Old Dog, New Tricks

by Hailey Edwards

  Though it might have been the lush carrot tops sticking up that made me drool...

  Man, I had to get out of this skin.

  A thump of sound brought my head around in time to see Mac leap over a row of cabbages. Ears pricked, he stopped on the far side of the room, in front of the glass wall. I joined him without any major disasters, and that was when the design in the glass registered. Vines rose from the dirt floor to the ceiling, twining to create an archway. Etched with frosted morning glories, it made my heart beat faster. My gut clenched. This was it? This was Summer’s tether? Integrated into the wall? Oh crap.

  I had yet to sever a tether without the structure attached to it crumbling.

  I loosed a slow whistle. “Is this as bad as I think it is?”

  Furry shoulders lifting, Mac shrugged. “The etching was done prior to my anchoring the tether.”

  “Yeah, but an anchor pre-existing its tether didn’t save the bridge...or the arbor...or the—”

  “We have no choice.”

  “You’re right.” A shiver rippled under the skin. “Let’s do this before Lizard Lips gets back.”

  “Lizard Lips...” Mac shook his head.

  A pulse of magic swept over him, and I backpedaled as Mac—the person—burst from his pelt. I calmed my racing heart and thought Thierry thoughts until the subtle spell transformed me as well. A touch of Mac’s fingers to my forehead made me wince. I reached up and felt the goose egg swelling.

  “Don’t worry about it.” I swatted at his hands. “It will be healed up by the time we get home.”

  Home. The word lumped in my throat. Mac’s den was nice, but it wasn’t where I belonged.

  Runes aglow, Mac extended his left hand. Jaw tight and lips numb, I clasped his with my injured one and stifled the scream rising up my throat when he tore open my wound. A silent tear warmed a damp trail down my cheek. I wiped it dry and set to work with shaking fingers, ready to be finished.

  Leaving me to do the heavy lifting, Mac played gardener, examining each row of plantings until spotting a cluster of greenish-blue leaves. Long stems wreathed in tiny silver-colored flowers shot up from the center of the clump to tower above the plant’s base. Mac knelt by it and started trimming.

  Sure. Why not? These days Rook was cooking for us, and Mac was what—harvesting garnish?

  My second sight hummed in my head when the magic surrounding us revealed itself to me. I let my eyes go unfocused and located the threshold of the tether before dripping a line of blood across it that I bent and smeared to cover every inch. Making a fist to slow the blood flow, I recited the Word unique to this tether, its coordinates, and braced for the fallout. Three rapid heartbeats later, I peeked through eyes I didn’t remember squinching. Glass crackled and veins spiderwebbed up the wall.

  Mac slapped our hands together, flashing new skin over my cut and making my vision blur.

  A tinkling sound brought my attention to the widest crack. “Um, is it supposed to do that?”

  Water pushed through the seams, pooling in the dirt at our feet.

  “We’re underground.” His eyes tightened. “I didn’t realize the river extended this far.”

  A millennia ago, when he anchored the tether, it might not have. Wait. We were underground?

  Pause and hit rewind.

  “This is all glamour?” I stammered. Some of it sure, I figured that, but all of it? Whoa. I grabbed him by the elbow. “We should go.”

  He fell back a step before yanking his púca skin from his air pocket. I still had mine clutched in my uninjured hand. Plopping the pelt onto my head, I tugged it in place one-handed to avoid staining the fur with my blood. A twist of magic caught me, swirling me down, down, down until chill water covered the tops of my paws and soaked my fur. Like a chocolate wrapper crinkling, glass crackled and water ran in rivulets through the garden. Backing away, I tripped over a fuzzy muskmelon vine.

  “What isss that sssound?”

  Belly exposed, I wriggled onto all fours as Lizard Lips charged into the fracturing greenhouse.

  Mac leapt the cabbage, darted between the cook’s legs, and shouted, “Run.”

  Lizard Lips stumbled over the muskmelons, arms pinwheeling, and his gaze shot from me up to the ruined wall. Round eyes bulging, he hissed at Mac, “Nasssty little púca, what have you done?”

  LL vanished into the kitchen. I was hot on his flippers, and Mac was already ahead of me.

