He canted his head in a very catlike manner. “You were attached to the skin.”
“I feel like someone ran over my cat.” I threw up my hands. “Diode was my friend, and now he’s gone.”
“I wore the skin,” he said quietly. “I am still here.”
“You’re not my friend,” I growled. “That you’re my father is a technicality.”
A frown knitted his brow. “I cannot place family above duty.”
“Above?” I spluttered. “Mom and I didn’t rank at all with you. Family is a duty too, you know.”
“It is one I take seriously.” His lips thinned. “I did as your mother asked. I kept my distance. It was the right thing to do. It protected both of you.” He challenged me. “Hour-long visits once each decade… What would that have accomplished?”
“It would have let me know you cared.”
I wanted the words back as soon as they left my mouth. They made me sound like an eager little daddy’s girl standing in her father’s office on career day, trying on shoes so large she drowned in them.
“You are my daughter.” Heat touched his voice. “I have watched over you your entire life.”
Diode had once said the same thing. Was he speaking as my father then? I wish the cat was still around. Diode had been a safe link to him, a person I could ask questions and who could give me firsthand knowledge of Mac without the emotional acrobatics involved in approaching my mom.
Pushing aside personal questions, I focused on more pressing ones. “Why are you here?”
“Turmoil breeds corrosive magic. The threshold was thinning on my side and required maintenance sooner than anticipated. I decided to inspect your side as well and used a skin to prevent my enemies from tracking my movements.” He took his time in adding, “The skin let me interact with you without anger or expectation. You earned my trust, and I hope that I earned yours.”
“The trust accumulated while masquerading as someone—something—else is nontransferable.” I spread my hands. “Sorry about that. Lying to someone tends to make them think you’re not trustworthy.”
A slight grin tugged at his lips. “I can accept that.”
How magnanimous of him, considering he had no choice.
“Balamohan claimed you witnessed King Moran’s beheading.”
The amusement slid off his face, replaced by a stone-cold resolve. “I did.”
An unconscious kindling of light in the runes on his left hand warned me away from the topic.
I jerked my chin toward the ceiling where the twelve remaining fae argued the virtues of my impending journey. “Well, Mr. Neutrality, what are your thoughts on the grand scheme being hatched upstairs?”
“I don’t consider myself neutral so much as an equal advocate for all sides.”
“Of course you would say that.” Mac in person was as Zen as a rock garden. For a man with his reputation, it surprised me. “Where do you stand on the issue? Do you think the Morrigan should be stopped?”
His stance relaxed, calling my attention to the fact I hadn’t offered him a seat. But it wasn’t like I was sitting either. Still, points to him for standing with me and not commandeering his old chair.
“Don’t you?” He aimed the pointed question back at me.
“Do I think so? Yes. Do we have the right? I’m not sure. Technically, she didn’t break the law.” I considered what the Huntsman had told me. “The truce was signed in blood and broken by blood when King Moran was killed. Naming me as princess locked both houses into a holding pattern while they decided internally whether to rebel or to maintain the peace.”
“Mutual consent is required in order for a new peace to hold.”
I mirrored his pose. “The Morrigan seizing control took that option off the table.”
“It seems that way,” he mused.
My fingers drummed against my elbow. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Tensions must be released in Faerie. That is fact. If this realm is caught in the middle of such a war, it will be destroyed. That is also fact.” He sighed. “There is no fair solution to those problems.”
As much as I hated to, I agreed with him. “The Huntsman said a war would almost be a relief.”
“My father is a wise man.”
I gave him an odd look. Seeing Mac standing there as a man, it was easy to forget he hadn’t always been one. Once he might have been the Huntsman’s favorite hound, but he had been a hound like all the others until fae magics wrapped him in human skin and infused him with power and intellect.
“Then do you think the best thing for this realm is to cut the tethers and fortify the threshold?”
“For this realm?” He nodded. “That is without a doubt the best solution.”
