Old Dog, New Tricks Page 19

  “Yes.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  His black eyes opened on me, deep and dark and fathomless, cold and eternal and lost. Lips bent in a mockery of a smile, he got to the broken heart of it. “You cost me everything, Thierry.”

  This made the second time someone had accused me of that today.

  “You can’t expect me to be sorry for doing what it took to survive.” I slid my hands into my lap, linking my fingers to cover the subtle glow of magic that could not save me but might distract him. “I did no less than you would have done in my shoes. Stop playing games. It’s over. Let me have him.”

  “No.” He picked at the collar of his white shirt, which was darkened with dried blood from his recent near-death experience. “Your whole life you’ve wanted someone to love who knew the worst of you and forgave you for it. I had that, though not romantically, and I lost it.” He crossed his ankles. “It’s fitting that you will too.”

  I launched myself out of the chair at his throat. Ice-cold arms encircled me. Arctic breath panted across my throat. Bháin restrained me while his master raked thoughtful eyes over me and chuckled.

  “Bháin,” I pleaded. “The Morrigan gifted him to you. Can’t you—?”

  “I am a slave, lady.” Chill words beat against me. “I own only what the master says is mine.”

  I screwed my eyes shut tight. “She wanted me to come to you.”

  “I think so, yes.” Rook’s chair creaked. “She wanted you to grovel at my feet and beg me for the life of the man you chose over me.” Footsteps thumped softly. “If you had loved him less, you could have been mine.” Warm fingers traced the curve of my cheek. “We could have been good together.”

  Eyes snapping open, I glared at him. “I never wanted you.”

  “You kissed me. Kisses are seeds of potential sown in the hopes love will blossom.”

  A blush crept up the back of my neck. “I thought I was going to die.”

  His hands balled at his sides, but he made no move against me.

  “You say you want to make a difference. You want to be an advocate and save other half-bloods from the fate you and your sister faced—so do it.” I struggled against Bháin. “Stop whining. Stop pouting. Stop acting like a spoiled little boy. Act like a man if you want to be treated like one. Get off your feathery ass and do something about it.”

  Rook’s eyes shot wide, and his mouth dropped open, but I wasn’t done yet.

  “Daibhidh is dead. The Unseelie will need a new voice in the High Court. Why not yours?”

  His head jerked toward Bháin. “Is this true?”

  “I heard gossip and dismissed it as impossible.” He shifted behind me. “How can it be true?”

  A smirk twisting my lips, I bared my teeth. “He had a disagreement with an ogre.”

  “That’s not possible.” Rook rubbed a finger between his eyes. “Mother would have...”

  “About that—” Sweetness and concern dripped from my voice. “Heard from her lately?”

  Gray cheeks paled to stark white. “What have you done?”

  A ribbon of fear sifted through me, panic I might have pushed Rook too far, but this still wasn’t far enough. He didn’t believe me. Not yet. He wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to. I had no proof, but I had an idea that might save my bacon...if Bháin ordered his snowflake-y minions to do some recon.

  I bumped my chin higher. “I propose a trade.”

  Rook backed away from me until his knees hit his chair and he sank into it. “The terms?”

  “You give me Shaw and a blood promise that this is over. That whatever imagined debt we have is paid in full.” I wet my lips. “In exchange, I will return your mother to you. She’s immobilized at the moment. I would prefer she stay that way until after Shaw and I are safely back home, but after that you’re free to release her—or not. That’s your business. She’s your mother after all.”

  Rubbing his hands over his face, he spoke through his fingers. “Bháin, I need confirmation.”

  The hands restraining me eased, and the sparkle of a snowflake fused with magic danced across the still air to hover over my head. Bháin commanded it with a flick of his fingers, and it flew away.

  “Can you call him off?” I yanked my arm. “I’m getting frostbite over here.”

  Rook gestured toward the chair I had occupied. “Let her sit.”

