t human?”

  “She knew. Her family didn’t.”

  Ignoring the burning pain, I brought my injured leg beneath me so I could kneel on the couch and wrap my arms around him. Immediately, he shifted my position until the burn went back to an ache and pulled me closer. My cheek rested against his shoulder, and a part of me wanted to tell him—in English—that I loved him. However, a stronger bit urged me to wait until the moment wasn’t overshadowed by the story of his fiancée. Still, something Mycal had said did seem to fit. “I never met her, but she must have had good taste if she chose you.”

  “I’d like to think so.” His smile only lasted a moment. “Asher and Alika didn’t come back for the funeral. They were in another Sithen at the time. I don’t know if they never received word or what, but they didn’t come home… They never even met her.”

  I clenched my jaw, unable to picture the Asher Sirach I met abandoning his brother when Rankar needed the support. The man had secrets, but a man harboring that kind of hatred could have never treated a stranger so kindly. Having never met Alika, I couldn’t guess, but… Hesitantly, I murmured, “I hear time flows differently in some Sithens?”

  “I hope that’s the explanation.” He closed his eyes, and the loss caused me to burrow as close as possible. His chest rose and fell as he breathed deeply. “But that was a nail in the coffin for my relationship with my sister. Not the last, but one of them. I don’t know that we can ever be brother and sister after that.”

  Emotionally, I wasn’t ready to delve into that secret, and I doubted Rankar was, either, except in relation to the current topic. “Is there anything else about Bridget you’d like to tell me?”

  He paused. “I think she’d like you. I hope so, anyway.”

  Kissing his cheek, I agreed. “I hope so, too.”

  Quiet fell between us for a long moment, as we both processed the discussion. “Kinan, is there anything else that concerns you? What happened today… I’d rather talk things through if either of us have concerns.”

  Asking if he regretted the difference in our age made me nervous. If he said yes, what would that mean for us? I could change a lot, but that wasn’t on the list. Perhaps in four or five hundred years, it would be a paltry number of years. However, nothing fixed it right now.

  If we’d had this discussion earlier, you wouldn’t have misunderstood the situation so much, Rankar’s voice reminded me in my head. I need you to trust me.

  Keeping my eyes on the fireplace, I opened my mouth and forced the words I didn’t want to say past my lips as casually as possible. “Sometimes I forget the difference between our ages.”

  Rankar didn’t look away, though his lips tightened for a moment. “I’m torn between forgetting it most of the time and feeling guilty when I unexpectedly remember.”

  Brow wrinkled, I turned toward him, genuinely confused. Of the answers I imagined, that hadn’t been one. “Why do you feel guilty? We’re both adults here.”

  His hands tightened slightly on my arms. “You’re so young, Kinan.” The emphasis caused a pain in my chest. “You’ve seen a lot of fighting and death, but you haven’t seen much life yet.”

  The hurt lingered; I ignored it. After a brief pause, my emotions levelled out enough to keep my voice even. “What do you mean exactly?”

  His hesitation was longer than mine had been. “Am I your first serious relationship?”

  “Yes.” The word slipped out easily, the truth and not something I had ever considered feeling ashamed of. However, when he didn’t immediately respond, I realized perhaps I’d been wrong. This time, they didn’t flow so easily. “Is that a problem?”

  “It’s not a problem, but, Kinan, I’ve lived through things you would have studied in history books. If you were older or I were younger, it wouldn’t throw me so much. Sometimes, though, I get caught in my head and think you deserve someone less fucked up than me.”

  “And I’ve fought in battles that are rumors and legends circulating on Planes you’ve never even visited. Remember all that ‘fighting and death’ I’ve seen?” Swallowing hard, I pushed the hurt back down before it moved the conversation into an argument I didn’t intend to start. “Rankar, age has nothing to do with how fucked up a person is. And if I have to trust you to decide being with me is worth the risk to your life, it seems reasonable that you trust me to decide if your issues are worth it to me.”

  Above us, Thanatos appeared suddenly. We both looked up, watching the drakyn wing down to settle around Rankar’s shoulders on the side away from me. The blue rubbed his face against his bondmate’s, who reached up to touch the creature’s back. Hypnos crawled forward, stopping half on my shoulder and half on the couch corner. I wished he’d gone to my lap, giving me an excuse to hold him.

  After a moment, Hypnos looked at me. ::Sad. Scared. ???:: He and Thanatos watched each other as though they were speaking. ::Bad sleeps. Missed you.::

  The fist gripping my chest tightened, and I moved a hand down to squeeze my bad leg until it distracted me from the other pain. How in the name of the Goddess did a discussion about the difference in our ages set us on the brink of a fight?

  Hypnos, I thought loudly at the bird, trying to figure out how to right the conversation and wishing we’d stopped with Bridget, what is bad sleeps?

  “You’re right.” Rankar’s voice sounded a little raspy and hoarse, and he moved his hand from my arm to his leg. I looked away from the two drakyn obviously discussing our argument—I hoped they understood better than me what had happened—as he cleared his throat. “You’re right. You should get to decide if I’m worth it.”

  Turning slightly until my knee touched Rankar’s, I met his eyes. “Rankar… I thought it was clear that I had. You are.” Reaching across the distance he’d created, my hand gripped his. His palms were sweaty, like nerves
or guilt motivated him. “What is this?” I asked, admitting my confusion. Immediately, an answer occurred to me, and I moved my hand over to pat his leg. “Rankar, do you—” The words caught in my throat, but a hard push freed them. “Do you want me to make myself scarce?”

  He spoke over me, half-interrupting the thought. “No! That’s the last thing I want, Kinan.”

  Frustration combined with the hurt and anxiety. “What do you want?”

  Hypnos finally moved to my lap as he projected image after image of Rankar restlessly shifting in his bed, tossing and turning as though nightmares plagued him. The procession of mental videos implied night after night. ::Lots bad sleeps.:: I squeezed Hypnos tighter, fingers shaking against the drakyn’s little body as I waited for his bonded to answer.

  When Rankar finally spoke, shifting to face us, it startled me. “The last time I loved a woman as much as I love you, I was young and fearless and never worried about one of us dying, even though I should have, because she was human and I’m not. Nothing could have prepared me for the way it felt to lose Bridget, and I never loved anyone else the same way since until I met you. And I wish you could have met me then, because I hadn’t had time yet to rack up so many mistakes and lives lost. I wish you could have had someone like that for a first love, because you deserve someone who doesn’t carry so many ghosts around.”

  His hand petted Thanatos, the movement as shaky as my own. “My first month of my first tour in Vietnam, I got four guys in my unit killed because of my arrogance. I had to write to their families and tell them their son or brother or father or husband was coming home in a box, and none of them told me it was my fault, but they should have, because it was.

  “I got captured and tortured and gave them nothing but name, rank, and serial number for weeks. And then they took turns torturing me and torturing the poor kids in there with me, because they knew somehow that it would break me faster if I had to watch. I told them who my family was. Not that we were Tuatha de, but that we were wealthy and my father was in government. Uncle Sam agreed to a prisoner swap and got me out, but the kid in the cage next to mine was stuck there, and I didn’t even know his name to check the Wall to see if he survived.