by Rhys Ford
“Honey, Ryder doesn’t want to love me. He just wants to fuck me,” I replied. “You know I don’t have sex with people I know.”
“I hate it when you call me honey. It makes me feel like a little kid.” Dalia nestled up against me, her arm wrapped over my stomach. A hard squeeze would probably put me into convulsions, but I said nothing when she hugged me gently. “God, I hate you sometimes.”
“I hate me sometimes too,” I admitted with a nod.
“You want to know what pissed me off the most?”
“What?”
“When Ryder told me about that guy with the dogs, I was jealous.” She moved, propping herself up so she could see my face. “I was stitching you up, and he was spewing about some ass hat who knew you from… before.”
“That pissed you off? We ran him over with the Mustang.”
“It pissed me off because Ryder was there for something so personal, something so intimate that I wanted to punch him in the nose.” Dalia pouted and yipped when Newt scrambled up her body to reach me. She let the cat settle before stroking his uneven ears, finding the spot between his shoulders that made him stick his tongue out in pleasure. “He told me the bastard knew your real name; then he shut up. It’s a very annoying thing. Shutting up when I want to hear what’s next.”
“Ryder’s good at pissing people off.” I shrugged, moving my hand under the cat’s chin so Newt had something to sand clean with his tongue. “Shit, his own family seems to be good at it. His grandmother sent the damned Hunt after us. Bitch’s got a rock where her heart should be.”
“Did seeing that guy make you want to go back to… wherever home is?”
“Not really.” Making a face at her, I laughed. “He set his dogs on us. Not exactly a warm and fuzzy homecoming.”
“So your name’s not Kai.”
“It’s as much Kai as yours is Dalia.” I returned the wrinkled nose she gave me. “And Ryder talks too damned much, especially about crap he should leave alone.”
“So what is it?” She stretched up along my ribs to whisper into my ear. “I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”
“Tanic… my father… called me the Chimera,” I said, my worthless brain echoing it in unsidhe. “Kind of a mouthful. Kai’s better when filling out paperwork.”
“Kai suits you,” Dalia said, fighting a yawn. “I’m going to fall asleep now unless you need something.”
“Nah, sleep sounds good.” I let Newt curl up around my hand, his teeth scrubbing at my nails before he started drooling in his sleep. “And thanks for stitching me up, Michadalia.”
“I’m going to kick your ass,” she mumbled, biting me lightly on the arm. I guessed she chose someplace less bruised than others because it only stung from the sharp of her teeth. “You will never ever say that aloud again.”
“Promise,” I said, crossing my heart where I could over the bandage covering my shoulder. “I’ll consider my ass prekicked.”
I waited until I heard Dalia’s breathing deepen, and she turned, a tiny whimpering snore escaping her open mouth. As Newt’s purring competed with the pounding of my heart, I risked wrapping my arms around her and held her close, lying with her against me until the sun came up to take it all away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“GOT TO tell you, boy,” Jonas remarked as he walked around Oketsu’s battered shell, “that car looks like it should be shot in the head and left in a swamp someplace to die.”
“He’s not that bad,” I protested weakly. Running my hand over a punctured quarter panel, I refused to admit that Jonas had a point. “He’s been worse.”
We were in the warehouse’s garage bay, directly under the bedroom area, the rolling door open to let the sunlight in. Sitting on the wide cement slab, Oketsu looked like he’d been run through a food processor set on munch. Most of his blood red paint was missing on the passenger side, scraped down to raw steel in some places, and more than one bite had been taken out of his ass end. The front bumper canted inward, distinctively crumpled in a shape vaguely the size of an unsidhe.
Starbursts crackled the front windshield, long lines intersecting and splitting off into different directions, and the back window was pocked with metal shards. Only the thin layers of transparent Kevlar kept the glass in-frame, but the film was shot, too bent and torn up to be repaired. His interior wasn’t much better. It stank of blood, puke, and something else I identified as baby gunk combined with other foulness.
