“You aren’t in my debt Bleidd,” she said, her voice flat.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he shot back. “Of course I am. I would have died if not for you Allie. There is no greater debt I could owe anyone.”
“And perhaps I would be dead without you,” she said stubbornly. “For all we know the bullet was supposed to hit my back and only hit you by chance.”
“You are guessing, but supposition does not matter. What matters is that you were not harmed and I was and I would be dead now if not for you, and to a lesser degree Brynneth. But my debt to him is a pale shadow of what I owe you.”
“You owe Brynneth…”Allie started, caught off guard by the statement, and then his words really sunk in and she winced looking away. “Bleidd, I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” he asked, his voice that flat emotionless tone that elves used when they were trying to conceal a very strong feeling. Because she was touching him she could not block out the surge of anger and suspicion that filled him even before she clarified.
“Okay, don’t freak out about this,” she started to say, which only made him tense even more. “But you see…its just…the bullet that hit you, that went through your back, it, umm, kind of hit me too.”
“It…kind of hit you too?” he repeated, his voice dangerous.
“Well, yes. In the arm, but nothing serious. Really just a very minor, little…”
“Stop talking,” he cut her off, his words so abrupt that she immediately stopped. “Show me.”
She pushed herself up, propping herself on her right arm and held up her left arm for him to inspect. His eyes traced the pale flesh until they found the spot just below the elbow where the spider web of fine lines marked the healed injury. His breath went out in a hiss. Then, his expression pained he sat up, pushing himself up off the bed with obvious effort, and kissed the scar. She leaned forward to push him back before he hurt himself and he tilted his head up away from her arm. Their faces hung inches apart, the air tense. Jess’s voice was in her mind again, drawn by her emotional distress, “Are you well, my love?”
“Yes, Bleidd hadn’t known I’d been shot too and he’s really upset,” she thought back, feeling the inches of air between herself and Bleidd like a physical barrier. “Bleidd there’s something else I need to tell you.”
“Should I brace myself?” he asked, his voice soft.
“Probably,” she sighed. “Jess asked me if I would marry him.”
Bleidd’s eyes went wide. “He asked you? He asked you? Is he mad or truly that desperate?”
She made a face at him, “Probably desperate.”
His eyes narrowed at that, “And what did you say to his desperate proposal?”
“Bleidd…”
“You agreed to this?” his voice was calm but Allie could feel the waves of hurt rolling off of him.
“His family is going to accept a contract from someone he does not want to marry. If I offer one, that is he hopes that if I offer one his family will accept that instead,” she said refusing to look away.
He was silent his eyes searching her face. Finally his shoulders slumped. “Yes, I can see how that situation would engender desperation in him. Or most people for that matter. I could almost pity him, loving you so completely and being told he has to marry someone else. You realize of course that his family may well turn you down, if they prefer the contract already offered?”
“I know.”
He was silent again and then, “Allie you said that you owed me your life.”
She tensed, sensing trouble. “Yes.”
“I would ask a forfeit from you,” he said calmly.
She looked at him cautiously. He was fully within his rights by Elven Law to demand it since she had insisted on acknowledging that she owed him a debt, but she felt her stomach drop trying to imagine what he might ask for. Still, she could not refuse him. “What do you want from me?”
“Just a kiss,” he said, his voice still soft.
“Just a kiss?” she repeated skeptically.
“Yes,” he said, so innocently that she immediately suspected something, but there really wasn’t any reason to refuse him either. If she tried to negotiate he could demand something more intimate, and maybe that was his plan…
“Jess?”
“Yes?”
“I told Bleidd that I owed him my life, and he wants a forfeit to pay the debt. He wants me to kiss him.” she thought to him, knowing that if he could pick up on her feelings he would understand how confused she felt in that moment.
“I do not like the thought of you with any other, but it is just a kiss my heart,” he thought back. “He could have demanded many other things of you once you acknowledged a debt between you.”
