Knight in Leather

by Holley Trent

“Ethan asked who you were supposed to fetch. I’m wondering if the fella was anyone I know. I haven’t rubbed elbows much with the folks in the palace for a long time, but I’d know most of the older folks.”

  “Oh. A guard—former guard, rather—named Lachlann.”

  “Ah.” He rubbed the scruff on his chin. “Ol’ Lach. Nearly did himself in a few times. Glad to hear he didn’t succeed.”

  “He seemed happy to be getting out.”

  “Anyone would be if they’d been forced into a service period under a queen he didn’t trust. Lach’s been around long enough to have guarded Rhiannon’s father when he was alive. In case you haven’t gotten caught up with the sordid fairy history, that was a very long time ago.”

  “I’m not so great at remembering dates, but I do know she killed her parents so she could be queen. I imagine that would make any guard who’d been around that long wary. Takes a twisted kind of someone to do that.”

  “Dasha?” Moira called weakly from the bedroom.

  “Yep. It’s me. I’m back.” And stuck, apparently. She hoped Ethan had a plan for that, because if Rhiannon decided to stir up some shit, Dasha wasn’t the right kind of girl to have on hand for a fairy fight. She was the kind of girl who didn’t exactly run from fights, but she definitely fought with her eyes closed. She just kept swinging and hoped her fists would land somewhere impactful.

  “Come here, dear.”

  Dasha walked to the room with Ethan on her heels.

  “I’m going to go scout,” Ethan Senior called. “Lock the door behind me.”

  Ethan changed course to obey.

  Dasha continued to the bed and sat on the edge.

  Moira was still upright, and holding one of the paperback novels on her lap. “Feel like I’m…missing some context. For the book, I mean.”

  Dasha squinted at the cover. “Oh. Yeah. That one might need a warm-up. The story is full of pop culture references that would probably go over your head if you’ve been isolated from American news in the past fifty years. The other book might be better for you. It’s futuristic sci-fi set on a distant planet. You can assume every reader is equally confused. Took me about three chapters to catch up.”

  “I’ll read…that one, then.”

  Ethan joined them in the room and plopped onto the bed beside his mother. “When’d you start reading fiction?”

  “Yesterday. Seemed as good…a time as any.” She drew in a deep breath. “Given the circumstances.”

  “You’ll be up and running in no time.”

  “I know. Behind on work, though. Hard to trade…with no product.”

  “What do you make?” Dasha asked, genuinely curious. “How do people support themselves in this realm, especially those of you who are far from the hustle and bustle of the palace?”

  “I make cloth.”

  “Really?”

  “Family business,” Ethan said. “At least on Mom’s side. They’re known for their patterns. Very sought-after material, but doing everything by hand means there’s always going to be limited availability.”

  “Where do you keep your loom?” Dasha asked.

  Moira raised a hand and pointed in the general direction of the woods.

  “She has a workshop out there. She sometimes get a little help from my sister when she’s around.”

  “Your sister? Where is she, anyway?”

  He shrugged. “Somewhere.”

  “Why are you so casual about that?”

  He winced and sat up a little straighter. “I probably sound callous. I don’t mean to be. I suppose because Sídhe are so long-lived, we don’t feel particularly anxious about not seeing each other on a predictable schedule. Weeks or years, there’s little difference.”

  “I see,” Dasha said flatly.

  Moira sighed and pinched her son’s arm.

  “Shit.” He rubbed the spot and cut her an apologetic glance before turning his gaze back to Dasha. “I didn’t mean to imply that was the case with you. You’re my mate. That’s why I couldn’t stay put on the other end. Even you being away for an hour made me nauseated.”

  She suspected he was merely placating her, but she didn’t want to argue with him with his mother right there. That wasn’t the impression she wanted the lady to have of her, and Dasha did care what the woman thought. She wanted to know if the woman thought she was suitable for her baby boy at all. Stuck in the realm as they were at the moment, Dasha had her doubts. There was nothing she could do to help any of them at the moment. Simone would have probably been able to figure something out. Simone always made Dasha’s good ideas better.

