The Trouble with Fate

by Leigh Evans

  “But this one.” I held it up to the light so that we both could see it. Pink-white light. Perfect in shape. “This was her first. She said when she cried that tear, she knew.” I turned my head slightly so that my forehead rested against his neck. “She called it Dad’s Tear.”

  I held up the new one, custom made by my own tear ducts.

  “This one is yours.”

  He liked that. What had been semisoft went rigid. “My eyes always burn when you’re near, Trowbridge.”

  His hand began to move.

  “Make love to me,” I whispered. “Just me this time.”

  Our heads turned together when the bedroom door opened. Cordelia stood, keys in hand. Her hair was held by a headband, a shoulder bag swung over her thin shoulders. She lifted her chin. “Can the fornication at least wait until I’m out of the bloody apartment?”

  * * *

  It did. Fornication waited until much later, but making love started the moment the door clicked closed. Different somehow, now that truth lay in bed with us.

  The only pain was the need.

  “Do you see me, Trowbridge?” I held his face between my hands.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Kisses. Touches. Small noises that led to bigger ones. Want displayed. Trust offered. Self-awareness fading to focus on touch, on sensation, on the growing urgent need. His breath, my breath, merged together. Body-slapping, sucking noises. Rocking.

  “Easy, sweetheart, it will come.”

  Searching for it, waiting for it, straining for it.

  And finally finding it.

  * * *

  He sighed. “I’m almost afraid to ask you, but what are you thinking?”

  “About when you almost changed into a Were. That was pretty strange. I thought you needed the moon to transform into your wolf. Ever heard of it happening before?”

  He concentrated on untangling a knot in my hair before grunting noncommittally.

  “Have you?” I insisted.

  He caught my hands and laid them flat over his chest. “There are folktales, I’ve heard, about one or two Alphas being able to do it long ago. But that was back in the Stone Age, and I never believed it. The only Were I knew who pulled it off was the scentless one.”

  “So what’s your explanation?”

  “Fairy juice,” he said with a ghost of laughter in his voice.

  “You hadn’t squeezed me by then.”

  “Maybe just being in a small room with you was enough.” He was studying our two hands; mine were small and white under his large one. “Anyway, I didn’t completely change, did I? It stopped. I’d need the moon to turn full wolf.”

  His nails were chewed down to the quick. I couldn’t imagine him gnawing on them, but by the same token, two days ago, I couldn’t imagine being cuddled by a naked Robson Trowbridge.

  His fingers brushed a tender spot on my back. “Ow,” I murmured, too lazy to lift my head from the warm cradle of his shoulder.

  “You’ve got a graze there. Did that happen in the bar?”

  I turned my head but couldn’t see much except my own shoulder, and his suntanned fingers softly stroking my pale skin. Kind of hypnotic to watch. Judging by his slitted eyes, also somewhat hypnotic to the touch. “Where?” I asked drowsily.

  “Along your spine. Maybe three inches long.”

  How’d I do that? He never let anyone get near me in the strip club. Maybe when I was falling down the hill? No, that was hours ago; I would have healed by now. Suddenly, the memory flashed in my mind’s eye, quick and hot. Me on my knees, furrowing my way under the hedge in Threall, Mad-one on my heels. I pressed my hand to my eye, and silently counted to twelve. Took a breath, to find the image of the crazed Mystwalker still crystal sharp. I counted some more, my lips moving silently.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said gruffly. There were salty beads of sweat under the thin mat of his chest hair; I rubbed his skin dry with my finger. You’re not in Threall now. You’re lying in bed with your Were lover, wasting time when you should be looking for Lou.

  “You don’t heal as fast as us, do you?”

  “No.” Wounds received in Threall take longer to heal. I’ll have to remember that. I wished I had Were healing powers and strength. It made them indifferent to the prospect of hurt. And brave when they shouldn’t be. Dad should have called for help. “Who was the scentless wolf who murdered my father?”

  “My uncle, Mannus Trowbridge,” he said, “present Alpha of the Creemore pack of kin.”