“A good cleaning and some steel work, he’ll be fine,” I said, mourning the ruined line of Oketsu’s black leather hardtop. The sections’ stitching was ripped apart by claws and teeth. I wasn’t certain if the damage had been done by the dragon or black dogs, but I was willing to guess it’d been started by one and finished off by the other.
Jonas reached under the front of the hood to pop it up. He struggled to find the latch under the bent metal, then winced when the distressed springs shrieked. No amount of oil from the workbench would ease that sound, torn metal straining to work against damage. “Damn, Kai. It looks like a war zone in here. There’s a strip of fur stuck to the manifold.”
“Don’t say that.” Coming around the car, I almost wept with relief at the sight of the bright blue engine. “Quit screwing with me, Jonas. You’re going to kill me.”
“Considering you’re—what?—two weeks dead right now? Just checking if your heart’s still beating.” He bent into the engine compartment, working at the hoses leading out of the carburetor. “It looks good. Just cosmetic on this end. How’s the electric flat running in the back?”
“I don’t know yet. This is the first chance I’ve had to look at him. Dalia wouldn’t let me get out of bed.” I scooted around the car’s fender on my stomach to reach the transmission gauge.
As a bastardized setup, the Mustang ran on a blended system, having to work with both gas and fuel cell engines, so his transmission was usually the first piece to blow if it couldn’t handle the shift in power. The dipstick came up a clean, clear pink, adding another positive to the scorecard. I’d have to go underneath to check further, but it was a good sign.
“I’m surprised you’re out of the house at all.” Ryder’s voice drifted down into the engine space, and I nearly slammed the back of my head on the hood. “It’s good to see you up and about, Kai. And I have to admit, the view I have of you is sublime.”
“Kai, the asshole who tried to kill you is here. Want me to run him off?” Jonas growled, and I lost sight of his feet from my perch under the hood.
“I did not try to kill him,” Ryder said as I slid out of the engine space. “No one told him to offer himself up as a sacrifice to the Hunt.”
“From where I’m standing, the boy’s beating is on you,” Jonas said, jutting his wide jaw out and staring down his nose. “Count him as one of my own. Looks a little funny. Could be part Asian, maybe, but as far as I’m concerned, definitely mine. You, on the other hand, I don’t know you.”
“Jonas.” I dusted a bit of grit from my belly and picked off a flower petal lodged in the waistband of my jeans. “There’s a drought on. I’d have to wait until sundown to hose him off my driveway if you kill him. Bad enough my car stinks. Don’t make my house smell like shit too.”
The Stalker gave Ryder one last wicked eyeball, then grabbed me by the back of the neck, wrapping his massive hand nearly all the way around my throat. Shaking me lightly, he bent over and said in a not so quiet whisper, “I’ve got to head out, but if you need me to come back and shoot this son of a bitch, just let me know.”
“I’m good.” I let Jonas give me a bear hug, losing my grip on both the Mustang and the ground as he lifted me up. After a few attempts at breathing, I choked out some protest, and he put me down, ruffling my hair. “Thanks for bringing the truck down last week. Tell Briana thanks for the food.”
“Not a problem,” he grunted, bumping Ryder’s shoulder as he passed. Jonas dwarfed him, nearly knocking the sidhe lord off his feet. “You need anything, you call
up the house. If I can’t come down, I’ll get one of the kids to. Some of them should be good for something.”
“Some?” Ryder watched Jonas step into the sunlight, then rumble off in his old F-150, its fuel cell convertor working hard to push the heavy steel beast. “How many does he have?”
“I think the last count was seventeen,” I said with a shrug. “I’ve lost track. I know a couple of the wives pretty well. They like feeding me. I like being fed.”
“Humans amaze me,” he said, exhaling hard. Resting a hand on the front of the Mustang, Ryder looked me up and down, stopping to examine any bruises visible around my tank top. “You look good. The collarbone healed nicely.”
“Yeah, Dalia did a good job setting it.” I picked up my ink-folio and began to walk around the car, making notes on what I could salvage and what flat-out needed replacing. “Thanks for the money. You sent too much, though. It shouldn’t cost that much to fix Oketsu, and to be fair, the dragon’s on me.”
