by Holley Trent
“They don’t want to come back. Ollie is the black sheep. He only wants me because he thinks the match was ordained.”
“Of course it was.” Ótama reached out and cupped Tess’s chin in her hand. Her smile was curious. “Your father, may he rest in peace, made sure of it. When you get the chance, take a close look at your family tree. Your grandmother is selectively tight-lipped about her daughter’s husband, and that was by his request.”
“Are you saying my father was…”
“An axe-swinging orangutan like Oliver.” Her gaze softened and she let her hands fall to her lap. “But, he was an orphan taken in by the Afótama when no one else could take him. He was never linked up with his group, but he followed them from afar. He knew what he was meant to be. It was too bad your mother never had her turn as queen. It might have been your parents joining the two groups instead of you.”
“Is that why they’re dead?”
Ótama twined her fingers atop her swollen belly and crossed her legs. She let her knee bob for a while and stared out at the ocean.
“You can’t tell me that, can you?”
Ótama’s knee bobbed faster.
“You literally can’t, huh? Okay.” Tess leaned over and gave the ghost a kiss on the forehead. Tossing one leg over the side of the longship, she added, “Don’t fret about it. It’ll just be one more thing for me to unravel. No one said being the Afótama queen was an easy job.”
“Visit when you can. I believe you will provide me with many hours of entertainment. Remember, I am not granted full vision of what happens on Earth.”
“I wish one of us was.” If Tess had a wider scope, she might have been able to see if having two permanent lovers was worth the risks. She cared for both of them and knew she could never choose between them. She was drawn to Ollie because the part of her that was warrior recognized him as a kindred spirit. That’s why she knew he didn’t fight without a purpose, and more often than not, that purpose was to protect his family. Harvey pulled her in a different type of way. She was drawn to his logic and wisdom. She envied his confidence, but was content to bask in the shadow of his. He was a natural leader who people respected and looked up to. She’d respected and looked up to him, and even more since she’d become his queen. He’d been humble about it. He wasn’t jealous of her station. He was proud that it was hers. No one had been in her corner as long as him, and she was thankful to have him as her lover.
Who could choose between them? She sure as shit wasn’t going to, and they’d have to get the fuck over it.
But as she climbed down the web toward the void, fear and dread pulled at her gut. Risks always came with consequences.
What if she tried to keep both men only to end up with neither?
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You know, I was joking when I asked if you had a gun handy to make the bodyguard cover seem believable.” Harvey tented his fingers. He stared across the conference table and over Tess’s head at Ollie.
Ollie stood behind her with one hand grazing her neck and the other stuffed into the pocket of his jeans. His loaded firearm was tucked into the back of his waistband. The safety was on, he’d said. Harvey had to take his word for it, and wasn’t entirely comfortable with the weapon in his presence. He and Ollie weren’t cool with each other by any stretch of the imagination. He didn’t think the big man would shoot to kill, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be eager to annoy Harvey a bit. Maybe he’d aerate his shoulder, or one of his feet, just for shits and giggles.
Tess hadn’t paid much attention to either of them since they’d landed in Santa Fe. She’d been reflective during the drive to Albuquerque, and he didn’t dare disturb her. He caught flitting bits and pieces of her thoughts, and they were disjointed. Scattered. Whatever she was reflecting on took up all of her attention. He didn’t know what being queen was like or being the conduit for all Afótama, but he knew her job couldn’t have been easy.
He hated to, but he gave her some space.
Ollie grunted. “I would have brought the gun, anyway. At close range, though, I prefer bladed weapons. They’re quieter.”
Nadia, sitting at the end of the conference table scrolling through messages on her phone screen, whistled low. “Gangsta. I like it.”
Ollie cut his gaze over to her. “Oh, yeah? I know just the guy for you, then.”
Her red eyebrows bobbed up.
Harvey didn’t think he was kidding, and he really didn’t like the idea of Ollie and his band of geriatric marauders muddying the Afótama gene pool. Those men were probably four feet tall at birth and fell out of the womb gripping the hilts of their weapons.
“Tell me you don’t have a sword strapped under your shirt, too,” Harvey said, deadpan.
Ollie shook his head, and there wasn’t a bit of humor to be found in his pinched expression. “I can’t carry my sword on my motorcycle without a larger bag than I’m willing to strap on. Not exactly something you want to get found in your possession if you get pulled over, either. Don’t worry, though. I’ll have all my weapons shipped out here. Your queen will be perfectly safe.”
“I know she will be. I plan on ensuring that personally.”
The grin that spread across Ollie’s face was wicked. “It’s good to know Muriel has someone on staff to oversee security. I hope I don’t make your job obsolete.”
“You seem to be operating under the mistaken premise that with Tess being here, I won’t pick a fight.”
“The only mistake is you thinking you’ll win if there is a fight.”
“Rein it in now, boys,” Tess said quietly. She furrowed her forehead and looked down at her hands. “Whoever is meeting us here is coming down the hall now. I feel her.”
Harvey didn’t want to think about how Tess had acquired the ability to feel, rather than to just hear, nearby Afótama. He suspected the man at her back had something to do with it, but for all he knew, it was a talent she was meant to have all along. Muriel didn’t have it, or at least she claimed, so besides Ollie, Tess had no one to seek counsel about it.
