Desert Tales (8 page)

C
HAPTER
9

For the next two weeks, the desert fey were quiet. Sionnach had called in what favors he could to assure that Rika had time alone with her mortal boy. Seeing her come out of her shell to be romanced by the human boy was exactly what Sionnach had planned, but as he'd watched them smile tentatively at each other, his heart hurt at the sight—enough that he'd increasingly sought comfort in a mortal as well. He'd let himself grow closer to Carissa, although he'd almost called her the wrong name more than once.

But the more time he'd spent with her, the more Sionnach realized that she was nothing like Rika. The two shared the same tiny stature, but Carissa was lighthearted where Rika was serious. Carissa was quick to laughter, teasing as if she were fey, happy to dance in the middle of the desert. There were no long-carried sorrows in his Carissa, and as the days passed, Sionnach had lost himself a little more in her affection. At first, he thought only to distract himself, but as time passed, he remembered why he had enjoyed frolicking with mortals: there was something pure in the lives of the finite.

Sionnach found himself temporarily enchanted by the girl with whom he spent his days. Today, though, he was interrupted before he could reach his evening date with the mortal girl. Maili had waited in the shadows. She stalked toward him, looking like something darker than should be in his town. At Maili's feet a mortal teen lay facedown on the ground. One arm was flung out so the fingertips were in the edge of a puddle. The streetlight at the end of the alley cast enough light to illuminate the blood that the boy had lost. The mortal was either unconscious or dead.

“You need to rein it in,” Sionnach said warningly. “I've been patient.”

“I get bored,
Shy
. Before you got so close to someone who used to be one of
them
”—she wrinkled her nose like she smelled something unpleasant—“you used to understand that.”

“Things change.” He was so tense that his tail flicked to the side. He didn't bother pointing out that Rika had been fey far longer than she'd been mortal. Mildly, he added, “People change; faeries change.”

“Not us. Not
real
faeries.”

“Even us, Maili.”

“Not all of us.” She took a step away from him, tucking one hand behind her back at the waistband of her pants, where he knew a weapon was undoubtedly hidden.

“We are strong, and
they
are disposable. They don't matter.”

“Mortals matter.” As he looked at Maili, he tilted his head as if his animal nature would let him see what she still hid. There was something more to see here. This scene was too carefully constructed for it to be about a dead or injured boy.

“They shouldn't, not to us,” Maili insisted.

“If we want to survive in the world today—” Sionnach stopped midsentence, caught by the sight of a silhouette at the end of the alley. He didn't need to turn around to see that the person peering into the shadows was Carissa.

He knew that the alley looked deserted to Carissa; she couldn't see him or Maili. She
would
see the body if not for the fact that Sionnach hurriedly crouched down and touched the boy's arm to extend his own invisibility over the fallen mortal. In touching him, Sionnach knew that he was dead.

“Sionnach?” Carissa called. “Are you here? I got your message.”

He didn't answer, and Maili grinned cruelly. Two of her lackeys came to stand on either side of the mortal girl. Carissa didn't see them either. She was a pawn to Maili, nothing more than an object to force his hand. The boy was killed to set the stage, to clarify the threat to Carissa that Maili wanted Sionnach to understand.

Sionnach didn't move away from the boy; he couldn't without revealing him. His tail flicked wildly as he ordered, “You've made your point. Leave her alone.”

“For tonight,” Maili agreed. “But I haven't made my point, not yet.”

He felt the wound that followed her words almost before he realized what was happening. Maili swung her arm up and slashed across Sionnach's chest with her carved bone knife.

“They are a distraction, Sionnach. You were so busy watching her and hiding him that you didn't see the real danger, the danger to a
faery
.” Maili unwrapped a rusty iron quad-pronged thing, and before he could reply, she jabbed it into his stomach. “Faeries have no business worrying about mortals.”

Maili didn't pull the weapon out of his stomach. She just let go. Sionnach stared at it, trying to determine the best next step. The pain was excruciating enough that he felt separate from himself, as if he weren't exactly anchored within his body.

Maili swallowed audibly before she said, “Power, strength, that's what gives you voice. You are weakening because of her, because of Rika's influence.”

There was no help for it. Sionnach fell, but he didn't crumple or cry out. He hadn't become Alpha in this territory without learning to hide his pain. In a sort of slow-motion tilt, he let himself fall back against the wall, and then he slid down so he was reclining in the dirty street. “That was really foolish.”