“I know,” she thought back. “I told him you are living at the house and that I am going to offer a marriage contract.”
“Did you? And he asked for a kiss? It seems a small thing.”
“I know. That’s what worries me,” she thought back.
Allie was annoyed with herself that she had actually just asked permission to do something that within his culture was barely more intimate than shaking hands, but she also felt an odd relief that he seemed unconcerned. Elven culture was polyamorous, but Allie, who had spent much of her life in the human dominated Bordertown of Ashwood, was not and she had struggled for the last few months to reconcile her monogamous ethics with her attraction to two people. She could not help but feel a loyalty to Jess as the person she was committed to, but nonetheless she felt that she needed to do this little thing. Not because he was asking her too but because Bleidd had saved her, because he was so badly hurt, because he was so upset that she was hurt too. Because she loved him and she hadn’t realized until that moment exactly how upset she was that he had almost died.
She leaned forward slowly, pushing through those few inches as if they were solid. Bleidd tensed, his distress being replaced by shock as her lips brushed his. She had kissed him twice before, or more accurately he had kissed her, and both times she had fought against the experience and pushed him away. This time she was the one initiating things.
She had never kissed anyone except Jess in an intimate way and the experience was an odd one. His lips were softer than she’d expected, and after a moment’s hesitation he leaned forward, pressing his mouth harder against hers. His hand came up and tangled in her hair, holding her head close to his, and she could feel his emotions surging wildly, swinging from shock to joy and lust. His mouth moved against hers eagerly now, exploring, and she relaxed and let herself enjoy the sensations in that moment. She was too nervous for her feelings to match his, but she let his emotions fill her.
The door swung open and hit the wall with a light bang. Allie jerked back immediately, Bleidd growling in frustration as his hand slid free of her hair. The nurse, a no-nonsense looking woman in her sixties, looked up from the clipboard she was carrying as she walked in and her grey eyes went wide. She checked her brisk stride midway across the room, stopping to take in the scene before her. Her expression transformed instantly from business-like to scandalized. “What is going on in here?”
Allie blushed furiously, struggling to sit up and sliding off the edge of the hospital bed instead, mortified to realize how obvious Bleidd’s arousal was. For his part he grabbed her arm, his hand like iron on her wrist dragging her back partially onto the bed. He growled at the nurse his tone openly hostile, “I’m certain, Nurse Haynes, that you’ve seen two people kissing before.”
“Not like that, not when one of those people is critically injured,” the nurse snapped back, not the least bit intimidated. Allie wondered if they assigned her to all the elven patients, because usually humans were easily cowed by elves. Clearly not this one though. “You are supposed to be resting.”
“I am resting,” Bleidd said coldly, refusing to let go of Allie’s arm even as she tried to extricate herself.
The nurse turned to Allie, “Miss you’re going to have to leave.”
Allie nodded, mumbling an apology, but Bleidd refused to relent, the grip on her arm tightening further until it began to hurt. He pushed himself up into a sitting position with obvious effort. “She stays.”
“No, sir, she doesn’t stay. I need to check your vitals, and she needs to go so you can rest,” the nurse’s voice was firm. Her eyes on Allie were reproachful, and Allie could feel the judgment rolling off of her, acrid and heavy as sweat.
“She stays,” he said again, and to her surprise she felt a sudden surge of fear from him. Ignoring the nurse for the moment she turned as much as she could given her precarious position on the edge of the bed and gently pushed him back down into the pillows. He looked up at her, his expression unreadable.
“It’s okay Bleidd. I’ll go get Jason, he’s here to visit you too, and we’ll both come back in when the nurse leaves and hang out with you until visiting hours are over, okay?”
The nurse made a disparaging noise but Allie could see some of the tension leaving Bleidd’s face and he finally let go of her arm. She nodded slightly and stood up. “I’ll be right back in, with Jason, as soon as the nurse leaves.”