  Sit I did, and then we waited.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I’m not sure how long I sat there with Rook, Bháin standing behind my chair in the event I leapt for his master’s throat a second time. Long enough I worked up a head of steam. Knowing Shaw was here, hidden, set my teeth on edge. Aware of his suffering, Rook and Bháin let me sit and stew instead of taking me to him, letting me feed him and try to bring him back from the brink.

  A glimmer of magic drew me up straighter in my seat. The snowflake drifted to Bháin, twirling, singing in the same childlike voice I’d heard on my trek here. I wished the thing would spill it already.

  “Thierry speaks the truth,” Bháin announced. “Elena confirms that flurries stationed at the Halls of Winter saw the ogre drive Consul Daibhidh into the ground with his fist like a spike after he killed the Black Dog.” Curiosity lit his eyes. “Both sets of remains were claimed by the Huntsman.”

  Rook sneered at his servant. “They knew this and failed to report it?”

  Amusement tipped the corners of Bháin’s mouth. “Apparently, Thierry rode a dragon to escape your mother. The flurries followed them to the edge of Winter but then got distracted by racing the beast.”

  Seeing how I recalled the other dragons’ existence with perfect clarity, I was betting Blue voided the spell when he left the castle.

  Rolling his eyes, Rook scanned the ceiling for patience or answers. Maybe both. “What else?”

  “Aves have surrounded this place.” He let the snowflake dance trilling on his fingertip. “I noted them earlier when I went to fetch Thierry. They are hardly subtle. I assumed they still tracked her as the Morrigan had commanded, but it seems they are here to defend their new Crow.” He glanced at Rook. “Communication with them is beyond even Elena’s abilities, but the flock would not be under Thierry’s control if the Morrigan were not...indisposed. That Thierry sits here and your mother does not is more testament that what she says is the truth.” His gaze lingered on me. “I believe she is honest.”

  High praise from a fae. Too bad I was about to smash that feel-good vibe we had going.

  I cleared my throat. “Bháin, ah, is Elena your snowflake?”

  I swore his snowdrift-white cheeks flushed. “She is a flurry.”

  My mouth opened, ready with a follow-up.

  “Flurries are sentient.” Rook rose to his feet. “They’re kept as pets by those who command them.”

  The sour twist of Bháin’s mouth told me he disagreed with the designation, but he didn’t correct his master. From what I had seen, the two rarely agreed. On anything. Their animosity worked in my favor, so I kept my mouth shut too. I had no clue why Bháin sometimes helped me, except maybe to spite his master, but I hoped he would again. Rook was bending to the possibility of freedom—even if it was temporary—from his mother. I was tempting him with power too. Both played in my favor.

  “Shaw doesn’t have much time.” I clapped my hands together. “Let’s kick off negotiations.”

  A long moment passed where fear nipped at me like hounds on my trail, but then it passed.

  Rook folded his arms over his chest. “First tell me how you plan to return home.”

  “I can create a new tether.” Maybe. I hoped I could. Inspiration struck, and I added, “I would be willing to create the threshold in your home if you like.” I schooled my features to keep them blank. “If you control access to the only working tether in Faerie, the High Court must recognize you. They will panic when they realize the two realms are cut off from one another. You could step in and save the day.” I noticed the gleam in Bháin’s ey
es and added, “Though the same travel restrictions would apply.”

  Bháin smirked at me, but I wasn’t convinced he hadn’t been prompting me in the first place.

  I wished I understood his stake in all this.

  “There are those who would stand beside you if you but asked them, Master,” Bháin said cryptically.

  “Even so,” Rook acknowledged, eyes bright, “it might not be enough to sway millennia of prejudice.”

  “The tether is plenty, and we both know it.” I snorted. “You’ll have to fight to keep possession of it, but you’re used to that, right? The consul position is yours for the taking. Consider it my gift to you. This way you get everything you wanted—power, influence and...a means of seeing Branwen again. Though, no offense, I’m going to have to ask you to stay on your side of the divide.”

