by Sarra Cannon
Fucktwat sighed.
“Yet.”
He cringed.
“The rest of our stolen shit is still floating around somewhere. Anyhow, Simone was supposed to be the prize. Mum put a bounty on her. Seems Deanie tried to get off her shit list by selling information to her. I suppose he came up with that bright idea after you tossed him to the roadside in Ireland.”
Heath flipped the dagger again and again, grinding his teeth and he spun the blade. He didn’t have to look to catch. The weapon was finely honed and well balanced in his hand, as it would be in Simone’s. It’d be like an extension of her hand, and using it would be all instinct.
Fucktwat’s eyes locked on the weapon and went wide as saucers.
“That’s right. Be afraid. You know how sharp it is, don’t you?”
Daryn perched on the sofa arm beside one of the bludgeoned guards and crossed her arms over her chest. “Heath, you realize we can’t return them to the realm, right? Can’t deliver them to your mum.”
He kept his gaze straight ahead.
Fucktwat seemed to shrink a couple of sizes under his glower.
“Heath,” Daryn scolded.
“Fine. Way to go, being the voice of reason and shit.”
“We’re not really equipped to deal with this sort of thing. We’ve never had to hold anyone for an indefinite period.”
Caryl scoffed. “We don’t even have a fuckin’ home base when we’re away from the realm. We’re always on the road. Been living off our bikes for years.”
“We could possibly secure them at the motel.”
They all turned to look at the newcomer in the room. Simone stood in the bedroom doorway fiddling the top of the water bottle she held. How long has she been listening?
“I mean, I doubt anyone’s going to look for them there, if anyone cares to look for them at all.”
“Ow,” Fucktwat said. No one had hit him that time, though. Simone must have hurt him in his feels.
“It’s a good idea,” Siobhan said. “The rest of the crew is there, and we can certainly rig up a few rooms to keep them locked in.”
Daryn shrugged. “No sweat off my back. We girls are used to sharing rooms, so it’ll be up to the men to double up if they aren’t already.”
“And we’ve still got to be able to make room for any guests that stop by.”
Simone sighed. “Naturally, I’ll have more guests than I know what to do with just because now would be all the more inconvenient.”
“That’s usually the way it goes, love,” Heath said.
“So, it’s true.” The guard on the left swayed a bit on his cushion, gave his head a hard shake, and locked his gaze on Heath. Tried to, anyway. His eyes were crossed. One of the girls must have knocked the balance out of him. Caryl, if he had to guess. She had a knack for that sort of thing.
“So what’s true?”
“You found your mate, so your crew will disband soon. I’m sure a bunch of runaways will breathe a collective sigh of relief.”
“Who said they were disbanding?” Simone put her shoulder to the doorframe and fiddled the bottle cap some more.
“That’s the way it works, dearie. He’s stuck until he finds his mate.” He jutted out his chin and leered as if he expected his words to be revelatory.
But, that shouldn’t have been news to her. Hestia had spilled that particular truth days before. She just blinked a few times, slowly, as if trying to process all the stupidity. “First of all, don’t call me dearie. My name is Simone, though I’d prefer you not call me that, either. Heath is a prince, so you can either call me my lady or Princess, got it?”
“I—”
“Hold that thought, dearie.” She didn’t move. Just kept loosening and tightening the bottle cap, but Heath could feel her darker energy spike—the quality that made them all lose control on occasion. It was that fairy part that came out to play in all of them when they were angry or threatened. Or in Simone’s case, just annoyed. He sure as shit wasn’t about to get in the way of it. After all, she’d just admitted she was his lady. He didn’t exactly want to draw her confession to her own attention. She’d renege on it just to spite him. “What Prince Heath and his hunters do now or any other time is of no concern to you. I believe his is now out of his mother’s jurisdiction, isn’t that right?” She looked at Heath.
“Aye.” Maybe there was a loophole there—they didn’t technically have to return to the realm at the end of their service. Simone had a point. His crew didn’t have to disband. They could keep on as they were and find a new purpose. Hell, they could even go work for the Afótama. They had both an established community and a need for guards. He and Simone would just need to take care of her little curse problem first.