As much as I wanted to take that answer and run, it was wrong. “But not for Faerie.”
“The houses will divide,” he predicted. “Factions will rise, alliances will crumble. There will be bloodshed. Innumerable lives will be lost.” Regret threaded his voice. “You can’t change the nature of beasts. I might walk like a man and talk like one, but I also run with a pack and howl at the moon. I would go insane if I were confined to one skin, and my laws have confined too many for too long.”
“You saved Faerie from the Thousand Years War.” He saved her from herself. “It might still be raging without you.”
“I was the law for an age.” He cast me a meaningful glance. “But that age has passed.”
Seeing where this was headed, I reiterated, “I don’t want to rule.”
“Until that All Hallows’ Eve, what I wanted most was to return to my kennel with a full belly.”
A knock on the door allowed me to swallow the smartass reply forming in my mind.
Mac didn’t turn his head, but his nostrils flared. “I expected you sooner, Shaw.”
“Someone accidentally charmed the lock on the magistrates’ chamber doors.” Shaw sidestepped my father and stationed himself against the wall on my left. “Is everything all right in here, Thierry?”
Cold magic radiated from Mac as he faced Shaw. “Do you think I would hurt her?”
Shaw rolled a shoulder. “Twenty-four hours ago, I thought you were a cat.”
My glare transferred onto him. “That’s twenty-three hours longer than I’ve known he wasn’t.”
“He would have told you,” Mac admitted. “I forbade it.”
“She deserved to know.” White flickered in Shaw’s eyes. “You let her walk into an ambush.”
“I agree.” The runes on Mac’s hand burned brighter. “That doesn’t change the necessity of it.”
I angled myself between them. “Where did they break things off up there?”
“They started bickering after you left.” He sounded unsurprised. “Nothing will be resolved for days, if not weeks, if the magistrates keep hemming and hawing. Besides, all eleven votes are required for any motion to carry. That means Mr. Sullivan must be present at the polling and his vote tallied.”
Mac grimaced in response.
With a nod, I put the same question to Shaw I had to Mac. “What do you think of their plan?”
“The magistrates are looking for a noble excuse. King Moran’s death—and now this latest news of the Morrigan—gave it to them.” He raked his long fingers through his tousled hair. “Magistrates are powerful by this realm’s standards, but it’s no secret that affluent families in Faerie place their spare heirs, bastards and screw-ups into those roles to protect them and to keep up appearances. For most magistrates, their position is the most power and influence they can hope to wield in their lifetime. I doubt any of them want to share it with their siblings and rivals if the war spills over into this realm.”
“You expect the vote to swing toward severing the tethers and reinforcing the threshold.”
“Yes,” he said grimly. “I do.”
Our gazes held until his eyes warmed to molten copper, and the edges of the room turned hazy.
My father cleared his throat.
Loudly. “I should return upstairs.”
I didn’t disagree with him.
Mac paused on the landing, head lifting and nostrils flaring, scenting the air.
I shot a panicked look at Shaw and mouthed Mom.
The seconds Shaw hesitated made intervention unnecessary. Mac turned and climbed the stairs back up to the magistrates’ chambers, leaving Mom safe and none-the-wiser downstairs.
After a nod from me, Shaw closed the door behind him and reactivated the privacy spell. A nifty trick since he shouldn’t have known the Word keyed to my office.
“That was close,” I breathed out on a sigh.
“You can’t protect them from each other.”
I hated when he was right.
“So—” I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling, “—what’s your take on the festivities?”
He rubbed the base of his neck. “All the collective power in this realm is upstairs in that room.”
My exhale puffed out my cheeks. “This is really happening.”
“Your line of succession has been broken.” He sounded relieved.
I wasn’t ready to relax yet. “I’m still not free.”
“As long as you care, you’re never free.” He stepped closer. “They can always drag you back in.”
“So, we sneak into Faerie, destroy the tethers, reinforce the threshold and go home.” I folded my arms. “We separate families, alienate goodwill toward the magistrates and leave a war zone behind.”
