Raging Rival Hearts

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “I know.” She shot me a quick smile then flicked her gaze to the digital clock hung over the door.

  I drew my phone out of my bag. When are you leaving?

  “Ace wants me to attend a dinner tomorrow night to thank the illustrious supporters of the Caligo Dias. It’ll give me an opportunity to catch up with Gwen and Negongwa on their progress.”

  I nodded stiffly. The mention of Kajika’s family had me thinking of the hunter again. Ugh…

  Cat misinterpreted the tightness in my shoulders. “But I’ll come straight back.”

  You don’t need to babysit me.

  “Babysit you?” she exclaimed. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Because if it is, then you have it all wrong. I genuinely like spending time with you. And with my father. And with Cass. And, surprisingly, with Faith. Please don’t think I’m staying here out of pity, because I’m not. Rowan is home.”

  Do you think Neverra will ever feel like home?

  “Maybe someday. Maybe when you’re there with me. Right now, I feel like too many people there really don’t like me…and really don’t trust me.”

  That’s because you’re an impressive and fearful woman. I mean Daneelie and Unseelie? Hello…explosive mix.

  She grunted.

  I’m serious. Give them time.

  “How much time?”

  I shrugged. A few months.

  “Neverrian months or human months?”

  Neverrian months.

  “That’s years!” She sipped her coffee, then checked her phone for a message from Cass, but she hadn’t written back.

  Seconds ticked by.

  Do you realize your baby will be all three?

  She studied the rippling surface of her coffee that was as black as her eyes. “I wish there were other Daneelies,” she said suddenly, perhaps to suspend the talk of babies.

  A graying man sitting by a vending machine flicked his gaze toward us. I doubted he knew what Cat was talking about. It wasn’t as though Cat had said faeries. Faeries was a term humans knew, even though their conception of us was limited to diminutive, winged creatures that flitted around like bees drunk on pollen.

  Maybe there are.

  She nibbled on her lip again.

  “Cruz said he’d never heard of others.” She rubbed the edge of her waffle-knit Henley between her fingers. “But Holly mentioned them in her book. She said fishermen had spotted some in Lake Superior. Then again, her book wasn’t a book, so I don’t know…”

  I brought up a map of Lake Superior on my phone. Twice the size of Lake Michigan, it divided the United States and Canada.

  “She wrote they were made of copper, which is sort of true.”

  When Cat swam in the Glades, and more recently in the liquefied mist that covered the Hareni, her skin became coated in tiny, copper scales. I’d begged her to take a dip in the lake so I could witness this firsthand, and under the cover of darkness, she’d indulged me. What a sight! She’d had to wait almost an hour for her skin to stop glimmering.

  “But then Holly wrote they defended copper mines.” Cat got up to toss her empty cup. She extended her hand, and I gave her my plastic goblet too. “So I really don’t know what was fact and fiction.”

  I typed copper mines around Lake Superior, and lo and behold, I got a hit. A place called Copper Harbor. It could’ve been pure coincidence.

  I was about to show Cat my findings when Cassidy burst into the waiting room, cheeks flushed and blue eyes darting wildly behind her thick, dark bangs.

  “It’s a boy!” she exclaimed.

  Faith had never asked the sonographer for the sex of the baby. She’d been so convinced it was a girl that most of our baby shower gifts had been in various shades of pink and lavender.

  “Shit,” Cat said, grinning. “I hope she kept the receipt for the dress I got her son.”

  Cass laughed, while I just smiled, my heart tap-tapping excitedly in my chest. I possessed magic dust, and yet, I believed there existed no truer, purer magic than creating a new life.

  4

  Remo

  Faith’s son sported a tuft of black hair completely unlike his mother’s auburn shade, and a raspberry-shaped birthmark on his temple that we all kissed at least once. Even though Faith’s gaze never wandered off her son as he passed from one set of cradling arms to the next, she allowed us to hold him and smiled as we cooed over his tiny, whimpering sounds.

  “So what’s his name?” Cat tapped gently on the little one’s button nose.

