Desert Tales

by Melissa Marr

  She shrugged. “I get lonely. I needed to talk, and there was no one . . . so I did that.”

  “Art to talk . . . Yeah. I get that.” Jayce nodded, watching her as he said it. It was the same look of wonder he’d had when he’d first seen her, before the weirdness, before the fight, before their run across the desert. “It’s hard to find words sometimes.”

  “Or anyone trustworthy enough to listen.” She walked over to stand beside him.

  “I draw. Not like this, but . . .”

  Suddenly, the bats stirred en masse as they heard a voice calling into the tunnels, “Princess? Come out; come out.”

  The whole colony seemed to leave in one black wave, and for a moment, Rika and Jayce stood together silently watching the bats.

  “That’s Sionnach, from earlier. He’s here,” Rika babbled awkwardly.

  Jayce’s expression clouded at the intrusion, but he was silent as she took his hand in hers. His fingers were warm, and for a moment, she wanted to stay silent and hidden with this boy who understood the need to speak with art. That wasn’t an option though; she’d indebted herself to the fox faery who was waiting for them.

  “Come on,” she said.

  They followed the twisting maze of tunnels to the first cavern they’d entered when they came into the cave. Sionnach’s back was to them, and Rika could already see that there were various scrapes visible on his arms, as if something with talons slashed him. When he turned to face Jayce and Rika, more injuries became visible.

  “I need to talk to him,” Rika said. At Jayce’s nod, she released his hand reluctantly and went to stand beside Sionnach. In a very low voice, she told the faery, “Maili’s in need of a few reminders of her place . . .”

  “No courts out here, princess,” Sionnach murmured softly enough that Jayce wouldn’t hear. “Rule of strength or influence.”

  She growled a little and said, “They’re acting like animals.” She reached up to check the injuries on his face, touching him as she only did when he’d come to her injured and seeking help. “That’s my fault. . . . I’m—”

  “Shhh.” Sionnach stepped away, leaving Rika with one hand still in the air, and turned his attention to Jayce. “So . . . Jayce, right?”

  Jayce nodded. “And you’re . . . ?”

  “Sionnach,” he said, drawing out the word so it sounded like “shhh knock.” The faery circled Jayce, not looking very human. He leaned in behind Jayce and sniffed him. “If it’s easier, you can call me ‘Shy.’”

  “Thanks for the help at the club, Sionnach,” Jayce said levelly.

  Jayce either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Sionnach had just sniffed him. Rika had spent enough time with Jayce that she couldn’t say she was completely surprised by how well he’d reacted to everything so far; he was naturally mellow. But Rika didn’t like Sionnach acting more like an animal than a human. He wasn’t even playing at being one of them right now; he could act like a human. She’d seen it, but right now, he was acting like himself. Seeing him around Jayce, being so much the solitary faery, made Rika remind herself that he was all faery; he wasn’t someone she should trust. He was and had always been a faery, one with motivations she’d never wanted to understand—and still didn’t.

  She scowled at him, thinking back on his earlier visit, when he had so casually told her that he knew that Jayce was in danger and that he’d done nothing about it.

  However, Sionnach was well accustomed to her censure after several decades of their friendship. He merely folded his arms and gave her a wide smile. He sniffed Jayce again.

  “Stop it, Sionnach.” Rika stepped between them and took Jayce’s hand. Then, she walked toward the same pallet where she’d been sitting when Sionnach had visited earlier and sat, tugging Jayce down beside her in the process.

  Jayce looked a bit amused, no longer seeming as perplexed as when they’d first arrived or as awed as when they were in the tunnel. He leaned back against the wall, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and then looked from her to Sionnach and back again. “You’re both a little unusual.”

  “Quite,” Sionnach said, and then he laughed.

  Rika knew him well enough to understand that he approved of how Jayce was responding to the situation. A lot of people would be freaking out over her cave home, the fight, the speed at which they’d moved, and Sionnach’s odd behavior. Jayce wasn’t. Still, Rika told Sionnach, “I can’t ask him to stay here.”