  Damp paws sliding, I scrabbled across the floor. I yelped as an icy draft swept up my back and glanced over my shoulder. A cleaver spun on a chipped tile, and I was smearing a bloody trail.

  What the...? My tail is gone. He cut off my freaking tail. Snarling low in my throat, I pivoted, putting myself right in his path. Fur lifted down my spine. Head angled low, a growl rumbled out of me. A body part was missing. Gone. Freaking monkeys. Who knew what I might have lost once I shifted?

  The cook drew back his arm, and metal glinted. Mac’s shoulder hit mine and sent us skittering.

  “You’re prey, Thierry,” he snapped. “Act like it.”

  “Thierry,” LL echoed. “That isss familiar.”

  Cursing under his breath, Mac headbutted me to get me moving.

  Turned out all I needed to figure out how to coordinate my bunny limbs was a crazed lizard man wielding cleavers flip-flopping after me. He belted out a keening cry that brought more fae running.

  “Kill the púcasss,” he lisped. “They dessstroyed the tether.”

  Voices rose, and shouts rang out. Feet hammered the floor, rumbling tile under my paw pads.

  I ran for all I was worth, retracing our steps, wishing I hadn’t left blood behind that they could use as a focusing object for any nasty spells they wanted to design just for me. But at least my tail stub had stopped bleeding. The floor behind me was clean. It meant when Mac cut a sharp corner, I left no evidence behind. After my run-in with the never blade, I’ll admit I was a tad nervous it might affect other areas of my healing abilities. This reprieve wouldn’t buy much time—not with a lizard’s sense of taste/smell—but it gave us the precious seconds needed to locate the púca tunnel we had used to breach the Halls.

  Clambering inside the opening, I slumped against the moist earth and peered into the welcoming darkness.

  “That was close,” Mac said, already wriggling through the bottlenecked tunnel.

  Flexing my stump, I ducked my head and squirmed to safety. “Too close.”

  Any closer to my rump, and LL would have been serving rabbit stew tonight.

  Chapter Twelve

  My right butt cheek smarted when I plopped down in my chair in Mac’s living room. The chilly cushion was under me, and my girly bits were numb. Thanks to the lizard man, I now knew that skin physiology translated almost exactly from pelt to person. As in, I lost my tail as a bunny. So I lost an ungodly notch of butt cheek as Thierry. The wound hadn’t bled since leaving Summer, and the thick scab was about ready to flake off. I had no intentions of picking at it and risking an unfortunate scar.

  Shaw would laugh his ass off when I told him.

  A ribbon of doubt sliced through me that I might never get the chance to hear him tease me, and I sobered.

  I would get him back. Soon. He was running out of time. Days were melting away.

  Rook sat across from me in Mac’s usual chair. He leaned forward, elbows braced on his kneecaps, watching me fidget with a pensive expression on his face. I glared at him, and he spoke, his voice whisper-soft, pitched low so Mac wouldn’t hear us.

  “Who did this to you?”

  I started at the question, and then I snorted. “Like you care.”

  Fishing for information on where we had been and what we had done was more likely.

  With a growl, he shoved back in his chair. “I can’t help you if you don’t trust me.”

  “Then you can’t help, because I don’t trust you.”

  “You need me to get your incubus back,” he said smugly.

  “It would be ea
sier if you cooperated, but Mac and I can find our own way in if we have to.”

  “Tick, tock.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll run out of time being stubborn.”

  My eyes clamped shut, and I focused on breathing. In and out. Nice and slow. Strangling Rook, while oh so satisfying, wouldn’t rescue Shaw any faster. Though being a widow versus a divorcée...

  Shaking my head, I opened my eyes and grinned as Mac ambled into the room, papers in hand.

  I scooted onto the edge of my seat. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “I did.” He passed me the topmost sheaf. “It’s as I said, you require a majority vote.”

  Paper in hand, I skimmed it and groaned. “Oh joy.”

  The Seelie consul had seemed like the best bet, but shattering the tether had nixed that. If the Seelie had any doubt who was at fault, LL had heard Mac call me by name. No wiggling out of that blame. It left me one option—the Unseelie consul. He liked me marginally better than the Unseelie magistrate back home, which was like saying you would rather suffer a fork through your left eye instead of the right. No longer his princess, I doubted Daibhidh would be willing to work with me without some leverage.