  His fingers stroked his shirtfront. “You would bring her to me?”

  “Sure. Why not?” I rolled my shoulders. “I’ll be visiting my dad anyway.”

  My dad?

  Where did that come from?

  “All right,” he agreed. “That sounds fair.”

  “Good.” Finally. “We’re settled.”

  “Not so fast.” He raised his hand. “I—”

  “No,” I said firmly. “Take it or leave it.”

  Rook eased to his feet and crossed to the glowing fireplace, giving me his back as he braced his palms on the mantle. After a moment, the tension washed from his shoulders, and he dipped his head.

  “This is why you chose him over me,” he said, voice almost lost to the crackling fire. “I force you to do as I wish, when Shaw does as you want for the simple fact it pleases you.”

  “You have a decent heart in there—somewhere—down deep.” I had glimpsed flashes of it. “You were never in a competition with Shaw. You’ve got to let that go. You were the glimmer of best-case scenario when my life was going to hell in a handbasket. We might have worked out in the end. I don’t know. It’s a future neither of us will ever see, and that’s just it. Shaw is my tomorrow. He was my yesterday, and he is my today.” I rose slowly so as not to startle Bháin into subduing me. “I’ve wanted him for so long, I don’t remember a time I ever wanted anyone else. I see a future with him. I’ve planned it out in my head a million times and in a million different ways. It’s not an easy love, but he is all I want.”

  Without facing me, Rook raised his voice. “Take her to the incubus.”

  “Thank—” I bit off the phrase before ending it.

  Rook waved away my words, and I turned to go.

  “Bháin?” Rook’s voice carried over my shoulder. “Don’t let him kill her.”

  Bháin walked ahead of me at a sedate pace while I bounced on the balls of my feet behind him. There was no mystical fated-mate bond guiding my feet forward, no sixth sense of awareness tingling in proximity to Shaw. Did he register my nearness? Incubi senses were razor sharp where feeding was involved, and he had gone days without energy from me.

  Walking the hall, I felt like a piping-hot carton of his favorite takeout delivering myself.

  Bháin paused in front of a door and turned. “I wanted to warn you what you might see.”

  “I’ve seen him wild before.” He had been starving, crazed when he found me in the caves.

  “It’s not that.” His gaze lowered to the doorknob. “The illusion—I picked it from his memory.”

  I shifted on my feet. “Okay.”

  “It’s your apartment.”

  It took me longer to decide why that might be a bad thing. “All right.”

  The fingers of one of his hands caressed the doorframe. “The one where you and the incubus first...”

  “I— Oh.” I thought about that. “Okay.”

  So not my current digs, but the quarters I’d shared with Mai at the conclave during the academy. I stayed on several more days after she dropped out and moved back home with her parents, and yeah. Memories. Shaw and I created lots of them on those twin beds with the squeaky springs and crinkly, plastic-covered mattresses.

  Knowing Bháin had seen that, experienced it, tarnished some of those nights for me.

  “I used glamour,” he said even softer. “I pretended to be you.”

  My throat tightened, fear racing up my spine. “And?”

  “He saw through it. Eventually.” His hand fell to his side. “He might not trust you until it’s too late.”

  Heart sore, I leaned my shoulder against the wall. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “He was mine.” His fist clenched. “She gave him to me.”

  “He’s a person.” A warning growl deepened my voice. “No one owns him.”

  “I am owned.” His gaze flashed to me. “Am I any less a person?”

  “No.” I straightened. “I don’t agree with you being owned, either.”

  “I knew I would not be allowed to keep him.” He murmured, “I wanted to know how it felt.”

  “How what felt?” The possibilities were endless.

  “The difference in how you love him.” Bháin’s brows slanted, and his lips thinned. “I saw you through your mother’s thoughts. Her love for you is part of every decision she makes.” He shrugged. “I have heard it’s like that with mothers. I wondered if it was the same for the incubus. If thoughts of you consumed him. They do. But the quality is...different. Darker, hungrier, possessive. I decided it must be the difference in loving that which you birthed and that which you aspire to create life with.”

