Sixty-One Nails: Courts of the Feyre (38 page)

    She turned her head slightly and nibbled my ear and then whispered softly: "Mine."
    "Am I still dreaming?" I asked her.

    There was a huffing sound against my throat, that I interpreted as more laughter.

    In answer she nibbled down my neck and then slowly, taking her time and with infinite care, she proved to me she was real.

    I woke bathed in true sunlight in a snapshot from Kareesh's vision. The sheet was strewn across the floor, striped by yellow bars of light and the quilt was mounded in a heap at the bottom of the bed. The angle of the sunlight told me it was late morning and I sat up in bed, stretching to ease muscles that I hadn't used in too long. I rose and went into the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. The shock of it woke me further, but still left me with a dream-like quality I couldn't shake. I looked up in the mirror, seeing a face that looked almost familiar. I had changed. In some indefinable way my glamour had altered, something was different. My eye caught sight of the reflection of my shoulder, showing a semi-circle of teeth marks. I traced it with my finger. "Mine," she'd said. She had marked me as her territory.

    I thought about that in the shower. I wasn't sure I was ready to be possessed in that way, but she had preempted that and claimed me for her own. If I didn't like it then why couldn't I stop smiling? That troubled me in a way I couldn't articulate all the way through dressing. I thought about it as I put the room into a semblance of order and then made my way down through the house.

    She was in the lounge bar where we had been the night before, wearing a white silk shirt, which she tied at her waist, along with a long full dark green skirt. She was sitting at the table holding a mug of coffee over a plate of sausage, bacon and egg.

    She put the coffee down carefully on the saucer. "Good morning, sleepy head."

    Just the warmth of her voice brought back echoes of last night, inducing a low tightness in me. I sat down opposite her, covering my reaction, disconcerted by the influence a few innocuous words could have on me. She grinned as if she knew exactly what she was doing.

    I noticed little changes in her too, or was it simply that I was seeing things differently? Her hair had a copper highlight I hadn't noticed before and her lips were stained as if she'd been eating raspberries. She looked up from her bacon and caught me staring.

    "Did you sleep well?" she enquired politely, as if we had somehow slept separately and she was unaware of my nocturnal state.

    "Like a baby," I admitted. I felt rested, restored.

    "Excellent." She put a piece of bacon into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

    "You?" I enquired in the same polite tone.

    She swallowed. "Me? I was restless, up and down all night." Her eyes were wide with innocence.
    "I'm sorry to hear that."
    "Don't be. I slept till late."

    "You're eating well," I commented on the full breakfast she was half-way though consuming. "Restlessness makes me hungry."

    The landlord appeared, whistling merrily and carrying a plate of toast for Blackbird. "Good morning. Can I get you some breakfast?"

    "I'll have the same, please." I indicated Blackbird's plate.

    "No problem. It'll be five minutes." He walked back to the kitchen, whistling the tune "She Moved Through the Fair".

    "He's cheerful," I commented to Blackbird.

    "Overspill." She grinned over a sip of her coffee. "Overspill?"

    "Our room is above theirs. I think they woke up in middle of the night and neither of them felt like going back to sleep." She grinned mischievously.

    I coloured at what she implied. "You mean–"

    "It's like when we were walking around the backs of Covent Garden. Some of my magic spilled over onto you, concealing us both. It's the same here, only it's stronger when there are two. "
    "Oh. "
    "Don't be embarrassed. It's a nice thing."

    I remained slightly pink at the impact we had had on our hosts, watching her eat breakfast.

    "You look different," I commented. "Nice. Fresh."

    "Hmm. It's amazing what rampant sex does for a girl."
    She grinned impishly while I looked over my shoulder to see if we were overheard.
    "No, I just meant you look…"

    "Contented?" she suggested. "Satiated?" She speared a sausage with her fork and bit the end off, making me wince. "No, I meant that you looked happy."

    "I am happy. It's good for a girl to get what she wants, once in a while. You're mine, now."