  “A majority vote...?” Rook echoed, eyes narrowing on the paper.

  Seeing no reason not to tell him at this point, I smiled. “The honeymoon’s over, darlin’.”

  “An annulment?” He shot to his feet. “You aren’t serious.”

  “You lost the throne.” I amended, “We lost it. There’s no reason for us to be married anymore.”

  He grabbed my hand. “Except that I—”

  “Don’t even try it, feather duster,” I snarled. “You never cared about me. I was a commodity, and my value has expired. If you have a single decent bone in your entire body, you will help me end this.”

  “You are here to fight my mother for the crown.” He adjusted his grip and snatched the paper. “If you are successful, things can be as they were. You and I can mold Faerie. Together.”

  “No.” I stood and faced him. “I’m here because this is the right thing to do, because if Mac and I can’t stop your mother, then no one else stands a chance. People will die. Humans. Fae. Half-bloods. The realms will both be destroyed. I hate to break it to you, but your mom is a few feathers shy of a boa.”

  He bent closer, eyes cold. “She will kill your incubus if you try.”

  “I’m all out of tries.” I jerked my chin higher. “I will succeed. Bet on it. Shaw is my future. Not this. Not her. Not you. Him. If she hurts him, I will put her in a box in the ground if it’s the last thing I do.” I flung out an arm. “Scratch that. I’ll douse the box with gasoline, set it on fire and then scatter the ashes.”

  Rook shifted his weight onto his heels. “You really do love him.”

  Knowing it hurt him, even if just his pride, I told the truth. “Yes, I do.”

  Love for Shaw was heat in my bones, branded knowledge that when I was with him, I was whole.

  “It’s true then,” he whispered. “You mated with him.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask where he got his information, but Rook kept feathery spies scattered throughout the mortal realm. The fact he knew about Shaw and my reconciliation shouldn’t surprise me. But it should have dawned on him before now that love was the magnetic force drawing us together time and time again. Then again, Rook might not understand what romantic love meant. Or any love for that matter. Had he truly set himself on this path out of love for his sister? Or had her disappearance merely been a perfect excuse to take action? I wasn’t sure, my butt hurt, and I was too tired to argue if he puffed up his chest and took the indignation route. I had zero time for arguments.

  “Shaw mated me, actually, last year, before he was reassigned,” I corrected him. “He just didn’t bother sharing the happy news with me until after you kidnapped me, almost got me killed and—oh yeah—married me against my will.” I jabbed a finger in Rook’s chest. “He was prepared to die rather than admit what he had done would bind me to him for the rest of my life. That is selfless. That is love. Stupid and misguided love, but he is a man, so I forgave him.”

  Rook blanched. “His claim predated mine?”

  My gaze slid to Mac then back to him. “Pretty sure that’s what I just said.”

  Tightness in his shoulders drew Rook straighter. “Then I owe him restitution.”

  A flutter of hope winged through me. “Does that mean we aren’t married?”

  “No.” His lips twitched. “It means I owe him payment for the use of his...mate.”

  Blazing heat scalded my cheeks, and my jaw dropped. “What did you say?”

  Mac drifted between us, bringing a cool breeze with him. “Calm down, Thierry.”

  Pissed as I was, I could have spat nails. Calm down. Calm down? “Bite me, Mac.”

  Over his shoulder, Rook settled a pleased smile on his face.

  “He is baiting you.” Mac forced me to hold his gaze. “You are better than this.”

  A roll of Rook’s eyes said he disagreed.

  Pivoting on his heel, Mac faced him, and Rook’s smugness vanished in a pungent whiff of fear. I breathed deeply, protesting when Mac sidestepped into my line of sight. “Imply my daughter is a whore again, and I will prevent you from siring hatchlings indefinitely.”

  Shock immobilized me. No two ways about it, Mac was changing. Maybe I was a bad influence on him. Or maybe knowing his time as one-third of Faerie’s High Court triad was coming to an end had freed him up to do and say what he wanted versus what he ought to. The stone-cold moral code woven throughout the legend of the Black Dog was unraveling, and I enjoyed glimpsing his flaws.

