by Rhys Ford
I’d found my ’69 Mustang in one of those pockets—a pristine dust-covered muscle car protected by one of the largest man-eating gators I’d ever seen. Much like the cuttlefish, the gator became meat and leather. The real prize was the car. It took me forever to extract it from its cave, but once I got it back on the road, it could do the Pendle Run in eight hours at full bore.
Or least it could until I did a run for Ryder and the Mustang was a casualty of my reacquaintance with the Unsidhe and a lengthy battle with a pack of ainmhi dubh, the black dogs of the Wild Hunt. My Grande Coupe took a massive beating, but its tough exterior and powerful engine did its job. Our nieces were born on that run, in the back seat of that car, to a human surrogate who eventually not only betrayed the girls she carried but lost her life in the process.
We got the babies back, but the price I paid was not just an extensively damaged car. Tanic now knew where I was, and he had allies among the Sidhe who would be more than happy to turn me over and possibly bring Ryder’s court down.
But we’ve all got problems.
Balboa Park’s massive Moroccan-influenced domes and plateresque buildings barely survived the Merge, but the surrounding greenscapes and most of the expansive zoo next to it were consumed by ancient forests filled with magical creatures. Much like the wild animal park to the north, once the zoo’s enclosures were compromised, its exhibited animals were left to roam freely.
That’s why Ryder and his band of merry elfin shared their designated properties with a roaming band of grumpy pandas.
Still, coming up over the exit ramp of the 8 Corridor, Balboa and its looming ancient forest were breathtaking in the rising sun. Ryder brought with him Sidhe architects, mages with arcane skills who could coax palaces from the ground. The elfin towers were just beginning to breach the forest canopy, their delicate spires mimicking the existing architecture.
There was a spot for me in those buildings—the nearly sentient land understood the court’s citizens and spurred a slowly growing tower. The Southern Rise realm recognized me, embraced me, and marked me as one of Ryder’s.
I had a different opinion, but apparently there was no arguing with dirt and stone.
The entrance to the Southern Rise Court lay off of Old Sixth Street, and the broad concrete bridge sparkled in the brightening sunlight, its mica-flecked art deco sides now clean of decades of soot. Strangely enough, the forest didn’t consume all traces of human existence. It left the bridge and the old museum structures, but the handblown-glass streetlamps that lined the broad drive into the Southern Rise compound now glowed from fairy lights instead of electrical bulbs.
I pulled up into the main rotunda and brought the truck to a rattling stop. The place looked a lot different from the night we rescued Kaia and Rhianna from my brother’s clutches. I’d taken down his ainmhi dubh—well, most of them—and plunged into the raging waters when the human woman who’d carried them tossed them into the river. My brother, Valin cuid Anbhás, went into the water as well, but him I left.
Ryder met me on the walk, looking lordly and very Sidhe.
He was gorgeous in a way humans found delectable, but for an elfin he was… okay. He wore his gold-streaked wheaten hair shorter now, but it still fell down to skip his shoulders. His almost-too-large-for-his-face deep green eyes were shot with opal and black, and his mouth was nearly kissable, except for his upper lip being a little thin. He was also slightly taller than I was, but that could have been the hair. He was skinnier, but he was filling out and getting more muscle mass from fight training and, oddly enough, wall building. It was a curious hobby—something he claimed helped him meditate and center his thoughts. He didn’t seem much calmer, but his hands were scuffed up, and his nails were a mess.
If anything, the Sidhe lord who had descended from Elfhaine to rule over the Southern Rise Court was becoming more human.
His sarcasm, however, was all Sidhe.
“You can’t park that there,” he drawled in his northern-accented Singlish. “If it’s come here to die, at least take it out into the back where it can look at the trees as it passes.”
I slammed the door to my mostly primer-painted truck and patted its hood. “This is why people don’t like you, Ryder. You look down that little princeling nose of yours at their vehicles. This baby has gotten me there and back again more times than I can count, which is a hell of a lot more than I could say about you.”
His smile was devastating. It ended nearly all of my control, and like always, whenever I was near him, I was struck with a need so powerful I nearly succumbed just to get relief. But I refused to be dictated by my instincts, and Ryder understood all too well the attraction riding both of us. It was the primordial and arcane drive of our blood and souls aching to quench the indefatigable fire between us.
My body thrummed with even the thought of him, and while I couldn’t speak for Ryder, his pupils went large whenever they settled on me. He smelled of tea and sweet vanilla with a dash of clove for good measure. There were times when we wanted each other so badly we waged wars with our words and wit—anything to build up a defense against the genetic drive.
In the beginning, we didn’t even like each other. I wasn’t even sure we were friends, but we eventually circled back to each other and found excuses and common ground.
My only consolation for my lack of control and holding on by the skin of my teeth was that I drove Ryder insane.
“I didn’t think I would see you so early in the morning. Did you hear Cari and Alexa went on a Pendle Run last night? They should be back sometime this morning if they know what’s good for them.” Ryder glanced back at the towers inching up toward the sky behind him. “Tell me they won’t run into the trouble that we did. I do not want to lose my cousin and your best friend today.”
