Devotion

by Kristie Cook

  "I think you're drooling," I said.

  "Huh?" He finally looked at us, as if just now remembering we existed. He shook his head. "I, uh, think I'll stay out here. With Dorian. At least you have Alexis."

  Tristan explained before I could ask. "Faeries are irresistible to the opposite sex, but especially to singles. My love for you dilutes her power drastically. Owen doesn't have a chance, and his involvement with a faerie is the last thing we need right now."

  He took my hand and led me up the steps to the cottage, leaving Dorian and Owen at the car. Even if Owen hadn't reacted to the faerie like a teenager in a strip club, I'd be leaving him outside with Dorian. I already felt vulnerable, regardless of the faerie's preference for good or evil. No way would I leave my son unattended. I glanced over my shoulder at him, still sleeping in the car, before entering the cottage.

  "So I know who you are, Alexis, but you don't know may," the faerie called from what I assumed was the kitchen. She appeared in a doorway, carrying a tray with three glasses of brown liquid poured over ice. "I'm Lisa."

  I stared at her. Lisa? Such a Norman name.

  "Well, that's not mah real name, of course. That one's too long and hard to say. It's easier to go by Lisa here … in this world." Maybe she didn't intend it, but I thought I saw her nose crinkle when she referred to our world. She placed the wooden tray of drinks on a coffee table and motioned for us to sit on the sofa. She plopped into a chair. "Where's Owen? He's not stayin' outside, is he?"

  She looked disappointed when Tristan nodded, but then she laughed, a bright, joyful sound. "Ah, well. We have business to take care of anyway. First, I heard you were askin' about somethin'."

  "Yes, our daugh–"

  "No, no, not that," Lisa said, waving her hand. "Not yet. I mean this."

  Another woman glided into the room. She struck quite a resemblance to Lisa, but with purple hair instead of blue. A tight white blouse, shorts barely longer than a bikini bottom and knee-high boots clad her killer body. She held a small animal in her hand.

  "It wasn't easy, these are so rare, but Jessica was able to find this one," Lisa said.

  "Who? What?" I asked, thoroughly confused.

  "This is my sista, Jessica. And she found ya'll this."

  The purple-haired Jessica strode over to me and deposited the little animal on my lap. Whoa! Was this some kind of faerie creature? Though it had a canine body shape and a wolf's face, light-gray lines marked its white fur, similar to a tiger's stripes. And closed tightly against its sides were feathery, shiny-white wings. Wings! It was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen with the silkiest, softest fur I'd ever felt. I peered sideways at Tristan.

  "I promised Dorian," he said.

  I lifted an eyebrow. "Um … this isn't a dog."

  "No. It's a Lykora."

  My mouth dropped open. "You mean …?"

  "What I nicknamed you, exactly."

  Ma lykita, he had told me once, meant "my little Lykora," a supposedly mythical creature that appeared to be tiny and non-threatening, but when it felt its loved ones were in danger, it would grow to the size it needed to be to protect them. I stared at the little animal in my lap, and it stared back with big, puppy-like eyes. Its tail wagged, and its wings fluttered slightly. The smell of baby powder engulfed me. It even smelled good. And then a blue tongue darted out of its mouth and licked my hand. Crap. Crap, crap, crap. I was already in love. But there was no way we could keep it. Dorian couldn't see it.

  "Tristan, this is not a dog. Dorian can't have this."

  "Sure he can." He scooped the little creature out of my lap, and with one hand, held it up to his face. "Hide," he told it.

  The Lykora didn't run away and disappear. In fact, it didn't seem to obey at all. But then I noticed … its wings and stripes had disappeared, and its face had softened. It now looked like a little white puppy. I smiled as it licked Tristan's nose.

  "She's been cared for by a wizard in Juneau," Jessica said in the same Southern drawl as her sister's. "She's about sixty years old, so still a pup, but well trained. You tell her what you want, and she'll do it. It'll take a few days for her to relearn her loyalty, though. She's yours."

  Tristan's eyes narrowed. "In exchange for what?"