  “I don’t mind,” Jayce said softly from beside her. “I’d like to spend more time with you.”

  Rika glanced at him, but didn’t speak. She couldn’t. The flare of happiness inside of her threatened to make her sound like even more of a fool than she probably already had. By all rights, Jayce should be fleeing. He should be trying to escape her, wondering if she was crazed and dangerous. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask.

  Still staring at her, Jayce added, “I can go get my gear and—”

  In an almost human-like walk, Sionnach went to a shadowed edge of the room. When he retrieved a rucksack and bedroll and dropped them on the ground in front of Rika and Jayce, they broke their locked gaze and looked at Sionnach instead.

  “How? Where? . . . Never mind.” Jayce smiled wryly and shook his head. “I’m guessing you’re part of the I-can’t-answer-questions team.”

  “Oh, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Ask away.” Sionnach sounded somewhere between amused and malicious, and Rika wondered what game he was playing at.

  After a tension-filled pause, Jayce asked, “Anything?”

  With a speed too quick to truly appear human, Rika stood and snatched hold of Sionnach’s arm. “Move, Shy. Now.”

  She pulled him away from Jayce, toward the door, so they could speak in relative privacy.

  “Oh my . . . Are you asking me to keep secrets, princess?” He widened his eyes, but his tone was very serious, and Rika was reminded yet again that he had always been a faery. “Are you telling me that it’s okay to keep secrets from those we care about?”

  There were layers of meanings under his words that she couldn’t begin to fathom. The tension had grown thick, but Rika couldn’t decide if it was anger or something else that was driving the fox faery. She released his arm. If she were any other faery in the desert, Sionnach would’ve reacted as if she’d just challenged his authority.

  “Rika?” he prompted. His gaze told her there were more things hidden in his words than she knew. She wasn’t sure, though, what he was thinking as he waited for her reply—any more than she was sure what her reply was.

  Do I think keeping secrets is okay? That was his question. She simply wasn’t sure why her answer mattered to Sionnach, but it was apparent that it did. To some degree she had to believe that it was okay to keep secrets. Elsewise, she would have to tell Jayce how often she’d watched him. She rolled the question over in her mind. There was no way the fox faery meant it to be purely a question about her and Jayce. She knew that much at least.

  Behind her, she heard movement, and glanced back as Jayce stood and grabbed his things from where Sionnach had deposited them. He started toward the entrance to the cave. “You two obviously have something to sort out, so I can—”

  “Please don’t go.” Stricken, Rika stepped farther away from Sionnach and shot a plaintive glance at him, wordlessly asking him to be less . . . him, less fey.

  “She wants you here.” Sionnach stepped in front of Jayce. “I took care of what needed taken care of so you could be here with Rika. Don’t waste this chance.”

  And then he left the cave.

  Rika was utterly motionless for a moment, Jayce on one side, Sionnach outside the cave opening. She was confused by Sionnach’s help, by his actions here tonight, and by the way he’d seemingly helped push Jayce toward her while saying such things that made her wonder if she really knew the fox faery at all.

  Carefully, she touched Jayce’s forearm. “Please stay here for a minute. I ne
ed to talk to him, but I’ll be right back.” She swallowed nervously and then added in a rush, “I really want you to stay . . . not just for your safety, but because . . . I want you here. He’s my friend though, and I need to find out what happened, and he doesn’t want to talk in front of you. Please just give me a minute.”

  After a moment, Jayce sighed and said, “Why not?” Then he walked toward one of the tunnels with his bag without saying anything else.

  As soon as Jayce disappeared into the tunnels, Rika ran outside and found Sionnach staring at the desert. He’d slid to the far side of the ledge in front of her cave, precariously perched so he wasn’t visible from inside, and Rika wondered briefly if he’d stood out here like this when she was unaware of it. Right now, that wouldn’t surprise her.

  “What did you do to get his things?” Rika demanded in a whisper.