    Her use of the possessive pronoun echoed her words from the night before, disturbing me slightly. "You don't own me, Blackbird." The words came out sharper than I intended and her brow creased into a frown. "Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound as harsh as it did, but you can't own people. They belong to themselves."

    She shrugged off the apology. "I should have explained it before, but there was never a good moment." She dipped a piece of bacon into the yolk of her egg and popped it into her mouth. "Explained what?"

    "You haven't lived long among the Feyre, so you don't know, but they're different."

    "In what way? I mean, I know they're different, but in what respect?"

    "Their customs and practices are different. These days when humans choose a mate they sort of come to a mutual agreement about it between themselves, after a lot of dating and negotiating and promises and things. It's so muddled. No wonder so many relationships fail." She talked about it like it was an academic exercise, something she'd heard about, observed even, but never participated in. "The Feyre, on the other hand, are much more straight-forward and uncomplicated. The males make themselves available and the females choose who they like. It's easy. I chose you, and you're mine." She was very matter of fact about it.

    "I'm only half-Fey," I pointed out, pouring myself the remaining half cup of coffee from the jug. "And so are you. "
    "In this respect, that's the half that matters," she explained reasonably.

    "What if I don't want to be chosen?" I was getting upset, but she remained calm.

    "I told you, the males don't get any say in the matter. It's a female prerogative and that's the end of it." I folded my arms, feeling defensive.

    "You were OK about it last night," she commented. "That was different."

    "That's what I mean about humans complicating everything. It's not different to me. It's the same." There was a spark of anger in her tone now. "That's not what I meant."

    "Look, Niall. You're getting all worked up about nothing. You're only complaining because you're not the one doing the choosing. Tell me one thing, are my attentions unwanted? "
    "Well, no," I admitted.

    "Did I force you into something you don't want? I mean, I could understand that the first time I might have caught you off-guard, but the second, the third?" She raised a sceptical eyebrow.

    Whistling announced the return of the landlord with my breakfast, saving me from answering. I was still blushing when he placed the plate in front of me and asked me whether I would like any toast. If he noticed, he didn't say anything. I refused politely but asked him if we might have more coffee. He took our empty coffee jug and went off to make some fresh.

    "I don't know why you're getting so upset. Fey males can wait a long time before they're chosen as a mate. You should be flattered, it's a great compliment to be chosen so young. "
    "I'm not young."

    "You don't even have your first half-century. By Feyre standards that makes you a stripling. "
    "I don't judge myself by Feyre standards, and by my own standards I am a middle-aged man and used to making my own decisions."

    The smell of grilled bacon was making my mouth water and my stomach grumble, so I started on the plate in front of me.

    "You haven't noticed then?"
    "Noticed what?"
    "How much younger you're looking?"

    "Am I?" I looked around for a mirror, then stood up and went to the bar, staring at my reflection in the glass behind the bottles. She was right. That was what had been nudging at my subconscious in the bathroom, earlier. It still looked like the face I had adopted, but I had lost about five years, overnight.

    I walked slowly back to our table, glancing back to make sure it wasn't an illusion. "What's happening?" I asked her.

    "It's hard to tell. Your body could be changing because of the magic I awoke within you. On the other hand, you could just be adjusting your glamour to suit your mood. Are we feeling particularly pleased with ourselves this morning, by any chance?" she probed. I grinned, shaking my head. She was impossible. As much as I tried to be offended that she had unilaterally determined the direction of our relationship, I couldn't stay angry with her. She was moody, fickle, scary, soft, warm.

    I pulled myself back to reality and tried to focus on the food. But when I glanced upwards she was watching me, waiting for me to try and deny the truth. "What am I going to do with you?" I shook my head again.

    She picked up her coffee cup and looked at me through the vapour. "The same thing as last night, I sincerely hope."