  "Oh, come now, sweetie, why would you say that? What could we possibly want from ya'll?" Jessica asked.

  "You faeries never do anything for nothing."

  The faerie giggled. "Ah. I guess that's true. But there's nothin' I need from ya'll … not right now anyway."

  She sauntered out of the room the way she'd come.

  "So is this what we get instead of information?" Tristan asked Lisa. "This is your so-called answer? Something I didn't even ask of you specifically?"

  Lisa shook her head. "No, no. I have other answers for you, too."

  "So you'll tell us about our daughter?" Tristan asked, placing the Lykora back in my lap. "Are you willing to tell us who has her, where she is …?"

  A strange look crossed Lisa's face, her expression unreadable, almost confused and mischievous at once. It was time to tap into her thoughts. Her mind signature felt completely different than anything I'd come across yet–a bit of human, but filmy, not quite there–and when I focused on her thoughts … they weren't there at all. I concentrated on the signature harder, followed it to her mind but nothing. Nada. Zilch. I couldn't hear her thoughts. Crap. Not good.

  "I feel you in ma head, Alexis," she said. "You can't hear me, though. My thoughts are not of this world."

  It took a conscious effort to keep my mouth from hanging open. Tristan glanced at me, and I shook my head. His lips pressed into a hard line. He'd hoped I'd hear what she might refuse to say aloud.

  "Anyway, I don't know what you mean about your daughter," Lisa finally said, dismissing that awkward moment.

  "I thought you said you had answers for us," Tristan reminded her.

  "I do … but my answers aren't to that question. I don't know about your daughter yet. I'm not a prophet."

  "You can't see her from the Otherworld?"

  Lisa's eyes twinkled. "I can't see what doesn't exist yet."

  Tristan and I stared at her for several beats. I hated not being able to tell if she was lying. Not being able to listen to her thoughts.

  Tristan stood up and held out his hand. "Come on, Alexis. This was pointless."

  "You don't want your answers?" Lisa asked as I cupped the Lykora in my hand, stood and followed Tristan as he headed for the door. I gladly followed, ready to be moving again. I didn't feel safe here. For all I knew, she could have been stalling us, waiting for Daemoni to arrive.

  "You don't have the ones we want," Tristan said without turning.

  "But I do. If ya'll are searchin' for a daughter, you're lookin' for the wrong thang." She paused. "Where's your stone, Tristan?"

  We both stopped abruptly, turned and stared at her again.

  "The stone you were supposed to give to Alexis. Where is it?"

  My pendant? Is that what she meant? The ruby in the pendant was the only stone he'd ever given me, besides the obvious one on my finger.

  "You don't have it. And that's what ya'll should be lookin' for. It'll give you what you seek, what you need."

  "How do you …?" Tristan asked with that familiar steely undertone in his voice.

  "Oh, I know. Do you remember what you were told?"

  I looked at him when he didn't answer. His eyes were dark, the gold dim.

  "Have you spoken with Bree yet?" Lisa asked.

  "Who?"

  "Ah, I guess not."

  Something flickered across Tristan's face.

  "Who's Bree?" I demanded.

  She didn't answer for a long moment, but something showed in her face, too. Sadness? When she smiled, it didn't reach her eyes. "Bree is who you need to speak to, Tristan. She has your answers. Find the stone and find Bree. That's what I have to tell you."

  We stood there for several more beats, but Lisa didn't explain any further.
<
br />   "Are you going to tell us where to find this Bree?" I finally asked. Perhaps she was only distracting us from finding the girl, sending us on a wild goose chase for something else. From Tristan's and Owen's descriptions of faeries, it'd be something she would do. But if she was serious, if this Bree had our answers …

  Lisa laughed, that same delightful sound from earlier, the humor reaching her eyes now. "There's a reason Bree has survived all these years–because she can't be found. But Tristan knows. He just needs to reach deep down in his heart, into places he refuses to go."

  I looked at Tristan, and his expression was incomprehensible. His eyes were hard stones, the gold sparking with anger. He shook his head at me. He has no idea what she's talking about.

  "So you're saying the answers to the questions about our daughter are buried in Tristan's heart?" I asked.

