“I cannot allow you to put yourself in danger.” Righty eased between me and the door, and Lefty flanked him. “We should stay the night and depart for Wink in the morning.”
Diode strolled to my side and sat. “Thierry has decided it is in our best interest to go.” He lifted a paw and licked the delicate claws he unsheathed. “I believe, as she is your princess, you must obey her orders.”
“Short of physically restraining me, you’re not keeping me here.” I cocked an eyebrow at them. “It’s not safe for Mai, and protecting her is my top priority.”
Lefty stepped forward, but Righty put a hand on his shoulder. “We will honor your wishes, for now.”
“That’s all I’m asking for, guys.” I flashed them a smile then nudged Diode with my toe. “Want to help me pack?”
His ears swiveled toward me. “I would be delighted,” he said dryly.
With a chuckle, I set off for my room and shut the door behind us.
He leapt onto the mattress. “What’s bothering you?”
“Really?” I cast him a look. “You have to ask?”
“Point taken.” He curled his tail around his front paws. “Was there something specific you wanted with me?”
“Other than your sparkling company?” I grinned at his moue. “I just wanted to give you a heads up that I’ll be driving us to Orlando in Mai’s car.”
The skin around his eyes tightened. “Is taking the car necessary?”
“How else are we supposed to get there?”
His head swung toward the door. “I might have an idea about that.”
I straightened and eyed his thoughtful expression warily. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” he stood and shot his tail straight up in the air, “…I’ll meet you there.”
After hopping to the floor he strolled to the door, waited for me to open it for him then sashayed into the living room, leaving me to wonder how he was going to manage that, and how on earth he could possibly think I could be a worse driver than Mai.
Chapter 16
My palms sweated against the leather steering wheel the entire sixty minutes it took to reach Orlando. For a girl used to driving a hand-me-down, Mai’s car intimidated me. If I dinged my car, so what? No one would notice. Probably not even me. One hairline scratch on her celery-green baby and Mai would throttle me. Then demand I file a posthumous insurance claim.
“That guy…” Mai slurred. “He…slipped me…somefink.”
“What guy?” I waited. “The bartender? The selkie? The fae?”
I could see the gray men drugging and ditching when confronted by a female they couldn’t disarm by flexing their tight abs or flashing their retina-searing smiles. But to do that to Mai? Knowing who I was and what I was capable of? What I would do if she was harmed?
The old man was smarter than that.
Left unable to defend herself, drooling from the corner of her mouth and propped up alone at the bar, she had been a sitting duck for any predatory fae still hanging around the hotel. For unscrupulous humans too.
There was more than one kind of monster. My job had hammered that point home very well, thanks.
Being a tourist town, Orlando had almost as many hotels as it had red lights. From its perch in a docking station on the dash, my cellphone’s GPS app directed me farther from the main drag and all the mouse-eared tourists toward the outskirts. Hotels here glittered less and slouched comfortably on the curb. This was where the theme-park veterans went to escape the marked-up lodging and themed dining.
“Turn left and arrive at your destination,” my phone announced proudly.
I did, and once the car was safely parked, I palmed my cell and stepped out of the car to call Shaw.
“I saw you pull in,” he said by way of answering.
“Hello to you too.” My gaze slid over the lit-up windows, wondering which one framed him.
A whirring sound drew my attention toward a set of automatic doors.
Shaw strode out of the hotel lobby, paperwork in hand, his gait tight and his shoulders tense. Black jeans encased his legs. His T-shirt wanted to be black but managed navy. Black boots clicked on the pavement when he crossed to me. Copper eyes flashed in the dark. Humidity had stripped his rich mahogany hair of its slight curl, and it hung limp around his ears. The intensity of his scowl made the night cower, but I was smiling.
He waggled his phone by his ear. “You can hang up now.”
Never to be outdone, I waggled right back. “After you.”
He snorted a laugh and disconnected. Feeling magnanimous after my victory, I did the same.