  “Um.” The anger I expected fell away and left me confused. “You don’t know what love is?”

  “I can create the illusion, and it is flawless. Fae wonder at my skill.” Pride warmed his tone. “I am very good at what I do. Emotions, the meanings behind them... I lack the capacity to understand subtle nuance in the degrees of affection, therefore my constructs lack realistic depth.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “What do you do with the emotions and images you acquire?”

  “I create what the sidhe call sensation exhibits, where they go to experience that which they are incapable of perceiving.” At my puzzled expression, he glanced aside. “Fae are not human, and if I were to be honest, I believe that is the discordant thread that causes fae parents to loathe their own half-blood children when they evidence a spark of humanity that makes them more. They carry fae magic in their bones and human empathy in their hearts. It is one thing to gaze fondly upon a partner whose differences bring you pleasure, but it is another to bear a child who can see and hear and feel outside of your reach. It births a bitter envy.”

  “Rook never said how you feed.” I stifled a shiver. “You’re sustained by emotion?”

  Making him more similar to Shaw and me than I thought possible.

  Bháin chuckled under his breath. “The comparison is close enough that I will let it stand.”

  Learning this about him brought up all sorts of uncomfortable suspicions.

  Be careful who you give your trust.

  Rook had warned me about Bháin the day I met him. For once, I should have listened to him.

  “Your mother was a font of emotion, full of textures and layered meanings. I enjoyed my time with her.” When my teeth began grinding, he raised a hand. “I did not force myself upon her. I touched her in no intimate or physical way. I simply walked her thoughts to glean better understanding. It also allowed me to ensure her stay was as comfortable as possible.”

  “I’ve said before that I appreciate the pains you took to make her ‘stay’ pleasant.” I chewed the inside of my cheek while sifting through possible replies and giving up on finding a response that wouldn’t ruin our peaceful chat. “That’s all I can handle on the topic right now, okay?”

  “I wanted you to understand that what I did for your mother—for the incubus—I did for myself. I fed from them, learned from them. Though neither is worse for it, those were not benevolent acts.”

  Head pounding, I wished Bháin would stop talking before I resorted to the height
of immaturity and plugged my ears with my fingers. Granting him permission to dig around in my mom’s head had been hard enough, but discovering how he used what he learned from her and Shaw, that he shared it with fae who had no business knowing my loved ones’ minds or hearts, was a violation I had trouble forgiving.

  “I get that,” I growled. “Let’s drop it.”

  “I find I am having trouble letting it go,” he admitted. “I am experiencing...” his pale eyebrows slanted downward, “...I believe it is called guilt? I feel I owe you for what I have taken from them.”

  The admission sounded like he had spent too much time in the heads of people who loved me to outright hurt me. But was he feeling those emotions? Like a residual echo? Or was the knowledge of what Mom or Shaw might feel in his place causing him to—perhaps unconsciously—fabricate them?

  I had no idea, but man did it make my head hurt thinking about the possibilities.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” I said. “You want to make amends? Do that with them.”

  “That’s just it.” He offered me his hand. “I can’t. Your mother is no longer in this realm, nor do I expect to ever see her again, and your incubus is either unwilling or he is unable to feed from me to sustain himself. So I offer myself, my energies, to you instead. Take from me as an apology to him.”

  Rubbing the heel of my palm into my eye, I cursed. Accepting his offer was a done deal as soon as he made it, and I hated that, but the bottom line was I was out of juice. I hadn’t fed or sipped on anyone in days. I had no spare energy, and I would need every last drop to establish a new tether.

  The burn in my belly ignited, and I grasped his hand. “I accept your apology.”

  Interest crossed Bháin’s face when my runes lit, and I took the first slow pull of his magic.

  “It doesn’t hurt as I expected,” he said, studying our illuminated grip. “Do you need more?”

  I studied him right back. “Do you want to get hurt?”