by Kimbra Swain
I stood to leave. This was a bad idea. I bought into Jeremiah’s spiel about settling down. Fulfilling my duty to produce an heir. I knew I needed the strongest bloodline to do it. My parents were both essentially gods. I needed that strength. I chose poorly. Once Grace found out about all my lies, it wouldn’t matter anyway.
“She will forgive you,” Nestor said.
“No, she won’t,” I muttered. I didn’t care how he knew what I was thinking. Perhaps it was something in the coffee. It tasted a bit off.
“I know my own blood. She has a heart unlike any fairy queen before her. She will forgive you,” he said.
“Your blood?” I turned to look at him as he nodded. “What are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. Jeremiah rubbed his forehead. Nestor was talking about things he shouldn’t be talking about. I hoped the Sanhedrin didn’t kill him for it. “Stay the course, Son. She’s worth it,” he said.
“Stephanie said that she would tell Grace what I am and that I was brought here to kill her. It wouldn’t be a lie! She would break my contract with the Sanhedrin. They will hunt me down. My kind will die! All because I believed your stupid fairy tale,” I screamed at Jeremiah, holding back the beast within.
“I gave you exactly what you needed! You just chose the wrong fairy! That’s not my fault!” he returned.
“Both of you stop,” Nestor ordered. “Jeremiah, you of all people have no right to talk about choosing the wrong fairy.”
Jeremiah grit his teeth. I didn’t dare ask what Nestor meant.
“I will help you find a way to get rid of Stephanie. Keep Grace happy. We will deal with the fallout afterward,” he said.
“After what?”
Jeremiah knew I’d reached my breaking point. He’d told me far more than he should have. “Dylan, a storm is coming. One that the Sanhedrin will not be able to stop. It’s building. We’ve tracked the movements of certain parties who are working in conjunction to take down the entire leadership of the Otherworld. Purging the tenuous peace that we’ve held for thousands of years. Rhiannon, Queen of the Summer Realm, and Oberon, King of the Unseelie have an agreement to work together to prevent it or put the right people in place to withstand the onslaught. Grace is key. Her father named her his heir many years ago even though she was banished. Hell, because she was banished. Very few people know this. Rhiannon has named one of her daughters as her heir. It’s our job to keep them safe and in place for the coming war,” he said. “We are recruiting as many as we can to help. You were brought in because we knew that you would connect with Grace, and you have. We need you to keep that up. Please, Dylan. This goes beyond you and who you are fucking at the moment.”
“No. I won’t do it anymore. If she finds out that I stayed because you brought me here to connect with her and possibly kill her, she will hate me! No, I won’t. I’m done lying,” I protested.
“I just told you all of that. You aren’t here to kill her. This is bigger than you, Serafino,” Jeremiah said.
“I got that. Why couldn’t you just tell me that? The Sanhedrin will fall if you can’t trust someone else to help you out. To tell the truth,” I replied.
“You would have joined up? Helped the cause?” Jeremiah asked.
“Maybe, but you’ve made me into a liar!”
“You are damn straight you are a liar, and I’m tired of it,” her voice echoed through the empty bar. I spun on my heel to face a very angry fairy queen. How long had Grace been standing there? The possibility of all of this crashing down around us reverberated in my ears. My head started to spin.
Her hands rested on his hips. Her eyes were bright blue torrents. “Grace, I’m sorry,” I said.
“You should be. I’ve been waiting for you at the diner for almost an hour. If you were busy, the least you could have done was call me,” she fumed.
I gulped. I had forgotten to call her and tell her I had a meeting. “Crap. I forgot, Grace. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t possibly have enough groveling that will fix this, Sheriff. I’m sick of you jerking me around,” she said, waiting to see if I had a response. “Nestor.”
“Hey, Grace,” he said.
She sneered at Jeremiah. He had already received the brunt of her wrath. She turned her eyes back to me. “I’ll go now. Come on. Let’s go eat,” I offered.
“Forget it, Sheriff Riggs,” she said as she swept out of the room.
I looked at Nestor and Jeremiah. “You’ve got it bad,” Nestor said.
“So does she, but you’ll never get her to admit it,” Jeremiah said. “You aren’t leaving, Dylan. You know you aren’t.”
He was right. I had to go figure out how to apologize to a fairy queen for standing her up for breakfast.
31
Taking a deep breath to brace myself, I knocked on the trailer door. I held the stupid little package I’d come up with in my hands. No one answered. I knocked again.
“Grace, I know you are in there. Please talk to me,” I called out. It was yesterday morning when she stormed into our conversation at Hot Tin. I’d called her on and off all day through my shift. I ended the night sitting down the street watching the trailer like a damn stalker. I stopped calling. Around midnight, the lights went off. I woke up to Troy knocking on the cruiser window. I felt like an idiot. He got a good laugh out of it.
I drove home to find an empty house. Stephanie was the last person I wanted to talk to anyway. During the week, she spent most of her time in town at the law firm. She even had an apartment there. At least she was out of my hair except for weekends when she would show up and drag me to church just to prove we were still a couple. Even the sex had stopped. I didn’t miss it. I had a solitary focus. Well, two. Find a way to get rid of Stephanie. Then get Grace to forgive me for missing breakfast. Because if I couldn’t survive this one little thing, I knew she would never forgive the rest of it.
