by Holley Trent
She grabbed vanilla-toffee cones and handed one to Asher. “Sugar makes everything better.”
He wasn’t going to argue with that.
They settled onto a bench in the town square that was out of the way of foot traffic and had just enough shade to keep their ice cream from melting down their forearms.
“I’m not confident I can work with Keith right now without there being some conflict,” Asher said levelly.
“Keith has conflicts with nearly everyone,” Nadia reminded him.
“Yes, well, most people can ignore it. But I lived with Keith for a very long time and our friendship is…fractured at the moment.”
“Why? Sex stuff?”
Asher grimaced.
“It’s just a guess. I’m guessing it’s a good one judging by the flush on your cheeks. I’ve never seen a fairy blush.”
“Well. Unfortunately, I don’t have the constitution of most fairies. The thing is…” He cut her a sideways look. “You’ll be discreet about this?”
“You know I will.”
“You won’t tell Tess?”
“Of course I’m going to tell Tess.”
Asher could only stare at her, speechless.
“She’s going to read it off me, Asher, or the fact I’m hiding something from her.”
“And if she knows, her chieftains will know, and gods know who else.” He sighed. Shrugged. Took a bite off the decadent cream and tasted it contemplatively. Ice cream really was a healing balm. “Whatever. Just hold it in for as long as you can, will you? Until this task is completed?”
“I can do that.”
“I believe that Mallory is my mate. I’m attached to her in a way I don’t have words to describe just yet. However, I don’t think she’s interested in me that way, or in being in a relationship at all.”
Nadia whistled low and then made a “Huh” sound. “Weird. Didn’t see that coming.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. So, what, Keith doesn’t agree with the match, either?”
“Does he like the idea of me with Mallory? No. But to complicate the situation, we…” He made a well, you know gesture. “Kinda fooled around, me and Keith, and I know he was just doing it to distract and humiliate me, but the fact of the matter is that I enjoyed it, and I…shouldn’t have?”
Nadia’s upper lip peeled back in one of those very human expressions of “Oy.”
“And Mallory walked in on the end. Keith was unapologetic.”
Nadia sucked in some air.
“She quit being Keith’s nurse then and there and said something about me getting caught like that answered what she referred to as ‘that question.’ I don’t know what she meant by that.”
“I don’t know, either, but I think it’s cool that you bend expectations a little. You’re this kinda femme guy going after Mallory while frustrating the hell out of a jealous Viking. It’s perfect soap opera fodder.”
“I don’t want my life to be a soap opera. I lived that for far too long in Rhiannon’s realm. I want predictability and order, and to just…connect to someone. That’s all. I still think that person’s supposed to be Mallory, but I botched that up, huh? I shouldn’t have let him affect me that way.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she worked the end of her cone between her fingers. “Affect you…”
“Yes.”
“Are you attracted to anyone else?”
He gave his head a slow shake. He’d had to think about it, but coming to the conclusion wasn’t that hard. He didn’t even see faces the same way he used to. Even after spending an entire conversation looking into someone’s eyes, he likely wouldn’t be able to remember specific details about them.
He hadn’t been able to do that, he realized, since just before he’d met Mallory.
Huh.
“You know, there’s always a chance you could be with both,” Nadia said. “That’d make us royals feel less foolish about thinking from the very start that Mallory was suited to Keith.”
Asher gave his head a shake. The idea was patently ridiculous. “Keith and Mallory have been at odds since he arrived here. I don’t think there’s anything between them.”
Nadia polished off the last bite of her cone and wiped her hands on the tiny napkin that had come with it. “Too bad you didn’t witness my courtship with Jeff. You would have seen there’s nothing especially unusual about there being some frustration in trying to get Afótama to give in to their feelings. And I suppose it makes sense that Keith would end up with two. He’s the firstborn child of the woman who was supposed to be our queen. He’s probably got a lot of magic that needs to be tempered, and in my mind, the trio makes sense. Is he romantically interested in you and Mallory, though?” She lifted a brow.
“I think he wants her, and I think that’s why he’s been so resistant to her providing care to him.”
“Consider this, then. Mallory’s only half Afótama and your magic isn’t easily compatible with ours. He’d have to take what he needs from a combination of people. Have you ever thought of him in that way?”
“Well, I am now,” Asher said through clenched teeth.
He hadn’t thought of Keith in that way until the previous night. He hadn’t let himself. For too long, he’d been Keith’s caretaker and Keith hadn’t been himself when he’d been trapped in that rock. Asher had known little of his true personality or what his capacity for magic was.
He still knew very little about Keith’s magic, but he knew a lot about his personality.
Asher shook his head. “Impossible. He’s not a nice person. I like nice people.”
“That’s fair, and I support that.” She gave him a playful bump with her elbow. “Keep me updated on that front, though. I’ll do my best to suppress any knowledge I have of it for the time being. I’ll need to keep Tess distracted with other things.”