  There were noises. Traffic below. The ever-present hum of appliances and tick of the clock. But here, between us, not counting the uneven tempo of both our hearts, I heard only silence.

  “Your uncle killed my father.” There was a big hollow pit in my stomach. “Then he went and murdered his own brother?”

  “Weres can be like that. Driven.” Trowbridge drew long fingers through my hair. “Mannus saw something he wanted, and he found a way of getting it.” He curled a strand around his thumb and considered his hair-wrapped digit for a moment before he resumed speaking. “My uncle wanted to rule the pack, but he had a few obstacles in his way. My dad was never going to bequeath his Alpha flare to his brother, not when he had children who had a right to it. A stupider man would have taken all but one of us out that night, and then offered a choice to the last survivor—his life for the crown. But a massacre like that would have resulted in a Council inquiry. For him to get away with the murders, the passing of the title had to look organic, like it was a gift from one dying Alpha to the Were of his choice. So he needed a scapegoat for my family’s murders.”

  “You,” I said softly.

  He nodded. “Me. But before he could slaughter my family he had to figure out how to get enough power to flare like an Alpha. There’s only one place he could have got that from.”

  My gut squeezed. “Merenwyn.”

  “Weres can’t travel there alone, even if they want to break the Treaty. Someone had to lead him through the Gates. It’s not like—”

  “Walking through a door.” I listened to his heart thudding in his chest.

  He tilted his head at me. “That’s what I’ve heard.” His other hand went back to his second-favorite resting spot—my breast. Cupping it, he said thoughtfully, “Only those Fae-born can pass through the portals, and few of them have been taught the way to this realm. Somehow, my uncle met someone who knew the route, and was willing to lead him to the Pool of Life. He probably used some of that charm he was always spreading about when I was young.” Bridge’s lips turned down. “He was always smiling … always promising things he’d never come through with … Maybe he fell in love with…”

  The pause grew until I filled it. “Lou.”

  There it was. The shadow I’d kept behind me. When I was small, it had been small, but I’d felt its presence, and had been careful not to turn my head. But it had grown as I had grown; lengthened and stretched with every rationalization I’d manufactured. I didn’t need to turn my head to see it. Past the landscape of his chest was a window. And past that was a postcard-pretty spring day, with blue skies, and puffy clouds. But inside the apartment, the shadow of my aunt hung over my shoulder.

  “I don’t know how she did it. The portals aren’t supposed to recognize Were blood, but somehow she found a way. She took your uncle to Merenwyn.” My voice sounded thin. I made it stronger. “She was the Fae that broke the Treaty, not my mum.”

  “Yes.” His scent swirled in an eddy around both of us. “Who else could it be?”

  “For the longest time I thought it was another Fae. He didn’t have a face; he didn’t have a name, but it had to be him. Not my aunt Lou.” My mouth was too dry. I bit the edge of my tongue and waited for saliva to ease the ache. “I didn’t want to know. If she was responsible … what type of daughter would that make me? Didn’t I owe my family more than to go with her, and call her aunt? I had doubts, but I didn’t know what to do with them. It was so much easier to believe th
at she was guiltless. I was twelve. All I could think of was who was going to take care of me. I rationalized every doubt away, and kept doing it. Even later, when Lou got weak, and I was the person bringing home the food and paying the rent, I didn’t leave. I could have walked out the door, but I stayed. I told myself that she found me when I needed her the most and I owed her my loyalty. She found me, and took me away from the fire. She could have left me to the wolves, but she didn’t. It had to be another Fae that set that first domino to fall.”

  I shook my head. “Even now, I don’t know what I am to her. Does she love me because I’m her sister’s kid? Or am I her burden of guilt? Her redemption? How can someone be both sides? The good and the bad?”

  “It happens all the time.”

  I looked over to Merry, hanging off the edge of the lampshade where I’d put her after she’d taken the juice out of every living plant in Cordelia’s home. Other than some squirming—no, not squirming, more like two lovers adjusting to each other in bed, everything a sensuous ripple of gold—she hadn’t moved. Not only that, but she hadn’t spoken to me since I had made love to Trowbridge. No flashes of color. No soothing brushes of Fae metal against my skin. Another bridge had been destroyed; my stomach clenched at the thought. Everything seemed different in this new day’s light.