“Just remember that the patient is recovering from a serious injury,” the nurse said waspishly as Allie walked past her, giving the half-elf a scathing look. “He needs bed rest, and any strenuous activity, even if he’s being passive during the activity, could be dangerous.”
Allie could feel herself blushing at the obvious implications of what the nurse was saying, and she fought back nervous laughter. She had no doubt that Bleidd would be more than willing to passively enjoy any activity he could get her to agree to, but little did the nurse know that the kiss she’d walked in on was by far the most intimacy he’d ever gotten from her. Given the well-earned reputation elves had for lasciviousness and hedonism the nurse’s imagination was probably running wild and painting pictures of Bacchanalian orgies in the hospital room that only nurse Haynes could save her patient from killing himself with….
“Right,” Bleidd said sarcastically, as Allie was slipping out the door, “So I guess a blowjob is out of the question even if I’m passive during the activity?”
The door closed before she could hear the nurse’s response to that. She lost control of her nervous giggling, laughing so hard she had to lean against the wall for support, until tears were streaming down her face and she was gasping.
It took several minutes before she could calm down enough to explain what had happened to Jason.
***************************
When Allie pulled up and parked in front of the house, feeling an odd relief to finally be home, she found Ciaran waiting for her in the yard again. The Kelpie was in his dog form, a huge black hound, shaggy and fierce looking, lying across the concrete path to the front steps of the house. She crossed the yard towards him feeling a slight twinge of worry that he was waiting with bad news, but as soon as she was close he rose and stretched, in a leisurely way, and trotted forward to meet her.
His voice coming out of the dog’s mouth was a bit disturbing but she was used to it, “Good evening Allie. Are you well?”
“Well enough. And yourself?” she replied smiling at her friend.
“As well as ever,” he said, bobbing his head slightly in what she guessed was the canine equivalent of a shrug. “I was hoping you might have time tonight for a game or two of chess?”
Her smile widened. Despite how tired she felt it lifted her mood to think of spending some time relaxing with Ciaran. And it would let her avoid, for a little while, thinking about either the impending meeting with Jess’s mother or the situation with Bleidd. The rest of her visit with him had been nice, as she and Jason had kept him entertained and generally distracted, but she could not stop thinking about the feel of his mouth on hers. In retrospect she thought that perhaps his request for a kiss had been brilliant. If he’d argued against her choice to try to help Jess get out of a forced marriage it would probably have just hardened her resolve. She had a sneaking suspicion that he had intentionally forced her to confront some of her own feelings about him instead and she couldn’t help but admire his deviousness, even as she squirmed at the feelings it dredged up. She hadn’t even begun to sort out how she really felt about him and she was refusing to let herself deal with his near death, but now her mind kept turning back to thoughts of him lying in that hospital bed. With Jess working late at the Outpost to sift through the information the human police had finally released about the cases she had been looking at a long evening with only Jason to distract her. The novelty of Ciaran visiting the house would do a much better job of that.
“Sure, come on in,” Allie said, gesturing at the front porch. “Jason’s cooking dinner but there’s plenty if you’d like to eat too.”
Ciaran’s form rippled and shifted, the dog blurring and then being replaced by a slim, pale young man with dark hair and eyes. As usual Allie shivered to see the kelpie’s human nude form in the chill evening. She had no idea how the temperature didn’t bother him, no matter the time of year or weather. Her friend looked up at the house eagerly, “Yes,” he said, smiling, “I would like that very much.”
They walked up to the house together and Allie opened the front door and politely gestured for Ciaran to go in first. The kelpie walked across the threshold with his head up, sniffing the air appreciatively. The smell of dinner – tacos Allie guessed, her mouth watering in anticipation – wafted down the hall and she could hear Jason moving around the kitchen. While she had run some errands after leaving the hospital, Jason had come straight home to fix dinner. Liz was out on a date with her boyfriend, Fred, and their new roommate Shawn was out visiting family on mortal earth for a couple days so Jason and Allie had decided to make a night of it themselves. As she led Ciaran down the hall Allie felt herself relaxing; for the first time since the shooting things felt somewhat normal. Allie clung to the illusion desperately. She called down to the kitchen to warn Jason that they had company. “Hey Jase, I’m home, and I brought a dinner guest.”
