The look he gave me was almost pitying.
“Bloody hell, Zorah. Why do you think?” he asked.
And with that, he had me—because I didn’t dare say aloud the thing I was thinking. It was stupid and naive, and if I were wrong... if he laughed in my face, it would be way, way too painful.
“I’m starting to feel kind of tired again,” I muttered... coward that I was.
He sighed, his chest rising and falling under the water for reasons that had nothing to do with the need for oxygen. “Go eat something and then come to bed. You’re still recovering.”
“What? You’re not going to cook for me this time?” I asked, striving for a lighter mood.
He tried on a smile, though it couldn’t quite hide the dark nature of his thoughts. “I’m afraid that between reheating tinned soup and cooking instant porridge, you’ve plumbed the depths of my culinary expertise. To say that I’m a bit rusty in the kitchen these days is an understatement.”
We were both trying too hard, but I guess that was better than giving each other the silent treatment... or breaking random furniture in the cottage with angry sex. I got out of the tub and made a point of stealing the shirt Rans had been wearing earlier to replace the one that was now missing two-thirds of its buttons.
He watched me with heavy-lidded eyes from his careless sprawl in the tub. “Vixen,” he accused, though his voice sounded tired.
“What?” I asked, wrapping a towel around my hair so it wouldn’t drip. “The other shirt is yours, too. Even if you’re not a whizz in the kitchen, you must’ve learned how to sew on a button at some point in the last seven hundred years.”
With that, I walked out of the bathroom—grateful for any small victory I could come by just now. I was still surrounded by a thousand buzzing worries that threatened to swarm me if I stopped moving long enough to focus on any of them.
What would Rans’ reckless actions with the supposedly magic crystal really mean for the two of us, going forward? If someone got to me and decided to kill me despite the nebulous threat to the peace treaty, would he literally just fall over dead? Because I could totally see Caspian saying fuck it, and taking matters into his own hands to get rid of me.
And what about my father? Despite my best efforts, I’d been rolling his listless words to me around in my subconscious all day.
Zorah? Why are you here? I don’t want you here. Go away.
What had seemed so clear when I was trapped in Dhuinne now seemed much more ambiguous. True, it wasn’t a stretch to assume that Darryl Bright was simply putting a capstone on his two decades of horrible parenting—telling me that he didn’t care about me and didn’t want to have to see or deal with me, even in such extreme circumstances as his captivity in Dhuinne.
Or else, the traitorously hopeful inner six-year-old inside me prodded, he could have been trying to warn you away from danger. He could have been saying that he knew things were bad, and he didn’t want you to get dragged into it with him.
I shook my head sharply, nearly dislodging the towel wrapped around my head in the process.
Yeah, right.
Except for that one shining moment when he’d sent me money in St. Louis, when had Dad ever played the hero? And if Rans was to be believed, he might well have only pretended to help me as a way to lure me to where Caspian and his men were lying in wait at the bus station. Who was I kidding?
I needed to stop thinking about this. I needed to stop thinking about life-bonds and treaties and the things Caspian had done to me during those awful couple of days in Dhuinne. I puttered around the bedroom, sleepwalking through my post-bathing routine. When I wandered out to raid the kitchen cabinets for more food, I couldn’t help glancing through the open bathroom door to see Rans still lying in the antique tub, his head thrown back to rest against the rim with his eyes closed, baring the pale column of his throat.
I also needed to stop thinking about Rans dying. That was a biggie.
Tearing my gaze away, I continued to the kitchen and rummaged around until I found some cereal and fruit. Even after everything else, I still got a stupid little thrill at the idea of eating gluten-rich cereal soaked in dairy, so I stood at the counter and downed a bowl of Whole Grain Shreddies with sliced bananas. ‘Delicious crispy squares with a yummy, malty taste,’ the cheerful blue box informed me.
The malty part wasn’t entirely inaccurate, but honestly, delicious and yummy might have been a bit of a stretch. I took the bowl to the table and poured some sugar from the sugar bowl into the mix, in hopes of making the experience match up to my childhood memories of Sugar Pops and Frosted Flakes a little more closely.
In a moment of whimsy, I wondered if you could buy Lucky Charms in Ireland, because that would be pretty funny, actually.
I’d heard Rans moving around while I was in the kitchen, so I figured he’d gone to one of the bedrooms to wait for me. It was telling that we both seemed to assume the aftermath of violent hate-sex and an uncomfortable conversation in a shared bathtub would involve sleeping in the same room.
But he’d told me to ‘come to bed,’ rather than ‘go to bed.’ The implication was clear enough, and when I poked my head into the room I’d claimed as mine, it was to find him already there. I’d turned off all the lights except the one over the kitchen counter. It was still relatively early, the long summer evening not quite ready to cede dusk to night.
Summer. July Fourth. Yet another thing I needed to try not to think about.
I slid in next to the shadowed form resting beneath the sheets. When I drew breath to speak, however, a fingertip pressed over my lips to keep them closed.
“Shh,” Rans said. “Not tonight. Whatever it is, it can wait until morning.”
