Authors: Tanya Huff

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Epic

The Wild Ways (29 page)

BOOK: The Wild Ways

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Not Auntie Catherine.

Jack.

And his eyes were gold.

“Tanis, Bo, I see you met my cousin Jack. Jack, this is Bomen Deol, our fiddle player and Tanis, his girlfriend.” Squirming past Tanis, she moved in beside Jack and elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Remember the food rule.” Her presence had stopped Bo’s constant demands to know what was wrong and Tanis, at least, wasn’t crying. Of course it didn’t look like she was breathing either. “Tanis! Snap out of it!”

The Selkie blinked, her eyes welled up with tears, and she sank to her knees—sliding out of Bo’s relaxed grip. “Highness.”

Oh, right. Dragon
Prince.
Usually the dragon part was the more relevant.

“Jack!”

“I didn’t do anything!” His eyes hazel again, he waved a hand at Tanis who shuddered and leaned away. “She’s just . . .”

“Tanis, get up.” Eineen did not sound happy. Or look particularly Human as she appeared out of the darkness. “Highness.” She inclined her head to Jack, then turned on Charlie, lips pulled back from pointed teeth. “What is he doing here?”

“He’s my cousin.”

“He is also . . .”

“I know. But he’s my cousin.”

“And that cancels out the rest, does it?”

Charlie shrugged and slung an arm around Jack’s shoulders. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, given how much taller he’d gotten, but she didn’t want anyone, especially Jack, coming to the wrong conclusion. She felt him begin to relax under her touch. “Trumps the rest, at any rate. He’s family. He’s a Gale.”

“Your Auntie Catherine is family and a Gale.”

“Never said the family didn’t disagree.”

“And if His Highness decides to disagree?”

“Like I said, he’s a Gale. That makes it our business, not yours.”

“This is not the UnderRealm. He does not rule here. He does not feed where he wishes.”

“He knows that.”

“He’s not deaf,” Jack muttered. “Look, there’s lots to eat here that’s not going to get bent out of shape about it, right? So get a grip. I’m just spending the summer with Charlie and carrying amps and stuff.”

“And yet you remain who you are.”

He sighed, only smoking a little. “And I’m a Gale, like Charlie says.”

“We shall see. Tanis.”

Tanis blinked, the tears finally rolling down her face as Eineen took her arm.

“I think tonight you had best come home. Tomorrow morning, we hold the press conference to discuss the shallow water well.” Her gaze swept over Jack before it came to rest on Charlie. “The press conference
you
suggested. I sincerely hope you know what you are doing.”

“I do.” She did. Sort of. “You hold a press conference; I speak to Amelia Carlson while she’s lulled into a false sense of security and find out where the skins are.”

“And a false sense of security is your plan to gain access?”

“Please.” Apparently, Selkies didn’t recognize that as a dismissal. Fine, if she needed a plan . . . “Grinneal is taking part in a major festival. Majorish,” she amended, “and if I have to talk my way past a secretary or something, I can say I’m there asking for a corporate sponsorship.”

Eineen’s eyes narrowed and her lips thinned.

“It’s a lie to get in the door,” Charlie reminded her. “It’s not like we’ll actually use her evil oil money.”

“So you say.” Arm around Tanis’ shoulder, much as Charlie’s was still around Jack’s, Eineen led the younger Selkie off toward the water.

“Hey!” Charlie took a step away from Jack then stopped. She wasn’t going to go running after them. “Did you fix the mirrors?”

Eineen paused at edge of shadow. “We have passed on the message.”

“Yeah, well, you’re welcome,” Charlie muttered as they disappeared.

“What the hell just happened?” Bo demanded.

“You heard her,” Charlie told him. “Press conference tomorrow morning.”

“Charlotte!” Eineen’s voice came out of the darkness. Followed by Charlie’s phone.

Jack snatched it out of the air.

Bo continued to look confused. “Okay, so Tanis is spending the night with Eineen, right? I have no idea what’s happening anymore.” He peered at Jack, and Charlie realized that of the people involved in the confrontation, only Bo couldn’t see in the dark. “You’re a prince?”

Jack shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“I find it helps to concentrate on the music,” Charlie told him, waving Jack off when he tried to hand her the phone.

The lines in Bo’s forehead smoothed out. “The music, yeah, I guess that’s the smart thing to do. So, I think I’ll start by helping Shelly pack her gear up and move straight to beer after that.”

“Sorry about messing things up with you and Eineen,” Jack muttered when they were alone.

“How do you know . . . ?”

“No contractions.” He snorted. “Like that doesn’t give everything away.”

“Well, since there wasn’t anything actually between me and Eineen, no harm no foul. Also, no snacking.”

“I got that the first seven million times.”

“Bears repeating.”

“It really doesn’t.”

Charlie had a sudden memory of her mother going on and on and on at her about her hair falling out if she dyed it again. “You’re right. You’re fourteen, not four. Go help Bo and Shelly load the car.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“Right here.” She took the phone from his hand. It rang. “Reminding Allie what Wild means.”