“You’re playing with fire, my lady. I don’t think you understand the kind of woman you’re dealing with,” the guard said.
“But you’re going to tell me all about her, right? And probably in explicit detail.” She shrugged. “Nah. I’ll pass. You’ve seen one villain, you’ve seen them all.”
“You should fear her.” He puffed up his chest.
Caryl rolled her eyes behind him. “Shut the fuck up. Seriously. Just shut the fuck up. I’ve had just about enough of your shit.”
Heath couldn’t say for sure, but it seemed to him that Caryl’s annoyance went a lot deeper than the situation at hand. “Do you know him? More than superficially, I mean.” Most of the fairies in his crew would recognize Mum’s guards on sight, if not by name.
She and Daryn snorted in chorus.
“Oh, we know him, all right,” Caryl said. “He was under the mistaken notion that our little sister Mollie was his mate and wouldn’t leave her alone until we convinced him otherwise.”
“What did Mollie have to say about it?” He knew Mollie. She was young, in Sídhe terms—too young to serve a conscription period just yet—but a reasonable woman. Had a good head on her shoulders. She would have certainly known if the guard was or wasn’t her mate.
“It was the same old shit, Heath. The same thing all of them want. They know the women in our family are more fertile than Sídhe tend to be, and they’re trying to get a head start in siring their little brats.”
“I’m sure that would make their mates, whenever they pop up, quite pleased,” Simone said.
“In our realm, it’d be a virtual license for the mate to kill the child’s mother,” the other guard said. He cut his buddy a side-eye. Apparently he wasn’t too keen on the idea of spreading one’s seed far and wide, and nor was Heath. He may have had a healthy ego about most things, but the robustness of his seed wasn’t one of them.
“Doubt you’ll get any better than me.” The indignant guard stabbed his chin in Daryn’s direction. “Come on. You two don’t exactly have a queue of suitors waiting in line to be with you except for that one reason. Your lot doesn’t have any power to speak of. No wealth. Whichever poor sods end up being your mates aren’t getting much in trade.”
The ladies made no move to correct him. To harm him. He probably would have expected it. They were certainly used to hearing it. It was true. They weren’t from a wealthy family, and what money their parents had tended to go into their children’s mouths. They were poor in coin, but wealthy in offspring. Most fairies would have preferred the latter. But, no. Heath didn’t expect them to lash out at the guard. He didn’t expect Simone to, either.
She seemed to come out of nowhere, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him down to the floor. She had him on his belly and yanked his arm behind his back, pinning it at what had to be an uncomfortable angle. Judging by his clenched teeth and tomato-red face, that seemed to be the case. She knelt on his shoulders.
Siobhan walked over casually and put her booted foot on his other hand.
“You know,” Simone said, wringing his arm a little more. “There aren’t a whole lot of people in this world who are nice to me. Caryl and Daryn were nice to me, even before they knew who I was. So, I hope you don’t mind if I’ve
become a little attached to them.”
He grumbled.
Heath moved to an armchair and sat back to watch the show.
“Some help, Prince Heath?”
Heath shrugged. “Nah. You’ll be all right. I don’t think she’ll kill you.”
“And you say your mother’s cruel.”
Fucker just had to go there. Heath leaned his forearms onto his knees and stared down at the guard, whose hand under Siobhan’s boot heel seemed a smidgen flatter all of a sudden. “Want to call me cruel? That’s fine. But remember this, because I’m only going to defend myself on the subject once. I don’t generally pick fights, but I will not have my honor insulted. You all think I’m daft because that’s what Mum tells you, but how many of the royal guards have gone missing in the past fifty years? Hmm? Think on that.”
The guard’s brow furrowed.