  Lisa laughed again, then said cryptically, "Always were … in more ways than one."

  Her riddles had become quite annoying and were getting us nowhere. I took Tristan's hand and turned for the door. "Come on, Tristan. You're right. This was pointless."

  As soon as we were in the car, Dorian squealed with delight when I gave him the Lykora-puppy, but he instantly silenced when Tristan slammed his hand against the steering wheel. Fortunately, he reined his strength in before hitting it; otherwise, he would have jammed the wheel all the way into the engine compartment.

  "Fucking faeries," he growled he growled under his breath as the car peeled out of the driveway and sped the winding roads to the highway. Not daring to speak aloud, I silently reminded him that Dorian and Owen might not heal from an accident.

  "Did any of it make sense to you at all?" I finally mustered the courage to ask once we were on the highway, headed south.

  "The stone is in the pendant I gave you," he said, that steely undertone still in his voice. "The one Vanessa has now. I have no idea about the rest of it."

  "So you don't remember what you were told?"

  "I just said I have no idea. It's all bullshit. She's making it all up, playing with us. Forget about it, all right? Seeing her was a waste of time."

  "So you don't think this Bree–"

  "Damn it, Alexis! Drop it already!"

  I flinched at the roar that filled the car, and his eyes flew to me, then returned to the road. He growled with frustration and swung his hand down toward the steering wheel again, but I caught it before he hit it. I was pretty sure he wouldn't restrain himself this time, and we were driving over a hundred miles an hour. I held his hand between both of mine in my lap, feeling him relax with each passing mile. His jaw muscle stopped twitching by the time we crossed the state line into Georgia.

  We drove in silence all the way through Atlanta. Even Dorian and the puppy knew to keep quiet. At least, until Dorian's stomach growled loud enough for us all to hear, and he finally said he was hungry. Food lifted all of our moods.

  "Faeries are hot, but totally not worth it. Women are hard enough to figure out, but could you imagine being married to that?" Owen asked as I handed him a burger from the fast-food bag. Tristan and I laughed, and the car's atmosphere immediately changed. "So what's next, big guy?"

  "We'll get to Fort Myers tonight, and tomorrow Alexis and I go house-hunting. We need to get settled as soon as possible, but while we're doing that, I need you to check around. See if anyone in the state can tell you anything helpful."

  "Shouldn't Alexis be in on that, so she can–?" Owen glanced at Dorian who was totally enthralled with the puppy, but he didn't need to finish his sentence for Tristan and me.

  "We have too much to do right now," Tristan said, "but I don't want the time going to waste. Hopefully, you'll learn something that will give us a better starting point when we're ready."

  ***

  The morning after we arrived in Fort Myers, the first thing we did was go to the Harley-Davidson dealership, and Tristan paid cash for a pearl-white Fat Boy with the "necessary" extras. I drove the car to the hotel for Owen, then hopped on the back of the bike, wrapped my arms around Tristan and immediately felt as though the last eight years had never happened. The familiar rumble under us, the smells surrounding us, and the rush of wind as we cruised over the causeway took me to our early days, when we used to ride to Gasparilla Island.

  This time, however, he took us to a different island. Sanibel was an undiscovered paradise, lush and green, many of its streets canopied with oak, banyan and palm trees. We drove along the main road through the island, passing restaurants, shops and inns, and then followed signs for Captiva Island.

  Much of the road at the northwest end of Sanibel was undeveloped, lined with trees whose branches stretched over the road but not quite creating a canopy. The only indication that we crossed over to Captiva was a sign mounted on a small bridge. Then we started passing large homes and small mansions with signs on the mailboxes displaying names such as "The Unicorn's Lair" and "Magpie's Delight."

  Eventually the homes became a little smaller and closer together, but even the more developed area of the tiny island wasn't overdone. Brightly colored townhouse clusters, quaint boutiques and ice cream shops were surrounded by tropical plants, bushes and palm trees that survived the hurricanes. It was here the textures of the mind signatures changed. There were just as many not-quite-human signatures as there were Norman ones.