“Thank you.” He finished his ice cream, too, and took another deep breath. Nothing felt resolved, but that wasn’t Nadia’s fault. She’d tried to help. “So, tell me what you want me to do with Mrs. Petersen.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mallory
“Are you kidding? We’d love to hire you on at the hospital,” Gary Mueller informed Mallory and crinkled his nose. “But why would you want to come here now?”
Mallory crossed her legs at the knees and let her upper foot bob. She had an abundance of pent-up energy—so much that she was starting to feel like one of her kids after they’d gotten into the candy stash.
She hadn’t had sugar, though. Just an eyeful she couldn’t chase out of the forefront of her mind, and the memory of a Viking who needed to have the smirk smacked off his face.
Clearing her throat, she met Gary’s wary gaze. “My charge at the mansion is getting along fine on his own now. I’m phasing myself out of the job before they can do it for me.”
“Ah. Well, that’s logical. And you’re a nurse practitioner so I could put you pretty much anywhere, hmm?” He clucked his tongue and clicked his computer mouse a few times. “Got an opening downstairs in the urgent and emergency care department, and also one in general inpatient.”
“I’d prefer general.” She’d be able to avoid surprises from people she didn’t want to encounter if she wasn’t working on the front line.
“You can start in two weeks, I take it?”
“Two weeks sounds reasonable. I’ll put in my formal notice.”
He extended his hand. “We’ll make it painless, then. No need to run background checks since what they do at the mansion is going to be far more thorough than anything we do here.”
“You do know who my father is, right?” Mallory knew her query lacked tact, but she didn’t care. She was tired of dancing around the truth with people, and she wasn’t going to let Dan Petersen hold her back from integrating into the community the way she wanted to. She couldn’t give a damn about him, but being in Norseton was her birthright, and she was going forge some semblance of happiness there.
With or without anyone else’s help…or company.
She closed her hands into fists at the memory of the prior day’s betrayal. She couldn’t put into words how the spectacle of Keith and Asher had made her feel. Wounded. Or used. She didn’t know. Her emotions were in a jumble and she wasn’t in a good place to start teasing them apart.
She could do that later with the help of a nice glass of that illegal ale her neighbor brewed in his garage, and possibly some powerful cheese.
“Yes, I’m aware,” Gary said. “I won’t hold the fact you have an adulterous father against you if you don’t hold it against me that I’m a Fallonite.”
“So you don’t think my sister and I are shameful and brazen whore’s daughters for moving here?” That had been her mother’s self-deprecating attempt at humor before Mallory and Marty had relocated. She’d worried that people would always cast blame on her first for being the other woman and not immediately disparage the man who’d been delivering dick to women in multiple states.
“Nope. Once you found out about the place, it would have been foolish of you not to come. In my estimation, you’re just a Martian coming home to Mars.”
Mallory snorted and got to her feet. “You’re cool in my book, Gary.”
“Oh, good. My daughters said I was hopeless. Now I can tell them at least one person disagrees.”
Distracted by the stack of preliminary paperwork Gary had thrust to her on her way out the door, Mallory made her way to street level at the side of the building. She walked east toward Main Street, intending to grab the kids from school at the bell and have an on-time dinner with them for a change.
She picked her head up to look both ways and stopped there with one foot in the gutter.
On the other side of the Norseton square were a particular redheaded friend of leather and a tall man with light brown hair, chattering a mile per minute.
Shit.
She eased back onto the curb as Nadia’s head snapped toward her. Even from a half block away, her stare pierced. But then she gave her head the tiniest of shakes and turned back to Asher. They rounded the corner toward one of Norseton’s older housing tracts.
Mallory gripped her papers, pulse thudding in her ears.
Nadia knew something. Perhaps Asher had been the one to tell her. For whatever reason, though, she hadn’t seen fit to draw his attention to Mallory. She was obviously giving her a reprieve for the moment, and Mallory needed it.
Mallory hadn’t wanted to let herself wallow. She hadn’t wanted to beat herself up for trusting too quickly. Her wounded heart had been telling her to “go slow, take care.” But she’d been so hungry for attention and the kind of affection that only a lover could give.
She’d slipped, but she wasn’t going to fall. Norseton may have been the Big Leagues as far as relationship drama was concerned, but she could adapt. She’d get better, even. She always did.
She just needed to let herself process the hurt in her own time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Keith
“Don’t say anything to me,” Asher said low as Keith navigated up the walkway to the Petersen residence.
“I do what I want.” Keith could do without the fairy snark. It was taking all the mental restraint he had to keep his psychic shit pulled in tight to not alert Ellen Petersen to his arrival before he needed to. He could sense her on the psychic web, and she was definitely at home. It’d be just his fucking luck that she’d get wise and flee through the back door before they could press the bell.
“Lora hatched a scheme that’ll have Dan chasing his tail for the next couple of hours,” he murmured as Asher tried the handle of the storm door. Unlocked.
Asher held it open with his hip and poised his finger over the bell.
Keith might have done the same. He wasn’t going to give Ellen a chance to hit that lock. When she opened the main door, they were going to be nose-to-nose.
“The goal is to confuse her enough to make her roll on Dan,” Keith said.
Asher nodded curtly.