I let the trapped breath flow out through my nose, and nodded. Deft hands unbuttoned my purloined shirt, baring my skin to feather-light caresses that traveled the same path as the bruisingly possessive touches he’d used earlier. I fell into the promise of distraction eagerly, reaching out to explore his body in return and finding him naked under the bedclothes.
Full dark fell outside as we did our best to avoid thinking about anything except physical pleasure, and by the time I eventually slipped into sleep, I was as warm and sated as I could ever remember being.
EPILOGUE
WHEN I WOKE UP the following morning, there was a cat perched on the chair across from the bed.
I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and looked again. The cat was still there, its slanted green eyes and silky black coat worryingly familiar. The angle of the sun outside made me think it was still pretty early, in the ‘not a good time of day for vampires’ sense of being early. I nudged Rans with my elbow anyway, because I was fucking well not going to deal with an intelligent Fae cat burglar on my own.
Especially not while I was naked, and presumably reeked like the morning after a hot vampire sex marathon.
“Rans,” I hissed.
“Huh?” Rans rolled into a sitting position next to me. His eyes narrowed, and he glared at the four-legged intruder with an expression that said he was less than happy about being poked awake to deal with something like this first thing in the morning. “Oh, for...”
He grabbed a pillow, as if to throw at the sleek animal.
In a flash, the cat morphed into a pretty, rather androgynous humanoid figure sitting cross-legged in the chair. Short black hair framed a pixie-like face lit by forest-green eyes.
“... what the actual hell?” I asked faintly, too shocked to even think of dragging the sheet over my exposed boobs to cover them.
“Leave now,” Rans ground out, “before I forget that I usually like cats.”
The pixie-like intruder ignored him, focusing on me instead. “Why did you visit the Fae-kept human in Dhuinne, demonkin?”
I stared back, trying to get my brain in gear. “The... Fae-kept...?” Then, it clicked into place. “Wait. You mean my father?”
The pixie leaned forward, nostrils flaring as though to smell me. “Ah, I se
e. The human is your sire. Your language is still strange to me, and I didn’t notice the resemblance between you beneath the stench of demon.”
I leaned back, attempting to get out of sniffing range. The effort only caused my shoulder to bump into Rans’ chest.
“I’m about to find something harder and with much sharper edges to throw at you than a pillow,” Rans warned our nosy visitor.
I put a quelling hand on his chest. “Hang on. What do you know about my dad?” I asked. “Why were you with him inside that house in Dhuinne? And, uh... what are you, exactly?”
Yeah, so that last question might not have been the height of diplomacy. But, then again, neither was torturing someone and sentencing her to execution because of who her grandfather was, so I think I was owed a couple of free passes for manners, at the very least.
“Our friendly neighborhood peeping tom is a cat-sidhe,” Rans said, still sounding irritated. “A Fae shape-shifter, in other words.”
O-kay, then.
I still couldn’t make a gender determination. Since it appeared we weren’t going to be standing on politeness this morning, I decided to ask rather than keep wondering about it. “Sorry, but are you male or female?”
“No,” said the cat person.
Cat faerie.
Whatever.
Either way, I supposed that answered that. “Non-binary. Gotcha. So... about my dad?”
The Fae tilted their head. “Your sire was exchanged for my old Mistress’ son when they were both infants. I helped care for him when he was brought to Dhuinne, so she would not risk becoming too attached to him before the Tithe.”
I was having difficulty untangling that statement, but Rans stiffened beside me.
“Darryl Bright was replaced with a Fae changeling?” he demanded.
The pixie-faced figure shrugged. “That is what I just said, vampire.”
Rans was frowning. “But he lived on Earth. He had a family in the human realm.”
“Yes, that is so. My Mistress died unexpectedly, not long after the exchange took place.” The Fae’s delicate features twitched into a matching frown. “The human titheling’s mother had some glimmering of the second sight. She knew the Fae infant was not her son, and she started using magic in an attempt to find out what had happened to her real child. I helped arrange for her son’s return to Earth, rather than risk a human learning too much about the Fae world. My Mistress’ baby was taken away from the woman and exchanged with a different Earth child, instead.”
I lifted my hands in a time-out gesture. “Whoa. Back up. Can someone explain this in words of one syllable for the clueless human, please?”
“You are not human, demonkin,” said the Fae.
“I was raised human,” I shot back. “So just treat me like I am one, for purposes of this conversation—all right?”
But the shape-shifter only looked confused. “If you were a human, we would not be having this conversation in the first place.”
I closed my eyes and counted silently backwards from ten. “Rans?” I prompted. “A little help here, please?”
Rans still sounded grim. “You’ve heard the old tales about fairy-folk stealing human babies, yes?”
“Probably,” I replied. “I mean, I was never big on the Brothers Grimm, but it rings a vague bell.”
“Well, like many legends about the Fae, there’s some truth in it,” he went on. “As far as I’ve been able to determine, the practice is part of their strategy to take control of the human realm from within. Caspian was a changeling, for instance.”
I tried to twist my brain around that, looking between Rans and the Fae. “You mean the Fae are planting their own babies in human families and somehow grooming them to become... what? State Auditors?”
