by Dani Harper
The rush of unfamiliar feelings flustered her. As a grim, she’d seen men’s bodies countless times over many decades as she bore dire witness to their impending doom. Although she’d felt compassion for the men, no other emotion stirred within her. Certainly no appreciation for their form. Now, deep inside, something long buried and long forgotten was suddenly wide, wide awake.
If the man was awake, of course, Caris would never have indulged in studying his appealing form. Not only would she be shy about it, but she’d be far too busy puzzling over his striking blue eyes. Their vivid color was so like the high skies of autumn, yet there were shadows in them too, dark depths of heartache and raw anger buried deep.
And still he gave me the very shirt from his back . . .
She’d needed it, and she’d needed the water. Needed more, too, and she licked her dry lips with a tongue turned sticky. Caris hadn’t known thirst since she’d been changed all those years ago, but she was parched now. What does it mean? Other sensations, equally unfamiliar, rippled through her body. A grim’s heart did not beat and Death’s herald had no need to breathe. A grim felt neither heat nor cold, could be as solid as stone or as insubstantial as a ghost. A grim certainly did not suffer pain.
Yet her ribs now hurt as if she’d been stabbed in many places, as the heart beneath them pounded far too fast. Her lungs labored to suck in air as if they couldn’t get enough. One leg would no longer bear weight, and it throbbed like a bad tooth. Worst of all was her back, where Maelgwn had struck her with the light whip. It stung sharply as if on fire, and she could smell singed fur—and burnt skin.
The collar. The collar must have borne the brunt of the blow, or surely she’d already be dead. It must have been damaged, perhaps even broken, by the impact of the magical weapon. The heavy silver links had slid off her neck and dropped to the ground when she’d struggled to heed this man’s call . . . How many long decades had she borne the choking weight of faery-forged silver around her throat? The absence of it might have made her feel giddy if she hadn’t been in so much pain.
Caris’s vision blurred and darkened at the edges. Had the impossible happened? Was she a mortal creature again? She was injured for certain, possibly dying . . . but free at last. Anything is better than being controlled by that spiteful prince for one more minute!
From nowhere came the thought that her gruff father would have had far stronger and more inventive words for the pitiless faeries who had stolen away and enslaved his only daughter, and that thought suddenly made her miss Da so terribly that her heart ached as much as her whole body. Apparently her emotions had found their way back to her as well. How typical of the fae to restore those things that were the most painful to bear. She closed her eyes, so tempted to just let herself go, and yet . . .
And yet she found that there was the tiniest spark within her, kindled by the lingering warmth of this stranger’s concern. Caris thought she sensed a flicker, then a solid glow, as that internal spark developed into a sparse flame. Gradually it grew and warmed, flaring from candle fire to cheering hearth, until the shuddering cold was dispelled from every inch of her body. Pain released its grip, and even the agonizing sting of the wound across her back was soothed. She breathed easier then, a long, deep sigh, as though she were relaxing into sleep.
Sleep, however, was not what her body had in mind at all.
“So the guy we’re going to see is a cousin of your friend Tina? We’re talking about the same Tina who owns the man-eating dachshund, right? Please tell me this relative of hers doesn’t have one too!”
Morgan glanced over at her younger partner, Jay Browning, in the passenger seat of the clinic’s truck. He was wearing his long hair in a single braid today, and his T-shirt read “Veterinarian by Day, Ninja by Night.” She could well believe it—the man had more energy than anyone she’d ever met. He was a huge asset to her clinic as well as a good friend. Plus, he and his wife, Starr, had a very eclectic range of interests—for instance, they’d just returned from a UFO convention the week before last. Their open-mindedness to the unknown had proved a huge bonus over the past couple of years, as Morgan had discovered for herself that there was much more to the world than she’d ever suspected.
“Jake’s not a man-eater,” she said. “He’s just defensive about having his toenails trimmed.”
“Dragons are defensive about their toenails. I had a perfect career record of zero dog bites until I met that little wiener. Then bam—nine stitches!”