  “Nothing special.” Then in a blink Sionnach suddenly looked like Jayce, but still dressed in his own clothing. “Just a simple glamour, princess. You might only use them to stay hidden, but there’s a world of possibilities. I stopped at Jayce’s house before I came out here so I could explain to Jayce’s father that I’d be off camping with Del . . . and then stopped and told Del I’d met the girl of my dreams and was going to see her.”

  Rika blushed. “I’m not—”

  Sionnach was still wearing Jayce’s face as he said, “The girl of my dreams? You are. You’re one of the most amazing”—he pulled her into his arms, holding her in a position appropriate for slow dancing or kissing—“gorgeous”—he stroked her hair—“unusual girls I’ve ever met. Who wouldn’t want to hide away with you?”

  When Rika didn’t reply, Sionnach leaned in like he was going to kiss her. “And you believe in me enough that you aren’t seeing through the glamour . . . or are you seeing the real me right now, Rika?”

  Rika remained immobile in his embrace. Her hands were on his upper chest, and that was all that kept any distance between them. Then, she said his name, half question she didn’t want answered and half answer to the question he’d posed. “Shy?”

  The glamour faded, and Sionnach looked at her from his own face. He kissed her nose, a strangely innocent act after the hungry way he’d just been looking at her. “I’ll be back in a few days, princess. Go see Jayce.”

  By the time Rika could begin to figure out what to say, Sionnach was gone. If someone had told her yesterday that the mortal she was half in love with and the faery she considered an almost friend would both say such outrageous things to her on the same day, she would’ve laughed madly. Sure, Sionnach flirted now and again, but he’d never truly intimated that he considered her more than a distraction to tease. They’d spoken often of the desert, of courts and politics, of plants and weather. He hadn’t acted like that with her, and Jayce . . . well, he hadn’t known she existed.

  The world had gone off-kilter, and she wasn’t quite sure what to think. All she could do tonight was take advantage of the unexpected opportunity to talk to Jayce when he was able to see her, when he could actually reply to her. Nervously, she walked deeper into the cave and followed the tunnel back to the cavern where her mural was. Jayce was staring at it with something like wonder on his face.

  She came up beside him.

  He didn’t look away from the art. “You’re incredible.”

  “I’m not.”

  Then, he did look at her, and they were face-to-face, with very little distance between them. Unlike Sionnach, Jayce seemed as nervous as Rika felt. Strangely, that made her feel more comfortable.

  “This is the weirdest day of my life.” Jayce stepped even nearer, but it was only one step. His actions grew more tentative with each breath. “And one of the best.”

  Rika stayed still, caught between wondering whether it was better to act or react. One of his hands curled around her waist; his fingers rested on the small of her back. His embrace was about keeping her close, holding her near to his chest, lining their bodies up. But that was it—the promise, the temptation, and no more. The tension in his muscles made clear that he was debating moving closer.

  He went so far as to tilt his head as if he’d kiss her.

  Rika waited, counting the beats of her heart as if by counting she could slow the furious rhythm.

  After being utterly untouched for years, she was in someone’s arms for the second time in mere moments—and yet she was still unkissed.

  Is it me? She licked her lips, trying to find the words to ask such an unpleasant question. Am I . . . What, though? Unattractive? Uninteresting? Unpleasant in some way?

  He ducked his head then, dropping his gaze. “I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid?” Her voice was soft and girly, and she hated the way it sounded, the way she felt. After so long, she shouldn’t be this meek.

  He nodded.

  “Of what?”

  “You. Me. All the things that aren’t making any sense . . .” His words weren’t much more than a whisper.

  “I can’t explain all of that, but—”

  “I still want to be here, to be with you.” His voice was so low that if he pulled away, she wasn’t sure she’d hear what he was saying. He didn’t let go of her; he stayed kissably close, waiting for her, giving her the choice to decide what happened next.

  “I want you here too.” She flattened her palms against his chest. Under the skin, his heart was racing, beating as rapidly as hers was. In this, they were well matched—except her pulse raced with excitement and his with fear.

  “You live in a cave, Rika.”