The car rocked when I braced against it and struck a casual pose. Inside, Mai snuffled.
Shaw walked right up to me, leaving a foot of space between us. “You scared me.”
“Hunger makes me cranky too.” I nodded. “No worries. Your food supply is safe and sound.”
His harsh exhale told me several things he wouldn’t say outright. Mostly that it was late and he was tired, but also that I was the only thing standing between him and his comfy bed.
Thoughts of Shaw and a bed could derail the swiftest of thinkers, and I wasn’t one.
His palm hit the car door beside me, and he leaned in close. “I don’t like being scared.”
“I have a teddy bear you can borrow.” I molded my spine to the metal. “His name is Garlic.”
A half smile flashed the dimple in his cheek. “Do I want to know?”
“It’s a perfectly respectable name.” I feigned indignation. “I had a thing for vampires as a kid.”
Though I hadn’t known I was half-fae back then, I had always been fascinated by things that went bump in the night. Mom had been too. Right up until she realized she had given birth to one of them.
His gaze slid over every inch of me, assessing. “How’s Mai?”
I checked on her through the window. “Drowsy. Woozy. Queasy. Not much fun in a car.”
A flicker of attention on her, then the full weight of his stare settled back on me. “I mixed up a tonic to flush her system of toxins.”
I traced the door seam behind me. “I appreciate you letting me drag you into this.”
He rolled his shoulders. “What are friends for?”
I kicked up the wattage of my smile in answer.
Friends. Sure. Me and Shaw. Practically BFFs. Buddies who knew how a morning-after kiss tasted. Partners who knew the precise geography of each other’s bodies. Colleagues who knew how much pressure to apply and where to make the other come undone. Two people who knew how to say I love you with a touch.
Friends. Sure. Why not?
Shaw’s face dipped closer. “Where are your guards?”
“They’re probably scouting out the place.” I swallowed. “We didn’t travel together.”
“Makes sense.” His tone was all too reasonable. “Not like it’s their job to protect you.”
“I can take care of myself.” I notched my chin higher. “You have the scars to prove it.”
A twitch of his lips, a flash of that cursed dimple. “You were trained to be a marshal, and you’re a damned good one, but no one could have prepared you for this. Half of Faerie is calling in favors. I heard the bounty on you is up to fifty million dollars for any Seelie who cashes in your head.”
“Fifty million…?” I felt my eyes go wide. “Tell me you’re joking.”
He sighed. “You’re joking.”
I shoved him. “You’re serious?”
“I’m not sure.” He didn’t budge. “Why don’t you tell me?”
I leaned forward, resting my forehead on his chest. “Do you think whatever was wielding the old magic Righty sensed was after the bounty?”
“No.” His breathing hitched. “Old things don’t care about money.”
That was a small relief. Or not. I couldn’t decide. Was it better to kick the bucket due to topping some ridiculous hit list or going out as collateral damage for a nebulous entity’s ambiguous purpose?
Shaw’s hands found their way to my hair and combed through its length. “Where’s Diode?”
“With the guards, wherever they are.” I straightened before I melted at Shaw’s feet. “Officially, he decided to investigate their method of travel and report back to me on its legalities. Unofficially, the trip to Daytona was his first time riding in a car, and you know how Mai drives. He lost his cat food off the shoulder of I-10 and wasn’t eager for a repeat performance.”
Shaw let me go but kept a lock of my hair wrapped around his finger. “How do the guards travel?”
I had a good idea, but he wouldn’t like it. “I’m not sure.”
He gave a short tug. “Not sure as in you don’t know, or not sure as in I won’t like the answer?”
“I have my suspicions.” I scuffed my shoe on the pavement. “I haven’t asked outright.”
“Ah.” He released my hair. “You’re the one who doesn’t want to know.”
“I can’t change it.” They were acting on orders handed down from above me. “There’s only one way I figure they can do it, and it’s not good.”