“Smart, actually. It's iron, Sionnach. Rusty bits of poison just broke off inside your body. The others will see you like this, an example of what happens when I'm not obeyed.” Maili sounded weak, shivery with either the pain of her own contact with the iron or the fear of what she had just done. She glanced at her hand. In that brief contact, it was already bruised and had raised welts from gripping the vile metal. “You've forgotten what you are, and I need you out of my way.”

“I know exactly what I am.” Sionnach slid the weapon out of his stomach. He didn't fling it away; instead he dropped it in the puddle beside him. He didn't want to have it tucked between his body and his hand, but he had no other weapon. He'd keep this one near him in case he needed it. Pointedly, he looked from her injured hand to his own. His hand was barely bruised by touching the handle. He was stronger, and they both knew it.

“Think about this,” he cautioned her.

“I have. Rule of might: I have it, and you're losing it.” Maili's expression was anxious, but she squared her shoulders before adding, “I just need a chance to prove I'm strong enough to be Alpha. You were in the way.”

“You're making a mistake.” Sionnach glanced at the mouth of the alley. Several of Carissa's friends that he hadn't yet met had just joined her. Despite the worried look on her face, she was safer now, and he was relieved. Right now, he didn't think Maili would harm her; her goal seemed to have been merely to use her to distract him, to make him look away. It had worked. Nonetheless, he was glad Carissa wasn't alone now—and therefore not as vulnerable.

Maili squatted beside him, glaring. “You are no better than us, fox.”

“Maybe not better, but I
am
smarter. Rika won't forgive this, and she's stronger than all of us.”

Maili laughed. “Power is only valuable if you use it. Rika doesn't.”

In silence, Sionnach watched Carissa walk away with her friends. He wished he could tell her that he hadn't sent a message and then abandoned her, but there were more important things than a few moments of her worry. Being Alpha in the desert meant that he had to put security and order in front of his own interests. Alpha was a duty, one that he sometimes wished he could hand to another faery—not forever, but for a few years so he could enjoy life more. It had been far too long since he'd had a true holiday.

Maili didn't understand what being Alpha meant. She saw being Alpha as a thing of power. It wasn't. It was a responsibility, and the only reason Rika hadn't claimed it was because she hadn't had someone to protect or defend. Now that she had Jayce, she was more likely to be receptive. That had been his original plan. Now that Sionnach had been poisoned with a toxic weapon, Rika had another reason to step forward.

Maybe I should've just gotten myself stabbed instead of finding her a date.
He wasn't quite sure which of the two had caused more pain. He closed his eyes with a laugh at his own expense.

C
HAPTER
10

Since the day she'd kissed Jayce, Rika had been happier than she'd thought possible. He was with her as a real part of her life, and the faeries in the desert had been leaving them alone since that odd night at Dead Ends. She knew Sionnach was responsible for that, but he acted like it was the most normal thing in the world to help her navigate the difficulties of dating a mortal while keeping him safe from meddling faeries.

Today, Rika walked through town visibly with Jayce's arm around her. Maybe Jayce was what she'd been waiting for all this time. She could finally have a relationship. When she'd “dated” Keenan, it had been a different century, and the Summer King hadn't ever kissed her with the sort of fervor Jayce now did. Keenan had never touched her without ulterior motivation, but Jayce . . . he was different. When he pulled her into his arms, he wasn't trying to convince her to sacrifice anything, wasn't trying to hide his true intentions from her. Jayce's only interest seemed to be making her forget the world around them—and
that
was an interest she could happily support.

Being with him, being out around people, made her realize how much of
living
she'd been missing. She wanted more of it, the silly jokes and the casual touches. She wanted to spend days doing nothing but kissing. She wanted to be lost to the dizzying joy of touch. What Jayce wanted, however, was more talking.

“I want to know you better,” he repeated. “It was a sentence he'd used far too often, one that hinted at more than she could offer right now.

“You
do
know me. We've spent hours talking and—”

“Are you happy being with me?”

She paused. If there was a right way to say that she was happier than when she had watched him in secret, she didn't know it. Instead, she said, “I never expected to get to touch you. I didn't think I'd become this . . . I don't know . . .
free
.”

“Free enough to answer more questions?” His voice sounded teasing, and his fingers trailed over her arm.

If Rika had only her desires to consider, they'd spend more time touching and less time talking, but she knew she was being unfair. She'd had time to learn about him before he knew she existed. Still, she let herself simply enjoy his caress for a moment more before asking, “What else do you need to know?”