Get your fill, Tess. He won’t be around for long.
There was a gentle rap on the conference room door, and Nadia sprang to her feet. Ollie, with his long stride, beat her to the door and put a finger to his lips.
He turned at Tess, who looked up.
“How many?” he mouthed.
“I feel one and hear one. Same person, but that’s one Afótama. There could be people out there I can’t detect,” she whispered.
The person knocked again. “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice—thin and tentative.
“Are you getting any thoughts off her that are concerning? I feel more than I hear, and all I feel is nervousness from her.” He didn’t just look at Tess, but all of them, and Harvey respected him a little more for it. When it came to Tess’s safety, he wasn’t going to be cavalier, even with his pride on the line.
“Ollie, open the door,” Tess said. “She’s worried about her kids. She left them in the car.”
Ollie open the door a sliver, and looked out in the hotel hallway. Then he opened it wider, and a short woman wearing ripped jeans and a faded hoodie sweatshirt stepped in.
Her nervous gaze was on everything and nothing. She looked at nothing in particular until during one of her disorganized sweeps, she saw Tess.
She dropped to her knees and covered her head with her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me, even if I deserve it. I didn’t know any better back then. I swear, I stayed away so they wouldn’t find out anything else. So they wouldn’t ask me anything else.”
Tess’s gaze locked on Harvey’s. Her eyes were wide and the blood had drained from her face. “Help me.”
“What’s wrong?”
“She believes she’s to blame for us getting taken. I—I’m not certain what to ask…or how I should react.”
Should?
Harvey thought that if what Tess was saying was true, she should be pounding her fists agains
t the tabletop, and screaming at the woman. She should be calling the security they had on standby in a room down the hall and telling them to apprehend the woman so she could be taken back to the compound and properly interrogated.
But, she had to do better than should, because everything the queen did made a ripple in the web. Making waves when a ripple would do would be a mistake. She didn’t want to earn a reputation for using excessive force. Those kinds of perceptions were hard to shake off. He’d learned that mistake the hard way from working his way up in a cutthroat industry and in an even more cutthroat economy. He’d earned the nickname “Hard Harvey” for being aggressive and pushing his teams to the brink. Most people couldn’t hack it. Some, however, sought him out. They wanted to work under him because they’d learn more and do their jobs better. Over time, he’d learned to temper his passions and expectations with forgiveness. Not everyone was made to achieve in the same way. Not everyone had something to prove.
Like him.
“With kindness,” he finally projected at her.
She mouthed it back, and turned her chair toward the woman on the floor. “Mr. Gilisson, would you please close the door?”
Ollie shut it, and put his back against it. No one was coming in, and no one was going out unless it was through him. Harvey sure as shit didn’t want to be the dumb-ass trying to get through him. If he ever did insist on a challenge, Harvey would have to use every defense he had to take the man down. Some of those, he’d hesitate to use on his worst enemy and he wasn’t certain Ollie was that. He was a nice enough guy. They might even have been friends under different circumstances.
“What’s your name?” Tess asked.
The woman’s response was a low mumble against the floor.
“Fiona? Is that it? Look at me, not the carpet. No one here is going to hurt you.”
Fiona lifted her head slowly and looked up, but her gaze seemed to miss Tess by a couple of feet. She was like a stray cat that came because she knew there’d be nourishment if she behaved herself, but had become so used to running away that she perceived everything to be a threat.
“Tell me what you did.” Tess leaned her forearms onto her thighs so she was closer to Fiona’s level. Her voice was gentle, not accusatory, and knowing Tess as he did, he knew it wasn’t an act. She didn’t have to try hard to be kind. Kindness was easy for her. Being hard when she needed to be, though, was difficult. It had taken her all her life to shore up her backbone. It’d always been easier for her to run than to fight back.
He wanted for her to never have to fight again. He’d fight for her—be the bad cop to her good one, when she needed one.
“Please, I’ve got two kids and I’m a single mom. I get if you’re upset with me, but make sure they’re okay, will you? Their names are Annie and Ricky, and if you tell them the secret codeword, they’ll go with you. Just tell them—”
“I don’t need to know it,” Tess said. “We don’t need any more Afótama orphans, do we?”
Fiona gave her head a violent shake. “No.”
“Good, so tell me why you called us up here. What did you do that’s so unforgivable that you couldn’t go home and tell us there?”
“She’s on some kind of anti-psychotic drug,” Nadia projected. Harvey couldn’t tell if the message was a special delivery meant just for him or if Tess and Ollie were getting it, too, because they didn’t react. Maybe that was purposeful, though. Fiona would have guessed they were having a private discussion if they all turned to look at the same person at once.
“How can you tell?” Harvey asked.
“I’ve seen this before. They’re not compatible with our physiology. Makes the psychic shit erratic. The couple of people I knew who got prescribed them ended up getting institutionalized. She’s probably not a danger to her kids, but all the same, she shouldn’t be on her own with them.”