“You’re recounting them, right? Could never figure out what happened to them, aye? Well, I’ll let you off the hook. I killed them. They came for me, and I dealt with them. I think if you’d known that, you wouldn’t be here right now.” The guard’s eyes widened, and Heath wagged a finger at him. “Don’t act like you didn’t know Mum’s been trying to kill me on and off for my entire adult life. She leaves Siobhan alone for the most part because she sees her as less of a threat, but I suppose I’m more like my father in the ways no one cares to remember nowadays. So, I’m going to let my woman do what she wants. Not because I’m cruel, but because it’s owed to you.”
The guard gulped. “Just kill me now, then.”
Simone grabbed a pillow from the sofa and smacked him with it. “I’m not going to kill you, you fucking idiot.” She smacked him a few more times for good measure, squashed the pillow against his face with a frustrated groan, then got up and literally kicked his ass. She tossed the pillow back on the sofa, and Siobhan removed her boot from his hand. “I could probably think of some things to do that’ll annoy you to death, but I don’t particularly relish the idea of snuffing anyone out, fairy killing rage or not. You come for me again, though, and I might change my mind. So how about you just…just don’t be a dick?”
The guard looked more than a little confused by the pseudo-thrashing, and lie there on the floor staring at her with widened eyes. Well, wide for a man whose eyelids were swollen to the size of prunes. If there’d been slightly more heat in his gaze, Heath might have considered putting his boot through the fairy’s skull, but he really want to leave a mess of that caliber for the housekeeping staff to clean up.
Heath grunted. “Speaking of fairy killing rages, love, this is yours.” He held the dagger out to Simone.
“Mine?”
“Mm-hmm. Recovered, fortunately, before it could turn up on the black market.”
She took it gingerly into her hands and turned it over, studying the details.
“I’ll have to get you a sheath for it.”
“I…can’t use that. It’s too—”
“Nope. Don’t say it’s too good to use.” Siobhan strode over and pulled her own knife. Its handle, inlaid with silver and gold discs, had become burnished after years of use, but it was still a spectacular piece of weaponry—a fighting knife suitable for a princess or queen. “See. Mine was once shiny and new, too, and you know how we fairies like shiny things. But even more than shiny, we like comfortable.” She wrapped her fingers around the hilt and caressed the pommel. “Familiar. Familiar means so much more to us than fancy when it comes to defending ourselves.”
“I can’t imagine using such a thing in a fight, and not just because I’m a bit squeamish, but…it just looks like it was very expensive. I can’t accept that.”
She tried pressing it back to Heath. He nudged it back to her. “It’s yours. I imagine it would be quite expensive if I were to try to try to put a monetary figure on its value, however I acquired it with favors, not funds, and especially for you.”
“But you had it before you knew me.”
“Aye, I had it in the hopes I’d find you soon.”
Siobhan chuckled. “You had that knife for forty years. I think you lose sight of the human concept of time, big brother.”
He shrugged. “I suppose I do sometimes.” He turned back to Simone, but this time took the dagger from her. “If you’d like, I’ll hold it with my gear until you’ve got something to put it in. It once had a case, but I fear Deanie might have sold it off on its own.”
Her nod came slowly. “I’d like that. And…thank you. For the dagger, I mean.”
“You’re welcome, but it’s a practical gift. You’ll not lock it away in a chest with other baubles. You’ll keep it at your side ready to grip when the time comes. I’m certain the girls can teach you to effectively wield it when we’ve slowed down a bit.”
“Aye, when we get back to the motel,” Daryn said.
“I’ll see about getting us some tickets,” Siobhan said, already reaching for her cell phone. “But…how do you feel about chartering a flight just this once? I know we try to stay off the radar and use pedestrian means of travel as much as we can, but—”
“The Afótama have a plane,” Caryl said. “Just the right size.”
“Huh. They do, don’t they?” Heath had forgotten because Contessa didn’t ever use it. She’d mumbled some excuse about how it was less expensive to fly commercial, but Heath suspected her recalcitrance had more to do with the fact she wasn’t ready to change herself. She’d spent so much of her life on the wind that wealth was an uncomfortable concept for her.
“Call Joe and see if there’s anyone around who could fly up to meet us here,” Heath said. “We wouldn’t have to worry about getting these three gobshites through security if we can swing it.”
