The sun chased us into the city, edging up over Julian, and its rays stroked the length of the 8 as we approached the turnoff for the Presidio, an historic park whose buildings now served as the central hub for the SoCalGov’s State Offices. Situated in a former museum-slash-chapel, the Post was where most Stalkers did their business, measuring black-dog pelts for bounties or turning in evidence of larger kills. It was also where a licensed Stalker could pick up a contract or arrange for payment.
It was where I was finally going to be able to dump Robbie Malone out of my car and into the questionably maternal arms of his aunt Sarah, one of the Post’s directors.
The parking lot was mostly empty, with a few cars in the employee spaces at the edge of the drive. Circling up to the main lot, I spied Jonas’s beat-up truck angled under a weeping pepper tree, and gave Ryder a dirty look. He returned my glare with one of his smug expressions, looking much like the entitled lordling I’d opened my door to months ago.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Malone groaned from the back seat.
“Swallow it,” I growled. “You call him?”
“Yes.” Ryder’s chin lifted, his nose a long stretch of arrogance I could have easily wiped off his face with my knuckles. “Because… with what you’re going to be dealing with, you should have your family around you. I’ll take care of Malone. You go talk to your… uncle. Make things right, Kai.”
Pulling into the space next to Jonas’s truck, I let the Mustang idle, its engine purring softly. I couldn’t hear Malone horking behind me, so he was safe for the moment, but there was always a chance he’d let loose something over my upholstery and carpet. Still, I weighed my options, torn between ripping into Ryder for making decisions for me and the rightness of what he did. I knew my faults. I was stubborn and prideful more often than not, choosing to shoot first and ask questions later. Suspicious and paranoid—those traits kept me alive, my senses on high alert for anything odd or out of place. Trust was something I was always reluctant to give, and I’d handed it over to Jonas before I ever learned humans were as wicked and cruel as any elfin. He’d been a constant in my life, a rock I could lean on when the raging waters battered against me, and to find out he’d been willing to pass me over a line for a handful of silver… hurt.
The pain was raw, abraded wounds from losing Dempsey roughened by the sharp scrape of rejections I hadn’t known existed. Ryder was asking a lot of me, more than what I ever asked of myself. Betray me once and I walked away. Even taking Malone up to the station with us was an aberration. Although, as tempted as I was to leave his bruised and dinged body where we found him, it felt right to pour him into the Mustang.
I still regretted letting Ryder talk me into bringing him down with us, but I was a sucker for Ryder’s green eyes and soft pleas. In a few years, I imagined our nieces would be able to wrap me around their little fingers and I’d be bringing home baby nightmares for them to use as ponies because they’d asked for one.
Sure, there was that tug between me and Ryder, the curling tickle of want and lust driven down into my guts by some genetic pull and, oddly enough, my growing fondness for him. I liked the way the sun hit his hair, picking out the metallic gold strands from the sunrise blond, and while he wasn’t strikingly handsome compared to other Sidhe, he was still breathtaking. More because he was honest with me, something he’d learned along the way. He was willing to stop pushing at me and listen, hearing me when I explained why there needed to be a trade in dragon bones and other artifacts to keep food on people’s plates. And he always pulled the trigger whenever I needed him, despite sometimes disagreeing with my methods and reasoning.
He trusted me. Fully and unconditionally.
It was about time I did the same for him.
“Okay. Grab the shotguns and any other weapons we’ve got up front. Post rules—no firearms.” I put the Mustang into Park, then turned off the engine. Ryder said nothing, but I caught the wisp of a smile as he undid his seat belt. “And don’t gloat or I’m going to jiggle Malone until he pukes all over you. It’ll be like a fire hose of egg salad sandwiches and sweet tea.”
“I didn’t say a thing,” Ryder murmured, stepping out of the car.
“You didn’t have to,” I shot back, reaching for my weapons from where I’d stashed them out of Malone’s reach. “I can hear you breathing smugly.”
I FOUND Jonas sitting in the open walkway at the top of the parking lot, a ways away from the Post’s main doors. The wide cement walk curved and dipped through the Presidio’s green spaces, a slatted wooden cover following its path, its posts scavenged from the old Gaslight district. The verdigris metal stands were wired for light. Perhaps they always had been, but I’d rarely seen them on. The Post wasn’t someplace I hung out after dark, although I know quite a few of the old-timers spent evenings at the Stalkers’ Wall, drinking heavily and telling stories about the dead.
It was ironic to find Jonas sitting on a bench at the fork in the walk, one branch leading down to the Post where Stalkers came and went, burdened with money or contracts, while another path led to the dead, the silenced hunters whose ashes were pressed into hard bricks with only a brass plaque to remember them.
Stands of weeping pepper trees grew behind the walk, their ash-green leaves brushing the posts when the wind picked up. Brilliant golden-throated hummingbirds whipped through the trees’ bristling frond branches, stopping long enough to dip their sharp beaks into the nectar-rich flowers growing in planters every few feet, the enormous barrels still bearing the stamp of the North County winemakers who’d donated them to beautify the city’s parks. I’d wondered why no one ever thought to paint the damned things until it dawned on me no one would see the names of the donors otherwise. Like all things, even charity came with a price—favors traded or promises made.
Of course, the same could be said about practically everything else in life.
Somewhere close by, a pair of peacocks screamed out challenges, the birds a remnant of some rich guy’s need to have a pair of arrogant pheasants with butts full of cat toys wandering around his property. I caught sight of one farther up in the gardens, a place meant for picnics and family gatherings for anyone visiting the Presidio, but no one took into account most Stalkers didn’t have family. Jonas was an exception to the rule, building up a clan around a four-way marriage and a pack of children raised wild and free. I walked up the slight incline toward him, stopping a few planters away, unsure of what I wanted to say or even what to do. My anger whimpered under my need to connect with someone I’d admired and even loved, both sides of my mind whipping into a frenzied argument about betrayal, blood, and family.
“Jonas, I’m… I screwed up.” Admitting my anger and hurt was hard, the words scraping out of my throat like I’d chewed sandpaper and was spitting it back up. “I was just… so damned mad. Still am mad. Dempsey—”
Jonas took care of my indecision, standing up, then closing the distance between us with a few long strides, his powerful legs quick and sure. He was in front of me before I could say anything, a towering hard-hewn black man with broad shoulders, a bit of gray in his neatly shorn hair and smelling of the earth and peppermint. As tall as I was—especially compared to most humans—Jonas dwarfed me. He was a giant of a man with a reach long enough to snatch the biscuit off of my plate from across a wide dining table if he wanted it.