  "The colony," I breathed against Tristan's ear. He nodded.

  Unsuspecting Normans would see the island as a sweet little beach resort, with people walking and riding bicycles and visiting the shops and cafes–enough people to feel neighborly but not overly crowded. They would never know the shop owners were witches and wizards or their waiter might morph into a wolf or the bartender preferred blood to wine. Not even the local Normans knew. The Amadis lived among them, served them, but with the security, support and camaraderie of being near each other.

  Captiva was the perfect name–it captured my heart and soul.

  "I told you you would love it," Tristan said.

  As soon as we walked into the real estate broker's office back on Sanibel, Tristan cursed under his breath and turned around to leave. The office was small, with an unmanned receptionist's desk in front of us and two sets of French doors leading off the lobby into two offices. One was dark and empty. A plump woman, in her mid-thirties and with short, bleached-blond hair, stood from her desk in the other office.

  "Can I help you?" she called out to us as Tristan opened the front door. He stopped short and quietly cursed again.

  "I was looking for Don," Tristan said, nodding toward the darkened office. Don was the real estate broker and another of Tristan's "guys," one of many he had throughout the world.

  "He's on vacation, but I can help you," the woman said.

  Tristan blew out a breath of resignation and led me toward the woman. As she took a good look at us, recognition flickered across her face.

  "Do I know you?" she asked. Oh, crap. The first person to recognize me. Then she shook her head, and her expression changed, a smile spreading across her face. "Never mind. That would be silly. You look like someone I met many, many years ago."

  Neither Tristan nor I said anything, though my chest tightened with an eerie feeling. I fought the urge to listen to her mind, to find out who she thought we were because she obviously wasn't thinking A.K. Emerson. But she was a Norman. She wouldn't know about us or our world. So I granted her privacy, even when, the closer I looked at her, the feeling that she seemed familiar grew. But who could she be? For some reason, my mind kept morphing her into someone with dark hair and a much thinner body. Perhaps she'd been an instructor at the college where I met Tristan, now with bleached hair and a few extra pounds. That had to be it–it would explain the recognition both ways, and she would quickly dismiss it because we shouldn't look exactly like we did then.

  Tristan relaxed with her, probably coming to the same conclusion I did, and we began our house hunt. The woman showed us a few McMansions on the southeast end of Sanibel and two clos
er to Captiva, but none of them felt right. Tristan admired the architecture of some and criticized others, but he left the final decision to me. As soon as we drove up to it, I knew right away: I was in love. A charming wine-colored house nestled in the trees between the main road and the beach, on the Sanibel side of the bridge that crossed to Captiva, putting several miles between the colony and us. It wasn't unnecessarily huge like its neighbors, but with four bedrooms and a separate office, it was plenty large enough for the three–and one day soon, four–of us. And it felt like home.

  "One of these days, we'll build our dream home," Tristan murmured as we stood on the beach while the agent started the paperwork inside the house. "I'm sorry you have to settle on this for now."

  "Yeah, because this house is such a dump."

  He chuckled. "Not exactly what I would design."

  I turned in his arms and placed my hands on each side of his face. "Anything you do would be perfect. But I love our new house. Thank you for it."

  "My pleasure," he said with my favorite smile, his eyes sparkling. As he dipped down for a kiss, I said a little prayer that we weren't making a big mistake and bringing our deadly problems to this slice of paradise.

  By the time we arrived at the hotel, our offer had been accepted. Of course it had. It was a generous offer, especially because it was all cash. We weren't even tapping into my money, which Tristan had moved around into various accounts before we left the Keys. With his ability to see all possible options and the best solution, he had an uncanny investment strategy that worked exceedingly well, even when unmanaged for over seven years. He lost some–everyone had, especially in the last couple years–but it was a small dent in what he had accumulated over the previous decades.

  We spent the next couple of weeks living out of the hotel and shopping for our new household, starting with a family car. By the time we closed on the house and after buying everything from furniture to clothes to electronics, I felt like a gluttonous pig, and we only bought the basics–beds, a couch and TV, a kitchen table and chairs, two laptops and living necessities.