Much like my portal-charmed necklace, personal portals were illegal. They might be rooted here in the mortal realm, but they brushed Faerie’s underbelly to draw on that kind of magic, and it was unacceptable. Seeing my failure to report my suspicions through Shaw’s eyes, I felt the world lurch under my feet.
First the necklace got a pass “to make things simpler” and now the guards got off easy because “I don’t know”. Weak. Those flimsy excuses wouldn’t have tracked with me pre-princessdom, and they weren’t tracking with Shaw now. He was standing tall in the middle of the road, right where he should be, while I was veering through lanes of oncoming traffic.
I was so afraid of hearing the answer I wouldn’t even ask them the question.
Shaw shook his head. “You don’t know what you can change until you dig in and do your damn job.”
I recoiled as if he had slapped me. Honestly? I would have preferred to take the hit.
He was around the car and opening Mai’s door before I recovered. I grabbed the essentials while he lifted her against his chest. After locking her car, I followed him. We bypassed the office and circled to the rear of the building. I wasn’t not convinced it helped us look any less like kidnapper/murderers when he proceeded to carry Mai’s limp body up a flight of unlit stairs, but I wasn’t going to argue method of delivery with him when I couldn’t have hauled her upstairs alone.
After swiping a keycard, Shaw kicked open a door beside a vending machine alcove. He carried Mai inside the room and arranged her comfortably on one of the two queen-sized beds.
With her settled, he snatched a notepad off the desk and scribbled on it.
“My room number.” He tore the top sheet off and slapped the paper into my hand. “Night.”
“Night,” I called to his retreating back.
I jumped when he slammed the door. Crumpling the paper in my fist, I curled up in bed and waited for the others to arrive.
A roar jolted me out of a dreamless sleep. I bolted upright, tossed aside my covers and swung my legs off the bed. Righty sat in a chair pulled beside the door leading into our hotel room. He pointed at the foot of my bed where my now-panther-sized cat twitched his whiskers and flexed his paws in the throes of some phantom hunt.
According to Diode, the guards’ magic had scrambled his charm in transit. No loss there. It had almost petered out on its own anyway. As to their method of travel, he summed up all I needed to know in two words: plausible deniability.
A shadow slanted across the curtains, and my heart stuttered.
“It’s only Daire,” Righty said. “You should sleep.”
No, I shouldn’t. Rook waited for me in dreams. Only he hadn’t been up to visiting lately. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. For the sake of making my next one hundred years more bearable, I kept cracking open the door to friendship with him. That lasted for a few hours, days. Then he found a new way to betray me, and I shut it in his face. Had life in Faerie twisted him until even his best intentions were doomed to fail? Did he even know what honesty was? Was he capable of putting another’s welfare ahead of his own?
I didn’t know, and that warped curiosity kept me doling out second and third and fourth chances.
I slid to my feet and checked on Mai. Sleeping soundly. “I’m going to get some air.”
Righty gave me a tight nod.
The balcony here was longer than at our previous digs, but just as narrow. I stepped out into the humid night and shut the sliding glass door behind me. Inhaling brought the smell of dumpsters and a burger joint. I sneezed the pollutants from my nose then propped my elbows on the railing and gazed up at the stars.
Another scent hit me, earthy and spiked with hints of citrus, but I chose to ignore it—and him.
“It’s late,” a low voice rumbled on my left.
“Really?” I faked surprise. “For your next trick, maybe you can explain those dots of light in the sky.”
Shaw emerged from the shadows wrapping his balcony. “Street lamps or stars, take your pick.”
I thinned my lips in answer. “What are you doing out here?”
His eyes glinted. “Think about it.”
“One guard covering the front entrance. There are windows, so a second guard positioned inside the room.” I straightened. “That makes you the guy guarding the exit. Are we in that much danger?”
He speared me with a look. “You tell me.”
“The gray men aren’t a threat. They wanted us gone, we’re gone. I don’t see them caring one way or the—”
“Selkies.” He bit off the word. “There were selkies in Daytona? They threatened you?”