  “I do.”

  He hesitated even longer before speaking this time. Haltingly, he asked, “Is he . . . Sionnach, is he your . . . something?”

  Rika hesitated, not knowing the answer as clearly as she did yesterday. All she could say of what she did know was: “Sometimes I think he’s my friend, but I’m not always sure.”

  Jayce nodded.

  “I don’t know if it’s the weirdness or you saving me or . . .” His words faded, and he took a shuddering breath. “I know I should step back and think because I’m pretty sure that getting tangled up with you is risky. You were in a fight tonight, and we ran faster than is possible, and . . . you live in a cave.”

  “I know.”

  “I want to know you.” He paused. “If I stay, will you answer any of my questions?”

  She didn’t know what to say. She was bound by rules, and she couldn’t break them without either consequences or permission. Jayce was appealing enough to make her consider it, but she would prefer another solution—one that didn’t involve him knowing what she was. She wasn’t looking for forever. Forever wasn’t something she intended to ever seek again. What she wanted was something brief, intense, real for a while. She wanted to burn up under the wanting. If she were a modern girl, a mortal girl from his time, she’d lean up and kiss him, solve the dilemma.

  After a moment, she whispered, “Just kiss me. It doesn’t have to lead to anything. Just a kiss.”

  Jayce brushed his closed lips against hers. It wasn’t enough. After so long being alone, after watching him and loving him in the only way she knew how, she was finally in his arms and all she wanted was the kiss she’d dreamed of in secrecy. He wasn’t giving her that, so she broke the rules. She said, “I’m not human, but I used to be a very long time ago.”

  And then she decided to try out this modern-girl thing: she kissed him thoroughly before he could answer.

  CHAPTER 8

  After their kiss, Jayce had asked her to explain what she meant, but she couldn’t, not really. “I need to get permission to say any more,” she’d told him. Jayce went back to town, and Rika set out to find Sionnach, realizing that this would be the first time she went to her Alpha with a request. It rankled, and she pondered what she’d do if Sionnach said no.

  Do I want this enough to challenge him?

  She wasn’t sure. All she could say for certain was that while she wasn’t sure of the rules for courtship in this modern world, s
he was pretty sure that lying wasn’t a good plan. So she needed to seek Sionnach’s permission.

  She found the fox faery nestled in the shadows of a rocky edge that formed the side of what would become a water hole in the wet season. He wouldn’t be visible if she hadn’t wound her way through the canyon and through a narrow opening. He didn’t quite flinch at her appearance, but he didn’t offer her a smile either. All he said was “Princess.”

  Rika smothered a sigh. He didn’t often sink into melancholy moods—or if he did, she hadn’t seen many of them—so she was at a momentary loss. Carefully, she skirted the cacti that flourished here and walked over to stand awkwardly in front of him. “Why do you call me that?”

  He shrugged. “You weren’t the queen of winter or summer, but you could’ve been. You aren’t the Alpha, but you could be . . . so, princess.”

  She sat down next to him on the ground. “I never wanted to be a queen or Alpha. I just wanted to be loved.”

  Sionnach stared at her for long enough that she squirmed. They had discussed her past enough that he shouldn’t be surprised by her words. Maybe it was his mood, or maybe it was because he’d almost kissed her. Either way, she felt uncharacteristically vulnerable.

  “Shy?”

  “You like the mortal,” Sionnach said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why you’re here.” He looked away from her to stare out at the desert.

  Rika frowned. Sionnach had all but shoved Jayce into her arms, yet now he was looking at her like she was wrong to have done exactly what he seemed to want. Cautiously, she said, “I won’t tell him what I am if you forbid it.”

  The fox faery nodded, but he didn’t look at her. “Do you remember when we met?”

  She smiled. “You were dancing in the moonlight like you didn’t know anyone was around.”

  “I knew you were there.” He glanced at her. “I knew you were there every time before that too. I thought maybe if I waited you’d come out of your prison and join me. I wanted you to love the desert like I do. I wanted you to be happy here.”