“Keep it.” Ryder followed, tailing me close enough that I could feel his body heat on my skin. “I owe you a lot.”
“Hell, you came back for me. You could have kept going. No one would’ve blamed you. Not with two babies in the car,” I said, stopping to inspect a door panel. There was no saving anything above the crease, but the bottom part looked solid. Rubbing at the line, I jotted down the measurements for the steel I’d need before moving down the body. “If anything, I should pay you.”
“You still owed me dinner, and now that I know how bloodthirsty your family is, it was in my best interest to go back and get you,” he said. “And as lovely as it is to watch you crawl around on your knees, I’m here because I need your help.”
“Wasn’t the Pendle run the last time I was going to work for you?” His bright green eyes were muted through the uneven bangs Dalia had cut into my hair.
“That’s what you wanted but not what I needed.” Ryder tried not to look smug as he passed me a slip of clearcoat, activating the liquid ink with a flick of his thumb. “I’ve contracted you through the Post. Here’s the requisition for the job.”
“Oh, hell no.” I stood too quickly and caught a wave of dizzy. “They can’t just assign me work. Stalkers are contract only. I have to accept.”
“Actually, it’s a government chit commandeering your services,” he explained through his wide smile. “As the sidhe High Lord, I have diplomatic status, which includes full cooperation of local and state services. How else do you think I drove your gas-engine-powered monstrosity through San Diego without ending up in jail?”
“I think I hate you,” I said, reading through the chit. My name flared through the words, picked out in crimson vivid enough to burn my eyes.
“Don’t hate me. I pay better than the Post rates do.” Then all teasing drained from his handsome face. “I’m serious, Kai. I need your help. Please.”
I loathed hearing please, especially from someone I’d as soon tangle my sheets around. Dalia could undo me with a widening of her eyes, and Duffy had me wrapped around her finger when she dropped her voice down to a husky contralto to ask me for anything. My spine rattled under my carved wings, the skin crawling tight along my thighs and belly when I heard Ryder’s soft and humble whisper, breaking down any walls I’d built up over the past two weeks.
“I’m to assist the local Court in any way possible?” I waved the chit under his nose. “Now I’m sure I hate you. What the hell is this?”
“Due to your unique position between the elfin and human societies….”
I cut him off. “Unique position? What kind of shit is that? Bent over, you mean.”
“How many other elfin Stalkers are there?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at my disgruntled hiss. “None. Only you. Besides, this way I can keep an eye on you.”
“I don’t need an eye kept on me,” I said, stabbing him in the chest with a finger. We were close in height, but I fell short of meeting his gaze straight on by a few inches. “I’ve got my own eyes on me.”
“Can you at least hear me out?”
I slumped against the Mustang, going over the directive chit again. Ryder had effectively tangled up my Stalker license indefinitely. The language was loose, only a directive to assist the Court’s successful integration into San Diego’s infrastructure, legal speak for bending over the government’s couch. Ryder had me pressed up against a solid bureaucratic wall.
“Fine. Talk.”
“Last night, someone broke into the Court’s temporary quarters and tried to kill Ciarla’s children,” he said, nodding when my breath caught in my throat. “They’re fine, but it’s troubling.”
“Your grandmother?” It was a guess on my part, but I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d want the children dead. There was a flicker of pissed hovering in my brain. I’d nearly killed myself to see those kids safe.
“I’ve lodged a formal complaint, but those things take time. I won’t know anything for a while.” Ryder rocked back and forth on his heels with his fingers tucked into his pants pockets. “I’m making a serious accusation; infanticide is one of the most heinous crimes a sidhe can be charged with. The Justices haven’t yet decided if the twins are even elfin.”
“Because Shannon carried them?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “If they’re killed before that decision is handed down, then the accusation goes away, and anyone connected to their deaths walks free. It’s as if they never existed.”