  Faith smirked. “You mean now that Victoria’s out of the question?”

  Cassidy laughed.

  “Remo,” Faith said.

  Cat cocked an eyebrow. “Remo?”

  “It means the strong one in Italian. After having considered him a girl for nine months, the least I could do was give him an extra-manly name.” Faith extended her arms for her son, and Cat delicately placed him in the crook of his mother’s elbow. As she gazed down, her blue eyes misted over. “Welcome to this crazy, crazy world, Remo Sakar.”

  And she didn’t yet know the half of how crazy it was.

  “Your grandma couldn’t make it,” Faith continued.

  Cat went very still.

  “But look at what a hit you are with the ladies already. This is your aunt Cassidy.” She pointed to Cass. “And then these are your honorary aunties, Catori and Lily. They all promise to take good care of you—especially at night. Right?” She cocked an eyebrow.

  A nurse came in to take mother and son’s vitals, and then asked Faith if she needed any help with breastfeeding, which was our cue to leave. After another round of kisses on Remo’s birthmark, we hugged Faith, who smelled of sweat, blood, and absolute bliss, and promised to visit in the morning.

  Like Cass, I floated down the hospital corridor. Unlike Catori. Even though she shielded her anguish behind a smile, her distress was a tangible thing. I touched her hand, and her smile tightened.

  We drove home in absolute silence.

  It was only after we’d parked in front of her darkened house that she spoke. “How can I ever tell her?” She raked back her black hair. “She’ll never forgive me, Lily.”

  I squeezed her hand.

  I had trouble falling asleep that night, and considering the terrible nightmares that haunted my sleep, I woke up wishing I hadn’t closed my eyes at all. I’d dreamt my hair and teeth had sloughed off my skull.

  I reached out to touch my head and slid my tongue over my teeth. Had the nightmare been a preview of what was to come? I wasn’t an especially vain person, but I really didn’t want to lose my hair. Or my teeth. Or any other part of my body, for that matter. Still, I brushed my hair out more delicately that morning.

  I got dressed in skinny jeans and a bulky cream cashmere sweater that made my legs poke out like toothpicks, then went to the kitchen.

  During the weeks Cat had been in Neverra, I’d wanted to help Derek out, and since he wouldn’t accept monetary compensation for taking me in, I’d taught myself to cook and had mastered quite a few dishes. On weekdays, I’d whip up lunch, and Derek, his mortician employee—and friend—Milly, and I would sit at the small kitchen table and sample the flavor of the day.

  Sometimes, Kajika would join us, and the whole thing would become a little awkward. Although Derek was still wary of the hunter, he’d softened up since learning Kajika had lost his wife. The only thing Derek still had trouble with was the hunter’s fighting gig. He worried Kajika would incur a serious injury.

  To comfort him, Cass and I had taken Derek to one of the matches. I usually stood in the back of the barn so as not to distract Kajika with my thoughts, but Derek had insisted on getting close to the ring. Which had been a really bad idea. Kajika, who’d never gotten a direct hit to the face, had been whacked so hard he’d rebounded against the ropes. He still won the fight, but he’d glared so hard my way I’d scurried back to a shadowy corner of the barn.

  On our way back into Rowan in Cassidy’s bubblegum-pink car, although
Derek had clearly been impressed, he mentioned how concussions could really harm a young man’s brain, which had Cass telling Derek to save his worrying for Kajika’s opponents.

  I hadn’t attended a fight since, because getting stabbed by one of his arrows would hurt less than his glares.

  “What smells so good?” Cat walked into the kitchen, stretching her arms over her head.

  I gestured to the waffle iron, speckled in batter.

  She sniffed the air again, then banged around cupboards and drawers to set the table. As I plated the waffles, Derek trundled down the stairs, his white-blond hair still wet from a shower.

  “You girls are so wonderful.” He kissed Cat’s cheek, then my temple, and then he took his seat at the table and forked a giant waffle onto his plate.

  Cat and I slid into our seats and filled our plates.

  “So Faith had a baby boy. Little Remo.”

