I didn’t have consent to share the fae secret of ancestry. I couldn’t explain why I was refusing him. And no one quite understood my aversion to parenthood. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to pass on my fucked up genetic soup. That was a huge factor, but when Eli explained how we could avoid that . . . I still didn’t want to be a parent. I wanted my life. My mission in my city. I liked what I had.
The only thing I’d change was . . . adding Eli.
He’d always been the flame that drew me. His glamour hadn’t ever worked on me—either because of my witch blood or maybe my other blood. I wasn’t sure what he looked like to others, but he’d always been perfect to me.
If not for the whole royal requirement and duty to pass on his ancestral lineage, I’d be naked with him by now.
Without quite meaning to, I looked over and met his gaze again, and this time, he walked over to the table. I guess a guy could only ignore being stared at so long.
“Christy. Sera. Jesse.” He nodded at each of my friends. Then he looked at me. “Geneviève.”
My insides turned to mush, and I realized I was still staring at him. It had been forty-three days since I’d thought we could be together. Forty-three days that we had been engaged. Two weeks since the last job together when we kissed and sparred. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t even pretend to want anyone else. I’d never been monogamous, but something about Eli had me embracing monogamy—without the sex that should go with it. It was baffling.
I licked my lips unconsciously, and then blushed at his responding smile.
“What?”
“I said ‘Would you accompany me?’” he asked, eyes twinkling as if he was aware that I’d completely failed to hear him the first time. He added, “To meet Lady Beatrice.”
“Beatrice?” I echoed.
Eli nodded. “Indeed.”
I had been avoiding the draugr queen since she’s saved my life. I was being ungrateful, but I had complicated feelings. I was, awkwardly, related to her, and as best as I understood, she was my maternal ancestor—but she was a draugr. My job was killing her kind. So, yeah, it was complicated. “I’m not sure I—”
“She has requested my presence, and I am unable to visit her alone.”
I startled. Eli was the strongest person I knew—other than Beatrice—and they had no discord. She knew who he was and had no desire to start a war with the fae. And while Eli had no great love for her, they’d spoken almost cordially.
“It would be inappropriate to see her without you with me. A fae who has pledged devotion must not meet unchaperoned with anyone sexually mature.” His voice was level; he always had the same calm tone when I was panicking or about to lose my temper.
“Like you can’t see her because you might be overcome and marry her instead?” I stopped short of saying that would be fine. It wasn’t—and everyone who knew me knew it. I might not be interested in making his babies, or a future in Elphame, but I was exceedingly interested in Eli.
“Geneviève—”
“Monkey balls. This is that whole faux engagement that—”
“Not faux,” Eli interjected. “My hand is already yours, sugar cookie.” He gave me the sort of look that could melt knickers. “This was a formal invitation, Geneviève, which means I cannot visit her without accompaniment of my intended, a relative, or a male friend.”
“I can go, Gen,” Jesse offered.
Eli smiled. “Your offer of friendship is cherished.”
“Faeries are weird,” Christy said when Jesse’s mouth gaped open—presumably at the realization that he’d called Eli a friend. They’d been at odds before my almost-dying-thing.
At that Eli bowed his head to her and to Sera and added, “It means much to have your regard.”
Christy toasted him. They had a strange dynamic. Their friendship was natural, equal regard but not sexual tension. Sometimes I envied them.
Sera opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, I blurted, “Let’s go, Eli.”
We said our goodbyes, and I walked away with Eli. In some ways it was less awkward than trying to talk to him and my friends. They had turned to his side when he saved my life, risked his freedom to do so, and now, I was left with no defense other than “I don’t want to.” It was weak—because I couldn’t spill his secrets and because they were a lot more accepting of my draugr heritage than I was.
We made it halfway to the bar door before I told him, “Your uncle sent an invitation.”
“I know. He has commissioned six gowns so far in hopes that one will please you.” Eli had the carefully calm tone again.