  Dasha grinned anyway. She set her purse on the floor and moved to the chair beside the bed so she could better see both Gotches. “So, where is your sister? What’s her name? What’s she like? Older or younger?”

  “Older,” Ethan said. “By about three hundred years. Her name is Ari. She’s little and quiet and has a mate who’s the exact opposite. They live near the southern coast of this landmass. He’s a fisherman.”

  “Do they know the realm is collapsing?”

  Moira nodded. “I spoke with her…yesterday. Coming.”

  “They’re coming here? On foot?” Ethan asked.

  “On the way now.”

  “Probably for the best. If you’re going to leave, the sensible plan is to get the whole family out at once. If they don’t get here within the next couple of days, we’ll have to go fetch them.”

  “Any other family?” Dasha asked.

  Ethan raked a hand through his messy hair and made a noncommittal grunting sound. “Well, our families tend to be small.”

  “Right. Because you don’t have many children.”

  “Exactly. Neither of my parents have siblings, and probably never will. Like with humans, our women only get so many shots at conception.”

  “Your grandparents are alive, then?”

  “Yes, but they were able to exit the realm ages ago when crossing over was less restrictive and when the gods still had a little mercy for us. They stayed on the outside in Europe. I see them more often than I see my parents.”

  “When we get out of here, I’m really going to have to resolve to see my family more often. I mean, traveling half a day is nothing compared to having to bend time and space to travel to a different realm.”

  “What are…they like?” Moira asked.

  “My family?”

  The lady in the bed nodded.

  “They’re…hmm.” Dasha narrowed her eyes and tapped her chin, trying to find the right words in her mind. There were so many things she could say about them and none would be sufficient. They were an enviable family—kind and open. Supportive.

  They were the kind of people who deserved to know about Ethan and about what he was.

  She hated herself for ever considering hiding that part of her life from them, but she was going to have to be gentle with herself. All things considered, she was adapting pretty well. That was probably more due to Ethan’s gentle persistence than her own fortitude, though.

  She took a deep breath and tried again to find the right words, hoping the oxygen would jog her mind, but it didn’t. “I...I guess I don’t know what to say. Other folks would probably be able to describe them better than I can. Simone always jokes that two very staid and quiet individuals ending up having me as a daughter was a cosmic joke. I think I get my proclivity toward boisterousness and hysterics from my father’s mother. She’s a character.”

  “What would your family say about me?” Ethan asked.

  She wrung her hands. For the most part, she’d kept her family out of her business regarding anything pertaining to her love life in the past couple of years. Of course they were curious and constantly asking if there was anyone special in her life. She was nearly thirty and overdue to settle down, apparently. She just didn’t want there to be another disappointing debacle like she’d had with Ben. Everything had been chocolate and roses until his offerings shifted into anger and threats.

 
; Her family had liked the man Ben had pretended to be, and she doubted she’d ever stop feeling guilty that she’d judged him so poorly and took him home to meet them.

  “Gods, do you really have to think about it?” Ethan said.

  Dasha closed her eyes and shook her head. “My mind wandered for a moment. Um…” She opened them and found Moira looking on with concern.

  Shit. Of course she’d take my hesitance personally.

  “Sorry. I was dredging up old memories. Things that belong in the past.” She fondled a frizzy bit of hair over her ear and fixed her gaze on the plastered ceiling. “They would like you, Ethan. Assuming you didn’t tell them what you do for a living.”

  “I’ll leave that to you, then.”

  “We’ll make up a good lie, I’m sure.”

  “Or maybe I’ll get a legitimate job so you can tell the truth.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the job you have. I just don’t know if I could explain what you do to people who aren’t Sídhe. Hell, I don’t understand what you do half the time.”

  “I’m certain the princess would explain our missions to you if you were really curious.”