He stopped an arm’s length away and braced his legs apart, making it plain if I wanted closer to him, I had to do the walking. “The only alternative is to wait and see, and if we wait, we won’t see the Morrigan coming until it’s too late. As cutthroat as the magistrates’ strategy is, it’s this realm’s best hope for survival. Hundreds of thousands or more fae, half-blood and human lives would be saved.”
Lives like my mother’s.
Mom had no chance against the types of fae who would inevitably jump realms in search of fresh hunting grounds. Old creatures like Linen, who had been kept in check by Mac’s laws, would be answerable only to the Morrigan. The prospect of an all-you-can-eat corpse buffet made me doubtful she would step in to prevent the slaughter of innocents.
“This is the right thing to do.” I tested the words.
No dice. I still didn’t believe them. Not entirely.
“It is.” He lent his surety to mine.
“I don’t trust him.” I didn’t need to say who. “He’s up to something.”
“He’s the Black Dog.”
“Yes.” I exhaled. “He is.”
“I won’t let him out of my sight in Faerie long enough for him to mark a tree,” Shaw promised.
“You’re going?” I stepped toward him. “Is that allowed?”
He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I explained our situation to them.”
“Oh.” Tingles spread through my cheeks.
“Bare bones,” he assured me.
The skeletons in both our closets were dancing a jig now. “You told them I was your compeer?”
Pale skin rushed up his throat and into his cheeks. White haunted the rims of his eyes. “No.” His voice went hoarse. “I would never do that to you. That is your decision. I wouldn’t make it for you.”
Right there, that was the difference between Rook and Shaw. Rook got what he wanted through the manipulation of circumstance. Helping me achieve my goals—like staying alive—had benefited his endgame.
Don’t get me wrong. Shaw had manipulated me too, and that stung. It still pissed me off that, in the grand and boneheaded tradition of men who thought they knew best for their women, he had made a bad situation much worse by lying. He made a life-altering decision for me, just like Rook. But Shaw had almost died to save me from the exact same cage Rook had rushed me into and then barred the door closed behind me.
I knew then I didn’t need a couch or ginger beer or a perfect afternoon of contemplation to make the call. Life was not perfect. Making my decision based on an ideal that wasn’t realistic was foolish.
I rolled onto my toes and brushed my lips against Shaw’s.
White swallowed his irises and his body jerked, electrified. “What was that for?”
“You’re a smart guy.” I tilted my head back. “Figure it out.”
The fingers of his left hand tangled in my hair. “You decided.”
My smile broadened. “I did.”
He searched my face. “To be with me.”
Caught by him, I cut my gaze from left to right. “I don’t see anyone else here.”
His right hand cradled my cheek, and he lowered his forehead to mine. “This won’t be easy.”
I turned my face into his palm and nipped it. “Nothing worth having ever is.”
Old Dog, New Tricks
Black Dog, Book 3
Old Dog, New Tricks Blurb
Black Dog, Book 3
While Thierry is away, the Morrigan will play. Snatching the crown from her daughter-in-law’s head wasn’t the motherly thing to do, but Thierry doesn’t mind trading the throne in Faerie for the ratty couch in her Texas apartment. The old crow is welcome to it. But ruling one world is not enough. The Morrigan wants an all-access pass to the mortal realm too.
An attack on the marshal’s office leaves Thierry shaken…and Shaw missing. Now the fight brewing since Thierry took up the Black Dog’s mantle has landed on her doorstep, and the only way to save the man she loves is to defend the title she never wanted.
Chapter 1
Blood clotted in my nostrils. I was scent-blind and choking on dust kicked up by my opponent’s shuffling footwork. Vicious pain spiked in the center of my face, radiating from my busted nose. My swollen jaw rested on the hot ground. Spit dribbled from the right side of my mouth, tickling my cheek as it rolled back to my ear. My perspiration, blood and saliva quenched the cracked prison-yard soil.