“Yes and yes.” I blinked innocently at him. “Didn’t I mention them?”
“No,” he snapped.
“Huh.” I started braiding the ends of my hair. “I could have sworn they came up.”
“Why would a pod of selkies threaten someone like you? They’re a peaceful people.”
This was the part I dreaded. There was no way to fudge the truth, it was too dangerous, and he needed to know all of it. “Well, that particular pod is being hunted to extinction by the Morrigan.”
Shaw rocked backward. His palm slapped the railing on his balcony and then he was vaulting onto mine.
My hip bumped off the opposite railing before I realized I had taken the first step back. Shaw landed in a tense crouch. His head shot up, narrowed eyes shining white, bronze complexion waning under the moon.
“The Morrigan,” he snarled up at me.
“Yes.” My foot slid between the metal bars as if trying to escape.
Apparently, he wasn’t a fan of highlight reels.
He straightened to his full height. “Did you offer to help them?”
“I did.” I tightened my grip on the railing. “They told me not to interfere.”
He prowled closer. “Will you interfere?”
Unsure where this crazy train was headed, I told him the truth. “Yes.”
“Why?” he breathed down on me.
“No one should have to pay such a high price for making one mistake.”
The answer must have satisfied him. His skin darkened by degrees, almost back to normal.
He canted his head. “So you believe in forgiveness?”
This answer would bite me on the ass, I just knew it. “Yes.”
Shaw leaned forward and braced his hands on top of mine, trapping me between him, our grips and the railing. “If that’s true…” the hunger in his eyes made breathing impossible, “…forgive me.”
“For earlier?” I waved him off like I thought that was what he meant.
“For months earlier,” he clarified. “I want to hear you say it.”
Panic dumped adrenaline into my system and left me shaking. Was this some attempt at absolution before the end? I examined him for signs his condition had worsened, but health radiated from him. “Where
is this coming from?”
“Thierry.” He rubbed his cheek against mine, his lips brushing my ear. “Say the words.”
The scent of his skin, the tone of his voice, made my knees wobble. “You’re using your lure.”
“No.” He drew back to look at me, and smug satisfaction wreathed his face. “I’m not.”
Anticipation cramped my stomach. Sweat beaded on my skin. Clothes that fit fine when I fell asleep felt too tight. I wanted them off, wanted to feel his bare skin slick beneath my palms, wanted to lick the salty drops from his collarbone.
No. He wasn’t using his lure. Simple lust wasn’t this dangerous.
The jagged edges of the heart he had broken were digging into my ribs, slicing through my common sense. Part of me would always love Shaw. I accepted that. I just didn’t know what to do about it.
“Are you sick?” I reached for his arm. “Is your condition worse?”
“Are you scared?” His copper eyes held pinpricks of white. “Does my nearness bother you?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“There’s your answer.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Nothing has made sense to me since the first time I saw you.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I hurt you, and I’m sorry.” His jaw flexed. “I should have explained myself…but I didn’t.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation.” Understatement of the century.
“Tough.” His warm palm cradled my cheek. “You ran into Rook’s arms at the sight of me. That tells me you still feel something for me. Other than pity. I want to know, Thierry. Tell me the truth.”
The truth. Ha. Because there was so much of that going around.
“Rook tricked me.” I wet my lips. “It had nothing to do with you.”
“You’re going to leave in a year.” Shaw’s hand slid from mine and clenched around the railing. “You’re his wife.” A growl entered his voice. “How do you think it makes me feel? To see what he’s turning you into? To know that you’re his?” Metal groaned behind me. “Losing you would kill me.”
My lips parted, ready to spout some offhanded feeding comment, when his mouth crashed into mine. He pinned me with his hips, with the flex of his arms and the tilt of his head. His taste was hot, familiar. I was home. Dreams tasted this way—ambrosial—and then they shattered.
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