Tybalt threw me onto the Shadow Roads once, to save my life. I nearly died of hypothermia and lack of oxygen. I couldn’t help remembering that as snarls and the sounds of flesh hitting flesh filled the darkness. I tried reaching toward the sound, hoping to find something I could grab onto, but my hands found only emptiness and cold.
Then the claws found my arm, and there was sudden heat as my blood ran down my skin, filling the air with the smell of copper. Maybe that’s how Tybalt found me. He grabbed my outstretched arm, hissing, “Run,” with an urgency raw enough to be almost as frightening as the idea of being stranded on the Shadow Roads. He jerked me forward. I felt something pop inside my wrist, a single white-hot flare of pain. Then we were falling, so fast and far that I wasn’t sure we’d ever hit the bottom. The sound of roaring grew distant behind us.
“Hold on,” whispered Tybalt. The roaring faded into silence—we were too far away to hear them. That seemed to be what he’d been waiting for. He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close, and leaped out of the darkness, into the light.
We punched back into the human world on a suburban street lined with pastel-colored houses and broad-leafed mulberry trees. The air smelled like roses and jasmine and was almost warm enough to break through the cold trying to work its way all through me. My arm was still bleeding, but sluggishly, already starting to heal. Tybalt staggered and collapsed as his feet hit the sidewalk. I managed to catch him, sliding an arm under his, and looked around.
There was no one in sight, and the curve of the street meant that we had a moment of privacy. California road planners sometimes seem to have a phobia about straight lines. We were lucky; it was early enough in the afternoon that most adults were at work and most kids were still at school. We might not have long before that changed, but for the moment, we were alone. “Hey—hey! Stay with me here, big guy. What the hell was that?”
“That, my dear October, was an assassination attempt,” he wheezed. He was shivering more than I was, and ice was caked in his hair and eyelashes. How hard had it been to fight on the Shadow Roads without losing track of me? He was a King of Cats, but not even a King of Cats has access to infinite resources. “Someone, I fear, has decided to depose me.”
“What the—” We were too exposed. If anyone passed us, the blood would catch their attention, and we’d wind up with a lot of explaining that we weren’t equipped to do. “Come on.” I shifted my arm to balance most of Tybalt’s weight against me as we staggered down the long driveway of the nearest house.
“This happens,” he said, without real authority; he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince me. “It will be fine. I just need to catch my breath, and I will crush this insurrection. I will be fine.”
“Liar,” I said, with as much warmth as I could muster. “No one who’s bleeding as much as you are gets to say that to me.”
“They’re all flesh wounds.”
“Isn’t every wound a flesh wound?” I kept us moving until we were in the shadow of the garage. The climbing ivy that was doing its best to strangle the surrounding structures hid us from the street. I eased him to the pavement. “There’s no car in the driveway, and the shades are drawn. We should be safe for now.”
“Not for long,” said Tybalt, closing his eyes again. “Whoever has decided to challenge for my throne will follow. We cannot stay here.”
“And we can’t go anywhere else, either. So just breathe.”
Something rustled in the bushes. I whipped around, grabbing the knife from my belt. If the Cait Sidhe who attacked us on the Shadow Roads had already found us, we were toast, but I’d be damned if I wouldn’t take as many of them with me as I could. Tybalt couldn’t fight yet. That just meant I needed to do the fighting for him.
A cream-colored Siamese cat stepped out onto the pavement, tail curved in a question mark. Smoke-blue markings defined its paws and face. It barely spared a glance in my direction as it walked over and stepped into Tybalt’s lap, meowing loudly.
The sound seemed to serve as a summoning. Cats poured from the bushes on every side. Tabbies, calicos, and tortoiseshells, white cats and black cats, striped marmalade cats, and more. They leaped over whatever obstacles were in their way to twine around Tybalt, batting him with their paws and meowing. For a moment, I was afraid I was seeing a Cait Sidhe funeral—that he’d died for real this time and wouldn’t be coming back.
