by Rhys Ford
Sure, I could have told Ryder that water would only make it worse, but why would I spoil my fun?
I’d spent a little energy topping off the water tanks from what was in the pond and running it through the transport’s filtration system. We hadn’t used much of anything, but it was always good to grab resources as we went. After everyone settled in, I dimmed the lights inside, leaving the main cabin door open but rolling down the screen to keep any bugs from flying in. I took one of the suction stools with me and attached it to the cave floor a few feet away from the door, close enough so I could lean on one of the centipede’s enormous tires.
With the lights mostly off, the cavern came back to life as its glowing subterranean creatures reemerged from their shelters. The soft glow from the transport’s running lights would keep most invasive underground species away, especially the kangaroo rats with their love for electrical wiring, but beyond the reach of the lights, the cave lit up like a field of stars.
There were spots in the world where being underground plunged you into a black so pitch-dark it felt as though your breath lightened it every time you exhaled. San Diego’s caverns were a far cry from that kind of stygian depths. Some chambers were open to the sky, while others had natural chimney shafts punching through their ceilings, letting in air and sunlight. This cave had no opening, but the creatures living in its cracks and crevices more than made up for it as they spread out a tiny galaxy around me. Grateful for the quiet, I opened the tumbler of hot coffee I’d brought out with me and settled in for a quiet two-and-a-half-hour stretch.
A few minutes later, the screen door opened and Ryder stepped out of the transport carrying another stool. He’d changed into the unicorn shirt I’d discarded and a motorcycle jacket he’d scrounged out of my closet once. I let him. It was too small for me, and at least this way the thick leather would prevent road rash if he somehow fell out of a moving vehicle. His hair was still damp from the quick shower he’d taken earlier, but the gold in its strands was hard to mute. Their metallic sheen was brilliant, even under the cave dwellers’ soft, inconsistent lights.
He locked down the legs of the stool, settled in next to me, leaned back against the solid side of the centipede, and then held his hand out for my cup. “Tell me that’s coffee and you’re willing to share a sip?” His mouth quirked to one side. “Unless it’s whiskey, which would surprise me because you are on watch, but I would understand, considering the day you’ve had.”
“Coffee. Sadly, no whiskey, because yeah, no one’s going to die while I’m on a run because I couldn’t take a few bruises or deal with your asshole cousin.” I handed him my coffee and grinned when the potent brew left him with a grimace. “Careful. This late at night? I like it strong.”
“That could grow hair on a Sidhe. Gods, no wonder you’re foul tempered,” he coughed out, but he took another tentative sip before he handed it back. “And once again, I must apologize for my… asshole cousin.”
“How he acts doesn’t rub off on you.” I shrugged. “Because if I were going to think like that, your grandmother would have stained you something fierce.”
“True, Grandmother’s much worse than Kerrick.” He shifted on his seat and glanced at me from under his long lashes. Then he dug into the pockets of his jacket and pulled out two long, flat rectangles with a glint of silver at their edges. “I have something for you. Here. I was going to save this for later, but I think after today, you probably need this more than you need a shot of whiskey.”
I wondered sometimes if he truly understood me. Most often Ryder heard me, but his head seemed to be at a constant quizzical tilt, so I was never sure if anything I said or anything I did sank in. The fragrant foil-wrapped rectangle he held out to me proved me wrong in so many ways.
It was chocolate.
Not only was it chocolate, but it was the kind of chocolate I love most of all, a demi-bittersweet mixed with a silky milk and crackled through with macadamia-nut bits. There was no wrapper, just foil. And when I unfolded it, the bar was thick but uneven, scored every inch or so to make it easier to break apart. I snapped off an inch, put it on the tip of my tongue, and closed my eyes at the glorious sweetness spreading through my mouth.
It was perfect. The balance between the salty, savory nuts and the sweet bitterness of the chocolate made me purr. I took my time sucking on the tidbit I’d stuck in my mouth, aching for another taste but wanting to make the bar last. In the stillness of the cavern, I could hear Ryder opening the foil on his bar and then the snap as he broke off a large chunk.