  “Oh. Wasn’t it supposed to be a girl?” Derek asked.

  “She thought it was, but she’d never actually checked.”

  I signed, He’s so cute.

  Derek grinned. “I’m sure he is.” He gazed a moment at Cat, who was pouring maple syrup over her waffle. I bet he was picturing her with a baby. “I can’t believe your wedding’s in two weeks.”

  Cat looked up, spilling some of the maple syrup onto the table. She scrubbed it away with her disposable napkin, but bits of blue paper stuck to the sticky syrup.

  “Tell me about it,” she mumbled.

  “You don’t sound excited, honey.”

  Cat finally raised her gaze to her father’s. “We’re trying to keep it small, but seems like a thousand people are coming, so I’m a little nervous. That’s all.”

  “I’ll finally get to meet Ace and Lily’s mother.”

  Derek wouldn’t like my mother. I didn’t like her much. She wasn’t cruel or anything…she was just not motherly.

  “Will Veroli come?” he asked.

  He’d adored Veroli, even after she’d subjected him to watching Titanic three times during her weekend stay. Every time the theme song played, he’d get teary-eyed—it had been his wife’s favorite movie.

  “Honey, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can I invite Milly?”

  “Of course.”

  He smiled nervously, which had Cat frowning. She looked at me, and I looked at my half-eaten waffle. Although Milly had never stayed over, I suspected she and Derek had something going on. Obviously, Cat didn’t suspect this. Or hadn’t up to this point.

  Silence stretched out between the three of us, only interrupted by the scraping of forks against plates.

  “Are you…are you…is something…going on?” Cat’s choppy tone made her father blush.

  It had been ten months since he’d lost his wife. I believed he’d been lonely long enough, but I wasn’t his daughter.

  “When?” Her voice sounded strangled.

  Derek shoved a huge bite of waffle into his mouth. After he chased it down with a long swallow of water, he said, “Two weeks ago. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I didn’t know how to.”

  Cat pressed her lips together and nodded. She patted her mouth with her sticky napkin, spreading syrup over her chin. She got up, then went over to the sink and ran the tap.

  When she returned, her eyes shone with tears. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m happy for you.” She definitely didn’t sound happy. “I promise. Just give me a little time to adjust to the idea.”

  “If you don’t want me to bring her to the wedding—”

  Cat tried to smile but failed miserably. “No! Bring her.” And then she turned to me. “I’m going to go to the mall. To pick up some boy clothes for Remo. Want to come with me, Lily?”

  I nodded. After she left, Derek stuck his elbow on the table and poked at the remnants of his waffle.

  I wrapped my fingers around the ones with which he was clutching his fork, then mouthed, It’s OK.

  He raised a minuscule smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  After the mall, we went to visit Faith and Remo at the hospital. As I held him and marveled at his ten perfect, tiny fingers, Cat discussed the bakery with Faith. Cassidy had quit her job at Bee’s Place, to the old woman’s great disappointment—Bee had been very understanding though—and was managing Astra’s Bakery until Stella returned.

  Every time Faith or Cass brought up Stella’s return, Catori would flinch.

  “I’ll still be such a blimp at your wedding,” Faith said.

  Cat rolled her eyes.

  “But at least my boobs will look awesome.”

  I snorted.

  “Talking about boobs, hand him over, Lily.”

  I walked little Remo to his mom and parted with him reluctantly.

  “We should get going.” Cat stood up from the chair she’d propped next to Faith’s hospital bed. “I have a fancy dinner to attend tonight and need to get ready.”

  What she needed was to get to Neverra. Although I really didn’t want her to leave, I acted all brave and busy so she wouldn’t worry about going.

  When the sun set, she left.

  Derek was hosting a wake that evening, so I was home alone. Which really sucked. I was about to call Cass to see if she wanted to hang when my palm got all glowy. I sighed and tried not to pay it any mind, but it stayed lit so long, it was impossible not to. I assumed Kajika was fighting or working out, but when I zeroed in on his whereabouts, I noticed he was stationary and nowhere near the barn or Holly’s farm. According to my inner compass, he was in the woods, two miles or so away from the cemetery.