“Six gowns?”
“Did the invitation mention the presentation of the future queen?” He tucked my hand into the fold of his arm. “It’s traditional.”
I stopped walking. “Presenting the future qu— . . . you mean me? The event is about presenting me?”
Eli nudged me forward. “I suggested he order you a sword or three to assuage your ill mood in his direction. Not that I’ll give him all the answers, Geneviève, but in this case, I thought weapons might interest you more than gowns. The armory has been working on several pieces.”
“Flaming monkey balls.”
“Geneviève, there are laws. You are my intended. I cannot change that,” he said, again.
I glanced back at my friends. I was to be out tonight enjoying life. Not off to see a draugr queen or navigate Yule plans with the fae king. I mouthed, “Help?”
Sera gave me an encouraging gesture, and Jesse smiled.
Christy mouthed back, “Get some.”
“I do like Christy.” Eli chuckled at seeing her. “Smart woman. Wise. Perhaps you should listen to her advice.”
“If only it were that easy.” I leaned in and kissed him quickly, just a butterfly brush of lips. “There ought to be perks to this clusterfuck, and you naked under me sounds like an excellent idea.”
“Indeed, bonbon.” He growled a little.
I shivered at the desire that little noise sparked.
Smiling, Eli open the door for me. “What do you say to a faery bargain, Geneviève Crowe?”
The last faery bargain was for a kiss, and that had led to this engagement. Was I fool enough to make a bargain with Eli? When he stepped outside, his hand pressed against my low back, and my fracturing resolve grew even weaker.
“What are your terms?” I was pretty sure that Eve had felt this same flutter in a long-ago garden.
“Ones that include pleasure.”
“Tell me more,” I encouraged.
He smiled. There were a million sins in that look, and I wanted to commit every one of them twice.
~ 3 ~
Eli’s car was waiting for us. He opened the passenger door, and I slid into the little blue convertible. If my hand brushed his stomach as I did so, it was purely accidentally, as was the way I looked up at him.
“Temptress.”
I grinned. “Says the faery who just offered me my greatest desire.”
He closed the door and was silent as he entered the driver’s side of the car and eased us into the nighttime traffic.
Once we were zipping through the ever-busy night streets of New Orleans, Eli finally said, “If I could avoid the traditional presentation of the queen, I would.”
“I know.”
Eli added, “And if I wasn’t who I am—”
“A bar owner? A liar?”
“Geneviève, I do not lie,” he stated.
It was true in a manner of speaking. The fae never lie. Omit? Distract? Trick? Those are a kind of mistruth, too, but they are not what the fae consider a lie.
“A man who desperately wants to tell my world and yours to go burn while I lock us away and start to slake the needs we have,” he said, as casually as anything.
“Oh . . . So, this bargain—”
“I would have picked a fiancé from the women there if I could have,” Eli continued. “That was too much of a lie to do, though. I want none of them. No
one in Elphame or here. Just you.”
“So, we’re really discussing this, then?” I glanced over at him. “No longer avoiding it?”
Eli sighed. “The fae are not renowned for being direct without reason.”
“What’s your reason?”
“A bargain, love. I want to propose a deal with you.” His voice was somehow even more alluring here in the dark as we zipped through the city. “Are you clever enough to make a bargain with me, Geneviève?”
It would be wrong to throw caution away while he was driving, but his voice did things to my body that some men couldn’t accomplish with their mouths.
“I’m listening,” I said. It was the most I could offer without destroying the peace we were building.
Inside the car, this small bubble of safety where the monsters were unable to get to us, where our issues were tucked away as we rushed off to jobs or meetings, I felt like we could exist outside of time. I wanted that desperately, to ignore the reasons we couldn’t be more. I wanted a simple world. And I suspected I wasn’t alone in that.
The city was alive with too many decorations already. Oak trees draped in cheap balls and tinsel. Mardi Gras beads repurposed as Christmas beads. There was a defiance to the way the city approached festivity.
