Summary:
Temp worker David Evans has been dreaming of Dr. Alun Kendrick ever since that one transcription job for him, because holy cats, that voice. Swoon. So when his agency offers him a position as Dr. Kendrick’s temporary office manager, David neglects to mention that he’s been permanently banished from offices. Because, forgiveness? Way easier than permission.
Alun Kendrick, former Queen’s Champion of Faerie’s Seelie Court, takes his job as a psychologist for Portland’s supernatural population extremely seriously. Secrecy is paramount: no non-supe can know of their existence. So when a gods-bedamned human shows up to replace his office manager, he intends to send the man packing. It shouldn’t be difficult—in the two hundred years since he was cursed, no human has ever failed to run screaming from his hideous face.
But cheeky David isn’t intimidated, and despite himself, Alun is drawn to David in a way that can only spell disaster: when fae consort with humans, it never ends well. And if the human has secrets of his own? The disaster might be greater than either of them could ever imagine.
Summary:
Professor Bryce MacLeod has devoted his entire life to environmentalism. But how effective can he be in saving the planet when he can’t even get his surly neighbor to separate his recycling?
Former Queen’s Enforcer Mal Kendrick doesn’t think his life could get any worse: he’s been exiled from Faerie with a cursed and useless right hand. When he’s not dodging random fae assassins in the Outer World, he’s going toe-to-toe with his tree-hugging neighbor. And when he discovers that the tree-hugger is really a druid, he’s certain the gods have it in for him—after all, there’s always a catch with druids. Then he’s magically shackled to the man and expected to instruct him in Supernatural 101.
All right, now things couldn’t possibly get worse.
Until a mysterious stranger offers a drunken Mal the chance to gain back all he’s lost—for a price. After Mal accepts, he discovers the real catch: an ancient secret that will change his and Bryce’s life forever.
Ah, what the hells. Odds are they won’t survive the week anyway.
Bad Boy's Bard #3
Summary:As far as rock star Gareth Kendrick, the last true bard in Faerie, is concerned, the only good Unseelie is . . . well . . . there’s no such thing. Two centuries ago, an Unseelie lord abducted Gareth’s human lover, Niall, and Gareth has neither forgotten nor forgiven.
Niall O’Tierney, half-human son of the Unseelie King, had never lost a wager until the day he swore to rid the Seelie court of its bard. That bet cost him everything: his freedom, his family—and his heart. When he’s suddenly face-to-face with Gareth at the ceremony to join the Seelie and Unseelie realms, Niall does the only thing inhumanly possible: he fakes amnesia. Not his finest hour, perhaps, but he never revealed his Unseelie heritage, and to tell the truth now would be to risk Gareth’s revulsion—far harder to bear than two hundred years of imprisonment.
Then a new threat to Gareth’s life arises, and he and Niall stage a mad escape into the Outer World, only to discover the fate of all fae resting on their shoulders. But before they can save the realm, they have to tackle something really tough: mending their own broken relationship.
Cutie and the Beast #1
Chapter One
David Evans carried his aunt Cassie from her bedroom to the sun porch, laughing at her squeak of protest.
“Put me down, you dreadful boy. I’m capable of walking through the house on my own.”
“I’m showing off for you. Stop fussing or you’ll wound my masculine pride.” He settled her on the chaise, angling it for a perfect view of her beloved garden. The morning sun was flooding the room with the crisp light of almost-summer. From a big cage in the corner, her zebra finches beeped in cheerful counterpoint to the lazy buzz of bees in the hollyhocks outside the window screens. “And you know how I love to pamper you.”
She patted his arm, smiling up at him as he smoothed a coverlet over her knees. “You look very handsome this morning, Davey.” A faint Welsh lilt still shaded her voice, even after six decades of living in Oregon. “I’ve not seen that tie before, have I?”
“What, this old thing?” David flicked the corner of the blue-on-blue polka-dot bow tie he’d saved for this exact occasion. “I start a new gig today, Auntie. Temporary office manager for a real live health care provider, so I dress to impress.”
“Really?” Her fragile skin puckered between where her eyebrows used to be. “Ms. Fischer assigned you to a medical practice?”
David dodged her shrewd gaze by fiddling with the blinds, adjusting them so the sun didn’t shine directly in her face. “Sandra’s out with a nasty flu. Her assistant is the one who placed me.”
When poor frazzled Tracy had called with the offer, he’d almost reminded her he’d been permanently exiled to telecommuting limbo. But then she’d told him the job was for Dr. Alun Kendrick.
Just once, a few months ago, he’d had a very small transcription assignment for the psychologist. He’d prayed for another, because, God, that voice. A British accent that put Colin Firth to shame. No doubt about it, the man was total ear candy.
So he’d neglected to mention that Sandra had banned him from office positions for life. On paper, he fit this position perfectly. In practice . . . well, there was always a first time. Besides, forgiveness? Way easier than permission.
“Are you sure this is wise?” Aunt Cassie’s mouth quirked up in a ghost of her old sly grin. “The last time, you caused a riot. In a dentist’s office.”
“I did not cause the riot.” He propped her cane within easy reach and dropped a kiss on her rainbow head scarf. “I was merely present when it occurred, and clearly those men were either unbalanced or laboring under the severe stress of looming root canals.”
He nudged her hip gently with his knee and sat beside her, his arm around her thin shoulders. “It’s the ideal job. Swing shift, two until ten, so I can still handle my billing and transcription assignments in the morning. Plus, it’s indefinite, maybe permanent. Tracy hinted that the regular office manager might not return from maternity leave.”
Aunt Cassie plucked at the blanket on her lap, pulling out tiny tufts of green and blue fluff. “Don’t hope for someone else’s misfortune, Davey. It’s bad for your spirit.”
“I’m not. Truly, I’m not. But if she chooses to spend longer at home with her baby, I’m more than happy to keep her chair warm and her desk competently staffed.”
She sighed. “All right. You know best. Show me your lucky earring.”
David turned his head to flash the onyx stud his aunt had given him on his thirteenth birthday. “Never without it.”
“You have your worry stone?”
He pulled the purple quartz oval out of his blazer pocket, thumbing the shallow dip in its top face, the familiar shape smooth and cool in his hand. “Always. Now . . .” He stood up, brushing green fuzz off his gray trousers. “I won’t be home until eleven, but I’ll have my cell phone with me every minute. Lorraine should be here any second to sit with you until Peggy brings your dinner at six, but if you need me, you call. Understood?”
“Pooh.” She scrunched her face in a near-pout. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
He picked up her pill bottle—just as full as it was yesterday. On days like today, when he’d sent off yet another partial payment to the clinic, begging for patience and an extension, he missed the time when the only things he had to worry about were studying for his next anatomy exam, or wondering why his latest sort-of-boyfriend had suddenly turned into a jealous douche bag.
And when Aunt Cassie wouldn’t even comply with the doctor’s orders for the treatment that kept David working as many hours as he could swing—and still barely earning enough to keep them from losing their home? Argh.
“Auntie, how many times do I have to—” He took a deep breath. Don’t be a jerk. You can’t browbeat someone into getting better. He rattled the pill bottle, waggling his eyebrows. “Could you at least try to do what the doctor says?”
Pink tinged her pale cheeks, but she met his gaze calmly. “I’ve been an adult for several times your lifetime. I’ve earned the right to control the end of my own.”
David’s heart tried to scrunch itself into a fetal position. No. No. No and no and no. Life without his aunt? The thought made him want to lie down on the floor and drum his heels against the hardwood like he’d done as a temper-prone toddler, or hide in the closet and rock in denial like he’d done during his years in foster care.
Instead, he dropped to his knees and took her hands. “Auntie, you’re the only family I’ve got. I want to keep you around as long as possible. Please?”
“Ach, Davey. How can I say no to that?” She sighed and took the pills from him. “Revolting little objects.”