  Temper barely leashed, Mac filled the role of a dad protecting his daughter from her bad-boy ex to perfection.

  The impulse to hug him rose and fell in me. Opening up to him now would be a huge mistake.

  His life was in Faerie, and once I had Shaw, I never wanted to see this side of the realms again.

  Ready to diffuse the situation, I nudged Mac. “How do we get in touch with Daibhidh?”

  Voice low and respectful, Rook feigned contrition. “He won’t side with you on principle.”

  “Considering I just demolished an entire wing in the Halls of Summer,” I parried, “I’m guessing Liosliath wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire. I need this handled before I—” I snapped my jaw shut.

  “Our marriage...” Rook’s eyes rounded. “Mother can use our bond to nullify your magic.”

  “Please.” I snorted. “This can’t be the first time it’s occurred to you.”

  Mottled red splattered his cheeks. Even the tips of his ears glowed.

  Crap. “You never connected the dots?”

  “There’s a chance she can’t—” he hedged.

  “I will not risk Thierry.” Mac glowered. “Your union will be dissolved. Today. Right now.”

  He snagged me by the arm and started dragging me toward the Hall of Many Doors.

  “Wait.” Rook lurched after us. “I can help.”

  Mac hesitated, causing my eyebrows to rise, and Rook wet his lips.

  “I researched the High Court’s references on annulments and divorces after Thierry left for the mortal realm.” He cut me an unapologetic glance. “I wanted to be prepared in case she found a loophole on the other side.”

  Mac changed position, lowering his shoulders. “I’m listening.”

  “The only way the High Court can annul a marriage without a full hearing—majority or not—is if both parties agree to the separation and if both are willing to swear while holding a truth charm that the marriage was never consummated.” His words tumbled out faster and faster. “Only then can a simple vote dissolve a union.” He stepped closer. “You need me. Let me go with you. I can help. Thierry?”

  “You aren’t worried about word of you helping me getting back to your mother?”

  Old anger flashed behind his eyes. “She tried to kill me.”

  A com
ment about the world’s smallest violin rose to my lips, but I kept my mouth shut. “Mac?”

  “There are ways around it,” he grumbled, “but his cooperation would count in your favor.”

  “Then it’s settled.” Rook beamed. “I’ll go with you.”

  I put a hand to his chest. “Why are you in such a rush to be helpful all of a sudden?”

  “Your incubus is starving to death,” he said flatly. “Whatever you two have been doing is done. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be rushing to find Daibhidh. No. This is the final step. You want to be free of any possibility the Morrigan can twist your magic through our union, and I want to be there when you kill her.” The skin around his eyes tightened. “I want to know it’s over. I want to see it myself.”

  I weighed my options. His sincerity when speaking of his hatred for the Morrigan rang true. The thing was, I didn’t know if it stemmed from the loss of his sister, as he claimed, or something else. It was dangerous bringing Rook with us to the Unseelie consul. He might be tricking me—again—into doing what seemed harmless and beneficial then ended up hurting me to further his goals.

  For whatever reason, I hadn’t told him about his sister yet. Not that Branwen was alive, though I bet he knew that thanks to their matching charms, and not that I had found her or that I could contact her.

  Something told me less was more when it came to how much information I gave Rook.

  “Deal,” I said before Mac changed his mind. “Grab what you need. We won’t be coming back.”

  Let Rook think his reminder about Shaw had swayed me. Battles required cannon fodder, and as far as I was concerned, by pleading to join our mission, Rook had just volunteered for the position.

  Ready. Aim. Bye-bye birdie.

  Escorting Rook into the Hall of Many Doors and through a tether answered a few questions. Yes, others could enter the Hall if Mac or I opened the exterior door first. And yes, they could ride a tether as long as one of us opened the interior door, activating the tether, and shoved them through it.

  I meant to ask Mac earlier out of curiosity and forgot. Time. There wasn’t enough of it, not nearly enough, and I couldn’t afford to spend precious minutes on questions that didn’t matter with Shaw’s hunger rising.