There was half a bottle of Jack in me when I heard the suite door open and a golden light from the outer passage sliced through the dim shadows I’d pulled over me after dousing most of the sconces in the loft-like space. I didn’t need to hear the silhouette framed in the door speak to know who it was. My body responded eagerly to Ryder’s presence, invigorated by some uncontrollable genetically connected threads stitching us together, and for once I didn’t fight the pull. Lying in a wealth of pillows on a bed soft enough to sculpt itself around my weight, I stared at him, drops of charcoal-rich whiskey sitting on my tongue as the city’s lights sparkled across the horizon beyond the balcony and glass doors I’d left wide open to pull the rain-scented air into the nearly empty space.
He carried in with him a hint of popped-rice green tea and vanilla, his Sidhe skin whispering its scent through the metallic flavor the city storm left with its electrical splatters across the night sky. There had to be an open window somewhere at his back, sweeping a brisk gust through the open door. Silence hung between us, broken only by the clatter of thunder at the edge of the city. The clouds were churning toward us, their gray underbellies tinted tangerine and puce from the upper streets’ lights. I knew I would eventually have to close the balcony doors to keep the rain out, but at that moment, I couldn’t find my damned tongue, much less my legs.
“Hello, Newt,” Ryder said, bending down to scoop my cat to cradle Newt’s wiggling fuzzy body against his chest. “Let’s go see how your daddy is doing.”
Closing the door behind him, Ryder cut off the too-bright light from the outside hall, letting the shadows back in to creep across the floor. His feet were bare, and they made no sound crossing over the hardwood floors to the bed, where I lay sprawled, my half-empty fifth of whiskey propped up against my side, my fingers lightly gripping its ribbed neck as if it were a lover I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to hug or strangle.
“I’m not Newt’s father,” I pronounced as clearly as I could, but my tongue was thick against the roof of my mouth and I couldn’t seem to work it around my teeth. “We’re more… roommates. Sort of.”
“You care more about that cat than you do your car,” he pointed out, pinning the truth down with his words. “You call the Mustang baby and coo at it. I think it’s safe to say calling you Newt’s ad hoc father is well within bounds.”
I snorted, overcome by the irony of a mangy, clipped-eared cat being my kid. Newt and I shared the same notches in our ears—battle wounds neither one of us could remember Newt getting or at least not a story he ever told me. Ryder gently placed the diminutive cat on the mattress, and Newt bounded over to my right foot to attack my big toe with a playful fierceness he usually reserved for roaches or knitted mice.
Dressed in a loose pair of cotton pants and a T-shirt that looked suspiciously like one I’d lost on the last run we’d done together, he stood at the edge of the bed, looking down at me with a look of passive judgment I’d seen way too many times before. It was unnerving, mostly because I was too sober to deal with the churn of emotions raging through me and I didn’t have enough energy to fight my fingers’ itch to grab his shirt to pull him down onto the bed.
Because sex never complicated anything. I took a hit of whiskey and let the burn scrape my throat raw, wishing it would take with it the ashes of my friendships that were somehow lodged in a hard knot in my chest.
“I’m throwing a wake, so if you’re going to be in here, you’ve got to help me drink this,” I said, waving the bottle about slightly. “Because Newt sure as hell isn’t going to do it.”
“That stuff can peel the enamel off your teeth,” Ryder said, angling his head slightly and studying me. “But sure, I’ll help you drink it. It’s the least I can do for a friend.”
“That’s what we are? Friends?” I waited until he was settled against me, his shoulder pressed against mine, before handing over the bottle. “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”
Unlike most people I knew, Ryder didn’t wipe the mouth of the bottle with his shirt before taking a swig.
“Morrigan!” Ryder coughed, choking down the snort he’d gotten past his lips. “You sure that’s whiskey and not what you put in that car of yours? Dear Gods in the Skies. I can’t feel my tongue.”
“Wimp,” I muttered, putting my hand around the bottle neck to tug it away. “It’s Jack. That’s smooth. Next time I’ll bring in some of that moonshine Jason and I cooked up at his place last year and see if you’ve got any flesh left on your tongue.”
“Hold on, let me get some more in me. I might not be able to catch up with you, but at least let me try to get the taste out of my throat.” He took another tentative sip, barely suppressing the shudder the whiskey pushed through his bones. “Gods, that’s so foul.”
“Keep drinking. When it starts tasting good, stop.” I chuckled, recalling the first time Dempsey gave me that advice about whiskey. “That’s when you know you’re drunk.”
“Seems… counterproductive? Is that the right word?” Still, Ryder took another healthy gulp, then passed the bottle over, making a face when he swallowed. “It feels like my bones are on fire.”
“Wait ’til you can’t feel your tongue.” Savoring the burn on the roof of my mouth, I let the Jack sit to sear my cheeks. “That’s the best part sometimes.”
My head was buzzing with ideas I couldn’t shake, and from what I could see, no amount of whiskey would quiet them. Cradled in the soft bed and leaning on Ryder’s arm, I stared out at the cluster of low towers to the left of my spire, their windows bright with glittering lights. The forest surrounding the Court swayed around the serpentine flow of connected buildings, their curved shapes speckled with graceful turrets dotted with a complex weave of curling shadows and balconies.
Whiskey kept away any guilt I might have felt about not visiting our twin nieces, but they were barely out of lump stage, so I couldn’t imagine Rhi and Kaia missing me at all, but Ryder always seemed to assure me they were delighted to see me. Mostly they giggled, played, and slept, their identical enormous emerald-ocean-and-slate eyes following every movement in the room. I liked them well enough, but they’d be a hell of a lot more interesting once they could hold a weapon for longer than a minute.
The Jack was also keeping me numb enough not to wonder what the kiss Ryder and I shared did to the Court, other than seemingly give it a hard-on to stretch itself out, pull stone and wood from the ground, and let itself be shaped by the damned magic-wielding Sidhe who crooned lovingly at every faucet and doorknob they could shape out of the wall.
“Is it me or is the damned place getting larger every time I blink?” The whiskey couldn’t take away the shock resonating in my soul from the Court’s avarice, its aggressive growth shoving the forest farther back toward the ravine. “And who the hell do you have living over there? I don’t think the rooms were even painted the last time I was here.”
“We’ve got a few families coming down from the Courts in San Francisco and Seattle,” Ryder murmured, relieving me of the bottle. He held it against his chest, warming its amber depths. “The towers were done, so it made sense to put them there. There aren’t that many of us, but you’d be surprised to find out how much room a Sidhe needs to live. Some of the Court have moved into the spaces as well, mingling in. You should go meet them all sometime.”