“I know, so thank you.” He kissed her forehead. “Love you. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Be careful, cariad.” She rested one palm against his cheek. “You leap into things, heart first. Don’t be too quick to believe this your belonging place. Wait a bit. Learn how the days play out.”
David dropped his gaze from her bird-bright eyes. She had a point, but he couldn’t help it. Something about this job felt so right, as if the ultimate assignment had come along exactly when he was able to snag it.
His cheerful honorary aunt Peggy, one of his aunt’s six closest friends, would say his stars were in alignment. Aunt Regan, the more mordant one, would call it fate. But he didn’t care what any of them called it; he called it perfect.
He’d make it perfect, damn it. This time for sure.
***
A beast loomed in the stairwell, hulking and monstrous and far too savage to be contained by the glass door panel with its flimsy safety mesh.
Alun Kendrick’s pulse bucked like a frightened mare. He grabbed the door handle, teeth bared in the battle rictus of a Sidhe warrior.
Undeterred, the beast mirrored him, grimace for grimace, scowl for scowl, glare for glare.
Oak and thorn, not again. He released the doorknob with a groan. It’s been two hundred years, Kendrick. You ought to be accustomed to your own reflection by now. But intellectual acceptance didn’t trump his instinctive revulsion at the sight of his grotesque features.
Beauty was a prerequisite for admittance to the Seelie Court, a tenet so basic he’d never thought to question its fairness. There’d been no need—he’d met that restriction for millennia—but he bloody well violated it now.
As long as he wore this face, the gates of Faerie were barred to him. He’d have preferred a death curse to this exile and all-consuming guilt, but he’d not been given that choice.
He shoved the stairwell door open and took the stairs two at a time, down the six flights from his top-floor flat to his clinic offices. With the curse robbing him of nearly all his former abilities, he knew better than to take the elevator. He could pass unnoticed as long as he was moving, but his paltry glamourie of not-here couldn’t stand up to the scrutiny of a bored human in an enclosed space.
Stairs were by far the safer choice.
When he emerged from the stairwell into the corridor that led to his clinic, his nerves flared again.
Intruder.
Stomach jolting toward his spine, he rushed halfway down the hall, reaching reflexively for his sword. Fool. You haven’t worn a scabbard in two centuries. He stopped and rested his hand against the wall, willing his battle reflexes to stand down. You carry a briefcase now, not a broadsword.
Besides, this intrusion, while not welcome, was anticipated. His office manager, a werewolf expecting her first child, had taken early maternity leave, collateral damage in the F1W2 flu that had approached epidemic proportions in the shifter community. Although it only affected the big cats, her father-in-law had demanded she retire to their compound to await the birth. Something about impending grandfatherhood had turned the normally tough and pragmatic alpha of the Multnomah wolf pack into a skittish old hen.
Alun opened his clinic door and slipped into the reception lobby. While the need for a temp irritated him, he had no intention of frightening her senseless before she brewed the coffee. He might be a monster, but he wasn’t an idiot.
“Hello? It’s Dr. Kendrick.”
A narrow band of sunlight spilled through open blinds, gilding the carpet with a stripe of gold, and Alun rethought his don’t-frighten-the-temp-senseless policy. Damn it to all the hells, hadn’t she bothered to read the office procedures manual?
Blinds must remain closed during daylight hours.
Throughout most of the year, the north-facing windows wouldn’t admit enough sunlight to injure any but the most helio-sensitive of his clients, and his clinic hours—midafternoon through evening—were arranged to further minimize exposure. This close to the solstice, however, the sun’s angle was acute enough to bleed into the room. She should know that. Every supe in the Pacific Northwest knew that.
A growl rumbling in his throat, he yanked the cords, plunging the room into soothing shadow. He stalked down the hallway, searching for the temp. No one was cowering in the break room, nor the restroom, nor the supply closet that housed the copier and printer.
Where the bloody hells was she? As a rule, people didn’t run until after they’d gotten a look at him, although few supes had cause to balk. Many of them looked nearly as bad at certain phases of the moon or after an ill-considered blood bender.
Cursing under his breath, he threw open the door to his inner office and came face to posterior with the most perfect arse he’d seen since the day he left Faerie.
A human arse.
Flaming abyss, had everyone at Fischer Temps run mad, or only Sandra Fischer herself?
The slender man in indecently well-cut trousers and a fitted dress shirt was standing on Alun’s desk atop the latest Physician’s Desk Reference and two of Alun’s heftiest old text books, arms stretched overhead as he fiddled with the light bulbs in the track lighting. His shirttails, partly untucked, displayed a tantalizing arc of skin over one hip.
Alun’s mouth went dry, an unexpected surge of want sizzling from the base of his outsized skull to his bollocks.
No, damn it. He’s human. Humans were off-limits for so many reasons, not least of which was that heavy sedation and years of therapy lay in store for any unlucky enough to see his face. No non-supe was allowed knowledge of the supernatural world without the express permission of the all ruling councils, under pain of . . . well . . . pain.
Excruciating, never-ending pain.
He thrust his unwelcome desire away, which his strict century-old vow of abstinence made more difficult than he wanted to admit. He tossed his briefcase on the love seat next to the door and stalked across the office to stand behind the human.
“What in all the bloody hells do you think you’re about?”
“Dr. Kendrick.” Despite Alun’s less than hospitable words, the man’s mellow tenor held welcome, not alarm.
He turned. Eyes widening under a slash of dark brows, he inhaled sharply and his smile faltered. Alun caught a brief impression of an upper lip shaped like the longbow he had last held the day he left Faerie. Enchanting.
Then the man lost his footing on the teetering pile of books, and stumbled backward, slipping on a stack of Psychology Today. His feet flew out from under him, along with a spray of magazines, and he toppled right into Alun’s arms.
Merciful Goddess. Alun hadn’t been within intimate-touching distance of a man since 1898. No wonder then that his breath sped up, his blood burning like molten silver in his veins. His cock suddenly hard behind his fly.
He inhaled, slow and deep. This was what a man’s skin smelled like when he was fresh from the bath and not the battlefield. Vivid and forest wild, with a faint undertone of salt and a hint of musk. This was what a man’s hair looked like, shiny and flyaway, gold threads glinting among the peat brown, finer than any pelt yet coarser than a woman’s or child’s. This was what a man felt like in his arms, alive and warm and—
Shite. Human.
To the human’s credit, he didn’t shriek or faint, nor did he struggle or try to escape. Instead, he remained cradled in Alun’s arms, tilted his chin, and blinked eyes the color of a storm-clouded lake. An erratic pulse beat in the angle of his jaw, betraying that he wasn’t as calm as he pretended, a bright—and undoubtedly false—smile curving that tempting mouth.
“How do you do? I’m David Evans, your new temp office manager.”
“I don’t think so.”
Alun set the man on his feet and escaped behind his desk before the state of his trousers could reveal his inconvenient reaction. Thank the Goddess he no longer wore doublet and hose.
The human, David—although despite endless years in exile, Alun mentally translated the name to its Welsh form, Dafydd—sidled away under the guise of picking up the scattered magazines and reshelving the books he’d used as an impromptu stepping stool.
“Yes, indeed I am.” He didn’t lift his gaze to Alun’s face, and who could blame him? “Don’t worry. Tracy filled me in—”
“Not Sandra?”
David shook his hair out of his eyes. “Sandra’s out with that bug that’s going around, I’m afraid, but you know she trusts Tracy to fill in for her or she wouldn’t employ her. Sandra insists on the best.”
She did, and she’d hear about this outrageous infraction, flu or no flu. Supe business, supe temps. That was the foundation—the absolute guarantee—of her company. She was a panther shifter, damn it, with the responsibility to adequately brief her staff.
“You’ve no business in here. My office is off-limits.” Especially to humans, however beautiful they might be.