I was stingy when I ate chocolate. Jonas used to tease me about it. Hell, he still did. Dempsey once raided one of the few Halloween stashes I’d ever had—ill-gotten booty because I could fake being human one night every year and knock on doors to get candy. It took Jonas, Cari’s father, and a couple of his sons to get me off of Dempsey and take away the knife I pulled on them.
Needless to say, he never touched a piece of my chocolate ever again.
I was glad Ryder had brought his own, because I didn’t want to share. It was that good.
“Where did you get this? And can I lock whoever made it into a bathroom so I can keep them prisoner like Rumpelstiltskin did with that girl and the spinning wheel?” I opened my eyes when Ryder laughed. “What?”
“I made it. And while I would not mind being locked in your bathroom, it would make running the court very difficult. I suppose people could shout at me from under the door, but our nieces would probably eventually need raising. I could leave that to you.” He laughed again at my horrified expression. “I’m glad you like it. I wanted to do something special for you, something maybe no one else has done? Or at least no other Sidhe has done.”
To say I was speechless would’ve been an understatement. I was gobsmacked, not because the idea of Ryder standing in a kitchen concocting chocolate seemed ludicrous, but at the idea that he would make something so specifically for me. I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you” seemed trite, even though most people would think what he did was nothing because it was just chocolate.
For me, there was no such thing as just chocolate.
“Go raibh maith agat,” I murmured, my Sidhe heavily accented by Dempsey’s Irish. There were many regionally shared words between the elfin and human languages, but the Emerald Isle seemed to anchor itself in my people’s native tongue. Thank you was one of those phrases, firmly entrenched in a Gaelic laden with peat bogs and fairy tales. “This means a lot to me.”
“It was fun to make. I couldn’t get it as pretty as the chef did, but I think I got the flavors right.” He folded the foil back over his bar and shoved it into my jacket pocket. “You keep this one too. I just wanted to make sure it tasted okay, or I would’ve had to risk a fatal injury and smack it out of your hand before you could eat it.”
“I like how you think that throwing it on the floor would somehow prevent me from eating chocolate,” I retorted. “I’m not too proud to admit I’ve sucked up chocolate pudding that had fallen out of a cup and onto the kitchen floor. It’s chocolate. And honestly, my favorite kind.”
“I remember Cari describing your face when you had a truffle made from this kind of chocolate, so I wanted to see if I could recreate it for you.” He was close enough to lean against me, and when he did, his weight against my shoulder wasn’t that bad. “I wanted to say thank you for everything that you’ve done. Not just for the court or even for the girls. But today, when you trusted me enough to cut the fabric out of you, I realized how much of a gift your friendship is to me. Because, my dear chimera, if someone had done to me what your father did to you, I wouldn’t let an elfin near me with a blade for the rest of my life.”
Shit.
I’d let Ryder cut into me.
I not only let him, I unwrapped the scalpels for him.
I should have been freaking out. The panic and the fear of an elfin carving into me, even being that close to my blood and flesh with a sharp object, should have had me bristling with
violence. But I’d straddled that bunk and leaned forward, hissing when the blade went deep and refusing any numbing medication because I wouldn’t be able to feel if there was anything left under my skin, and we would have to slice back into me again later if we didn’t get it all out.
Ryder.
He’d slithered past my defenses, charmed me by being an asshole and butting heads with me whenever I told him no. And I told him no a lot. Apparently there were also a few yeses in there as well.
I liked the bastard. That was a dangerous thing to do, but if someone had asked me in the morning if I trusted Ryder, I would have said it would depend upon the situation. Obviously I was lying to myself, because I’d let him bleed me and would probably let him again.
“Well, fuck. I didn’t even think about it,” I admitted softly. Then I scraped my teeth against another tidbit of the bar. “I don’t even know what to think now.”