    I mistimed my swallow and the piece of sausage I was chewing went down the wrong way, leaving me coughing and spluttering. The landlord helpfully appeared and patted me on the back while she sat and chuckled at me from the other side of the table. "Sorry," I apologised to him.

    "Are you all right now?"

    I nodded and he replaced the chrome flask of coffee.
    "Is there anything else I can get you before I go and do the cellars?"
    "No, thanks. We're fine, really."

    "There's no rush, take your time," he reassured me and then went about his tasks. I took a slurp of coffee to help the food go down.

    "Are we?" she asked me.
    "Are we what?"

    "Fine?" She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her knuckles, waiting for an answer. I put down my knife and fork for a moment. I was willing to let the issue go and see how it went, but she wanted an answer.

    "You'd better tell me what the position of concubine to Blackbird of the Fey'ree involves."

    "Very well. It's not marriage, if that's what you're thinking; the Feyre don't marry."
    I nodded.

    "Well, you get to stay with me and bring me presents every day, pamper me and bring me my meals, and every second Thursday you take me to my bed and then you– " She was grinning at me now. "Enough, enough. I'm serious."

    "There are no proscribed tasks, Niall. It's not supposed to be a duty." She looked thoughtful for a moment, as if she thought perhaps she could introduce some. "You have to understand that the Feyre have been having problems with fertility for centuries. During that time the practice has evolved of letting the females choose the males they believe are most likely to get them with child. "
    "You're not!"

    "I might be." She watched an expression of mild panic cross my face. "That's what it's for, Niall, don't be so naive."

    "But I already have a daughter, and I am definitely not ready to start another family. What about– "
    "Niall, calm down. It's very unlikely I'd be pregnant this soon."

    My thoughts tried to go in fifteen directions at once. "Just stop it. You just have to treat it as one of those things. If it happens, it happens. Fortune will decide." She was philosophical about it.

    "But I'm not ready. I mean, I've only known you for a couple of days and I didn't realise what the consequences might be."

    "Niall, you know where babies come from. You have one child already."

    "No, of course I know where they come from, it's just that I hadn't thought it through. I just assumed– "
    "You assumed I would take precautions to prevent a child."

    "Well, yes. This is the modern world, after all."

    She leant forwards, her face full of something raw. "Why would I do that, Niall? Why would I prevent something as wonderful as a new life?"

    I suddenly understood what I had said and how much I was hurting her. It was not the same for the Feyre, or even the half-Feyre. She was over three hundred years old and it had never crossed my mind that in all that time she'd never had a child, but I could see in her face it was true. I was a father before I was thirty and it had all happened so naturally that I took it for granted, never giving it a second thought.

    "I'm sorry, Blackbird. You took me by surprise. I was thinking of how I would manage to provide for such a child; who would look after it, care for it."

    "I would care for it." She lifted her chin and dared me to contradict her. In that moment I knew that if anyone tried to harm a child of hers she would tear them limb from limb without a second thought, and I was in no doubt she was capable.

    Since the break-up of my marriage I had drifted into occasional relationships, but they always ended bitterly when my erstwhile partner wanted more from me than I was prepared to give. The ties of my daughter and my ex-wife were just too strong, too tangled, to set me free. Blackbird hadn't asked me for more, but she'd taken what she needed and she was prepared to fight to keep it."I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't thinking. "
    "I'm not offended," she said. "It's just that you took me by surprise." She grinned at me again.

    "Not like that." She showed no sign of repentance. "I mean, you surprised me by saying that you might be pregnant."

    "If I am, then I am. If not, well then there's nothing to discuss, is there?" She looked defiant again. I met her gaze and there was a challenge there, a challenge to say more, to be more to her. I knew the words, but they wouldn't come. I looked away. She let me fiddle with my breakfast until I gave in and set my cutlery down. "Have faith, Niall, and all will be well."

    I deliberately took her comment in the wider sense. "I can't help feeling it won't be that easy. In the dream, Raffmir's sister was looking for me"

    She allowed the change of subject. "What do you remember?"