“The lights above your desk. They . . .” David cast a brief glance at him from under unfairly long eyelashes and swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding beneath the honey-smooth skin above his collar. “They were failing. I wanted to change them before they burned out so—”
“Did you not consider that I keep them dim on purpose?” Alun thrust his head forward into the merciless light. Flinching, David stumbled back, the unmistakable tang of fear tainting his seductive clean-man scent. Good. He should be afraid. He should be afraid, and he should be gone. “You think anyone wants to look at this face too closely while they’re spilling the secrets of their soul?”
David pressed his lips together, no doubt to hide their trembling. Alun should have felt gratified that he’d succeeded in intimidating the man. A necessary evil, for his own sake as well as for the safety of the supe communities. But a whisper of regret, the shadow of sorrow for something he could never have again, raised a lump in his throat and tightened his chest.
Yes, the human must leave, no matter how much Alun’s awakening libido regretted the necessity.
Instead of bolting out the door, however, David took a deep breath, a mulish cast to his pointed chin, and stared Alun straight in the eye. “If you prefer to remain in the dark, that’s your choice and privilege. After all, you’re the doctor.”
The Druid Next Door #2
Chapter One
A jar of pickles.
A fecking jar of fecking pickles, gods damn it to all the hells.
Mal Kendrick stood in the middle of his kitchen, the victorious pickle jar jammed in the crook of his right elbow, his thrice-blasted useless right hand flapping in the air. Foil a coup to topple the Queen from her throne and this is my reward?
Sod it, he was a bloody legend on both sides of the Faerie threshold: the never-defeated Enforcer of the Seelie Court, the designated muscle for every supe council from vampire to dragon shifter, the undisputed lord of Outer World bar hookups, who’d never failed to pull the hottest man in the place for his shag-du-jour.
Yet he was helpless against a jar of fecking pickles.
“It’s not fair.”
“Talking to yourself is a sign of mental instability, Mal.” His brother-in-law swept into the kitchen, a grocery bag in one arm and a cardboard box tucked under the other.
At least David hadn’t brought his infernal physical therapy machine this time.
“Don’t you ever knock?” Mal set the pickles on the counter next to the bloody energy-efficient refrigerator.
“Why bother? You never answer.”
“I could have been banging some guy over the counter for all you know,” Mal grumbled, relieving David of the grocery bag with his left hand.
“In that case, I’d have discreetly withdrawn and done a happy dance all the way down the sidewalk.”
“Spare the neighbors that sight—they hate me enough already.”
David pouted, which was far more adorable than should be allowed. “Alun loves my dancing. He told me so just last night.”
“He’s your husband. He has to say shite like that. Besides, maybe he needed a good laugh.” He peered into the bag. Beer. Thank the Goddess. He was running dangerously low. “The sight of you dancing would be enough for the covenant committee to fine me for violation of the eyesore ban. They might ask me to vacate the premises.” He stopped, one six-pack of microbrews in his hand. “Although that might be a good thing. Go ahead, boyo. Dance away.”
“I don’t know why you don’t like this place.” David set the box on the fecking recycled glass countertop. “We thought you’d like it because you’ve got the whole wetlands preserve practically in your backyard.”
Mal shrugged. “It tries too hard. Solar panels. Geothermal energy. Drought-resistant ground coverings. Feh. Besides, I never asked you to buy me a fragging house.”
David’s gray-blue eyes turned serious and so kind that Mal wanted to punch the refrigerator in its energy-efficient gut. “If you hadn’t stopped Rodric’s sword strike, Alun would be dead. I’d buy you fifty houses, a hundred, the whole freaking subdivision, and it still wouldn’t be payment enough. Besides,” he flipped open the box, “I’m the one with the dragon treasure. I can afford it, and we’re family now, so you can just shut up and deal.”
Although David’s chin lifted with the stubborn pride that kept Mal’s perfect big brother totally dick-whipped, he still looked like an apprentice brownie who’d spent hours on a feast for his master, only to have the bastard throw the beautifully prepared meal on the floor.
Ah, shite. I can be such a bloody arse sometimes. Most times, actually, but he used to be able to cover it up with something resembling charm. Seems he’d lost that ability along with his hand, his job, and his place in Faerie.
He pulled one bottle out of the six-pack and pried the cap off with the opener Alun had mounted on the underside of the counter. Shite, he wouldn’t have been able to open his own damn beer without help from his brother. “Yes. Sure, Dafydd bach. It’s great.”
David smiled crookedly and turned away to poke about in the box, but not before Mal caught the hurt his lake-storm eyes. “You know, I’m still not used to your face without the scruff.”
Mal rubbed his perfectly smooth chin. None of the highborn fae sported facial hair, although when he’d still commanded his fae powers, he’d manufactured a little magical stubble to make the club boys swoon. “What can I say? No connection to the One Tree—no glamourie. No glamourie—no scruff.”
“Oh. Right. Well, um, I brought you some things.”
“You brought me beer, so you’ve already qualified for sainthood.”
“You don’t believe in saints.”
“Just because the fae don’t have any doesn’t mean I can’t adapt to my new home.” His permanent home. Away from Faerie. Away from the Seelie Court and everything he’d ever known. Away from the only work that gave him any satisfaction. He chugged half his beer. “Not like I have much choice.”
“Mal, you can’t lose hope. Alun says there’s always a way to reverse a curse, that the end is always contained in the beginning.” He took Mal’s unresponsive right hand. “That night, the Queen said—”
“I have to make whole what I cost her. Not a chance.” Mal pulled away and strode to the French doors that opened onto his patio—paved with recycled concrete, for shite’s sake—and stared at the greensward that sloped to the edge of the wetlands. “Even if I could put that bastard Rodric’s hand back on his arm, I wouldn’t. That piece of shite deserved what he got and more.”
David’s footsteps whispered on the cork floor. “Believe me, no one is more on board with that than I am. I’m the one he planned to sacrifice, remember? You didn’t only save Alun that night. You saved me. You saved the Queen. You saved every single Seelie fae from suffering under Rodric’s rule. Trust me—I don’t blame you. But there has to be a way to lift the curse. We just have to find out how.”
“Can you . . .” Mal swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”
He immediately wished he could take back the words. David had recently discovered he was achubydd, the last known member of a meta-magical race who could heal with a touch, whose essence had the power to reverse catastrophic harm or effect extraordinary physical change. But the bigger the change, the higher the toll on the achubydd. Until now, Mal had resisted begging for help because—well, for one thing, he never begged. Why the hells should a jar of fecking pickles push him over the edge?
“I’d do anything for you or your brothers. But I’m still learning how this stuff works.” He recaptured Mal’s hand, stroking the palm, but Mal felt nothing. Not a touch. Not a tickle. Nothing. “With Alun’s curse, I could see the lines of energy running through his body, the pain backed up in his veins. But with your hand . . .” He shook his head. “It’s as if it’s not there at all. Your energy patterns are perfectly normal. They simply stop at your wrist.”
Mal tugged his hand away and tucked it under his left arm. “Maybe you should just amputate the useless thing. At least then I could get a prosthesis.”
“Don’t say that. We’ll find a way.” David sounded so fierce that Mal had to chuckle. His brother-in-law had more determination than any ten men, and he’d needed it to break through Alun’s armor of guilt and self-recrimination. “But, in the meantime, come and see what I’ve got for you.”
Mal groaned. “Goddess preserve me.”
David grinned and smacked Mal’s shoulder. “Don’t be a jerk. Accept our help. It won’t kill you.”
“No. I’ll just wish it had. At least you didn’t bring that blasted physical therapy machine this time.”
David caught his lower lip between his teeth, and his gaze skittered away from Mal’s face. “Well . . . as a matter of fact . . .”
The front door creaked open, and something scraped and clattered against the slate tiles in the entryway.
“Dafydd bach?” That sounded like . . . No, it couldn’t be. “Where the hells should I put this thing?” But even the obvious irritation in the tone couldn’t mask the beauty of a true bard’s voice.
Mal turned a stunned look on David. “Gareth? How did you . . .?”
David shrugged, sheepish. “Um . . . surprise?”