At that point my sanity was fragile. Everything that I was tilted and made room for Ryder in my consciousness, every bit of me screaming to shove him away, but the stupider piece of my brain kept circling back to the chocolate and his gentle touch as he peeled back my skin to work the T-shirt fragments out without causing me pain.
“I didn’t notice myself. It was just natural. You needed help, and I wanted to be there for you, to help you out of the pain. I know Cari is sometimes clumsy with delicate work, so I didn’t want her to touch you. I didn’t want her to hurt you, even though I know you love her.” Ryder chuckled. “And it wasn’t as though I was going to let Kerrick near you. I didn’t think about how easy it was, how stoic and firm you felt beneath my fingertips. You trusted me. It came to me afterward, while we were eating dinner and you smirked when I kicked your foot for laughing at Kerrick.
“He doesn’t understand how I feel about you. He sees you as an asset and a resource.” Ryder gave me a rueful expression. “I will admit to thinking about you that way when I first met you. You were a piece of society’s puzzle that I could fit into the court and perhaps make it easier for us to interact with the humans. Then, as I got to know you, I realized that your unique nature makes it impossible for you to interact with practically anybody. And I think, Kai, that’s what I love about you the most. Because, my chimera, I find myself thinking about you with great affection despite how much you exasperate me.”
“Since we’re laying all of our cards out on the table,” I said, saluting him with my coffee cup, “I apparently don’t hate you either.”
“What amazes me and intrigues me about you is how close you are to the dragon that we’ve come from,” Ryder murmured.
“Well, Tanic did use a dragon egg in his stew when making me.” I fingered the spot on my neck where the black pearl dragon had slid a scale beneath my skin. “But I thought that was mostly to bind the incompatible elfin genetics. Maybe it left its mark.”
“It’s more than the egg. You are what our races need. And maybe even what we once were. You’re stronger in a lot of ways, and your mind is nimble. You leap to conclusions we never think about. You’re a leader who leads by action and wisdom—your own kind of wisdom, but still astute and perceptive.” Ryder eased my tumbler out of my hand to take a sip. “People follow you through fires and destruction because they know instinctively that you will fight for them to survive. You’re not a ruler of a court, and I am sure the thought of trying to mediate arguments or stabilize an infrastructure would be one of your worst nightmares. Yet still I would turn to you for your opinion, because you see things I do not.”
“I think the problem with the Sidhe—and maybe even the Unsidhe—is that you drifted too far from having to live in a world that would tear you apart if given half the chance. Sometimes the best way to know you’re alive is to come close to death. You guys mute everything. You don’t laugh too loud. You don’t drink too much. You don’t eat till you want to puke and then find room for another spoonful of ice cream.” I nodded at the coffee he held in his hand. “It wasn’t until you had to face an army of humans that you experienced loss and fear. See, that’s all I’d ever known. So maybe that’s why I look at things differently. And I can tell you one thing—I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to do what you do. Just the thought of everyone coming to me to solve all their problems gives me hives.”
“It’s easier than you think,” he countered. “For the most part, people just want you to reaffirm the decision they’ve already made. Or, sometimes, guide them away from a very stupid mistake. But in the end, it’s always their choice. The court makes demands on all of us. My duty is to provide them with a safe home and a prosperity they would not find elsewhere. Most of the Sidhe who have followed me down to San Diego are those who don’t fit well into the structure of other courts. In a lot of ways, we are misfits, just like you.”
“Just make sure they learn to think for themselves along the way,” I cautioned. “I think that’s how corruption of power happens—when someone controls choices and feeds people dogma instead of solutions. You don’t get strong by going the easy way. There’s got to be challenges. You’ve got to know what it’s like for life to kick you in the teeth every once in a while, so when it kicks you in the balls, you already know what pain feels like. That way you’re not surprised.”
“Probably,” Ryder agreed. “But—and you might hate me for saying this—there is also a lot of your father in you.”