  “The amulet that Merry’s wrapped around was Lou’s. It’s how she got back and forth from one realm to another. She must have come that night hunting for it. Not me.”

  “Some sort of portal key,” he said.

  “I wonder if this is what it felt like for Lou.” I shifted away from him, but he moved his leg to breach the gap. “Your uncle used her like a pawn.”

  “No. They were equally guilty.” He released the strand of hair twined around his thumb.

  I tossed my head, and rolled on my side. The pillow smelled of him. “So why aren’t you doing something about it?” I asked, staring at the Vogue magazines stacked neatly on Cordelia’s side table.

  “Who says I’m doing nothing about it? I’m not stupid enough to go in there on my own, but I’ve learned patience. There’s more than one way of killing him.” For a moment neither one of us spoke, both wrapped up tight in our own individual hells. Then he sighed, and slid behind me. He pulled me close until we were as tight as two spoons nestled in the same drawer. “The worst is over. Not knowing for sure—that was the hardest part. The questions, the guessing … that’s done with now.”

  “I’ll never see Lexi again.” Or visit Threall.

  He held me tighter and rubbed his chin on my shoulder. “Probably not.”

  The pain was sharp. It took me a couple of minutes before I trusted my voice. “Lou loved your uncle, Trowbridge. I could see it in her thought-pictures.”

  “Thought-pictures?”

  I told him. Somewhere near the end of my explanation, his two fingers bumped into my ear. The peak of it seemed to fascinate him. I put a hand over his to stop him.

  “Does it feel bad?”

  “No, it feels too good. When you touch me there, it’s hard to think. It’s easier just to feel.” He kept running his finger over its curved tip. I felt my distress easing.

  “Can you see into my mind?” he asked.

  “No.” Oh, how I wished I could. “You’re not Fae.”

  “Let’s run away,” he said in his husky voice.

  “Where would we go?” I closed my eyes and thought of places we could run to. New York, Paris, London, maybe—

  “B.C. I have people who owe me there.”

  Oh swell. Let’s go live with a bunch of granola-eating, tree-hugging, let’s-recycle nut-jobs. But I didn’t say that. Thinking back, I probably should have, but instead, I asked, “You think humans can protect me against Weres?”

  “Not humans. Weres in B.C.” His fingers momentarily stopped stroking, and my tension started building. “There’s a bunch of them out there—all free-will Weres. It’s pretty out there. There aren’t many rules, like there are here. You don’t have to work for any of the Alpha’s approved companies; you can take any trade you want. We’ve got everything there, from artists to road crew to Internet geeks. Every four months we all pitch in and raise enough money to keep the Western Council off our asses, but for the most part, we’re too far north in the bush for them to bother with us. The town’s run more like a pirate ship than any Alpha pack. Some of them are a little rough around the edges, but they’re good people. I’ll take you there.”

  Wasn’t that a cheerful thought. “They’ll send me back to Mannus in a box.”

  “I’ll shred the neck of the first Were who threatened you.” His skin released a small scent-bomb of possessiveness.

  I felt my stomach get tight. “I don’t want to live among Weres.”

  He thought about that as he resumed his sweet caress of my peaked ear. When my eyelids started to droop, he murmured, “Then I’ll find us another place, somewhere remote, where you’ll feel safe.”

  A long thin streak of sun had laid a path of gold along the carpet. Another finger of light was reaching for Merry. I felt that squirm I got when I thought I was doing something right, but instinct was howling, “Be careful, danger is all around us.”

  “What’s wrong?” He inhaled then his hand went to rest over my heart. “You’re hiding something.”

  I killed a soul today. Not with my own hands, but it amounted to the same thing. If I hadn’t dismissed Mum’s warning about mystwalkers, those entwined pines would still be growing arrow straight, their two soul-lights safe in their boughs.

  “What is it?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “If it’s about your aunt, you need to tell me.”

  I pushed his paw off me. “Why?”