Mal set his beer on the table and bolted around the corner into the living room. Sure enough, his younger brother was standing inside the door, the cables of the PT machine draped over his shoulder, the sun backlighting his golden curls like some freaking halo.
Mal covered the distance between them in three strides and grabbed Gareth in a tight hug, pounding him on the back, one-handed. “Shite, man. I had no idea you were back from your tour.”
Gareth returned the hug and the pounding with interest. Little brothers. Always trying to one-up their elders. “I’m not. Portland’s one of our stops. We’re playing the Aladdin tonight, so I decided to squeeze in a trip out here to the wilds of—what is this benighted place again? Oh right. Hillsboro.”
“Smart-arse.” Mal pulled back and flicked Gareth’s hair with his fingers. “Get a haircut. You look like a revenant from the Middle Ages. Or the seventies.”
Gareth’s expression locked down. “I like it this way.”
Shite. It wasn’t Gareth who liked the outdated hairdo. It was his lover, gone these two hundred years and more.
“Well. Come in and check out the house Alun and his husband have forced on me.”
Gareth handed the machine off to David and strolled into the living room. “Seems like a nice enough place. Beats the hells out of that hut where you squatted in bleeding Faerie, right?”
“It wasn’t a hut.”
“A hut, Mal, face it.” Gareth pointed to the flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. “You have anything like that in Faerie?” He waved a hand at the L-shaped sofa upholstered in slubbed natural fibers. “Furniture that doesn’t numb your arse? Hells, indoor plumbing?”
“I didn’t need it.” Mal gritted his teeth. “I had magic.”
Sorrow flickered across Gareth’s face before he recovered his habitual sardonic half smile. “Nothing technology can’t replace. Trust me—in another few days, a month at most, you won’t miss Faerie at all.” He wandered through the archway into the dining room. “Goddess knows, I never do.”
Mal followed in time to catch David opening the insulated blinds in the kitchen, flooding the rooms with unwelcome sunshine.
“I don’t know why you want to live in a cave, Mal, I really don’t.”
“Don’t you know, Dafydd bach?” Gareth sauntered over to the table and dropped into one of the ladder-back chairs, his long legs stretched out in front of him “It’s his natural habitat.”
“Then sunlight will do him good. You too, since you spend most of your time in dark studios or concert halls.”
Gareth snorted and got up to wander off down the hallway.
Mal waited until he was out of earshot. “He’s spending time with you and Alun now?” he murmured. “They’ve made up?”
“They’re . . . working on it. Gareth still gives us the side-eye sometimes because you know—” David gestured between the two of them. “Cross-species relationship. He’s still not a fan. But at least he’s not treating Alun like a monster anymore.” He held out a strange wooden object: a hinged wooden rod, each arm bowed out in the middle into a padded half circle. He brought the ends together to form a full circle, about ten centimeters in diameter. “Here.”
Mal took it, letting it fall open again. “What is it? Some kind of kinky sex toy?”
“No, doofus. It’s a jar opener. Aunt Cassie asked Nola to make it for you.”
Mal dropped it on the counter as if it were hot iron. “Druid crap? Not on your life. With druids, there’s always a catch.”
“It’s not bespelled, if that’s what you’re worried about. You can buy something like it at Fred Meyer or Kitchen Kaboodle, but Nola’s is prettier.”
“No, thanks. I’ll manage without.”
“Honestly. You and your brothers. Does y Tylwyth Teg mean ‘stubborn as a twenty-mule-team hangover’? Go club-hopping and find someone to bang over the counter, for pity’s sake. Work off some of that temper with sex the way you used to.”
“How many guys do you think would be interested in me now? I can’t even jack myself properly, let alone live up to my reputation.”
David propped his fists on his narrow hips and glared. “Listen up. You’ve sustained a traumatic injury, like many other soldiers, and you’ve got a disability—a temporary disability. Don’t you think it’s time to accept that and learn to take help when it’s offered?” His expression softened. “From where I stand, you’re a hero—but not even heroes can handle everything on their own.”
Mal scooped up his beer bottle and drained it. Damn it, he’d never had to ask for help before. Goddess knew he didn’t want to do it now. He’d had no trouble twisting people around to do his will before, when it was only a matter of taking the mickey out of Alun or Gareth or even David. But now? When he had no choice? It stuck in his craw like an enchanted fishbone. He couldn’t do it.
“Where’s Alun today? I’m surprised he didn’t tag along to make it a full family funhouse.”
“He’s mediating the quarterly supe council executive meeting.” David shot Mal a half-guilty glance as he jockeyed the PT machine into position next to the dining table. “I’m sure they’d have asked you, just like usual, but two of the werewolf packs had a territorial dispute and the council leaders thought Alun’s psychologist chops would be necessary.”
Mal’s hand clenched around the empty bottle. Typical of David to try to spare his feelings, but Mal held no illusions about his usefulness to the council. He’d only been the stand-in, the understudy, the Queen’s Enforcer.
Alun had been the Queen’s Champion.
Once the Champion was back, the Enforcer had to retire from the lists, and Alun had been miraculously restored to his full status, rights, and abilities, thanks to David helping him overcome his curse. So the councils, the Queen, even the club boys could get along without Mal just fine now.
But if I hadn’t cut Rodric Luchullain’s hand off at the wrist, Alun would be dead now—David too, and maybe Gareth as well.
Some sacrifices were worth the cost.
“Mal?” David fidgeted with one of the machine’s cables. “Is that— I mean, are you okay?”
He forced a smile for David’s benefit. “Aye. Alun’s a manipulative bastard. Much more suited to the job. He should be able to get them to toe the party line.”
David chuckled, the anxiety fading from his expression. “It takes a manipulative bastard to know one, Mal.”
Mal glanced around, checking for Gareth’s whereabouts. Judging by the sounds emanating from the back of the house, Gareth found the place just as ridiculous as Mal. Not that Gareth, the last full bard in all of Faerie, ever sounded anything less than perfectly musical, even when snorting derisively at low-flow toilets, LED light fixtures, or whatever else had caught his fancy.
“Has Alun had a chance to talk to the Queen yet?” Mal kept his voice low. With Gareth’s longstanding hatred of the Queen, he’d have a fit if he knew Mal was angling to get an audience with Her coldhearted Majesty—even though it was to get his sentence commuted and his curse removed.
David didn’t meet his eyes as he set up the PT machine and affixed the contacts on Mal’s right arm and hand. “I told you. He’s been tied up with the supe councils.”
“They can’t take all his time. He has a practice to run and a husband to shag. You’d be a damn sight less chipper if he’d been neglecting that particular duty.”
David’s cheeks pinked—adorable, really. No wonder Alun had fallen so hard, but it had made him even more self-righteous than usual, holding his relationship up as the way to true happiness.
True happiness would be the end of this fragging exile and a return to my rightful place in Faerie.
Mal knew why he’d earned his cursed hand—he’d broken one of the primal laws of Faerie when he’d maimed the Queen’s Consort. But why had he been cursed with one brother who believed the process of redemption was a necessary part of recovery, and another who didn’t care if he ever set foot in Faerie again?
Mal wanted his old life back. All of it.
David turned on the machine, fiddling with the dials. “Do you feel anything?”
“No. Come on, Dafydd bach. It’ll be awkward for Alun, begging a favor of the Queen, but you can talk him into it. You can talk him into anything with a flutter of those eyelashes and a wiggle of that perfect arse.”
Instead of rising to the bait, David took Mal’s right hand in both of his, his brow furrowing and his eyes losing focus. Mal felt the bone-deep heat that signaled David’s achubydd powers and jerked his arm away.
“Stop it. Alun would kill me if I let you waste your essence on me.”
David grabbed his hand again. “I’m not wasting it. I’m not giving you any more than a boost.” He opened Mal’s crabbed hand and pressed the fingers wide and flat. “Push back.”
“I told you, I—”
“Damn it, Mal. Push back. As much as you’d like to think there’s a magic bullet for this, there’s not. One way or another, you have to put in the effort, just like any other wounded veteran.”