“I’ve a charm fer that.” A gnarled brown face with bright blue eyes popped up from the club cab seat behind Morgan. The brim of his much-prized baseball hat—a souvenir of the Toronto Blue Jays—bumped her shoulder but somehow managed to stay on his small head. She didn’t know if it was because of his thick braided hair and the odd leaves that sprouted from it, or if he’d spelled the precious cap to stay in place.
“Ranyon, you know you’re supposed to wear your seatbelt,” she chided.
“I’ve a charm fer that too,” he said brightly.
She didn’t doubt it. The little ellyll’s magical abilities were all out of proportion to his diminutive height. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him straighten his other treasure, a T-shirt that matched his hat (and hung to his knees). It was the only clothing he wore. Beneath the royal-blue material were more brown leaves that covered his body like a coat made from the forest floor, while his arms and legs resembled narrow tree branches.
He rested the sharp elbows of his spindly arms on the console between the seats. “Are there chickens where we’re goin’?” There was a hopeful note in his voice. He was absolutely fascinated by birds of all kinds.
“Maybe a few. But mostly goats. Liam has a herd of about forty does.”
The ellyll was only disappointed for a moment. “D’ya think Leo would like a goat when he comes back? They make fine gifts.”
She tried to keep a straight face as she imagined her friend’s reaction to finding a goat in his backyard when he returned from his Marine Corps reunion. The old veteran had a big heart. He’d practically adopted her now-husband Rhys, even accepting his strange story of having been imprisoned by the fae. When Ranyon came along, Leo had taken his existence in stride—and adopted him as well. Rhys had moved in with Morgan of course, but Ranyon remained Leo’s roommate and dearest friend. The ellyll used his magic to make the old man’s life as comfortable as possible, while Ranyon’s habits kept Leo’s life interesting. Lately they’d begun keeping a small flock of hens. But a goat? “The goat will eat Leo’s prize dahlias,” she said at last. “And your fence isn’t tall enough to keep it from eating the neighbor’s flowers as well.”
“Oh, aye, Mrs. Kettleson wouldn’t take kindly to that. She nearly had three kinds of hysterics when poor old Spike wandered onto her front lawn and pissed on her garden statues. I had to put a charm on the woman to make her forget she’d seen him.”
“It’s a wonder Spike didn’t bite her,” said Jay. Leo’s old terrier had reigned supreme for years as the clinic terror until Jake the dachshund came along.
Spike probably has a charm on him as well. Morgan slowed the truck to leave Highway 195.
Jay looked around. “I know you said this guy lived outside our usual area, but I didn’t think you meant this far out. What is he, an old boyfriend or something? Is that why you didn’t bring Rhys along?”
She punched his shoulder as hard as she could while still driving.
“Guess not,” he moaned, rubbing the spot where she’d hit him. Morgan doubted she’d hurt him a bit. Despite his lean wiry build, he regularly competed in sword competitions at Renaissance fairs, and she knew from her husband’s training that such skills required a high degree of athleticism. Jay was slightly built but fast and strong—pretty useful attributes for a veterinarian too.
“You big turkey, you know darn well that Rhys isn’t home from California yet, or he’d be calling yo
u up right away to tell you how things went with our horses,” she scolded, though without heat of course. “As for Liam, yes we’re friends, but we’re not very close. He was a few years ahead of Tina and me in high school, so I never got to hang out with him much unless he was visiting at her parents’ farm. That’s where I met him, you know. Tina was having one of her famous summer campouts, and he happened to be there with a guitar.” She sighed inwardly. The difference in age hadn’t kept Morgan and her girlfriends—Brooke, Sharon, Katie, and Lissy—from having a crush on the guy with the sky-blue eyes. Tina often complained that it wasn’t fair having such a hunk for a first cousin, but even she had been completely captivated by the music that poured out of him like water from a mountain-fed spring. “It was amazing, Jay. I’ve never heard anything like it, before or since.” Morgan sighed aloud then. “He had so much talent, I was sure he’d make it big someday. He nearly did, too.”