That defiance made sense to me.
Eli added, “We will go to Elphame. We will present ourselves to my family and world. . . unless you can tell me you don’t feel the same. Do you care for me?”
“Obviously.” I sighed loudly. “But some people are not meant to have children. I am n—”
“Did I ask that of you?”
“No but—”
“So, shall I tell His Majesty that we will be there for Yule? Or am I wrong about your regard for me? I can sever our tie, return there, and allow my uncle to select my future bride.” He sounded calm, but I heard the trickle of fear in his voice. “Or you can make a bargain with me.”
The thought of it, of Eli bedding and wedding another person, made my jaw clench. I couldn’t, wouldn’t send him away. “We are a terrible idea, Eli.”
“Do I go home alone or do you feel as I do?”
“You’re . . . not wrong about my feelings,” I admitted. I was the least romantic, least appropriate choice for a man like Eli, but for reasons that I didn’t understand, he liked that he had my heart. “A wiser man would leave me.”
“I’ve never claimed wisdom, my dear Devil’s Cake.” He reached out and took my hand, and I knew that he was relieved. He sounded happier as he added, “I like danger, passion, a foul temper, talent for violence, fierce loyalty. I prefer warriors.”
“My sword is yours,” I swore. “You have that. No matter the future, you will always have that.”
“Then I’ll wait for the rest. Your heart. Your body. All of you, love. I want all of you.”
I shivered again. We both knew he had a lot of my heart, and the only reason he didn’t have my body was this damned engagement. The trouble with faeries, I was discovering, is that they have the patience to go along with their longevity.
I twined my fingers through his, keeping hold of his hand, even though I felt like a child for wanting to hold hands. My reaction to this touch was far from childlike, though. Touching Eli made me flush and my heart race. We’d kissed and had the sort of heated admissions that ought to be headier. This, though, was about my heart. His heart. Admitting that we wanted to find a way to be . . . more. That was scarier than sex or lust ever could be.
“So”—I cleared my throat—“what’s this bargain?”
He laughed, and the sheer wickedness in that sound had my thighs clenching against the instinctive urge to yell, “Take me now.” Instead I took a steadying breath and said, “Eli . . .”
“Date me.”
“What?”
“Date me until Twelfth Night, and you will earn a favor,” he said. “Anything you ask of me. One request. Whatever you most desire on that day. I won’t say no.”
I rolled it over in my mind. Anything? I could end the engagement. It seemed so simple. I stared at him and said, “Faery bargains are never this simple.”
“Maybe this one is. All you need to do is truly date me,” he said. “Not think about forever. Just . . . date me as if the rest wasn’t a factor.”
Part of me knew what he was implying. Most of me thought I could manage it. No rules, no strings, meant that we could revel in the thing between us.
“So, no rules? Just no holding back. We . . . date.”
“And on the sixth of January, you have one favor,” he clarified.
I paused, rolling it over in my mind. Twelfth Night, the Masquerade Ball that started Carnival season, was on January sixth. That was roughly a month from now. Between now and then, however, were a lot of events. Chanukah began in ten days. Yule and Christmas were roughly ten days later, and then New Year’s Eve in six more days, and then the Twelfth Night Masquerade Ball six days later.
“Why are you offering so many details?” I asked. The last bargain he’d offered me was without much clarity.
“Because, Geneviève, I want you to understand the terms.” He steered us onto the bridge, taking us out of the city into the ghost zone.
Something about the ghost zone, what was once the suburbs of most cities, was eerie. It was simply a ghost town of sorts, one that existed beside most cities. If you were brave enough or foolish enough, you could scavenge there; those who left their homes there, did so without taking most of their possessions. But the risk of draugr encounters in the ghost zone was high.
After the ghost zone was the Outs. I grew up there. Nature. People with more guns than sense. That was where Jesse and I met, neighbors in the Outs. My mother, Mama Lauren, was still there. I thought briefly about Chanukah. I’d have to take Eli to meet my mother if I agreed to this.