Heat burst under Mal’s sternum at the unfairness of David’s words, and he leaned forward. “I—”
“There! You did it. You pushed back.”
Mal stared at his hand, the heat dissipating under a flare of hope. “I did?”
“Absolutely. See? Human PT, plus a little achubydd special sauce, and you can make progress. But you have to do the work.”
This work is shite. I want my old work. A position backed by the full tradition of Faerie. Mayhem sanctioned by the Queen. Magic as full and easy as breathing. Men who fell to his charm as easily as his enemies fell to his sword. Why was it that the one time he’d done a selfless thing, he’d gotten everything stripped away from him?
Right, then. Lesson learned: screw self-sacrifice. And as for taking the high road to recovery? Bollocks to that. He’d find an easier way.
He always had.
“You know what? Never mind. I’ll figure this out on my own.” He jerked his right arm, dislodging the machine contacts, and surged out of the chair.
“Mal—”
“You two can let yourselves out. And take that infernal contraption with you. I never want to see it again.”
Ignoring David’s wide-eyed hurt, he threw open the gods-be-damned triple-glazed French doors and stalked across the fecking reclaimed concrete patio toward the wetlands, his empty beer bottle still clutched in his hand.
Bad Boy's Bard #3
Chapter One
“Niall. Do you know how long I’ve been searching for you?”
At the sound of his brother’s impossibly deep voice, Niall O’Tierney jumped to his feet, knocking over his stool.
Eamon advanced into Niall’s quarters, his broad shoulders barely clearing the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t.” But jumping to attention when he was addressed was a hard habit to break. “What brings you to my little corner? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your wedding?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Eamon eyed the fire roaring in the hearth. “How you can suffer through this heat is more than I can fathom.”
Niall righted the stool. “Heat? My dear brother, compared to what I’m used to, your Keep is positively arctic.”
Eamon’s forehead wrinkled in concern. “I’m sorry. I should have—”
“It’s all right. You needn’t treat me like an invalid.” Even if I am one. “Don’t forget, I’ve survived a night drinking with the duergar. And that involved shots of fermented dragon bile infused with crushed holly berries.”
Eamon smiled, shaking his head. “How you could stomach that—”
“Oi. It was a wager, all right? Besides, it netted me a boon. I’ll call it in one day.”
Eamon’s smile widened. “No wonder they’re so nervous around you. I’d never thought duergar capable of anxiety.”
Niall shrugged. “Just takes the right leverage.” Niall had always known how to apply it.
“Yes. Well.” Eamon cleared his throat. “There are several issues that we must discuss before the Convergence ceremonies. Some things that might . . .” He grimaced. “Disturb you. I wish you to be prepared.”
Niall bowed his head. “You needn’t ask, Your Highness. I appreciate the consideration.”
“Ah, give over, Niall. You don’t need to address me that way. We’re brothers.”
“Yes, and you’re the King by Faerie’s acclamation, even though you’re putting off official coronation until after the Convergence. We wouldn’t want to scandalize the court by an unseemly display of informality.”
“You mean we wouldn’t want to give anyone else the chance for insolence.”
“That too. I’m surprised the whole court didn’t forget that Tiarnach had any sons at all, let alone two of them.”
“All the more reason for us to present a united front. Tonight is a critical juncture. If we—”
A startled cheep from the doorway made them both turn. Peadar, a brownie who’d been one of Niall’s staunchest allies for most of his life, cringed at the threshold, his arms full of velvet and fur. “Your pardon, Majesty, Highness. For the interruption. I bring Prince Niall’s clothing for the feast and the ceremony.”
Despite the reforms Eamon had already put in place after deposing their father, the lesser fae on the Keep staff who’d toiled under the old King couldn’t make the transition to the more lenient regime overnight. They still instinctively expected a blow at every transgression, no matter how small.
Niall could relate. Thanks to his own punishment at Tiarnach’s hands, he had the same reaction himself.
He strode across the room and took the bundle of clothing from Peadar’s arms. “Please don’t call me Highness. I’m not a prince.” Not anymore.
Peadar looked down his long nose. “Those as act like a true prince are treated as one. Highness.” He bobbed his head at Eamon and scurried out.
Niall returned to the hearth where his brother was waiting. “I’m sorry. What did you want to discuss?”
“Do you recall the Seelie traitor we left in the underworld along with Father when we rescued you?”
“You mean the Daoine Sidhe—the one-handed one, who spewed such invective when you removed his mute curse?”
“The very same.” Eamon scowled. “He was Caitrìona’s—that is, the Queen’s—former Consort until he tried to usurp her throne.”
Niall chuckled, his laugh still sounding like an unoiled hinge, since he’d had so little opportunity for amusement in the last two centuries. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Your Majesty.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Is that an order?”
Eamon sighed. “Of course not. But I want to be your friend again, Niall, not your sovereign. I’ve missed you.”
And here I’ve been acting like a typical self-absorbed Unseelie arsehole. “Forgive me, Eamon. I missed you too, and I’ve never even asked. What were you doing during my unfortunate incarceration? Finding new and creative ways to make Tiarnach’s life miserable?”
“No. I . . . I spent it in exile. I returned the same night you did.”
Niall goggled at him. “What? Why have you never told me this?”
“When have I had the opportunity?” Eamon’s voice took on an exasperated edge. “You’ve spoken barely a word to me in the entire two weeks since your release. You dodge me, hiding here in your quarters, or down in the kitchen, huddled by the fire, surrounded by lesser fae who regard me like I might suddenly turn into Father and dash their brains out against the hearth.”
“So you’re telling me Tiarnach got rid of us both? Was it . . . was it my fault?”
“In a way . . .”
“Shite,” Niall muttered. “I brought nothing but misery to everyone I cared about. If I had known—”
“Peace.” Eamon held out his hand and Niall clutched it perhaps harder than he should have, but Danu’s tits, if he’d known Tiarnach would vent his fury on Eamon . . .
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Eamon squeezed Niall’s hand in return. “I don’t blame you for Father’s decision. Although he used my assistance to you as an excuse, I have no doubt he’d have found another reason to curse me in the end. He was convinced one or the other of us was plotting to usurp him.”
Niall forced a smile that was doubtless a parody of his old irreverent grin. “A rather prophetic fear, at least in your case.”
“More like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If he hadn’t been obsessed with punishing you, with killing Gareth Cynwrig—”
Niall’s belly clenched, and he dropped Eamon’s hand as if it were molten iron. “Don’t. Please.” Niall had taken the sentence Tiarnach had meted out—every stroke of the lash; every hour, every day, every year of the futile backbreaking labor. Stoking the fire, hauling piles of metal scrap from one cavern to another, working the bellows as Govannon forged weapon after weapon—only to melt them down again into scrap and leave Niall to drag it all off to the scrap room to begin the cycle again the next day. He’d taken it, and gladly, because Tiarnach, certain Niall would break and be brought to heel, had declared none but Niall would kill Gareth. Niall had clung to that, believing that as long as he remained imprisoned, Gareth’s life was safe.
“But surely—”
“I’m not ready to talk about him.” I may never be ready. Because not two days before he’d been liberated, his back still bloody from another unscheduled flogging, he’d learned it had all been for nothing. Tiarnach had confessed gleefully that he’d grown tired of waiting and killed Gareth himself.
Niall could only hope Tiarnach had been more merciful to Gareth than he’d been to his own sons. How likely is that, you bloody great twit?
“Niall.” Eamon laid his arm across Niall’s shoulders and Niall flinched, his back no more fully healed from that last beating than his heart had healed from Tiarnach’s final blow. Eamon dropped his arm. “I’m sorry. I thought—now that you’re back in Faerie, haven’t you recovered yet?”
“When the whip is wielded by a god, my brother, not even a fae royal can heal the wounds.”
“I never thought Govannon was so very cruel.”