I relaxed when Tybalt opened his eyes, tilting his head toward the Siamese. “Ah,” he said, sounding weary but amused. The Siamese meowed. He nodded. “Yes, I feared that was the case. I would appreciate that very much, if you would be so kind.”
That seemed to satisfy the Siamese. It jumped out of his lap and ran for the street, a river of cats racing behind it. They were gone in seconds, some hiding in bushes, others sitting in full view on porches or the sidewalk. This was a California suburb. Thanks to no-kill shelters, healthy feral populations, and crazy cat ladies, no one would think twice about them.
No one but me. I turned to Tybalt, one eyebrow raised in question.
He smiled. “That was my opposite number, Shade. She keeps mostly to herself, but she felt the disturbance when we fell off the Shadow Road. She had heard rumors of the coming challenge to my authority, and while she is not allowed to interfere on my behalf, she does not support the challenge. Her Court will watch this area while we rest. If anything comes, they’ll hold it off as best they can and make sure we’re warned. My opponent made that permissible when you became involved. They should never have touched you. October…” His expression sobered. “October, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right.” I walked over and sat down next to him. “I think I understand.”
If Shade was Tybalt’s opposite number, that made her a Queen of Cats. Kings and Queens of Cats never live together. They don’t share Courts, they don’t share territory, and they don’t—according to gossip, anyway—share beds. Every Court of Cats has a single regent who rules according to his or her own laws. Queens tend to be more private than Kings, but they pay attention to what happens in their lands. Failure to notice a King of Cats showing up would probably lead to her having a very short reign.
Tybalt closed his eyes, sighing. “I don’t think I can do that again today. Not even if…”
“I understand that, too.” I dug the cell phone out of my pocket, looked at the display, and scowled. “My battery’s dead. We’re not calling for help.”
“That would have been too convenient.”
“I guess that’s true.” I replaced the cell phone in my pocket and put my hand on his knee. “Thank you anyway. For everything. For trying.”
Tybalt put his hand over mine and didn’t say anything about being surprised by my thanks. We sat in silence for several minutes. His fingers were cold and had barely started to warm up when he spoke again. “Did I ever tell you about my wife?” His tone was light and conversational, as if he were commenting on the weather.
I didn’t have to feign surprise. “I didn’t know you were married.”
“I’m not married anymore. It was a long time ago.”
That was oddly reassuring. I pushed the thought away. “I’m not sure this is a good time to—”
“This is the only time.” The weariness was back in his voice. “You know as well as I do that we may die here. If those who attacked us follow our trail before my strength returns, we won’t be able to run. There are ways of tracking where someone goes when they travel in shadow.”
“You’ll get better.”
“Not if they kill me properly. And you won’t get better regardless.”
I frowned, biting back further protest. “Okay. No. You never told me about her.”
“We met over two hundred years ago, in New York. Her name was Anne O’Toole.” His lips curved into a smile I’d never seen before, soft and wistful and almost longing all at the same time. “She was Irish when it wasn’t fashionable to be Irish, and a woman when that wasn’t fashionable
either. She was all impulse and sharp words.” He opened his eyes, looking at me. “I think you would have liked her. You’re similar in some ways. Mostly in your habit of charging headlong into danger while swearing you’re doing no such thing.”
I looked at him but said nothing. After a moment he looked away, still smiling.
“We hated each other, of course. She thought I was arrogant and boorish. I thought she was common and dull, like every other human. But we…learned otherwise, and I loved her. She burned so bright—she raced through every day like she knew they wouldn’t last. She wanted me to remember her.” He stopped.
The cats yowled in the distance, marking out their territory. I brushed my hair away from my face with my free hand and asked, “Did she know?”
“That I wasn’t human? Of course she did. She wasn’t stupid.” The implied criticism of Cliff stung. “She knew before the first time she let me touch her. She said she loved me all the more for knowing I’d be here after she was gone. I was her immortality, she said. ‘The Sidhe have always been immortal for the sake of the Irish,’ that’s what she told me. And she laughed, and I laughed, because I was young and foolish and in love, and she was never going to die.”