  “This is bigger than us.” He sounded like the Alpha he was supposed to have become. “The Gates to Merenwyn have to stay closed. The Council needs to know what my uncle is trying to do. When they find out that Mannus has the last remaining Fae in his possession, they’ll send a small army to kill him.” He rolled onto his back and stared up at the popcorn ceiling.

  I did the same, flopping on my back, but I chose to tilt my head to watch the morning light stream through the window. “And Lou too.”

  “She should have stayed in Merenwyn.”

  “I’m half Fae,” I said, feeling suddenly cold. “What do you think they’ll want to do to me?”

  “You’re also half Were. I won’t let them harm you.” Exasperated, he pulled me toward him again.

  I lay there, but I didn’t let myself melt into that boneless Trowbridge-let’s-make-love-again ooze. “What am I, then?”

  He didn’t answer. Seemingly preoccupied by my hip, he ran his finger along the slope of it, like a kid playing with his toy car, and then he tried to lay his palm flat in the dipped valley at my waist but it wouldn’t lie flat. His hand was too large, and my curves too serious. “I love your skin. No one has skin like yours.” A study in contrasts. My skin, whiter than white, blemish-free except one small reddish freckle. His broken hand, sun-kissed, missing fingers, with a crosshatch of pale white scars decorating the knuckles.

  I insisted. “What am I?”

  His voice was reflective and sad. “Addictive.”

  “You can’t keep me safe,” I said.

  “I can try.”

  I asked quietly, “Until you feel like you’re trapped?”

  A flush crawled across his cheekbones. He raised his glittering eyes to mine. Underneath the cold set of his features, I thought I saw something vulnerable. “I give you my word, as the son of Jacob Trowbridge, that I will protect you, Hedi Stronghold.”

  I bit my lip and nodded, and then leaned my cheek against his shoulder.

  He hadn’t answered directly. “Addictive” is an adjective, not the pronoun I wanted most. And protection doesn’t mean lifelong devotion. He sealed my mouth with his and stroked my ear, and muttered things into it that were neither verb nor noun. And for the moment, I chose to believe that when I looked
at him, and thought “mine,” he did too. I chose not to think too deeply, because that would lead me out of his arms and into a cold scary place.

  We made love again. Slowly, achingly beautiful. When it was finished, I wound a finger in one of his curls and laid my head to rest against his chest.

  “Robbie, I—”

  “Don’t call me Robbie.”

  I lifted my head, and gazed at him, disappointed. “I can’t call you Robbie?”

  “No.”

  “You’re destroying a childhood dream,” I said, feeling my lips turn into a wistful smile. “I always wanted to kiss you and call you my Robbie. I don’t want to call you Trowbridge for the rest of time.”

  “Robbie Trowbridge is gone.” His face was sad; the lights in his eyes extinguished. “I’m Bridge now.”

  “Bridge.” I kissed him and stared deep into his eyes, hoping they’d spark again. But they didn’t, and after a bit, I said, “They call me Hedi Peacock now. Helen Stronghold died in the fire.”

  And then I put my head on his chest again. Pulled my hair away so I could feel his flesh under my cheek. He began to finger-comb my hair, slowly, from my temple to its tip, each gentle tug weighing my eyelids until they drooped. I was tired. So tired. I closed my eyes as I felt his arm tighten around me. I would not count the minutes. I would just yield, and take this memory, one for my own—one that no one would ever share. “My Robbie,” I mouthed silently against his skin.

  I’m a thief, so I did what I do best: I curled into my lover and stole some time.

  Before time ended.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Trowbridge’s arm fell off my shoulder and I woke with a start. And then she pulled me. No slip, no slide. Lou put a hand into my brain and yanked me into hers.

  She’s waiting.

  For me? No, not for me. Waiting for something else.

  “Lou,” I say. “Where are you?”

  I can feel her impatience. And then she surprises me. “Quiet,” she says, quite clearly, with an authority I hadn’t heard in months. So I watch silently, and realize she‘s in the same room as before, but now I’m seeing it from the vantage point of the floor.