“He’s not, at least not purposely. But he’s neither judge nor jury—only the jailer, and indifferent to anything but atoning for his own guilt. Once Tiarnach condemned me, Govannon’s duty was to carry out the sentence. So he did.”
Eamon closed his eyes, his face contorting with pain. “Believe me, if I had known what Father had planned, I would have done everything in my power to dissuade him.”
“Your belief in the power of words is touching, but nobody has ever convinced Tiarnach to change his mind. To do so would be to admit he was wrong in the first place. Inconceivable.”
“I was fully aware of Father’s ruthlessness, but I never imagined he’d take leave of his reason so completely.”
Niall gripped Eamon’s forearm. “It’s done. In the past. Leave it and tell me what’s got you worried about the future.”
“Very well. According to Fionbarr, we need—”
“Who’s Fionbarr?”
“He’s First Mage now, the primary architect of the Convergence spell. He says that in order for the Convergence to succeed, all fae—and no one else—must be present, inside the gates, when the spell takes effect. That means both Father and Rodric Luchullain must be brought into the Keep from the forges.”
Niall shivered. Once again under the same roof as the man who was unfortunately his father? I’ll bear it. I must. “Will I need to be present then, or share the room with him?”
“No. I’ll make sure you’re advised well in advance, and Fionbarr has orders to take them to the dungeons directly. They’re shackled with a druid-made chain, and Fionbarr will be escorting them, along with a full cadre of guards.”
“Very well. Is there anything else?”
Eamon ducked his head, looking as shamefaced as six feet eight inches of solid muscle could. “The procession from the Keep to the Stone Circle will leave soon after the feast. Caitrìona’s entourage will leave her pavilion in the Seelie realm at the same time.”
“A parade.” Niall applauded slowly. “How festive.”
“I’m afraid you must be part of it, Niall. I’d spare you if I could, but your presence is necessary for the spell. Also . . .” Eamon’s gaze dropped to his feet. “I would ask you to stand by me at my handfasting.”
Ah, shite. How could he refuse? “Of course. But I warn you—I’ll not be able to stomach the feast. You’re on your own there.”
“I suspected as much.” Eamon withdrew a small velvet bag from his belt pouch. “I want you to have this.”
Niall took it, hesitant to look inside, but by the weight and size, the bag held an item not much bigger than his thumbnail. “What is it?”
“Fionbarr calls is a binding stone. Caitrìona has the mate to it. We’ll offer them to him on the altar as the final part of the Convergence spell.”
Niall thrust the bag back. “Then you keep it.”
Eamon closed his fist over Niall’s. “No. You’ve been disregarded in Faerie almost since your birth because of Father’s attitude and court politics.” Eamon released Niall’s hand and smiled wryly. “Your own antics didn’t help, of course. Baiting the trows with enchanted dice? You were lucky to escape with your head.”
Niall shrugged, then winced at the chafe of his shirt on his back. “I was in no danger. They were too busy trying to cheat each other to wonder why I won every third throw.”
“Nevertheless, I want you to be part of this new Faerie. We’re so few now, where once we were many. All fae should feel welcome: Unseelie, Seelie, greater, lesser, Scots, Irish, Welsh—and whatever of the Cornish, Manx, and Bretons we can find. You’re somewhat of a hero to the lesser fae, you know.”
“Me? I never did anything special.”
“No? As I recall, the incident with the trows involved a pack who’d attacked a bauchan den. And somehow the courtiers who lost most disastrously at your famous card parties were the ones who were most churlish to the Keep’s staff.”
Niall shifted uneasily. He hadn’t realized he’d been quite so transparent in his targets. “Those arseholes simply thought they were better players than they actually were.”
“Niall. Accept it. You were treated as an outsider your whole life, and I know it hurt you. I don’t blame you for your rebellion. In fact, I envied your courage at the same time I despaired of your recklessness. I’d never have dared oppose and flaunt our Father’s will as you did.”
Niall held up his abraded wrists. “Much good it did me in the end.”
Eamon grasped his biceps. “I want you to be a part of this ceremony. Integral to it. Like it or not, you’re the standard bearer for the disenfranchised.”
“So if I can be brought back into the fold, there’s hope for anyone?” Niall couldn’t help the scorn in his tone.
“Think of it this way—if you refuse, will all who look to you as a champion believe that the new order will be as corrupt, as rigid, as the old? Do this for me, Niall, please. Do this for Peadar and Heilyn and all the other lesser fae who look to you for fair treatment.”
Niall took a deep breath. As little as he wanted to plunge back into politics, how could he refuse Eamon this simple request? It was little enough.
Eamon, however, had done the impossible—forged alliances between natural enemies, defeated his own curse, deposed Tiarnach—and won the Seelie Queen as his mate. Yet the first thing he’d done afterward had been to release Niall from captivity.
A public gesture in support of his brother and the Queen. What could it hurt? He could always hide out again afterward.
“Very well. What must I do?”
“Fionbarr will call for the stones at the proper time in the ceremony. You only need to come forward then and hand this one to me. Stand next to me during the handfasting.”
“Will Caitrìona have someone at her side as well?”
“She will, but not family. Her champions, Lord Cynwrig and Lord Maldwyn.”
Niall flinched and turned away, staring out the narrow embrasure at the forest beyond the Keep. Gareth’s brothers. He’d never met them, but he’d heard of them. They couldn’t have taken the news of Gareth’s death well, yet they’d still chosen to take part in the ceremony. They’d know about Gareth’s life in the years I lost—how he filled his days, what made him smile, his music . . . If Niall’s heart weren’t still so raw from the loss, and if he weren’t certain they’d hate him for his betrayal, he’d beg them for the tales.
“Have you studied the documents I gave you? The details of the Convergence spell?”
“A bit.” Niall glanced guiltily at the rolls of parchment on his table. “There are a lot of them.”
“Yes, because it’s a very complicated spell. I’d value your opinion.”
“Me? But I’m not a mage.”
“No, but you’re clever, far cleverer than me. That cleverness is something Caitrìona and I desperately need in the combined court. She has her trusted advisors in the Cynwrig brothers. I have only you.”
Niall shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Surely Fionbarr—”
Eamon waved one giant hand. “Fionbarr is interested in the Convergence only as a magical puzzle. He has no real allegiance to me, or to anything other than his own study of magic.”
That raised the hair on Niall’s neck. “Perhaps that is something you should worry about. A man with power but no loyalties is more dangerous than a known enemy.”
“You see?” Eamon said heartily. “Again, you show how much I need you.”
“Nonsense. Besides, until I’ve recovered fully, I’m of no real use to you—no better than a human, like my mother. There are enough at our own court who never considered me a fit prince for that reason alone. If you couple that with my reputation?” Some twist in Niall’s half-human heritage had given him the ability to discern the crack in another’s character, the flaw that when stressed would cause them to shatter. And once he’d seen it, he couldn’t resist applying the necessary pressure. It hadn’t made him popular. “Do you think they’ll accept me in your . . . what do you call it? Administration, like the Outer World governments call it?”
“They’ll have to learn.”
Really, Eamon? Are you still so naïve? “But that’s the point. They may not be able to. Not without help. I can accept change because I’m half-human. True fae might take more persuasion.”
“You’re a true fae, and I’ll challenge any who say different. Besides, who better than you to persuade? You persuaded the last Seelie bard into your bed.”
Niall froze, hands fisting in the folds of his cloak. “How dare you, Eamon? How dare you?”
Eamon’s perfect brow puckered. “What do you mean? You did, just as you said you would, then defied Father to keep him.”
“And that got me chained in the forges for two hundred years. And Tiarnach killed Gareth anyway.”
Eamon blinked, then pity flickered across his face. “Oh my dear. I didn’t realize— Gareth isn’t dead.”
Niall staggered back until he stumbled against the stool, his heart knifing sideways in a painful thump. “Not . . . not dead?” He could barely force the words out of a mouth gone dry as bone dust. “Don’t toy with me, Eamon. Please.”