  Dasha chewed her lower lip and met his gaze. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Plausible deniability and such.

  That line of thought made her curious about something else, though. “How did you end up in Heath’s crew, anyway?”

  Ethan grunted. “The usual way. Father pissed off Rhiannon.”

  “How?”

  Moira sighed and muttered something in a language Dasha didn’t recognize. She didn’t even want to guess how many different languages the Gotches spoke between the three of them. She had a hard enough time remembering simple English.

  Ethan grunted. “I’d tell you to be kind, Mother, but in matters concerning Rhiannon, I don’t see the point.” He looked searchingly at Dasha. “She was holding a grudge from when Ari was supposed to serve out her conscription. She wanted Ari as a handmaiden and, naturally, my parents didn’t want Ari anywhere near Rhiannon.”

  “So, they told her to fuck off, or what?”

  Moira gave the barest shrug.

  “I’m guessing that means yes.”

  “That’s basically what happened,” Ethan said. “Ari still hadn’t served by the time I came of age, and Rhiannon couldn’t push the issue because she wasn’t in a position to enforce punishment at the time. Her guards couldn’t get near here to claim Ari.”

  “Is this the part of the story where you tell me a fairy tapped into some secret store of magic to defeat the evil queen?”

  He laughed. “Kind of. Mother has a knack for aiding sleep, even more than most fairies, so she cast a spell on the tunnel between here and the palace. Every time Rhiannon tried to send a guard through, they’d pass out three steps in.”

  “Nice!”

  Moira smiled modestly.

  “No such thing as taking the long way around, huh?”

  “Not possible,” Ethan said. “Lacking the Gotch ability to shapeshift into creatures built for long swims, they’d have to take boats, and the last person qualified to build anything sizable died centuries ago. This is a large island, sort of how Greenland is, and Rhiannon’s not on it.”

  “So, how’d you end up on the crew?”

  Ethan raked his hair back some more and grimaced. “Had to go to the kingdom proper with my father to do some trading, and suffice it to say, the trip didn’t turn out to be an easy, breezy merchant day. Some snitch ran and told Rhiannon that my parents had a child she hadn’t been aware of.”

  Moira put up a finger. “Wouldn’t have…been.”

  Ethan grunted. “Right. I was off the radar, so to speak. People try shielding shit like that all the time with their kids here. They do different things to keep them invisible to Rhiannon’s magic so there’s a chance they’ll get out without being noticed, but we slipped up.” He snapped his fingers. “She showed up here the next day, all pale and awful in that bloody cape she’s always wearing and started slinging magic around. I vaguely remember Father shapeshifting. I can’t remember into what, now, but there was bloodshed. Some his, some hers. Of course, she had the upper hand. She got him suppressed and was about to snatch me, but fortunately, Prince Heath was around. He’d told her that he’d deal with me. The offer seemed ominous at the time, but that was before I really knew Prince Heath.”

  “He rescued you, in a way.”

  Ethan nodded.

  “At least being in his crew, you had freedom to come and go between the realms.”

  He nodded. “I’m surprised the queen hasn’t come skipping though Fergus’s tunnel yet to raise a little hell.”

  “Maybe she’s biding her time.”

  “That’s what frightens me.”

  A big bird shot through the open window, and Dasha shrieked shamefully and jumped to her feet, flailing her arms. “Fuck!”

  “Just my…beloved,” Moira said with a laugh as the bird tottered into the adjacent room.

  Ethan Senior joined them a minute later in his usual form, fastening leather trousers as he strode in. “I’m back.”

  “A little warning next time, maybe?” Dasha scratched at the skin over her pounding heart and cut Ethan a glare when he chuckled.

  Ethan Senior closed the window, pulled the lock into place, and then grunted. “Sorry.”

  “Well?” Ethan asked him.

  His father grunted again. “Keep the windows shut for the time being, just in case.”

  “Just in case what?” Dasha asked.