I knocked again. Rufus barked loudly inside the trailer. I heard her scold him. She turned all the lights off. I got the hint. Looking down at the box with a blue ribbon the color of her fairy eyes, I felt foolish. As I turned to step off the porch, I heard the door open behind me.
“Evening, Sheriff,” she said through the screen door.
“Grace, may I speak to you for a minute?” I pleaded.
“What’s in the box?” she asked.
“Something I got for you. It’s stupid, but I am sorry about forgetting breakfast,” I said.
“I’m about to go to bed, but you can come in for a moment,” she said.
I opened the screen door and followed her into the dark trailer. She flicked on a light in the kitchen above the stove. I sat the box on the counter. She eyed it but didn’t open it.
“What was so important that you couldn’t call me to say you were going to be late?” she asked.
It was time to lie, again. “Jeremiah had me there on some Sanhedrin business,” I said.
“You got there quick since he had just left my house,” she added. Crap. Perhaps she wasn’t as oblivious as I had hoped.
“No, I called him. He didn’t answer. I left him a message to meet me there. I had some information for him,” I said. This part wasn’t a lie. I had called him, and he hadn’t answered. “I forgot. Plain and simple. I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that. I don’t care,” she said.
“You obviously did. You stormed into the bar just to have it out with me,” I reminded her.
“No, I was just trying to catch what all of you were talking about,” she said.
“Well, I care. I enjoy our breakfasts at the diner. It’s my one time of the day not to think about this crazy town,” I said. The truth felt good.
“May I open this?” she asked.
“I got it for you. But I warn you now. It’s probably stupid,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. Pulling the box toward her, she delicately removed the ribbon. As she tilted the lid of the box open, she lifted the antique teacup out of the box. I had gone in
to the shop on Main Street looking for a teacup remembering the conversation I’d had with Troy about Grace. The cup and saucer were covered with red roses. Gold leaf lined the edges. She tilted her head as she sat it on the counter. She looked back at the empty box then at me. I grinned.
“What’s the joke?” she asked.
“It’s not a joke. I saw this in the antique store, and it reminded me of you. It’s really old,” I said.
“Dylan!” she growled.
“Hear me out! It looks delicate, but it’s held up all of these years with no cracks. So, it’s strong.”
“And roses?”
“Roses are a classic beauty,” I said. She got the implication.
“This is ridiculous, Dylan,” she said looking at the cup. I pulled a bottle of her favorite, Crown, out of my pocket and poured some into the cup.
“Now it’s perfect,” I said, watching her as she got it.
She laughed, “Whiskey in a teacup.”
SWAPPIN’ GRAVY
IS A VALENTINE STORY WHICH TAKES PLACE AFTER
TINSEL IN A TANGLE
AND BEFORE
SNAKE IN THE GRASS
32
“Levi, I don’t want to go out on a date. Let’s just stay home and bump pretties,” Riley protested. She refused to say bumping uglies because she said that both of us were too good looking for such a phrase. I didn’t disagree. She was a goddess. Everything about her screamed sex appeal. Long legs, long auburn hair, and the boobs. I was completely addicted to her. “All that dating is for show. We aren’t fooling nobody, honey.”
“But it’s Valentine’s. I want to buy you roses, stupid boxes of chocolates, and take you out to dinner,” I groaned. We’d discussed Valentine plans for several days, but she wasn’t having it. I just figured somewhere along the way, Riley forgot about romance. She generally moved from one fuck to the next. I was just the next, but while I was, I wanted to treat her right.
“Levi,” she said, sitting down on my lap naked from head to toe. Damn, she was beautiful. “I know that you have that little bit of human in you, and you have urges to do things that just aren’t necessary. Hell, thanks to Brock, more than half this town are fairies. Nobody cares if we date. Let’s just skip all the foreplay and fuck each other’s brains out.”
How do you argue with that? I couldn’t think of a way. Especially when she eased off my lap on to the floor. Her deep eyes darted up to me, and she licked her lip. I knew that look in her eye. It was the look that would leave me limping for the next few days, but it would be damn worth it. She ran her hands up my thighs. My jeans bunched under her palms as she pressed down hard, stopping just before she got to my crotch.
“Riley, please. Just this once for me,” I begged.
“You are about to beg for something else, Levi Rearden,” she smiled. I couldn’t win. I mean, swapping gravy with her was phenomenal, but the ticking of my human heart needed a little something else. Something she didn’t or couldn’t understand. I didn’t protest when she unzipped my pants. I had no willpower when it came to Riley. So damn beautiful.
As we laid, mingled together in sweat and other juicy things, I stared at the ceiling. “You won’t let it go,” she muttered.
“I didn’t say anything,” I said.
“You didn’t have to say anything. You brood, Levi. It’s downright ridiculous if it weren’t so adorable,” she said as she kissed my cheek. I grunted. “If it means that much to you, then plan us a Valentine’s date. However, if it’s a flop, I do not ever want to hear you ask for one again.”