“I would never joke about such a thing. He’s alive. In fact, he’ll be here tonight.”
Niall’s knees gave out and he collapsed, missing the stool completely and falling on his arse, uncertain whether the sounds tearing from his throat were hysterical laughter or racking sobs.
“Niall. Do you know how long I’ve been searching for you?”
At the sound of his brother’s impossibly deep voice, Niall O’Tierney jumped to his feet, knocking over his stool.
Eamon advanced into Niall’s quarters, his broad shoulders barely clearing the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t.” But jumping to attention when he was addressed was a hard habit to break. “What brings you to my little corner? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your wedding?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Eamon eyed the fire roaring in the hearth. “How you can suffer through this heat is more than I can fathom.”
Niall righted the stool. “Heat? My dear brother, compared to what I’m used to, your Keep is positively arctic.”
Eamon’s forehead wrinkled in concern. “I’m sorry. I should have—”
“It’s all right. You needn’t treat me like an invalid.” Even if I am one. “Don’t forget, I’ve survived a night drinking with the duergar. And that involved shots of fermented dragon bile infused with crushed holly berries.”
Eamon smiled, shaking his head. “How you could stomach that—”
“Oi. It was a wager, all right? Besides, it netted me a boon. I’ll call it in one day.”
Eamon’s smile widened. “No wonder they’re so nervous around you. I’d never thought duergar capable of anxiety.”
Niall shrugged. “Just takes the right leverage.” Niall had always known how to apply it.
“Yes. Well.” Eamon cleared his throat. “There are several issues that we must discuss before the Convergence ceremonies. Some things that might . . .” He grimaced. “Disturb you. I wish you to be prepared.”
Niall bowed his head. “You needn’t ask, Your Highness. I appreciate the consideration.”
“Ah, give over, Niall. You don’t need to address me that way. We’re brothers.”
“Yes, and you’re the King by Faerie’s acclamation, even though you’re putting off official coronation until after the Convergence. We wouldn’t want to scandalize the court by an unseemly display of informality.”
“You mean we wouldn’t want to give anyone else the chance for insolence.”
“That too. I’m surprised the whole court didn’t forget that Tiarnach had any sons at all, let alone two of them.”
“All the more reason for us to present a united front. Tonight is a critical juncture. If we—”
A startled cheep from the doorway made them both turn. Peadar, a brownie who’d been one of Niall’s staunchest allies for most of his life, cringed at the threshold, his arms full of velvet and fur. “Your pardon, Majesty, Highness. For the interruption. I bring Prince Niall’s clothing for the feast and the ceremony.”
Despite the reforms Eamon had already put in place after deposing their father, the lesser fae on the Keep staff who’d toiled under the old King couldn’t make the transition to the more lenient regime overnight. They still instinctively expected a blow at every transgression, no matter how small.
Niall could relate. Thanks to his own punishment at Tiarnach’s hands, he had the same reaction himself.
He strode across the room and took the bundle of clothing from Peadar’s arms. “Please don’t call me Highness. I’m not a prince.” Not anymore.
Peadar looked down his long nose. “Those as act like a true prince are treated as one. Highness.” He bobbed his head at Eamon and scurried out.
Niall returned to the hearth where his brother was waiting. “I’m sorry. What did you want to discuss?”
“Do you recall the Seelie traitor we left in the underworld along with Father when we rescued you?”
“You mean the Daoine Sidhe—the one-handed one, who spewed such invective when you removed his mute curse?”
“The very same.” Eamon scowled. “He was Caitrìona’s—that is, the Queen’s—former Consort until he tried to usurp her throne.”
Niall chuckled, his laugh still sounding like an unoiled hinge, since he’d had so little opportunity for amusement in the last two centuries. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Your Majesty.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Is that an order?”
Eamon sighed. “Of course not. But I want to be your friend again, Niall, not your sovereign. I’ve missed you.”
And here I’ve been acting like a typical self-absorbed Unseelie arsehole. “Forgive me, Eamon. I missed you too, and I’ve never even asked. What were you doing during my unfortunate incarceration? Finding new and creative ways to make Tiarnach’s life miserable?”
“No. I . . . I spent it in exile. I returned the same night you did.”
Niall goggled at him. “What? Why have you never told me this?”
“When have I had the opportunity?” Eamon’s voice took on an exasperated edge. “You’ve spoken barely a word to me in the entire two weeks since your release. You dodge me, hiding here in your quarters, or down in the kitchen, huddled by the fire, surrounded by lesser fae who regard me like I might suddenly turn into Father and dash their brains out against the hearth.”
“So you’re telling me Tiarnach got rid of us both? Was it . . . was it my fault?”
“In a way . . .”
“Shite,” Niall muttered. “I brought nothing but misery to everyone I cared about. If I had known—”
“Peace.” Eamon held out his hand and Niall clutched it perhaps harder than he should have, but Danu’s tits, if he’d known Tiarnach would vent his fury on Eamon . . .
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Eamon squeezed Niall’s hand in return. “I don’t blame you for Father’s decision. Although he used my assistance to you as an excuse, I have no doubt he’d have found another reason to curse me in the end. He was convinced one or the other of us was plotting to usurp him.”
Niall forced a smile that was doubtless a parody of his old irreverent grin. “A rather prophetic fear, at least in your case.”
“More like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If he hadn’t been obsessed with punishing you, with killing Gareth Cynwrig—”
Niall’s belly clenched, and he dropped Eamon’s hand as if it were molten iron. “Don’t. Please.” Niall had taken the sentence Tiarnach had meted out—every stroke of the lash; every hour, every day, every year of the futile backbreaking labor. Stoking the fire, hauling piles of metal scrap from one cavern to another, working the bellows as Govannon forged weapon after weapon—only to melt them down again into scrap and leave Niall to drag it all off to the scrap room to begin the cycle again the next day. He’d taken it, and gladly, because Tiarnach, certain Niall would break and be brought to heel, had declared none but Niall would kill Gareth. Niall had clung to that, believing that as long as he remained imprisoned, Gareth’s life was safe.
“But surely—”
“I’m not ready to talk about him.” I may never be ready. Because not two days before he’d been liberated, his back still bloody from another unscheduled flogging, he’d learned it had all been for nothing. Tiarnach had confessed gleefully that he’d grown tired of waiting and killed Gareth himself.
Niall could only hope Tiarnach had been more merciful to Gareth than he’d been to his own sons. How likely is that, you bloody great twit?
“Niall.” Eamon laid his arm across Niall’s shoulders and Niall flinched, his back no more fully healed from that last beating than his heart had healed from Tiarnach’s final blow. Eamon dropped his arm. “I’m sorry. I thought—now that you’re back in Faerie, haven’t you recovered yet?”
“When the whip is wielded by a god, my brother, not even a fae royal can heal the wounds.”
“I never thought Govannon was so very cruel.”
“He’s not, at least not purposely. But he’s neither judge nor jury—only the jailer, and indifferent to anything but atoning for his own guilt. Once Tiarnach condemned me, Govannon’s duty was to carry out the sentence. So he did.”
Eamon closed his eyes, his face contorting with pain. “Believe me, if I had known what Father had planned, I would have done everything in my power to dissuade him.”
“Your belief in the power of words is touching, but nobody has ever convinced Tiarnach to change his mind. To do so would be to admit he was wrong in the first place. Inconceivable.”
“I was fully aware of Father’s ruthlessness, but I never imagined he’d take leave of his reason so completely.”
Niall gripped Eamon’s forearm. “It’s done. In the past. Leave it and tell me what’s got you worried about the future.”
“Very well. According to Fionbarr, we need—”
“Who’s Fionbarr?”
“He’s First Mage now, the primary architect of the Convergence spell. He says that in order for the Convergence to succeed, all fae—and no one else—must be present, inside the gates, when the spell takes effect. That means both Father and Rodric Luchullain must be brought into the Keep from the forges.”
Niall shivered. Once again under the same roof as the man who was unfortunately his father? I’ll bear it. I must. “Will I need to be present then, or share the room with him?”