“Wait a minute, this isn’t Liam Cole we’re talking about, is it?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
Jay whistled and sat back. “Starr and I saw him perform once at a bluegrass festival. I know what you mean about his talent. Didn’t seem to matter what instrument he was using, whether he sang or just played—the music seemed to surge out of him like he was channeling something bigger than himself. It was a damn shame when he dropped out of sight. We’ve got all his recordings, but I don’t think he’s put out anything new in a long time. Hey, he didn’t fall into drugs or something, did he?”
“No, thank goodness,” she said. “Tina says it’s a pretty bad case of broken heart. His wife cheated on him, they broke up, and he took it all pretty hard.”
“Hard enough to give up on his music? Might as well have cut off an arm or a leg. It’d be like you giving up working with animals—it’s part of what makes you you.”
Morgan nodded. “Yeah, well, he’s amputated even more than that. He’s pretty much buried himself alive on his uncle’s farm for the past three years. Lives alone there, runs the whole operation by himself. Doesn’t interact with people at all if he doesn’t have to, especially if he doesn’t know them.”
“Guess that explains why he called you instead of a vet in his own area.”
“Exactly. I always thought you had to be old to become a hermit. Don’t get me wrong, though, Liam doesn’t really act weird or anything. He works hard, he takes great care of his livestock, and Tina says the farm is flourishing. He’s a really good guy, Jay. But he’s locked inside himself and determined to keep it that way.”
“Must have been one mean-ass breakup.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it was,” said Morgan, keeping an eye out for the highway sign that pointed to the turnoff. “Liam and Jade had already been a couple for something like three years when I was still in ninth grade—they were the proverbial high school sweethearts and all that, you know? I don’t think either one of them ever dated anyone else, so that’s over a decade of togetherness. But it’s been three years now since the divorce, and Tina’s getting worried.”
“Could be depression.”
“Tina and I talked about that, but she doesn’t think so. It’s more like grief.” Even if nobody had died, there was still the death of the relationship to be mourned, the death of dreams. And Morgan knew from her own experience that grief was a process that varied from person to person. No one can say how long is long enough. “I told Tina that Liam will rejoin life when he’s good and ready—but I confess, I was crossing my fingers when I said it. He has to make that decision for himself, and while most people do, some don’t.”
“He’ll be fine,” said Ranyon. The ellyll sounded sure of it. “All a man needs is a good enough reason to live, and he’ll pull himself out of the jaws of Death herself, if need be.”
“He’s not dying,” Morgan said, then wondered if that were strictly true. Music had definitely been Liam’s life, and now it was gone. “But you’re right about one thing—he’s going to have to find something new to live for.” That she understood. Morgan’s best friend, Brooke, had recently proved to be just such a motivation for Aidan ap Llanfor. The big Welsh blacksmith had been on a quest for vengeance before he met—more like crashed into—the attractive young witch. Morgan couldn’t help but smile at the thought. Brooke and Aidan were currently on an extended honeymoon in Catemaco, Mexico—a charming city renowned as a center of magic and witchcraft. Bet he never saw that coming.
“Say, Ranyon, you don’t happen to have a charm that’ll help Liam, do you?” asked Jay.
The little ellyll shook his head. “Nay, there’s not a spell in this world or any other ’twill give a man purpose. Each must find his own.”
“Seems like some purposes come and find you,” Morgan murmured. Or hunt you down. She certainly hadn’t been looking for all that had come to her—especially her husband Rhys. His love would always be a source of wonder to her. Her life had been full and satisfying before he literally jumped into it. Now she couldn’t imagine a day without him. What if I lost him? What if he walked away, like Jade walked away from Liam?
It wasn’t so hard to see why Tina’s cousin had built a wall around himself.
The crunch of the gravel road beneath the truck tires was the only sound for several minutes until Jay tried to lighten the mood. “Hey, I hope that deal goes well with the horses today.”
“Me too,” she said, grateful for the change of topic. “Selling a pair of fully trained Friesians to the current world champion jouster? It would be incredible advertising for our center, and a pretty big feather in Rhys’s cap.”
“I’d like a feather in my cap,” piped up Ranyon. “Maybe a bunch of ’em.”