“It’s not mating season, so they shouldn’t run into any dragons. They might plow through a herd of jackalopes, but I think if they see them, they’ll go around.” I enjoyed his look of horror. “Come on, don’t be worried. Stalkers make that run all the time. You’ve made it. It’s just a long stretch of black lava with a road mostly cut through it.”
“It is an eight-hour full-speed haul through one of the largest gatherings of dragons on this Morrígan-damned planet—hungry dragons who are always looking to fill their bellies,” Ryder hissed back. “It’s suicide. There’s another way around that’s much safer. I know. I took it when I came down here the first time.”
“That way also takes several days,” I reminded him. “A Pendle Run is a hell of a lot easier than spending nearly half a week inching through mountain passes.”
“You almost died!”
“That had more to do with that asshole hunt master and his black dogs than the Run.” I shrugged. “And if I had a dollar for every time I almost died, I’d be retired by now.”
“That does not make it any better,” Ryder shot back.
“Are they driving the Nova Cari got from her brother? Because if they are, they’ll be more than fine.”
“Did you know that nova means don’t go in Spanish? Why would you drive a car that means don’t go?” Ryder frowned, more than likely perplexed at the vast range of languages humans had. The elfin, for the most part, shared similar tongues with only regional variations, some of them so thick it was difficult to understand what they were saying but easy enough to parse out. “It is good to see you, Kai, Clan Gracen, Stalker and Defender of the Southern Rise Court.”
“Yeah, don’t get started on that shit,” I said as I nodded my chin toward the former Museum of Man, where he’d converted the upper floor into a suite of apartments and settled in while they waited for the court to finish growing. “Why don’t you pour me a cup of coffee. And you might want to slip some whiskey into yours, because believe it or not, lordling, I’ve got a favor to ask of you.”
WE STOPPED in to look at the girls, who despite the elfin propensity to age quickly out of infanthood, were still rather chubby drooling things with about as much intellig
ence as a golden retriever. Their nurse claimed they were brilliant and far ahead of any other child she’d ever helped raise, but the woman also liked to eat raw brussels sprouts, so as far as I was concerned, her opinion was sketchy. The babies were cute and definitely Sidhe. I couldn’t tell them apart, but Ryder assured me I’d sucked egg mucus out of Kaia’s blocked nose after their birth.
I’d done a lot of disgusting things in my life, but sucking on a baby’s face to clear her sinuses was possibly the worst.
Their birth mother, Shannon, should never have gotten into my car. She was about to pop when we brought her down, and the surprise appearance of two eggs slithering out of her body as she straddled the back seat made me want to set my car on fire. Despite that image being permanently burned in my brain and the memory of Kaia’s slithery overcooked egg white hitting the back of my throat, I was kind of fond of the kids.
“That one bites,” Ryder commented as I held Kaia in the crook of my arm. “She gets that from your side of the family.”
“You wish my side of the family bit you,” I shot back while handing her over to the nurse. “Okay. Call me when they’re able to walk and hold a gun so I can take them out ainmhi dubh hunting.”
“You’ve already gotten to Alexa,” he grumbled at my back as we walked toward his apartment. “I’ll thank you to leave our nieces out of your Stalking business.”
“They’re going to need a job.” I pushed open his front door. “Not like there are unclaimed courts just lying about the continent waiting for some lordling to show up and piss on them.”
“Your misunderstanding of Sidhe politics is staggering,” he replied as he shut the door behind us. The click sounded final, and my mind raced with the elaborate possibilities of what could happen in the luxuriously appointed living space that Ryder had carved out for himself. Luckily there was also a balcony, should I need to throw myself off of it. “Sit down and I’ll bring you some coffee. I’m gathering by the tumbler you left in the truck you’ve already had some and are aching for more.”
“You would be gathering right.” I plopped down onto a sofa and nearly moaned in pleasure at its soft caress on my still-aching body.
Like me, Ryder arranged a bunch of couches around a low-lying table, but unlike my furniture, his was upholstered in a fine brocade and didn’t have spots of dried cat horf that he couldn’t get totally cleaned off. The place was airy and full of light, its outer walls filled with broad windows that overlooked the enormous cobblestone courtyard I’d driven into.
While the outside of the building boasted more embellishments than a little girl’s birthday cake, its interior was much more subdued. The spaces were open and connected by long arched hallways, and most rooms were cordoned off with drapery instead of doors, welcoming any visitor to roam about. I knew from previous visits that the halls led to a library filled with enough books to make my covetous heart lust and to a study and various other rooms.
At the end of the main hall were double doors, often left wide open. They were also inviting, but for a different reason. I avoided that hall like the plague, and Ryder, amused at my discomfort, smiled every time I scowled down its cool length.
“It’s not going to be a prison, Kai,” he’d told me once as he gestured toward the bridge arching from his broad patio to the tower that was sculpting itself for my residency. “It will be there when you’re ready… if you are ever ready.”
Yeah. Like the plague.
The court wanted me there. I knew that. Everyone knew that. I just didn’t understand it.