The Two Seventy-five N press conference took place in Halifax, in one of the Halifax Film Company studios. The room was surprisingly full; Charlie saw cameras from CBC, CTV, and Global as well as all two dozen of the province’s newspapers from the daily
Chronicle-Herald
to the monthly
Tata-magouche Light
. Standing at the back of the room, watching the male members of the press swarm around Tanis, Eineen, and one of Tanis’ sisters like moths to a flame, she wondered how many of them had already been burned. That whole seal-wife thing might place the Selkies among the more passive aggressive of the Under Realm immigrants, but all the Fey played hard with their toys.

Of the four men at the front of the room, two were fiddlers, Kevin and Ian Markham who played together in The Brothers Markham Mayhem—usually referred to as Mayhem—the other two Charlie didn’t know but assumed they were representing the fishermen who wanted an oil spill as little as the Selkies did.

As the press corps settled, Eineen smiled and said, “Thank you all for coming.”

Charlie mimed a rim shot, although she was probably the only one who got the joke, then turned and slipped out the door. As much as she’d like to stay and watch very pretty people do what she’d told them to—and honestly, who wouldn’t?—she had plans of her own.

Attendance at press conferences given by local environmental groups opposed to a Carlson Oil project was not generally a part of Paul’s job description as Amelia Carlson’s executive assistant. Under normal circumstances, any one of the summer interns cluttering up the place would be sent along as a place holder.

None of the circumstances surrounding this latest project even came close to resembling normal.

Seated on the outside aisle about halfway up the room where he could either make himself noticed for a sound bite or slip away unseen, Paul watched the press milling around the seven members of Two Seventy-five N in attendance and had to admit that for whacked-out environmental activists, they were a good-looking bunch. The price of every single article of clothing they wore all added together probably cost less than Paul’s linen jacket, but they wore their tatty shirts and faded jeans and plastic sandals with more confidence than he’d been able to pay for. Paul had never been a both sides of the street kind of guy, so he didn’t have much of an opinion on the men, but something about the women drew his attention and kept it.

They had a similarity about them that suggested family—not just matching dark hair and dark eyes but the way they moved and smiled. As it happened, he’d run identity checks on everyone connected with the group and most of the unmarried women shared a surname: Seulaich. It was an old Cape Breton family—the name went back as far as the records did—and the odds were good that these three were cousins if not sisters.

As they took their seats, the tallest of the women swept her gaze around the room gathering everyone’s attention, and said, “Thank you all for coming. We’ll begin with a prepared statement concerning Carlson Oil’s proposed shallow water well just off Hay Island and then take questions.”

She didn’t read the statement, one of the other women did, but Paul continued to watch her as he listened. She barely moved, sitting composed and still, the lights painting highlights across her hair and faint shadows below the dark fringe of her eyelashes. He barely registered the contents of the statement, distracted by the smooth curve of her arm at the edge of her sleeve.

When she announced they’d take questions, he couldn’t take his eyes off the movement of her mouth.

“You say that upon consideration you’re supporting Carlson Oil’s bid for drilling permits; what
exactly
are those considerations?” Lisa Dixon from
CTV.com
asked aggressively. Paul knew from experience that Ms. Dixon asked everything aggressively, as the website tried to prove itself separate from the network.

The big blond guy at the end of the table smiled before he answered and from the coquettish change in posture, Paul was willing to bet Ms. Dixon wasn’t going to argue with a word of his response. And the response was . . .

Dark eyes met his.

It was like looking off the side of his father’s boat into deep water, feeling himself falling even while his boots remained on the deck and his fingers stayed clamped tight around the rails.

He was holding a copy of Two Seventy-five N’s prepared statement. Print reporters were milling about, cameras were being packed up, web reporters were already filing. He’d missed . . .

There hadn’t been . . .

He was having a little trouble remembering.

“Hello.”

She was even more beautiful up close, nearly as tall as he was, and . . . was that fiddle music?

“Eineen Seulaich.”

“What?”

“It’s my name. I thought that since you spent the entire press conference staring at me, you might have missed a few things and we should probably talk.”

“Talk?” He could feel the sea surging through his veins, his pulse the crash of the waves on the shore.

Her smile made it difficult to breathe. “You’re going to need something to file besides my description.”

“File?” Confusion helped him focus. “No, I’m not a reporter. I work for Amelia Carlson, of Carlson Oil.”

The disappearance of her smile made it even harder to breathe. “Do you now? Well, then . . .” Her fingers were cool against his cheek. “ . . . you’ll have to work a little harder for me.”

“I don’t . . .”

“Yes, you do.” She fell in beside the others as they passed.

Frozen in place, Paul watched the doors close behind them and found himself alone in the room with a few reporters and the certain knowledge that his life had just changed.

Or was about to change.

Or would change, if he could just figure out how.