Rans let out a huff. “Grooming them to become powerful people, certainly. I sincerely doubt that Golden Boy is on the Missouri Department of Revenue’s payroll as anything other than a high-paid consultant with connections in all the right places.”
I pondered that. “Still. That’s kind of horrifying.” I returned my attention to the waiflike shape-shifter. “What happens to the human babies, though? What would have happened to my father if my grandmother hadn’t managed to get him back?”
The Fae looked troubled.
“Well?” I pressed. “You said something about your... Mistress... not wanting to become attached to him before the, what was it? The Tithe?”
Beside me, Rans had gone very still.
The Fae’s voice was so soft I had to strain to hear the words. “Yes. The Tithe to Hell.”
“What are you saying?” Rans’ tone grew dangerous.
The shape-shifter blinked large, green eyes at him. “The Fae are bound by the treaty to deliver to Hell one child of every ten that are born. That was the price for peace. Well... that and your life, vampire.”
Rans flinched almost imperceptibly.
“In order to avoid sending our own children to our sworn enemies,” the Fae continued, “we exchange many of our babies for human children, and surrender those souls to the demons, instead.”
My heart began to pound so hard that I was sure everyone in the room must have been able to hear it. “Oh, my god. Tell me you’re joking,” I whispered.
Fine, dark brows drew together. “Why in Mab’s name would I joke about such a thing, demonkin?”
My eyes flew to Rans. “This can’t possibly be what it sounds like... can it?” I demanded, trying not to fall headlong into a pool of assumptions that might be completely wrong. “I mean—Hell’s not really fire and brimstone, right? Nigellus even said so. And... he’s not evil. He’s your friend.”
I’d been hoping for some kind of casual dismissal of my concerns; some scoffing reassurance that this ‘Tithe’ wasn’t what I thought it was. Instead, Rans seemed to have disappeared into that dark place I’d glimpsed on only a couple of occasions, when he was swallowed up by the holes in his own past.
The elfin figure in the chair frowned at us, as though unsure what our problem was. “Your sire’s mind was broken when he was returned to Dhuinne, demonkin. Since he is of no more use to the Fae in his current condition, the Unseelie Commander who brought you to the Court has been arguing that he should be thrown in with the next Tithe shipment. Isn’t this a good thing? The demons are your allies, after all. Your people. Would you not rather have him in their custody than the Fae’s?”
I was seriously running close to mental capacity here, but I made a valiant effort to consider the Fae’s words objectively.
“Rans?” I asked, my tone wavering. “Is there some way we can get him back from the demons if that happens?”
He seemed to shake himself free of whatever black hole of memory had swallowed him. “It’s... it’s possible. I don’t know. We can speak to Nigellus—”
I swallowed hard. Nigellus. The other person whose friendship with Rans I might’ve destroyed when I ran off to Dhuinne.
But our uninvited guest clearly hadn’t picked up on the uncomfortable subtext.
“That would please me, I think,” the shape-shifter said, as though genuinely concerned for my father’s wellbeing. “However, you must take care. Many factions will be after the only living being who embodies humanity, demonkind, and Fae at the same time.”
“What did you just say?” Rans asked sharply.
But the Fae’s attention stayed focused on me. “Demonkin, the only reason your sire could possibly have survived marriage to a cambion—much less impregnated one—is because of the Fae magic he absorbed as an infant during his stay in Dhuinne, before he was returned to Earth.”
“Bloody hell.” The hoarse whisper made me turn back to find that Rans had gone pale as a sheet.
“What?” I demanded. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” Rans echoed in disbelief.
“Yes!” I shot back, my temper flaring. “I mean, who cares if Dad picked up Fae magic via osmosis when he was a baby, or whatever the hell happened? The Fae alread
y want to kill me just for being part demon!”
He was still looking at me like I was nuts.
“Zorah, don’t you see?” he said. “If this is true, you’ve just become the single most important person in the entirety of the three realms. This is far bigger than any of us realized before.” He rolled out of bed, apparently unbothered by his nakedness, and started rummaging for clothes. “Get dressed—you and I need to get back to the States and talk to Nigellus. There are forces at play here that could start a war big enough to put the last one to shame.”
I caught the bundle of clothing he tossed at me and looked from him to the Fae, then back again.
“I’m sorry, but I’m still not getting it,” I told him. “Why does this make me any more important than before?”
He paused in the middle of dressing and came over to take my hands in both of his. I blinked up at him.
“The Fae are sending human children to Hell,” he said slowly, his eyes burning into mine. “Human children who’ve been living in Dhuinne, and may have absorbed Fae magic during their stay... just like your father.”
I frowned. “And if Fae magic meant that he was able to get my mom pregnant...”
“Then the Fae may well be unknowingly providing their sworn enemies with the means to grow in number and strength until the balance of power is shifted in their favor, throwing everything into chaos again,” Rans finished.
“Oh, my god,” I breathed.
“Quite,” he agreed.
It was too much to take in, on top of everything I was already worrying about.
Stop, I tried to tell myself. Think about Dad. Stay focused on that. If the Fae intend to send him to Hell, you’ll need to talk to Nigellus anyway. Worry about the rest of it afterward.
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