He returned with coffee strong enough to grow a pelt on our chests, which would be a miracle seeing as elfin didn’t have a scrap of hair on us except for our heads. He passed me one of the mugs and sat on the table in front of me so our knees touched.
“You look troubled, Kai,” he murmured softly and brushed his fingers over my thigh. “This must be some favor.”
The elfins’ need to casually touch was difficult for me, even on my best days, but I was trying to get used to it. It was like swallowing ketchup on scrambled eggs when someone served you—you tried not to make a face and gulped it down before you tasted the sweetened tomato sauce. Still, the electricity of his warmth through my jeans calmed the agitation Duffy had left burrowing inside of me.
I couldn’t look at him while I recounted the tale she’d spun for me the night before. He listened as he always did, intent on my face, his dark green eyes piercing and sharp. It was odd—I had no better word for it—to see the complete trust he had in me. It played over his features, a sincere rapt loyalty, deep enough to shake me. For all we argued and fought, he was solid. He might fail spectacularly at what I needed him to do, but I could count on him on being there.
“We will offer them sanctuary here, or at least for as long as we can,” Ryder said. Now it was his eyes that were troubled, an expression I found I didn’t care for. The disruption of his arrogant confidence didn’t suit his face, and my displeasure must have shown, because his hand once again settled on my leg. “It’s not that they aren’t welcome here. I would take any elfin into the court, but there is a complication I hadn’t planned on.”
“What kind of thing can complicate this? You’re the damn high lord of this court. If you wanted to induct a Pele-cursed platypus into this place, nobody could stop you,” I growled at him.
That growl was answered by the rumble of a big-block muscle car pulling into the main courtyard. It was the sound of American steel fueled by a hybrid gas-and-cell engine much like the one I had in Oketsu, my Mustang.
“Right there, ainle, is my complication.” Ryder’s eyes flared with anger, setting the opalescent slivers in their depths on fire. “The reason Cari and Alexa went up north was to bring down a challenger to my court. You see, Kai, there is another lord of my blood who’s come to challenge me and take what I feel is destined to be mine. And that includes you.”
Four
“HE DOESN’T look like much,” I said from my perch on the windowsill. “Kind of scrawny. Anemic even. Surprised he survived the trip down.”
Ryder snorted from the couch. “He fought in the wars. Kerrick is quite sturdy.”
“Yeah? Well he looks like Cari can take him. And she’s wee.” I studied the interloper and tried to find any resemblance to the Sidhe lord sitting behind me. His hair was long and cascaded down his back in a sleek queue, and while I couldn’t quite see the range of colors in his eyes, they flashed a silvery teal when the sunlight played over his face. “Hell, Newt can take this bastard. Why are you just letting him waltz in? And how the hell does he have a claim on this court?”
“His bloodline gives him the right, just like mine does,” Ryder replied smoothly, but I could hear the tension in his voice. He was disturbed by this lord’s arrival, and if there was one thing Ryder hated, it was being challenged. “He’s my cousin, the blood son of my mother’s blood sister. He is as close a descendent to Sebac as I am, so he has every right, possibly even more. The court will eventually decide.”
“What? You mean like the castle you’ve got growing in your backyard?” To say I was confused was an understatement. “Explain that.”
“After a period of time, if it responds to his presence more than to mine, that will say the land wants him for its people.” He tried to pass it off with a nonchalant wave of his hand, but I knew better. For all of Ryder’s faults—mostly his pigheaded arrogance—he had a passion for his people. He would do anything for them, including defying his domineering, controlling grandmother. “We won’t know until he’s been here a while. If the towers accelerate their growth or react positively to him being here, then I will step aside.”
“That’s bullshit.” Maybe this Kerrick heard me through the closed window or something caught his attention, because he glanced up and scanned the front of the building. Even with the distance between us, I could see he was a stunning man, but something in his face left me cold inside. “I’ve got a couple of sharp knives, and you have a very-fast-m
oving, deep river about half a mile to the east. I say we take care of him before the court can even catch a whiff of his ass.”
He sighed heavily, an exasperated sound I knew all too well. “Kai, you just can’t keep killing things or people you don’t want around.”
“Funny, it’s worked out for me so far.” I cocked my head and studied him. “And that’s literally what they pay me for. Killing things is what I do.”
“But not people, not unless they move against you first.”
“If you remember, I told you I’d kill you if ever you began to abuse your power like your grandmother does,” I pointed out. “But I’m willing to bend that to kill for you to protect your people.”
His grin was a sensual tease and filled with sweaty promises. “That is the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Most people don’t consider premeditated murder romantic, lordling.”
“Most people aren’t you, Kai.” He saluted me with his mug. “We will just have to wait and see.”
“Answer me something. Was he at all interested in forming a court before you came down here?” I went back to watching Ryder’s cousins and Cari unload the Nova. Or at least Alexa and Cari were. Kerrick just stood there, taking in the sights. “Or did he want it because you had it?”
“He has leadership capabilities and was a very high-ranking officer in the Sidhe armies. Now that the wars are over, he’s probably looking to establish a legacy.” Ryder shrugged. “Like I said, his bloodline gives him as much right to be here as mine does.”