  Curiosity welded to my boredom. I grabbed my fur-lined leather jacket from the coat closet, slid my feet into my black shearling boots, and then traipsed out of the house.

  The night was bone-chillingly frosty. I wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed soon. I used to love snow, but that was when my body was a furnace. How would I deal with it this winter?

  I shivered as I penetrated the dark woods.

  I wouldn’t be here this winter…that’s how I would deal with it.

  Branches cracked and bushes moved, which had me walking faster. At a soft growl, I leaped into the air, high enough so whatever animal making that sound couldn’t reach me.

  Since I was already in the air, I decided to fly the rest of the way. Walking was unbearably slow and tedious. Besides, strolling through spooky woods was counterintuitive if Kajika really was in trouble. I reached the gleaming, cauliflower-shaped lake in under a minute. I squinted into the darkness. When I couldn’t see him, I concentrated on his coordinates. He was across the lake from me. Which had me frowning, because the only thing across the lake was a deserted, one-story, clapboard house.

  I was wrong.

  It wasn’t deserted.

  A light glowed inside. I glided over the lake and landed on the small pontoon that dipped into the water, then walked the rest of the way to the house. Instead of ringing the doorbell, I went to the window and peered in.

  Kajika was there, with his back to me.

  Naked.

  My heart pitched at the sight of his dark, honed body, at the whorls of dust wrapped around one of his shoulders. I became so lost in the sight of him that I forgot about our little connection.

  He whipped around so fast I sprang backward, but not before getting an eyeful of what had gotten his heart rate up. I scrambled away, by foot at first, but that didn’t distance me rapidly enough, so I soared up and flew away.

  I should’ve been worried about his reaction to my peeping, or at least, wondered why he’d been inside the lake house in the first place, but I was consumed with a more pressing, crushing question: Who had he been thinking about while he pleasured himself?

  One of the two remaining huntresses? Cat? Or maybe one of his fans from the barn? He had so many…

  I ended up on the beach, where I sank onto the chilled, humid sand. Knees tucked into my chest, I watched the black surf curl and crash and foam.

&n
bsp; Skies, I was pitiful.

  Crushing on a man who reviled my existence. And then spying on him during such an intimate moment. How he would hate me even more now.

  As I stared at the inky water, I made a decision. One that would lead me away from Rowan. Away from Kajika.

  I would go on an adventure.

  Alone.

  First thing tomorrow, I’d set sail toward Lake Superior.

  “What is in Lake Superior?”

  My poor, spent heart lurched at the sound of the gruff voice

  5

  Copper Harbor

  I’m sorry, I whispered into his mind.

  I could feel the full weight of his gaze on me. “Why Lake Superior?”

  For nothing.

  He grunted.

  I need to get out of Rowan, that’s all.

  “Catori will wring my neck if I allow you to leave.”

  Allow me? You don’t have a say in what I do, Kajika. Besides, think of how quiet your head’s going to be with me gone.

  He grunted again—the hunter was a man of few words—and sat down next to me. “What is in Lake Superior?”

  I’m not telling you, so stop asking. I worked really hard to keep my mind blank, concentrating on the sound of the lapping waves and the briny smell of the lake mixed with the hot, musky scent coming off Kajika.

  Hunters usually reeked—at least to faeries—but opal camouflaged their scent. Considering how not bad Kajika smelled, I imagined he was wearing the strand of brown leather speared through the rough-cut opal. I asked him once why he didn’t wear it on an iron chain. Iron burned faeries, so it would’ve been a good tool to add to his arsenal of anti-fae weapons. He’d told me that was the way the store had sold it to him, which had prompted me to ask why he didn’t restring it, and he’d all but bitten my head off about minding my own business.

  “I can wait. The answer to my question will eventually fill your mind.”

  The one time I wished he’d leave me alone…

  I was about to get up and stalk away when I had a way better idea. One that would make him flee without me having to move an inch.