  He let out a ragged breath and scraped his uncombed hair back from his face. “There are people around who shouldn’t be, and I don’t believe Moira and me are the ones they care about.”

  “What people?”

  He pointed his gaze on his son. “You need to tell her or I will.”

  “Fuck,” Ethan whispered. “Hopefully we won’t have an issue. Colin’s supposed to take care of that mess.”

  Dasha gave him a frustrated nudge. “What, precisely, did he come over here to do? What is the mess you’re beating around the bush about?”

  He closed his eyes, ground his teeth for several beats, and then let out another of those ragged breaths. “Okay. Long story short, there’s an individual who would have me as a mate.”

  “Oh, would she now?” I wish a bitch would try.

  Dasha hated that shit—when people didn’t know when to back off from folks who were obviously already taken, or when they didn’t care that they were already taken. Thirty percent of her arguments with Ben early on had been about his encouragement of brazenly flirting women. He’d made her feel like the villain for being angry, but she’d learned better in the years that had followed. She deserved to be respected by her lover.

  “And how do you feel about this individual?” she asked her supposed mate.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “To be perfectly honest, I wish you’d run her over when you had the chance.”

  Moira gave him a weak nudge that was probably meant to be punishing. “Ethan.”

  “Wait. You mean the blonde from the motel?” All things considered, Dasha’s voice had been pretty level, although at the end of her question her tone had started to careen to the stratospheric pitch indicative of true pisstivity.

  “She’s of this realm,” Ethan said neutrally.

  “An ex?”

  “I wouldn’t categorize her as such.”

  “What would you categorize her as, then?”

  “Just someone I’ve fucked.”

  Moira pressed both hands to her face and muttered some more in that unrecognizable language.

  “It was ages ago,” he added.

  Dasha didn’t care if they’d fucked fifty years ago. He’d touched her, and Dasha knew intimately what that was like. She didn’t want to think anyone else had been privy to that particular treat. “Did you lead her on?”

  “No!” He stood and paced at the bedside. “Absolutely not.”

&n
bsp; “How many women you’ve left in your wake who wouldn’t mind taking a piece out of you now?”

  Ethan blew out a frustrated breath and tugged his hair. “We don’t age like humans. You can’t have expected me to have been a monk in all that time.”

  “No, I’m not so naive that I’d expect that, but I would hope that you were at least somewhat discriminating.”

  “I could say the same for you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Fuck.” He clapped his hand over his eyes and slumped. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no. You let the words slip, so obviously you have something to say. Go ahead and speak your mind.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by what I said.”

  “I don’t believe that. You want to talk about my ex? Go ahead.”

  “I don’t want to talk about your ex.”

  “Obviously, you do. You brought him up.”

  Ethan dropped his hand from his face only to throw both hands up. “What do you expect me to say? We both know I’m only going to tell you the things anyone would say. I’m not going to say anything new or creative. There’s an automatic response to that sort of thing and, yeah, I had it.”

  “I made one mistake.”

  “Yes. One huge mistake in a short, human life, and it’s got you ruined, huh?”

  She folded her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently. “Say something else.”

  “Okay. I will, if you really want me to clear the air. He messed you up.”

  “Yeah. He did.” She nodded sardonically. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t the vestal virgin you were hoping for. Sorry to have some baggage.”

  “You think I’m put off by that one thing? Shit happens. I get that, and I wanted you anyway because in spite of the oaf I appear to be, I do have a brain in my head. I’m not going to refuse a fated match just because you let some guy in close enough to screw you over.”

  “Oh. So you only want me because a goddess pulled some puppet strings and nudged me your way?”

  He pulled his hair again and laughed, but the sound he made didn’t sound genuinely mirthful. He sounded a bit crazed, and she certainly knew the feeling well. “Are we just going to toss blame around now? Is that where we are?”

  She shrugged. “The way I see things right now is that there’s someone out there walking around and raising hell because she wants you. Now I’m trapped here, potentially in harm’s way via your ex—”