“I hear you,” Tess said. “That’s all I can say on that for now. I’ve got too much information streaming through me. The web is abuzz right now and it’s really loud inside my head.”
Ollie started toward her, but she gave her head a minute shake.
He stayed put. All he’d needed was a day in her company, and just like that, he understood her.
Harvey scoffed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He would have felt so much better if Ollie had tried to push the issue a little. Any other man would have—any other stranger would have.
“When I was little, around Annie’s age,” Fiona said, “me and my mom went to visit some friends in Virginia and Mom took me to the park. It’d been raining so much we couldn’t get outside, so when it finally stopped raining, I was sure glad to get out there. I’d been eyeing that park for weeks. It had this big, long slide that spiraled down like—”
“Fiona,” Harvey interrupted. “The queen has a lot of demands on her time. Can you tell her the most important part of the story?”
“Thank you, blunt knight of mine,” Tess projected, barely suppressing a smirk.
“Anytime, sweetheart. Glad to be useful for something.”
He didn’t know if Ollie could hear him, but the other man did raise an eyebrow.
Fiona straightened up and scanned the room once again, this time with clearer eyes. She gasped and clutched her chest. “You ain’t got a consort. The queen’s not mated? Where’s your mate? You’re supposed to have a mate.” She crawled over to Tess and grabbed her ankles. “If you don’t have a mate, they’ll get to you and squeeze you dry for all the information. Everything, they’ll take everything.”
Fuck.
Harvey pushed his hands onto his armrests, preparing to stand, but Tess gave him a mental pushback. Wait, she seemed to be saying.
“It’s sweet of you to worry about me, Fiona,” Tess said, “but I’m worried about you, and Annie and Ricky, too, of course. Tell me what happened at the park so we can get you home and taken care of.”
Fiona’s red-rimmed eyes went comically wide. “Take care of us?” she whispered. “Is that mobster talk for taking us out back and shooting us?”
The corners of Tess’s mouth twitched but, somehow, she managed to tamp down the laugh. Fiona would have been a hoot to be around if she wasn’t so ill. She shouldn’t have been on her own. Afótama took care of each other. Rarely was a person so unredeemable that the clan tossed them out.
“No,” Tess said. “It means we’d find you someplace to live and a job to do. We’d make sure Annie and Ricky are enrolled in school. We’d make sure they wouldn’t have anything to be scared of, and that you wouldn’t have to run anymore. You’ve been running a long time, haven’t you? I know what that’s like.” Tess’s eyes shone with unshed tears that everyone in the room except Fiona seemed affected by.
Nadia had turned away to face the blank wall behind her. Ollie was stone faced, but his hands twitched at his sides in a manner Harvey knew all too well. He wanted to touch Tess—to hold her—but couldn’t take the risk.
Tess had rarely cried as a kid, and when Harvey had asked her why, she’d said because she’d given up hope that things would get better. She had less disappointment that way. Seeing her—a grown woman with a reputation for enduring terrible shit—cry, rent his heart. He hated that there were things he couldn’t fix for her, and that nothing would ever be easy.
He hated himself a little for bringing her home. She’d been struggling on her own, but amongst the Afótama, she had to repress her struggles at the expense of fixing everyone else’s. That wasn’t fair. He wanted better for her.
Finally, Fiona nodded and said quietly, “I’d sure like someplace to go. I bet the kids would, too. They’re only half-breeds, though. You still want them?”
Tess put her hands over her eyes and let out a long sigh. “They’re yours, so of course I do. Please, Fiona.” Her voice was thick, pleading, and tired. “Please tell me what happened at the park.”
“There was a man there that day, and I must have said something he thought was interesting. Some throwaway thing about
telepathy. I think I might have said something about my mother talking inside my head.” Fiona’s voice was slow and steady. It was if her brain had caught on to the fact that the meeting was important and had provided her with a moment of clarity to relay the information she’d called them about. “He asked me a lot of questions I thought were silly at the time. It was like the same thing over and over again asked in different ways. And he asked what it was like where I lived and what kind of religion we believed in. He asked…who was in charge.”
Tess drew in a deep breath and peeled her hands away from her eyes. “And you told him those things?”
“I was bad. I should have known better.”
“You were little.”
“Yes. I was real little. Maybe four.”
“Fuck.” That whispered expletive came from Nadia, who still had her back turned. She put her phone to her ear. “Stand by. I need you to do me a favor,” she said into it.
“You think it was your fault that we—that some of the Afótama children—were abducted?” Harvey asked. Even if she’d inadvertently tipped someone off, she couldn’t have known the person wasn’t safe for her to talk to. She’d come out of Norseton where everyone knew everyone. There were no outsiders. Her mother hadn’t thought to prepare her for the possibility that someone would find her unusual and probe her about things that she didn’t know were meant to be secrets.
“They started disappearing one at a time about six months after that,” Fiona said. “I didn’t think about it until I was around fourteen, and then it hit me it was my fault. I ran away so nobody would find out.”
“Your mother must think you’re one of the missing ones.”
Fiona nodded, and that frantic look returned to her eyes.
“It’s okay, I forgive you. We’ll all forgive you,” Tess whispered, and she fell to her knees and pulled Fiona in for a hug.