“Now you’re just being mean,” I shot back.
“Hear me out.”
He took another sip and then handed it back. I could taste Ryder on the edge of the tumbler when I drank my coffee, but his familiar essence did nothing to calm the frisson of alarm his words sent through me.
“When I first came here and saw you, I believed you would eventually become a working member of my court and leave your human ties behind.”
“I think that was maybe the first time I told you to fuck off.” I grinned to let him know I wasn’t ruffled by his arrogance.
“It was in a way. You are feral, cynical, and possess the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met,” he said, reaching over to squeeze my hand. “The duality of your personality and soul perplexed me until I discovered where you came from, who your father is. When I look at you now, I see your wildness and the need to be free. You truly are the closest to our dragon blood. You are a Stalker, not just because that’s how you defend your society, but also because you were born to hunt. It’s in you as strongly as anything Dempsey taught you or what Jonas gentled in your fierce nature.
“Despite everything done to you, you hunt for the greater good. You take a gift given to you and don’t use it in the ways others have in the past.” Ryder bumped my shoulder and smiled at me. “I could no sooner stop you from hunting than I could pull the stars from the skies. I realize that now. No, I embrace that now. That is who you are. That is who you will always be. And I will have to reconcile myself to understanding that I may one day lose you to that greater good, because you cannot and will not be changed. You speak of challenges the Sidhe must endure—no, conquer—and you’re right. My greatest challenge is not trying to tame you but rather trying to match your passion for life. And I would like you to know that I will meet that challenge. I vow it.”
“Well, you took a big step by making me chocolate,” I teased as I rested my temple against the top of his head. “We’re still going to fight once in a while, you know. Okay, maybe a lot more than once in a while, but I guess today proved I can trust you.”
“I can’t imagine living my life without fighting with you,” Ryder confessed with a low chuckle. “And if all it took for us to have this kind of conversation was a bit of chocolate, I would have bought you a candy store months ago.”
“Oh hell no. That kind of shit leads to glass elevators and little men singing songs as you get sucked up a vacuum tube.” I laughed and settled my shoulders back against the ridges of the tire. “But if you want to make me the occasional bar with macadamia nuts and maybe chili pepper once in a while, that’s totally ok
ay by me.”
Fifteen
AFTER ABOUT six hours, I decided I would let Ryder drive. Maybe he slid something into the chocolate. I wouldn’t put it past him, but I doubted it. Mostly it was because my hands were tired of gripping the wheel and my shoulders ached from fighting the rough terrain. Cari was catching a couple hours of sleep on the bunk. She strapped herself down and nodded off as though she’d eaten the whole turkey and needed to digest to get room for pie later on. Kerrick was reading up on San Diego history in a long treatise written by some bombastic professor in the Elfin Studies Department. Ryder had made friends with a few of the intellectuals at the university and had been trying to get me to speak at one thing or another for the past couple of months.
I’d taken jobs every time he brought it up. Sure, Dalia was probably sick of watching Newt, but I didn’t have to stand in front of a bunch of privileged kids who stared at me like I was a frog they wanted to dissect. It was good for my savings account but hell on my friendships. He didn’t necessarily wheedle or nag me, but there was definitely disappointment in his eyes. He brought it up once again when we were about ten minutes away from the second large chamber, so I offered to let him drive.
All conversation about me speaking at the university was dropped, and I put the centipede in Park to switch chairs with him. That got Kerrick’s attention.
“Are you sure that is wise?” our spare Sidhe lordling drawled from behind us. “He can’t even ride a horse.”
“Really?” I slid back between the two seats to let Ryder slide over. “Luckily, this isn’t a horse.”
“I can ride a horse just fine,” Ryder replied as he settled into the driver’s seat. “You put me on a pooka when I was just ten. I could have been able to ride with the Wild Hunt and not control that beast. If anything, you should be grateful I didn’t tell my parents exactly how I ended up almost drowned in a reed-filled pond.”