“Date, as in I play nice at the Yule presentation and you are at my side for any event during those weeks,” I clarified.
“More or less. I want you to be yourself, but without thought or discussion of the future,” Eli added.
“But any event?” I pressed. “You mean you’d meet my mother?”
“I would like that.” His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “That, however, is not my primary goal. I just want . . . to be in the now with you.”
I glanced at him, enjoying the moonlight on his profile. There was something about those cheekbones that just made me want to touch. Something about Eli that I barely resisted. My voice felt too loud even though I was whispering when I said, “If I didn’t think about the future, we’d already have been naked, bonbon. . .”
He grinned at my use of one of his pet names for me and said, “All the more reason to date me.”
I sighed.
Eli glanced at me then. “Give me these days. Let me be in your life. We were so close to progress, and then this”—he gestured between us—“engagement stalled us. I want us to be as we were.”
My throat was parched with the wave of need he brought to the forefront of my every nerve, but I still had to add, “Whatever happens is not precedent-setting. When January sixth comes, we . . . reset.”
He chuckled. “Expected, and accepted.”
“Agreed, then,” I said shakily. “I agree to your terms, Eli. We will date.”
“I look forward to courting you,” he said in that damnably calm tone, which meant that he was hiding his emotions.
I knew for sure then that I was fucked somehow, but the deal was done. I was going to let Eli into my life.
I swallowed hard and tried to sound just as calm. “For tonight, let’s see what disaster awaits us at Beatrice’s door.”
~ 4 ~
A little later when we arrived in The Outs, the region that was once called Slidell, I had to concentrate not to send out a summons to the dead. I was on edge, and my magic was akin to a malformed pipe lately. Sometimes, I tried for a trickle and ended up with a flood. Sometimes, I tried for a stream and received a few droplets.
If
I let my magic out tonight, I would wake the dead.
Or beckon the again-walking.
My affinity with death was an affront to some people—the faery king included—and I couldn’t entirely blame them. I had a pheromone that meant the not-living found me irresistible. Not in a weird lets-get-naked way . . . okay, sometimes that way, too. Mostly, though, that response was because I was powerful, and power gets many a motor revving.
“What do you feel?” Eli asked, his tiny little convertible was bouncing along a road that seemed to be cobblestone.
“At least twenty draugr,” I said, feeling the minds of those re-animated dead notice me. “Scattered bones.”
Even if I tried not to reach out with magic, I would still feel death, absences in pockets of space. Graves. Draugr. My sense of the dead was simply there, like hearing or sight. Near me now was a man. Recently dead. I let the magic roll out in several directions. Three woman in the bayou. Six more men in the ground closer to the house. A child in a grave.
And a tangle of bones in a field . . . sixty. . . maybe up to eighty bodies.
“The ground is filled,” I said, the horror of so many dead trying to connect with me slid into my voice. I knew without doubt that Beatrice had summoned Eli in order to make me come here. I didn’t know why, but this much I knew.
Eli stopped the car under a willow that looked like it was here before the Civil War. The trunk was thick and old, and the wind through the branches felt like a song. Nature. Soil. Plant. Sky. These were the parts that called to my maternal heritage, and they were the parts of this world that also beckoned Eli.
The fae have an affinity for nature that makes it atypical for them to come to our pollution filled world, but despite the parts of the human world that were flawed, the Outs were like that. Without people, the land there was increasingly pure. Alligators, raccoons, feral pigs, snakes, life thrived and blossomed now that most people had to retreat to the cities. Nature was where people visited, but to live out here meant to know that there were Alpha Predators that looked like you but thought you were more of a snack than a friend.
I stood, feeling the humid air and listening to night birds sing and mosquitoes buzz. I’d give a lot for more time surrounded by this. I grew up out here, and if I could, I’d have stayed here.
Under a Winter Sky Page 19