“Well, go ahead, then.”
Asher rolled his eyes and pushed the button.
Keith tied his magic down even tighter and ground his palms against his temples. Already, the headache from hell was building in his skull, and he didn’t think there was a drug in his medicine cabinet that would dull it. He’d need to get rid of it soon, though, or he’d have Nan on his ass, fussing at him about how he was leaching his distress onto the web.
There was only so much a man could do. Obviously, Keith wasn’t built to do pain and suffering well.
Footsteps sounded inside the house and the door creaked open.
Asher discreetly tucked his foot into the gap. “Hello,” he said cheerily. “So sorry to bother you at dinnertime, but I’m Asher. Glad to catch you. I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
Keith couldn’t see her from where he was because Asher’s body was in the way, but he could practically hear Ellen frowning.
“Meet me? Why?”
“Meeting everyone. I’m new here. I guess you could call me the reverse welcome committee.” He laughed. It sounded like a genuine laugh, too. Deep and full of chest sounds. He’d always been good at finding the humor in things.
“Do you mind if we come in?” he asked.
“We? Who else is—”
She couldn’t get the rest of the query out, because Asher had shocked her by taking her hand like a gentleman leading a lady onto a dance floor and guided her out onto the welcome mat.
The woman was wild-eyed, gaze darting all around as though she were looking for an accomplice or a rescuer.
Sighing, Keith pushed out a little energy to buffer whatever she might have been trying to project. She could send out an SOS to Dan all she wanted to, but the cook wasn’t going to get it.
“Have you met Keith?” Asher gestured toward him. “First son of the late princess.”
Ellen gulped and dragged her tongue across her lips. She was still doing that frenzied scanning. “Um. Yes, well… Many, many years ago when he was a much younger man.”
Keith scoffed. “Much younger, my ass.” He may have been tiptoeing closer to middle age with each passing day, but at least he looked his age. Her being a scheming, family-wrecking harpy had apparently been too much for her skincare regimen to keep up with. Shitty living was so aging.
“Mind if we come in?” Asher wheedled in that voice that always made Nan coddle him.
Manipulative prick.
“But—”
Too late, really. Asher was already pushing Keith’s chair up the single step to the door.
Keith took it the rest of the way and got over the threshold before she could refuse. He moved into the sitting room beyond the front door, not bothering to go farther. He wasn’t there for the grand tour.
Asher looped Ellen’s arm around his and guided her into the house as though the ownership of it had changed hands in five minutes. “Can I get you something?” he asked her and then deposited her into a club chair near the dust-coated piano. “Glass of water or something?”
“I’m…well, no, I don’t need—”
Smiling like a cherub, Asher pulled an ottoman across the room and sat in front of her. “I love the color you have on the walls. Is it pink or peach?”
With her mouth hanging open, she craned her head slowly around to see the wall to her left. “It’s, well, I suppose it’s peach.”
“Soothing, hmm?”
She blinked.
“I haven’t done any real decorating yet.” Asher tapped his chin contemplatively. “I mean, I have to figure out where I’ll permanently reside, so I suppose it’s a good thing I haven’t invested too much time in it. Not sure if I should be looking at houses or condos or… What do you think?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know. Depends on your needs.”
“Hmm. You’re probably right. I’d like to get a piano like you have and learn to play it. Do you play?”
She blinked again.
>
“No one I knew in the fairy realm really had any musical talent, but I suppose getting lessons wasn’t much of a priority when all of your spare hours are spent trying to escape the notice of a despotic queen who giggles at the sight of Sídhe blood. Hey!” He sat up straight. His grin was thousand-watt, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Hey. Do you travel much? I’ve been meaning to explore. I’ve never really been anywhere, you see. Most of my life has been so cooped up. I want to see Fallon for myself. What do you think of the place?”
“I—”
“I know you’ve been there.” Asher’s tone was mellow, but suddenly there was a hardness in his eyes.
Ellen didn’t appear to notice. She was too busy wringing her hands and casting her gaze about for rescue, but there wasn’t going to be any rescue for her. Keith would make sure of it.
Asher leaned forward, putting his forearms atop his thighs. He canted his head and narrowed his eyes at her. “Tell me about it, hmm? I think you’ll feel so much better.”
“I don’t…know what you’re referring to.”
“I don’t believe that,” he crooned. “Maybe I’m new around here, but I know things. Lots of things, like about Erin. Are you still pretending she’s your daughter at home the way you do in public? Because I have to tell you—she doesn’t claim you. She’s wiped her hands clean of you.”
Ellen’s expression suddenly went indignant. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she spat.
Keith didn’t know why, but he took offense to the woman daring to question Asher’s honesty and intelligence. He moved closer and folded his fingers together atop his lap. Perhaps Asher’s plan had been to ease her into a confession, but Keith wasn’t above using brute psychic force if he had to. He wasn’t going to sit there and listen to that bald-faced liar twist reality. She and her husband had put Nan in an untenable political situation that Tess had inherited and had to clean up in Fallon, and he wasn’t going to let Ellen off the hook for it.