“Everything. What you did before we met.” Jayce stepped away, clearing his throat briefly as if the temptation was more than he wanted. “I just want to know everything about you, your world, your history.
Everything
.”

She knew he suspected there were plenty of things she hadn't told him—especially when she slipped and commented on things she wouldn't know since they'd only just begun dating. The times they spent together, unbeknownst to him, had taught her so much about him. She'd already felt like she'd known him so well . . . at least, she had thought so until he took her into his arms. Then she realized that there was this entire part of him she couldn't have known until now.

When Rika thought about her life, about memories she'd tried for years to ignore, there was nothing in her remembrances that she wanted to share with Jayce. She'd made a bad choice, and she'd suffered for it until the next girl made that same foolish choice. Then she'd hidden herself away until a strange fox faery slowly lulled her into friendship. These were not memories she wanted to share—or even have.

As calmly as she could, she told Jayce, “
Nothing
about the past makes me happy. It's now that matters. Who cares about what happened then?”

When only silence met her words, Rika wondered if she needed to say more, but then he brushed his lips over hers.

“It's
good
that I want to know everything about you.” He offered her a teasing smile. “You really
aren't
good at the dating thing, are you?”

“Well, I've only done it one other time.” She tried to match his playful tone, but failed. So she kissed him and then added, “And he wasn't as exciting as you. He was just a jerk of a faery.”

“Right. I'm more fun than a faery.”

“He didn't want
me
, Jayce,” she said quietly. “And the person he pretended to be wasn't real. I wasn't a person to him; I was a game.”

“Then he was a fool.” Jayce rested his forehead against hers. Their bodies touched, and in the way he had of making things seem better with the right words and gentle caresses, he eased the shadows she was trying to forget. “Don't make everyone suffer because of it.”

Rika stepped away from him, trying to think of the words to give him what he sought without surrendering her past. “I'm trying not to. I'm happy
now
. I made some mistakes; then, I came to the desert trying to forget them. Now, I'm with you. The rest doesn't matter.”

“Sooner or later, it will. I want to be with you. That means I need to understand your world.” Jayce took her hand.

“
This
is my world too,” Rika objected. “I wish it was the only one. . . .”

He tugged her forward, but instead of continuing the conversation, he resorted to the only thing other than kisses guaranteed to make her smile. “Art fix?”

“Art fix,” she echoed. “Did you find something new? Where? Did
you
do it? We could run if you tell me where.”

He laughed. “Patient one,” he teased. “It's just this way. Let's walk.”

They walked along the street for a short distance, and then turned into a shadowy alley. Graffiti decorated the side of the buildings—intricate murals and abstract sketches, faces and artists' tags.

Rika leaned her head on Jayce's shoulder and looked up. “Good dimensions with the reds . . .”

“Too busy,” Jayce rebutted.

“Minimalist.” She mock sighed.

“The simple things are best.” He kissed her.

When he pulled away, she gave him a look of adoration. “Good argument.”

Then she looked back at the graffiti, smiling and leaning close to Jayce. They stayed together for several moments, and she marveled again at how much these past few weeks had meant to her. After long years where no one touched her in affection, now she felt like the span of minutes between caresses was too long.

Jayce motioned toward an opening between buildings, not quite an alley but more of a passageway. “Cut through here.”

They wound their way through it to a wider passage and then one alley and a second. Together, they crossed a small street, Jayce leading. Rika trailed behind him, holding his hand as they stepped into a third alley.

When she saw the ground, saw the body there, she yanked her hand free and ran. “No!”

“What?”

Jayce couldn't see because he had only human sight, but there, unconscious on the ground, was Sionnach. He was the only faery in the desert that she'd called a friend, and he was bleeding on the ground.

She dropped to the ground and reached out to see if Sionnach was alive.

As she touched his arm, he became visible to Jayce as well.

Jayce dropped to his knees beside her, looking as shocked as she felt, and she wished now that she
could
shelter him from her world. Seeing bloodied bodies appearing out of the air was understandably startling; the ugly part of Rika's world—the part where violence was not rare—wasn't something she'd ever planned to share with Jayce.

He looked like he might be sick for a moment, but then he swallowed and asked, “Is he alive?”

“Yes. He's alive still.” As she examined Sionnach, her hand brushed the weapon, still dirty with Sionnach's blood. She recoiled in pain and disgust. “Iron.”