“Do you yield?”
A slender fae man with a hooked nose bounced on the balls of his feet a yard away from my leg. The elastic band of his prison-issued pants rode high on his narrow waist. Sweat plastered a plain tee against his birdlike chest. The rich crimson bandana tied around his head dripped blood into his eyes.
My blood.
A growl pumped through my chest in response to his question.
The wet sound made the redcap’s grin widen. He lunged forward inhumanly fast, swiped his kerchief under my crooked nose and then darted a safe distance away before retying it over his head.
Redcaps were a type of goblin who dyed their hats with their victims’ blood. Lore said if the blood staining their hat dried, then the redcap died. Red’s bandana was soaked through, which meant his powers were at their peak. I was bleeding worse and healing slower, so his magic was tampering with my ability to regenerate.
With the way my nose kept intercepting Red’s fist, he was in no danger of hitting a dry spell.
“Simple question.” Fresh blood smudged his fingers until he licked them clean. “Yes or no?”
A hot punch of earthy fragrance struck the humid air at the same time as a rumbling snarl raised the hairs on my nape. The pungent lure hit the redcap hard. His head whipped toward the scent. Even I could smell it, citrus undertones and all, and my aching body responded. Need coiled low in my belly.
As much as it hurt, I tilted my head back until Shaw came into view. The color had leached from his skin and hair. His bone-sharp claws hooked in the chain-link fence separating us. White voids stared back at me. He was hungry. Starving. So was I. But right now he was a distraction. A dangerous one.
I ran my tongue across my gritty lips and barked an order at him. “Stand down.”
“You’re hurt,” he growled, lips quivering.
I braced my palms beside me. “I got this.”
Please, God, let me have this.
“Is he yours?” Red’s voice grated. “I might be willing to trade. You for the incubus—”
I shoved upright, the snap of ver
tical motion making my ears ring. Rolling forward, I got my feet under me, threw my weight into the action and slammed my shoulder into Red’s gut. He grunted, thrown backward, arms windmilling for balance. Too late. He toppled, back slapping the compact dirt, momentum carrying me over him. I landed on top of him, my chest covering his groin.
Chin braced in the dimple of his navel, I threw my arms out to the sides and captured his flailing limbs. I brought them together in front of me and used a restraining Word to bind his wrists together.
“That—” I panted, balancing my weight on my palms, “—is my incubus. Get your own.”
Linking his fingers, Red made a giant fist with his hands and socked me across the jaw.
I slid sideways, head bouncing off the ground. My split lip reopened, and he was on me in a second. He straddled my hips, tore the kerchief off his scalp and wiped the sopping-wet fabric across my mouth. He let me taste my own blood and the promise of my death if I didn’t get my head in the game.
This was my third bout, third opponent, and damn it, I was tired.
“Focus, Thierry.”
Bite me, Mac.
The day’s activities were sponsored by my father, Macsen Sullivan. The scenic prison locale, an endless supply of hardy combatants, all his idea and sanctioned by the conclave magistrates, who fully supported his whack-a-doodle agenda to get me in prime fighting shape for our trip into Faerie.
Ours is not always a fatal gift, Mac had said. We rule our hunger. Our desires do not control us.
More than anything, I wanted to believe him. I wanted to be—not normal. That wasn’t possible. But not a danger to those I loved. That’s why I had tucked my glove into Shaw’s back pocket. Why I was fighting a convicted murderer with a sadistic streak barehanded, runes firmly in the off position, and also why I was letting my ass get handed to me. Mac wanted me beaten, starving and still in control.
So far I was three for three.
That split second of inattention while my mind wandered cost me big time. Red cocked his hands back over his head, then swung them down hammer-fist style and smashed my nose. Newly healed cartilage crunched, and hot blood spilled down my cheeks over my mouth, which Red happily sopped up with his kerchief.
Dog Eat Dog World: Limited Edition Bundle (Black Dog) Page 55