His eyes were as verdant as the forests surrounding the Court, his handsome face nearly expressionless, but a hint of a smile played at his lips. “As much as I would love to take what you have to offer, I don’t think either one of us is in any condition or the right frame of mind. Besides, if I take advantage of you when you’re drunk, you’d stab me when you woke up sober.”
“I wasn’t thinking about sex. Even though, you know, nothing beats a good sweaty tumble when you’re pissed off. I just want….” I felt raw and scraped apart, peeling myself open for Ryder to plunge his hand into my guts to play with what he found there. “I just don’t want to sleep alone. I’m just so… fucking tired of being alone, Ryder.”
I couldn’t read him. Not then. He was so still I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
“I can definitely spend the night holding you,” he finally said, then glanced at the open doors. “Right after I close those. Or we’ll freeze no matter how many blankets I pile on top of us.”
He eased out of the bed, leaving Newt and me behind. Closing the doors softly, he stood in front of the glass, a dark shape outlined by the dimming city lights. I still had his warmth on my skin, more potent than the whiskey I’d gulped down to ease my hurt. He turned to pad back, then stopped at the end of the bed when I cleared my throat.
“I’ve never slept with someone holding me before,” I whispered up at him. “It’s not something I’ve ever done.”
“Well then, thank you for letting me be your first, my Chimera,” Ryder said in a teasing lilt, pulling the duvet up from the bottom of the bed. He slid into bed next to me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and held me against him. “I am honored.”
“And just so you know,” I muttered, shifting until I was comfortable, “you’re probably a hell of a lot more than a friend, but right now, I can’t deal with any of that. Not until I get my own head on straight, and sure as hell not until I find out who hired Dempsey to bring me in like a black-dog pelt. Not like I can go live my life when there’s people out there who are damned determined to bring it to an end.”
Five
THE STORM left a sodden forest in its wake, broad leaves torn from the canopy and scattered about the ground. The Court’s governing population apparently began bickering at dawn that day about whether to clear the debris, with a great many arguing the natural lay of the leaves was the will of the forest. I’d walked in to find out where I could get something to eat and maybe a knife to cut my aching head off from my neck. The barrage of liquid elfin words made me wince, and I wasn’t sure if it was a residual loathing left over from my father weaving spells or the whiskey, but either way, the stupidity of the people gathered together to talk about wet fallen leaves overwhelmed my vow not to get involved.
“At least clean up the damned walks and courtyards before one of you slips and breaks your dainty ass on the bricks. And Pele help you if one of the kids cracks their heads open, because if that happens to any of them, I’m going to come back and take the skin off of everyone who argued to leave that shit on the ground,” I snarled, trying to quell the pounding in my head. “Now, is there any coffee in this place or am I going to have to go hunting for some in the city?”
Ryder barely hid his smirk as he pointed toward an open door, saying he’d meet me in the kitchen in a few minutes, then politely asking me not to eat anyone along the way.
After baring my fangs at him, I slunk off to the kitchens, keenly aware of the tense silence I left behind me.
This wasn’t my Court. These weren’t my people. I had no right to tell them what to do, and I’d stepped on every single one of Ryder’s toes, but he said nothing when he joined me in the main hall’s kitchen, making me a grilled cheese sandwich for breakfast as I brewed us a strong pot of coffee. We ate in silence. Then I fled to the courtyard where I’d left the Mustang to spend a good half an hour picking wet leaves off its body before I could begin tackling its wonky carb.
I was cranky and out of sorts, a cat with a kinked tail with no way to straighten it out other than to wait for the rocking chair to swing down on it again. Everything and everyone was rubbing me wrong, and after the twentieth or so leaf I’d pulled off the Mustang’s once-gleaming red body, I snarled at the buildings behind me, baring my canines at them much like I’d done the council gathered around Ryder to talk about cleaning the damned sidewalks.
“You want to build me something?” I hissed at the tower dotted with metal and wood the Court grew for me. “Make me a damned garage so I don’t have to get shit off my car every time I wander into Wonderland.”
I had turned back to finish the job when I heard scraping and rumbling behind me. Refusing to look, I left the Court to whatever shenanigans it was going to get up to and sent a quick prayer to Pele that whatever it was going to drag up from the ground wouldn’t block anyone’s windows. The elfin had a thing about sunlight, and I already felt like an asshole for the tower it built for me absorbing all of the windows and balconies of Ryder’s suite after the Court got a wild hair up its butt and decided I needed someplace to live among its menagerie.
Mock phoenix swarmed into a curving pink-and-orange murmuration around the towers, weaving between the pale-oyster turrets, leaving a swirl of sparkles in their wake before disappearing into the heavy forest canopy beyond the Court. Somewhere nearby something wild screamed in the damp shadowy depths beyond the courtyard and its long stretches of buildings. I could see the top of the organ pavilion down the way, visible through the red maple trees run wild over the grown-over paved roads cars once used to get from one part of the park to the next. The Merge stole bits and pieces of Balboa, replacing entire sections with Underhill forest while leaving other parts behind, including most of the wild animals living in the zoo below the 8 Corridor. Some had been recaptured while others found new living arrangements, like the lion colonies in Kearny Mesa. I wasn’t all that concerned about anything other than the occasional panda and perhaps a black dog, but I’d not seen an ainmhi dubh since I’d tossed my half brother over the ravine and into the river at the west end of the Sidhe’s territory.
But I was always worried about the ainmhi dubh. Especially since Dempsey assured me I’d pretty much knocked on the Unsidhe’s front door and announced I was still alive. They would be coming for me, if only to make me an example of what happens to a piece of magicked flesh that dared walk away from its master. Tanic cuid Anbhás, Lord Master of the Wild Hunt for the Unsidhe, was definitely not going to just let me go. I didn’t need Dempsey or anyone else to tell me that. I knew that in my guts. Mostly because his hands had played in my bowels nearly every day since he’d made me, and I remembered the pain of his dragging iron spikes through my flesh in every breath since Dempsey pulled me free.
I had the Mustang’s carburetor torn apart and spread out over a tarp when I heard footsteps on the cobblestones behind me. The stride was hesitant, confident when far away but a stammering clop closer in. I ignored whoever it was, intent on getting the guts of the carb cleaned out for the run I still wasn’t sure I would take.
Yesterday I’d woken up sprawled out on a strange bed, alone except for my cat, Newt, kneading at my bare shoulder and another pounding hangover dug into the inside of my skull. This morning my sheets were perfumed again with a hint of green tea with a whisper of cinnamon chasing after it, woven into the fine cotton threads as deftly as the scrolling Sidhe leaves embroidered along the linen’s edges. Showering didn’t get Ryder’s scent off my skin, and I stumbled downstairs for some food later that day, whispers and soft smiles cresting in my wake.