“That’s screwed,” I said, nearly spitting in disgust. “Of course they exist. I got baby soup in my lungs because of one of them. What happened?”
“Someone broke in, either a drop onto the roof or through a service entrance—we’re not sure which. Alexa opened the door—”
“Wait, Alexa? Your cousin Alexa?”
“She’s joined my Court.” Ryder nodded. “Alexa, her daughter, and a few of the others from Elfhaine came through the Temecula Pass. She went up to the nursery to see the babies and found Shannon trying to stop Kaia from bleeding.”
“Kaia? Really?” I made a face. “What the hell did you name the other one? Ford?”
“No, her name is Rhianna.” He shuffled his feet on the cement pad, moving around some of the dirt that had dropped off the Mustang. “You should be happy. It’s an honor to have a child named after you.”
“No, it sounds like she’s going to be called Kayak in school and get into fights,” I retorted. “But the kids are okay, right?”
“Shannon said she screamed when she saw someone standing over the crib. She thinks he got frightened and fled down the stairwell.”
“How many damned entrances do you have into this building?” So far he’d mentioned at least three, not including the front door. Not a good sign. “And nobody noticed a strange human walking around the place?”
“No one,” Ryder admitted reluctantly. He pulled at a shank of hair at his collar, frustration firming his shoulders. “Most of us were either downstairs in the inner courtyard helping the newcomers get settled, or out. Shannon was alone with the babies.”
“So why didn’t the guy kill her first? It’s what I’d do.” I grimaced when Ryder gave me a worried glance. “Well, if you were going in to kill a couple of kids, wouldn’t you take the adult out first?”
“I don’t think he expected her to be in the room or didn’t see her come in.”
“Pretty crappy assassin, which is a good thing for you but bad for him.” I chewed on my lip, trying to imagine the scene. “So what do you think I can do? Sniff him out like a bloodhound?”
“You know San Diego. We don’t,” Ryder explained. “The elfin at Southern Rise aren’t used to seeing humans, much less dealing with them on a day to day basis. Many of them never fought in the wars or dealt with the human culture. You look like one of us and act like one of them. I need you in my Court, and if I have to use a human injunction to get you there, then so be it.”
“No way in hell’s ice tray am I going to join a Court.” I shook my head. Closing
the hood, I searched my pocket for the keys, wondering if I’d left them in the ignition. “You keep bringing it up, and I keep saying no. I don’t know what else to tell you to make you listen.”
“Because you’re elfin,” he murmured, “and I’m the authority over the races here. Technically, anything that happens to you, anything you do, is governed by me and my law. The human government has no say over you. I do.”
“Oh, screw that.” I turned and gave his shoulder a light shove. “There’s an easy way to take care of that. A sharp knife to your ribs and, snick, I’m clear of any elfin authority.”
“I said technically. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an independent. Until you choose not to be.” Ryder slid up next to me, hooking his fingers into my belt loop. “Now I’m merely asking you to help.”
“No, you’re forcing me to help you,” I said, holding up the chit. “This is force, extortion at least. I’m not up on my criminal charges, but at least it’s professional blackmail.”
“You can walk away,” he said. “I wouldn’t do anything to make you lose your license. I needed to show you I was serious about needing you.”
“Are you?” I turned, still held captive by his fingers. I couldn’t break free if I wanted to or tried. Ryder’s grip held me firmly in place.
It bothered me that he was stronger. I was too used to humans and their shorter stamina. Another sidhe, brought up fed and at least partially combat trained, was a worry. I’d have to work hard to overcome any physical disadvantages and forget totally about competing against the arcane. I was about as magical as a Chinese finger puzzle.
“Do you have any idea how insane you make me?” Ryder’s hand moved from my waist to cup the back of my head. His fingers worked through my hair, tugging at my scalp. A not-so-gentle shove trapped me against the car’s fender, and he stepped in close.
“Let go of me,” I said, tilting my chin up. Rough didn’t bother me. He wouldn’t be the first person to bruise me or hold me down, but I liked things on my terms, especially when it looked like it was going to be the only control I had.