“Awesome,” I said, throwing off the covers. I darted out of the bed, then hit the floor hard. My legs were jelly after the marathon sex session. She would be the death of me. Oh, take me sweet death.
33
“She’s right. Why are you doing this?” Grace asked.
“Because I treat my women they way they should be treated,” he said.
“It’s because of your father,” Grace said.
I spun around on Grace as she stood in the kitchen drinking coffee while I paced the floor. “It has nothing to do with my father. The father that did nothing other than giving me an unquenchable thirst for sex and good looks. He never loved me. He only loved my mother, and forgive me if that should be enough for me, Grace, but it’s not. So, I’d appreciate it if you would never compare me to my father,” I yelled at her. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t say she was sorry either.
“Okay,” she responded simply.
So fucking frustrating. “Are you going to help me or not?” I asked.
“Not,” she replied. Ah, I knew now that she intended to punish me by making me figure this out on my own.
“I hate you,” I growled. “I’ll find help somewhere else.”
“Perhaps you should listen to what she wants and just do it,” she suggested.
“No, she agreed to it,” I protested.
“What? After you pouted for an hour?” she asked.
“It was more like several days,” I returned. I hated that Grace knew me so well. From the moment she plopped down in front of me the day Jeremiah dropped me off at her trailer, Grace knew me inside and out. I knew her, too. Even more now than I did before she took on her father’s powers. The connection between us was overwhelming. At least for me, it was. When I was around her, it was like I knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it. I was going mad around her. It didn’t affect her the same way, and I didn’t understand why. Just a part of fairy servitude that I didn’t understand. She looked tired. She felt tired because I felt it too. Grace’s strength to endure things always amazed me. After what Brock did to her during the election, I was sure she could survive anything, but the power that her father gave her ached to her core. I felt bad for being such an ass to her. Then consciously I realized she could probably feel the whole thing working itself out inside of me. I didn’t know exactly what she knew and what she didn’t. “Get some rest, Grace.”
She kissed me on the cheek, sending chills down my spine. “I’m fine, Dublin,” she said, her voice turning soft.
“You aren’t,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ve got things to do. Winnie has a school valentine party today, and I promised her that I would be there. Her teacher expects me to be there to help. I have to go,” she said as she washed out her coffee cup.
“Where is Dylan?” I asked.
“Planning a Valentine’s date that I don’t need,” she smiled.
I shook my head at her. “What is it with you women?”
“Fairies,” she corrected.
“I’ll go to Winnie’s school,” I offered.
“Nope. You have a failure of a date to plan. Good luck,” she said as she closed her bedroom door on me. I felt her moving around on the other side. The power surging inside her. It amplified her senses, and her brain never stopped. I’d tried to explain it to Dylan because he knew she was struggling, but he couldn’t feel it like I could. He wanted to know these things, but it bothered him that I had the connection that he would never have with her. I didn’t understand because he had everything with her. Feeling her pain would drive him mad because I knew how much he loved her. I knew because it was driving me mad.
34
While riding my motorcycle through town, Grace’s presence faded. I knew if she forced her will to me, that I could hear her as clear as day, but for now, she drifted into the back of mind. I notice a bright red Camaro parked at The Hot Tin Roof bar. Maybe Mr. Sandy Hair (Ugh, I hated that I knew that name for him) could give me advice on a Valentine’s day date.
“Levi!” Nestor welcomed me into the bar.
“Hey, Nestor. What’s up?” I asked idly.
Dylan turned to look at me entering the bar. He raised his eyebrows at me, then looked away.
“What?” I asked.
“She just called,” he laughed.
“You know, Grace is the most frustrating woman on earth, right?” I said.
“Yep,” h
e replied, as Nestor refilled his cup of coffee.
“May I have a cup too?” I asked.
“Sure,” Nestor said as he grabbed a cup for me.
“What did she tell you?” I asked Dylan.
“Not much. She’s tired,” he muttered. She had been tired a lot lately. I knew it was taking a toll on Dylan as much as it was her.
“You planning a Valentine date?”
“I’m trying, but I can’t think of anything. What are you doing for Grace?” I asked.
“I’d like to tell you, Levi, but I have no idea what I’m going to do. She needs as much rest as possible, so I can’t really plan anything big,” he said, staring at the cup of coffee.
“I’m sorry. We have to do something about it before we lose her completely,” I said.
“We? Levi, no offense, I know how you feel about her, but we won’t be doing anything. I will handle it,” he said with a huff. He nodded to Nestor and stalked out of the bar.
Nestor and I sat in silence for a few minutes. He wiped the already dry glasses, an obsessive compulsion that he had. Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke, “You know he isn’t mad at you, right?”
“I know,” I said.
“He cannot possibly understand the connection that you have with her,” he said, which I didn’t expect him to say. “But, Levi, you need to stop reminding him of it.”
“He asks me about her. She clams up and won’t talk to him,” I protest.
“Then you tell him you are staying out of it. The best thing for them right now is to communicate, and they can’t do it through you. It’s not fair to you or them. Keep out of it,” Nestor warned.
“I have my own issues,” I growled.