“I’ll look into it,” Siobhan said. “We’re going to order a few pizzas and see whatever juicy morsels we can squeeze out of these three, so don’t feel like you have to wait up. I’ll alert you if there’s any news.”
“Splendid.” Heath gave her curt nod, stood, and started Simone toward the master bedroom.
“Uh, what’s the hurry?”
“I believe I owe you something. Don’t think I forgot that quickly.”
“Well, I certainly did.”
Chapter 16
When Heath locked the bedroom door, Simone got the sneaking suspicion they weren’t just tucking in for a good night’s sleep. And when he turned to her, there was a lusty glint in his eyes and it was then that she remembered what he owed her. She gulped.
“Set down the knife, love. You won’t be needing it. Cutting isn’t one of my kinks.”
Oh, boy. She slid it onto the dresser. She’d forgotten just that quickly that she’d even been holding it. Apparently, her memory had joined her verbal filter on Team Worthless as Shit.
He moved to the armchair in the corner and draped his leather jacket over the back. “Take off your clothes.”
Was he asking her or telling her? She narrowed his eyes at his turned back and willed herself not to stomp her foot.
He turned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Is there a problem?”
“You’re mistaken if you think I’ll jump simply because you told me to.”
“No, you’ll jump because you want to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, including anything I tell you to do. But you want to do what I say, don’t you?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?” He walked slowly to the foot of the bed and sat in the middle, legs spread wide and hands clenched over the edge.
“I’m pretty sure. Yeah.”
“Interesting. Less than an hour ago, you’d agreed it’d be quite nice to feel my palm against your ass and it seems you’ve developed cold feet.”
Being alone in a room with him did tend to have that effect on her. She didn’t know why, but had to admit to herself that it was getting tiring. What would be the harm in making some things easy?
She canted her head toward the door, listening intently for sounds from the living room. Nothing
. Not even a mumble, and she knew for sure the crew had been chattering when Heath had shepherded her away. Well-insulated. She couldn’t hear them, and they probably wouldn’t be able to hear anything in the bedroom. One less excuse.
She looked back at Heath, who was rolling his shirtsleeves up his forearms, and put her fingers to the top button of her shirt.
“Perhaps take off your shoes first.”
Oh. That was an easy thing. She heeled them off.
“Need to get you some good boots. Something better for riding. For fighting.”
“Folks at the beach don’t wear boots a hell of a lot.” She hadn’t owned a pair in six years other than her rain boots, which hardly counted. She couldn’t exactly wear those while barreling down the highway on Heath’s bike. She guffawed at the thought. Her orange and pink polka dots would probably look out of place with all that black and chrome.
“Something amuses you, love?”
“My imagination ran away with me for a moment.” She flicked off her socks next, and her cheeks suffused. No small acts left to hide behind. Back to the blouse again.
Heath leaned back on his forearms, watching without comment as she unfastened the tiny pearl buttons. Her fingers seemed to more lose dexterity with each little pip, and by the time she got to the bottom of the shirt, her hands were shaking. Fear and anticipation combined together were a potent mix. She was both curious and scared. Scared that it would hurt, scared that she’d like that it hurt, and scared that she’d enjoy it and that there was something wrong with her for enjoying it.
She shrugged off the shirt and fondled the button of her new jeans. She hadn’t felt repulsed at all by Thom joining them in the bed for that short time, and she kept trying to feel that—to force herself to feel some guilt or regret over the dalliance, but she couldn’t. She’d liked it. Heath was right that Thom made her feel safe, and Thom was a gorgeous creature to look at. His blunt words and odd reverence of her stirred her libido in formerly unimaginable ways. And, yes, she wanted to care for him. See to his needs, should he ask her, though she suspected he rarely would.
It wasn’t quite the same with Heath. She couldn’t put into words what the man did to her. Her attraction to him wasn’t quite as…obligatory as what she felt with Thom. It felt very voluntary, but the strength of it was like nothing she’d ever felt for a man. Perhaps it was that thing she’d never had with a man before—actual compatibility. And she’d been fighting it all the way.