“What happened?” The words seemed too bald, but I knew he’d never finish his story without prompting. We’d sit in silence until it was time to run again, and whatever demon he was trying to cast out with his recollection would stay with him.
“She died.” This time his smile was bitter. “She became pregnant, as women do, and it proved too much for her. Medicine of the time was…the human world lacked the skills she needed to survive. The Cait Sidhe have no talent for medicine, and I couldn’t find a healer among the Divided Courts who’d tend my ‘mortal slut.’ I begged. I bent my knee and I begged, like any penitent. And still they refused me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“Anne died in my arms, and the only mercy of it is that she was gone before she knew the baby wouldn’t live. I buried my wife and daughter, and I swore I’d never trust the Divided Courts again, or love anything that came from the mortal world.”
“Tybalt…”
“That’s why I hated the changelings for so long. It was a changeling that killed my wife, intentionally or not, and doubled that…that pain by leaving me alone.”
I started to pull my hand away, but he caught it, pulling me back. “I wanted to hate you. Amandine got to keep her mortal lover and have her mortal child, even if she lost them eventually. I wanted to hate you because you made me think of Anne.”
“What changed?”
“I fell in love.”
Four words, simply stated, and impossible to believe. “You can’t mean that.”
“Can’t I? It’s been a long time since I’ve loved someone, but I know what it feels like. When you turn from me, it hurts. When you think badly of me, I think badly of myself. When you do stupid, suicidal things, I want to slap you upside the head and demand to know how you can be so brilliant and so blind at the same time.” Tybalt’s expression was calm. “If that’s not love, what is it?”
“Why are you telling me this?” I whispered.
“Because we’re probably going to die today.” He waved his free hand toward the street. “I’ve always tried not to lie to you; I’ve seen how you react when others do. Dying without telling you how I felt would be lying. I’ve been patient. I’ve given you time to recognize my feelings, and I’ve seen you choose a man who loved the girl you were, not the woman you are. Now he’s gone, and I can’t be patient anymore. I love you, October. I’ll be sorry if we die here, but I won’t be sorry I helped you…and I won’t be sorry I finally told you.”
“Tybalt…”
“Cats never regret anything,” he said, and he turned and kissed me.
The lingering chill from the Shadow Roads fled as my body reacted without consulting my mind, leaning forward and returning his kiss with a degree of eagerness almost as surprising as his admission. We’d kissed before, but those kisses weren’t like this one. Nothing had ever been like this one. He kissed me like a man who knew he’d been condemned to die and had chosen me in lieu of his last meal.
One hand stayed on mine, pinning it to his knee, while the other hand laced through my hair, pulling me closer. A flicker of common sense asked what I thought I was doing—there were people coming to kill us, Chelsea was missing, and Riordan was planning Oberon-knows-what, yet here I was, kissing the King of Cats like a human teenager sneaking out in the middle of the night.
Tybalt’s thumb outlined the true edge of my ear through the gauze of my human disguise. I dropped the illusion, letting him touch my skin without magic getting in the way. At the same time, I placed my free hand against his cheek and leaned closer, until there was no space left between us. We were generating a stronger heat than I would have expected, and it wasn’t sudden. No, it wasn’t sudden at all. So many things he’d said and done were starting to make sense to me, and as we pulled each other as close as skin would allow, all I could do was wonder what had taken us so damn long.
A cat screamed from the direction of the street, the sound cutting off as abruptly as it started. Tybalt and I were on our feet before the echoes faded. My heart was pounding, fueled by hormones and adrenaline. That sounded like a response to fear, not an intentional signal, and one glance at Tybalt confirmed my fears. His eyes were narrowed, lips drawn back to expose his teeth. He flexed his hands, and his fingertips extended into claws. There was no more running.