Jay looked doubtful. “Not sure they’d go well with the baseball theme you have going there, bud.”
“Well a’course they would,” the little man retorted. “Blue jays are birds, dontcha know? And where d’ya think yer name came from?”
“It’s short for Jacob. My parents didn’t name me for the bird. Or the team, for that matter.”
Ranyon snorted as if he didn’t believe a word of it, but he let it go. “If I could get close enough, I could charm the tail feathers off a live one,” he continued. “All I’d need is a few peanuts—blue jays like their peanuts like a warth likes his live meat.”
Knowing that the ellyll was sensitive, Morgan fought hard not to laugh at the mental picture he’d just painted. “What Jay means is that professional ball players don’t put anything on their hats. It’s a—a distraction to the game.”
Ranyon seemed to ponder that carefully. “Certain are ya?”
She nodded solemnly. “Have you ever seen Brett Lawrie or Chad Jenkins decorate their hats?”
“Ah, well, then, that’s a point,” conceded Ranyon. He’d been introduced to baseball by her dear old friend Leo, and it had been a life-changing experience for the ellyll. The game was practically sacred to him. “But it woulda been a brammer of a hat.”
Morgan was about to agree with him when an all-too-familiar sensation, gentle yet repellent, strummed her nerves like a silken cobweb brushing her hand. “Ranyon?”
“Aye, I feel it too.”
“Feel what? I don’t feel anything,” said Jay, frowning. “Please tell me it’s not—”
“Fae,” she breathed, her hands suddenly cold on the steering wheel. The knowing that she’d inherited from her grandmother was dead certain. “There’s fae close by, or they’ve been here very recently.”
“They’re not here now,” assured Ranyon, standing up on the seat and looking out each window in turn. He pressed a button to lower the window behind Morgan and leaned far out, as if to scent the air like a dog. “And a good thing too. ’Twas not just any fae,” he called back, the wind whipping away his words. “There’s too much power lingering here yet.”
Jay lived up to the slogan on his own shirt by diving halfway into the rear seat and seizing the littl
e ellyll’s T-shirt in a death grip. He needn’t have worried. Despite the wind that whipped past the window, not so much as the hat on Ranyon’s head fluttered—evidence of the ellyll’s easy command of magic.
But there were other forces at work.
“I don’t like this. We’re almost at Liam’s farm, and I can feel it getting stronger,” said Morgan. “What on earth were the fae doing in this area?”
“Whatever pleases them, to be sure,” declared Ranyon. Morgan didn’t like the sound of that. She didn’t like the look of it either when they rounded a bend and got their first view of Steptoe Acres . . . And the devastation that surrounded it.
“Holy crap,” breathed Jay. “What kind of a storm did this?”
Ranyon leaned on the console between them and shook his head, making the many copper bells and charms around his neck jangle together. “’Twere no storm that brought this mess about. The Tylwyth Teg were here.”
SIX
Shit, shit, shit!
He’d fallen asleep—how long had he been out? People with head injuries were supposed to stay awake. Liam didn’t know who had made up that rule or why, but he did remember it was important. Did it still count, he wondered, when he’d already been out cold all night?
All he knew for certain was that he was exhausted. His eyelids felt like they had lead fishing weights hanging from them, but when he finally talked his eyes into opening, a brilliant blue-and-gold light seared itself into his already-tender brain. He threw his hands up in front of his face and cursed at the rapid movement as well as the glare, certain that the agony in his head would drive him back into unconsciousness—or perhaps angry that it didn’t.
The light vanished abruptly, leaving him half-blinded. Gradually he pulled his hands from his eyes, blinking away the spots in his vision.
And then he blinked in disbelief. There was a woman kneeling beside him. A naked woman. A curvy naked woman with dark chocolate eyes and smooth olive skin. Her long black hair fell like a soft curtain over full breasts but failed to hide their luscious nipples. I’m hallucinating here. Gotta be. But as delusions went, it was a damn good one. Liam’s gaze traveled inch by delicious inch all the way down to her soft thatch and slowly back up to her compelling eyes.