I wasn’t ready for that kind of complication in my life, and I needed to tell Ryder to step back, to go away, to go hide someplace safe and dark and warm until I was able to come back without any strings or slavering black dogs on my trail. Right now I was nothing but trouble, and I would bring all of the Hells mankind ever could think up down upon his Court if he did more than touch me.
The gold-green flecks in his forest-and-emerald eyes told me he knew all of that and didn’t give one shit about it.
“You do this all the time. I watch you. Every time. Whenever someone gets too close, you hiss and snarl like your gargoyle on the bed, pushing them away.” He whispered, leaning in closer until his breath tickled my jaw, “You’ve just lost the man who pulled you out of a nightmare and gave you purpose. He spent what life he had as a human to prepare you for the day when the Wild Hunt Master would come for you, and he taught you to shove away anyone who could love you, because he knew you’d turn yourself over to Tanic rather than watch your loved ones be taken or killed. Because you know what Tanic will do to anyone who stands with you.
“You’ve had his hands on you, his pain in your bones, and I’m standing here right now to tell you, Kai, I will not sit down for that fight.” In that moment, Ryder was as imperfect as I was, a bit of spit flecking over his upper lip as his canines flashed, his passion dusting a golden pink flush over his cheekbones. “And I’m not staying behind on this one either. You need to have someone by you. And I will be that someone. I won’t let you talk me out of it like you did Cari. You don’t get a say in this.”
“And if you get killed? Who’s going to go sit at the frilly chair they’ve got for you in the Court chambers? Alexa? One of the twins?” I rounded on him, but he wouldn’t let go of my wrist, his fingers tightening down when I tried to pull away. We were still shoulder to shoulder, our faces close enough for me to finally take that bite, but I wasn’t sure if anger or fear drove that creeping thirst in my belly. “Is there going to be anyone left to sit on it?”
“Alexa will. The Court calls to her as well. Not as much as it does you and I, but she can hold it. And she will if she has to. Cari will be here to help her. Someone else who wouldn’t just let you fall either.” Ryder jerked his head over toward the bed. “After all, Alexa has a fierce defender in her reserves. All she will have to do is put them between Newt and food to win any battle she might need to fight. I’m going, my Chimera. You will not do this alone. I’m not letting you shove me away like you’ve done others. It’s time for you to accept I will not leave you. Even if I have to step on your shadow to do it.”
“This is a simple ride to New Vegas. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m going to find Kenny, hand him the ashes I set aside for him, and get whatever Dempsey gave him to hold. I don’t need a babysitter.” The ride would be long and mostly empty, past small townships barely big enough to see. I’d been dreading the silence, left alone with my thoughts, but I’d planned on listening to music loud enough to make my ears bleed and to find crappy motels along the way until I hit the glittering jewel in the middle of Nevada’s wastelands. My mind whispered about all the trouble I could get into with Ryder in New Vegas, but I shut those thoughts down before they could take hold. “Besides, the place isn’t like San Diego. I want to get in and out quickly. Stay too long in that stew and you begin to think you can live in it.”
“Good, if the trip’s going to be nothing, then we can go and come back without any trouble. But I am going.” Ryder finally released me and peered into my duffel. “Although, from the amount of underwear you’ve put in there, are you sure it’s only going to be about a week? Because if not, I have severely underpacked or you’re lying about how spicy food doesn’t affect you.”
Six
WE LEFT before the sun cracked apart the black on the horizon. Draped in a glittering veil of lights, San Diego never truly went dark, holding back the night with a soft, gentle golden push, but to the east, the mountains were stygian, crags of blue against a scatter of stars. The marine layer was already moving in by the time I fired up the Mustang, its snaking tendrils undulating into the valley and canyons, filling in the Court’s nooks and crannies until only the towers’ peaks poked up out of its misty blanket. There was a promise of rain in the air, but we wouldn’t be there long enough to see it hit the ground.
I pushed the Mustang toward the sunrise, leaving the remains of my life and family behind me.
Oh, except for the damned Sidhe lordling who’d decided he would be my green-eyed, pointy-eared golden shadow on a run I was doing for no money and pure sentiment.
It was hard to ignore Dempsey’s harsh scold rising up out of my memories—Only reason to burn gas and time is if someone is paying you to do it, boy. Other than that, someone’s just trying to bleed you dry.
“Yeah, well, suck it up, old man. I’m doing this for you,” I muttered at the road unfurling out under the Mustang’s high beams. “Anyone bled me dry, it was you.”
Glancing over to see if Ryder heard me, I discovered he’d already fallen asleep against the passenger-side window, a small pillow tucked under his head. There was a brief moment of chaos tingling in my thoughts, and I itched to blast a thrash-metal mix out of the Mustang’s powerful speakers but thought better of it. I needed a bit of alone time, and the brightening blue skies would be on us soon enough. For right now I wanted to simply fall into the black road snaking out in front of us and sip at the tumbler of creamy sweet coffee I’d gotten from the Court’s kitchen.
I was pushing to get as far north as I could before stopping. The plan was to drive long days, running on cell fuel instead of gas, mostly because the cells could run for months without being recharged, and since we weren’t going through Pendle, I wouldn’t need the punch of acceleration from the combustion side of the hybrid engine. Truth was, it’d been more than a few years since I’d been up to New Vegas, and the gas depots along the way might have fallen on hard times, disappearing into the landscape like so many of the small towns did following the Merge. Unlike the constellation of ghost towns around it, New Vegas thrived in its mutated desert setting. The dying bones of a gambling mecca had resurrected itself and now glittered with wealth, a siren call to anyone with a spare credit or two, promising to make them rich beyond their dreams.
Perhaps it wasn’t so much a resurrection as a desert vampire getting a new shot of blood to add flesh to its withered corpse.
The sun was pretty high up in the pale blue sky when the Mustang screamed past Rainbow, and Ryder woke up with a groggy smack of his lips. Disheveled and slightly perplexed by his surroundings, he blinked a few times before figuring out where he was. It was easy enough to see the comprehension dawning in his deep green eyes, reason returning to wash away the confusion he’d woken up in. I liked him asleep. It meant he was quiet and I could sneak a few looks at him as I drove, caught between the hate of wanting a Sidhe Lord in my bed and recognizing my own tangled thoughts on having him close.
There was too much change in my life right now, and I needed—longed—to keep things as simple as I could. But there was no going back to the life I’d led before. Dempsey was dead, the family he’d pulled around me was uncertain now, and I asked Ryder to stay with me, to hold me when I felt cracked open. There was no pushing anything back through those open doors.