Jayce glanced at the weapon she was carefully not touching now.

“Can you pick it up so I can have someone get the . . . scent from it later? To track who did this?” She knew she was blushing, as if the faeries' more natural animal traits were embarrassing. This, too, she would rather have not shared with him.

Silently, Jayce pulled a bandana from his satchel and wrapped the bloody weapon in it. His gaze darted worriedly at Sionnach, as he tucked the weapon into his satchel. Later, Rika would need to talk to Jayce about how attacks were handled in the world of solitary faeries—or hope that he didn't ask questions she wanted to avoid answering. For now, though, she was simply grateful that he was willing to help her and that she didn't have to touch the noxious weapon.

Rika opened Sionnach's shirt and held it away from his stomach. The gouges in his stomach were inflamed, swollen, and angry.

Sionnach moaned as she prodded the injuries, and she tried to examine him without letting her own whimpers or cries of fury out. There would be time enough for temper later. Right now, she needed to be strong.

In his state of weakness, Sionnach's fox-ish traits were more obvious. His features were sharper, cheeks more defined, tail obvious, and the tips of his pointed ears visible. He looked more faery than she ever would.

“Where do you go when one of you are hurt. . . . I mean . . . You can't take him to the hospital, right?” Jayce stepped back from them, near but obviously not knowing quite what to do. “I want to help. Tell me how.”

“In the courts, there are healers. Here”—she pulled Sionnach's shirt farther up, and she could see the slash was partially healed—“Shy will make do with my care. I need to move him.”

“Is he going to be—”

“He'll be
fine
.” Rika looked up as soon as the words left her lips and offered Jayce a contrite smile to soften the harsh tone of her words. “But she won't.”

“She?”

“There's only one faery stupid enough to injure Shy. Maili's going to find out how very idiotic that was.” Rika paused and glanced at Jayce, needing him to understand that she wasn't a monster. “I'll check first. Either Shy will wake and tell me or I'll have someone scent the weapon.”

Jayce nodded.

Rika lifted Sionnach and cradled him in her arms as if he were a small child. His head lolled back, and the fear she was trying to ignore grew.
Faeries are resilient
, she reminded herself. Sionnach had stood against attacker after challenger after troublemaker in the years she'd known him. Being Alpha in the desert was not without its difficulties. The difference this time was in the treachery of the assault. Striking another faery with iron wasn't done lightly—or forgiven easily. Either Sionnach or Rika would have to discipline the faery, make clear that such assaults could not happen in the desert, and they'd need to do so with enough force that no one else would attempt to do so again. First, though, she needed to remove the poison from Sionnach's flesh.

He'll heal. He has to.

More steadily than she expected, she told Jayce, “I need to go.”

She wasn't sure if it was the fear she was failing to hide or the anger that floated just under that fear; either way, Jayce looked even more worried.

“Should I follow?” he asked.

Rika shook her head. “No. Not right now. Tomorrow. I'll come get you if I can leave him alone long enough. . . .” She paused. “Do you have your phone?”

“Yeah . . .” Jayce pulled it out. “Who do you need me—”

“Call Del. Go be with him,” she interrupted. “Even if it wasn't her that did this, Maili is dangerous, and Shy is too injured to enforce rules. You need to go where you're safe. She won't approach a group. Witnesses can cause trouble with the faery courts. She'll avoid that. Stay near lots of steel. Faeries can't abide iron or steel.” Her gaze dropped to Sionnach, his injury proof of how badly the toxic metals could wound a faery.

Jayce hesitated, as if he would speak but wasn't sure if he should.

“Please? I need to get him to safety, but . . .” Rika wanted to let him know that he was something rare and precious, that his safety mattered to her more than he could know, but she wasn't sure of the words, and she'd already asked him to accept things far more quickly than he'd liked. He was trying to understand her world, but it wasn't easy.

“If Maili hurt you, it'd destroy me,” Rika said. “If you . . . I
need
you safe, and I don't trust that you are if you are alone.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “You be careful too, okay?”

“I'll come to you as soon as I can. . . . I need to get him home and remove the poison,” she tried to be careful with her words. “I can't take you both, and it's not safe for you to follow me on your own, and I can't let Del know where I live, and—”

“It's okay,” Jayce interrupted. “Go.”

She nodded as she faded to invisibility with Sionnach in her arms and began to run home with the unconscious faery held tightly in her arms.