“No. I’ll make sure you’re advised well in advance, and Fionbarr has orders to take them to the dungeons directly. They’re shackled with a druid-made chain, and Fionbarr will be escorting them, along with a full cadre of guards.”
“Very well. Is there anything else?”
Eamon ducked his head, looking as shamefaced as six feet eight inches of solid muscle could. “The procession from the Keep to the Stone Circle will leave soon after the feast. Caitrìona’s entourage will leave her pavilion in the Seelie realm at the same time.”
“A parade.” Niall applauded slowly. “How festive.”
“I’m afraid you must be part of it, Niall. I’d spare you if I could, but your presence is necessary for the spell. Also . . .” Eamon’s gaze dropped to his feet. “I would ask you to stand by me at my handfasting.”
Ah, shite. How could he refuse? “Of course. But I warn you—I’ll not be able to stomach the feast. You’re on your own there.”
“I suspected as much.” Eamon withdrew a small velvet bag from his belt pouch. “I want you to have this.”
Niall took it, hesitant to look inside, but by the weight and size, the bag held an item not much bigger than his thumbnail. “What is it?”
“Fionbarr calls is a binding stone. Caitrìona has the mate to it. We’ll offer them to him on the altar as the final part of the Convergence spell.”
Niall thrust the bag back. “Then you keep it.”
Eamon closed his fist over Niall’s. “No. You’ve been disregarded in Faerie almost since your birth because of Father’s attitude and court politics.” Eamon released Niall’s hand and smiled wryly. “Your own antics didn’t help, of course. Baiting the trows with enchanted dice? You were lucky to escape with your head.”
Niall shrugged, then winced at the chafe of his shirt on his back. “I was in no danger. They were too busy trying to cheat each other to wonder why I won every third throw.”
“Nevertheless, I want you to be part of this new Faerie. We’re so few now, where once we were many. All fae should feel welcome: Unseelie, Seelie, greater, lesser, Scots, Irish, Welsh—and whatever of the Cornish, Manx, and Bretons we can find. You’re somewhat of a hero to the lesser fae, you know.”
“Me? I never did anything special.”
“No? As I recall, the incident with the trows involved a pack who’d attacked a bauchan den. And somehow the courtiers who lost most disastrously at your famous card parties were the ones who were most churlish to the Keep’s staff.”
Niall shifted uneasily. He hadn’t realized he’d been quite so transparent in his targets. “Those arseholes simply thought they were better players than they actually were.”
“Niall. Accept it. You were treated as an outsider your whole life, and I know it hurt you. I don’t blame you for your rebellion. In fact, I envied your courage at the same time I despaired of your recklessness. I’d never have dared oppose and flaunt our Father’s will as you did.”
Niall held up his abraded wrists. “Much good it did me in the end.”
Eamon grasped his biceps. “I want you to be a part of this ceremony. Integral to it. Like it or not, you’re the standard bearer for the disenfranchised.”
“So if I can be brought back into the fold, there’s hope for anyone?” Niall couldn’t help the scorn in his tone.
“Think of it this way—if you refuse, will all who look to you as a champion believe that the new order will be as corrupt, as rigid, as the old? Do this for me, Niall, please. Do this for Peadar and Heilyn and all the other lesser fae who look to you for fair treatment.”
Niall took a deep breath. As little as he wanted to plunge back into politics, how could he refuse Eamon this simple request? It was little enough.
Eamon, however, had done the impossible—forged alliances between natural enemies, defeated his own curse, deposed Tiarnach—and won the Seelie Queen as his mate. Yet the first thing he’d done afterward had been to release Niall from captivity.
A public gesture in support of his brother and the Queen. What could it hurt? He could always hide out again afterward.
“Very well. What must I do?”
“Fionbarr will call for the stones at the proper time in the ceremony. You only need to come forward then and hand this one to me. Stand next to me during the handfasting.”
“Will Caitrìona have someone at her side as well?”
“She will, but not family. Her champions, Lord Cynwrig and Lord Maldwyn.”
Niall flinched and turned away, staring out the narrow embrasure at the forest beyond the Keep. Gareth’s brothers. He’d never met them, but he’d heard of them. They couldn’t have taken the news of Gareth’s death well, yet they’d still chosen to take part in the ceremony. They’d know about Gareth’s life in the years I lost—how he filled his days, what made him smile, his music . . . If Niall’s heart weren’t still so raw from the loss, and if he weren’t certain they’d hate him for his betrayal, he’d beg them for the tales.
“Have you studied the documents I gave you? The details of the Convergence spell?”
“A bit.” Niall glanced guiltily at the rolls of parchment on his table. “There are a lot of them.”
“Yes, because it’s a very complicated spell. I’d value your opinion.”
“Me? But I’m not a mage.”
“No, but you’re clever, far cleverer than me. That cleverness is something Caitrìona and I desperately need in the combined court. She has her trusted advisors in the Cynwrig brothers. I have only you.”
Niall shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Surely Fionbarr—”
Eamon waved one giant hand. “Fionbarr is interested in the Convergence only as a magical puzzle. He has no real allegiance to me, or to anything other than his own study of magic.”
That raised the hair on Niall’s neck. “Perhaps that is something you should worry about. A man with power but no loyalties is more dangerous than a known enemy.”
“You see?” Eamon said heartily. “Again, you show how much I need you.”
“Nonsense. Besides, until I’ve recovered fully, I’m of no real use to you—no better than a human, like my mother. There are enough at our own court who never considered me a fit prince for that reason alone. If you couple that with my reputation?” Some twist in Niall’s half-human heritage had given him the ability to discern the crack in another’s character, the flaw that when stressed would cause them to shatter. And once he’d seen it, he couldn’t resist applying the necessary pressure. It hadn’t made him popular. “Do you think they’ll accept me in your . . . what do you call it? Administration, like the Outer World governments call it?”
“They’ll have to learn.”
Really, Eamon? Are you still so naïve? “But that’s the point. They may not be able to. Not without help. I can accept change because I’m half-human. True fae might take more persuasion.”
“You’re a true fae, and I’ll challenge any who say different. Besides, who better than you to persuade? You persuaded the last Seelie bard into your bed.”
Niall froze, hands fisting in the folds of his cloak. “How dare you, Eamon? How dare you?”
Eamon’s perfect brow puckered. “What do you mean? You did, just as you said you would, then defied Father to keep him.”
“And that got me chained in the forges for two hundred years. And Tiarnach killed Gareth anyway.”
Eamon blinked, then pity flickered across his face. “Oh my dear. I didn’t realize— Gareth isn’t dead.”
Niall staggered back until he stumbled against the stool, his heart knifing sideways in a painful thump. “Not . . . not dead?” He could barely force the words out of a mouth gone dry as bone dust. “Don’t toy with me, Eamon. Please.”
“I would never joke about such a thing. He’s alive. In fact, he’ll be here tonight.”
Niall’s knees gave out and he collapsed, missing the stool completely and falling on his arse, uncertain whether the sounds tearing from his throat were hysterical laughter or racking sobs.
Multi-Rainbow Award winner E.J. Russell—grace, mother of three, recovering actor—holds a BA and an MFA in theater, so naturally she’s spent the last three decades as a financial manager, database designer, and business intelligence consultant (as one does). She’s recently abandoned data wrangling, however, and spends her days wrestling words.
E.J. is married to Curmudgeonly Husband, a man who cares even less about sports than she does. Luckily, CH loves to cook, or all three of their children (Lovely Daughter and Darling Sons A and B) would have survived on nothing but Cheerios, beef jerky, and satsuma mandarins (the extent of E.J.’s culinary skill set).
E.J. lives in rural Oregon, enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.
Cutie and the Beast #1
KOBO / RIPTIDE / GOODREADS TBR
The Druid Next Door #2
KOBO / RIPTIDE / GOODREADS TBR
Bad Boy's Bard #3
Series
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