I drew my knife. I spared a brief, wistful thought for my sword, but didn’t dwell on it; there wasn’t time. We were going to stand. And we were going to die.
The rest of the cats had stopped their calling, leaving silence in their wake. Shade was only willing to defend us so far. That was fine. This wasn’t her fight. This was mine, and my only regret was that Tybalt was going to go down with me.
“Come on, you bastards,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”
As if that were the signal they’d been waiting for, Cait Sidhe—some familiar, some not—poured out of the shadows. They formed a ring around us, hissing, snarling, and flexing their clawed hands. Tybalt hissed. The largest, a tiger-striped pureblood I recognized as a member of Tybalt’s guard, hissed back.
“I warned you,” said Samson’s voice. I turned to see him smiling at us, lips pressed thin. “You could have put her aside, but you let her interfere with the smooth running of the Court. You were weak. You deserve to fall.”
Tybalt didn’t even look. “You will never be King.”
“My son will.”
“And how? You know he isn’t ready to take the throne. What would you do? Take it for him and hold it against all challengers, you and your little band of traitors? You would pervert Cait Sidhe law so much as that? Because there will be challengers, Samson. There are always challengers, when the King is weak.”
Samson snarled. “My son will be a stronger King than you ever were, and who are you to speak of perverting the law? You perverted it the day you brought her here.” He jerked his head toward me. “My son will heal this Court. He will be the law.”
In that moment, I realized just how far gone Samson really was. He could never be King, but he had rationalized away the rules until he actually believed he had a right to what he wanted—Raj as a puppet King of Cats, with himself as the power behind the throne. He didn’t know his son very well; Raj would never let himself be used that way. I was about to say something nasty when the smell of calla lilies hit my nose. I jerked the Luidaeg’s charm from my pocket, eyes widening as I saw that it was burning a brilliant red, brighter than it ever had before. “Tybalt…”
“Please do me a favor, October. Fight first, argue later.”
I turned, eyes searching the underbrush—there. Standing to the left, behind the ring of Cait Sidhe, looking utterly lost and terrified: a dark-haired teenage girl with eyes the color of freshly minted pennies. Only three men stood between her and us.
I had an instant to make my decision, and I made it. Grabbing Tybalt’s arm, I lunged toward Chelsea, shielding his body with mine as much as possible. My wounds would heal in a matter of minutes, as long as they weren’t fatal. His wouldn’t.
My lunge had been surprising enough that we were almost out of the ring before the nearest Cait Sidhe snarled and raked his claws across my belly, freeing a flood of warmth down my front. It felt like more than just blood was trying to slip out of me. I forced myself to keep running. My wounds might heal fast, but no one ever said they wouldn’t hurt.
Chelsea’s eyes widened as she saw us running toward her. The smell of smoke and lilies grew stronger, her magic writhing through the air. She was getting ready to jump again.
“Chelsea, wait!” I shouted. “Take us with you! Your mother sent us!”
If I thought her eyes were wide before, it was nothing compared to what they were now. The blood loss was slowing me down. Tybalt surged forward, dragging me with him, and we reached Chelsea just before the smell of smoke and lilies became thick enough to be cloying. I slumped forward, my vision going blurry—and then it was the world that was going blurry, and it was the world that was gone, replaced by the short-lived, furious shrieks of the Cait Sidhe.
And everything was the smell of smoke and lilies, and there was blood everywhere, and I closed my eyes and let the darkness—the darkness, and Chelsea, who was finally found now that I was on the verge of being lost—carry me away.
EIGHTEEN
EVERYTHING SMELLED LIKE BLOOD and nothing hurt when I opened my eyes on the star-splashed Annwn sky. The inside of my mouth tasted like blood and bracken—not the most appealing combination ever. I pushed myself to my elbows, trying to swallow the taste away, and realized I was lying on top of something Tybalt-shaped.
“Crap!” I rolled to the side, landing on my ass in the brush. Since nothing hurt, I looked down at myself, doing a quick check for injuries.
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