“Oh, okay,” Jason said over his shoulder. “I may have gone a bit overboard cooking so we can use another mouth to help eat it all.”
He was standing at the counter chopping lettuce; bowls of chopped tomatoes, shredded cheese, salsa, and sour cream already sat on the table. Allie was debating the best way to politely warn him about Ciaran’s lack of clothing when Jason turned around. His eyes went very, very wide as he took in the kelpie’s pale form – all of it, and it was an impressive sight – but otherwise he didn’t react. His voice was a bit stunned when he spoke, “Any friend of Allie’s is welcome here of course.”
“Thank you for that, it is kind of you to be so welcoming,” Ciaran said, his eyes roaming around the kitchen as if he were trying to remember each detail.
“Ciaran this is Jason – Jason, my friend Ciaran, He’s the kelpie I’ve mentioned, that lives out in the woods,” Allie offered a quick introduction, hoping it was enough to satisfy Jason’s curiosity without offending Ciaran. The two men nodded at each other, somewhere between polite and speculative. “Grab a seat Ciar and I’ll get you a drink, what would you like?”
“Milk, if you have it, would be good,” Ciaran said, sitting down tentatively in the closest chair. “Is no one else home this evening?”
“Nope,” Jason said, turning back to the counter to get the freshly chopped lettuce. He carried the bowl over in one hand and a bowl of taco meat in another, setting them both down on the table. “Just us.”
Allie was confused at Ciaran’s obvious relief, but then thought that perhaps he didn’t like the thought of hanging out with Jessilaen. Many of the Lesser Fey – most if she was being honest with herself – did not like the Elven Guard, and certainly few if any would choose to socialize with them.
She shrugged it off as she handed him his drink. “Hey Jason, do you like playing chess?”
Chapter 3 – Tuesday
There was nothing more awkward, Allie thought, than walki
ng into a room when you knew the person waiting there didn’t like you. She stood in a back hallway in the Outpost listening to Jess’s footsteps retreat into the distance, facing a closed door. Behind the door he had told her was a small sitting room designed for the purpose of accommodating family visits like this one or acting as quiet rooms for visitors to rest in if needed. Allie stood outside the door trying to work up the nerve to enter.
Despite Jess’s reassurance that his mother was only worried for him, Allie was convinced that the elven woman did not like her personally after accidently overhearing the woman repeatedly urging Jess to leave her. She had unintentionally projected herself into his mind while sleeping while the two were talking and was now faced with meeting the woman in reality. It was a silly thing to think but she wished desperately that Jess could have gone with her. As it was she ran her hands nervously over the front of her dress, another detail that made her feel off balance and uncomfortable, then stepped up to the heavy wooden door and knocked.
A female voice drifted through the door, reminding her oddly of her visit to the clinic. “Enter.”
Allie braced herself and then opened the door, walking into the small sitting room to find not only Jess’s mother but two other women as well. Jess’s mother looked much as Allie remembered her from the time she had projected into Jess’s mind while he and his mother argued: she was tall and willowy, with light blonde hair that curled slightly. The second woman looked very similar to her, being of the same height and with identical hair, but she was thin in a way that gave an impression of ill health. The third woman was closer to Allie’s height, slim, and with hair so fair it almost looked white. She radiated power in a way that frightened Allie and told her that this woman was very old indeed. If Allie had to guess she would have said that the third woman was probably Jess’s great-aunt, which meant she was the head of his clan – the ruling clan here. Which meant she was closely and directly related to the queen. Allie swallowed hard, inclining her head in the proper polite gesture of greeting. “Good Afternoon. I am Aliaine.”
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