There was no missing the house-sized boulder crashing down the mountainside and headed straight for the road. It left craters in the ground as it bounced, a nearly impossible feat for something larger and heaver than a full-grown kraken, but the storm apparently suspended physics because it jumped and dove as if it were made out of rubber. Gushes of water followed it, a slurry of dirt, smaller boulders, and trees.
Amid the coursing, dank waters and tumbling rocks, I spotted something else—many somethings—and my teeth ached from my clenched jaw. I hadn’t been certain when the first splash of two crimson lights sparked bright against the dark hills, and I’d almost convinced myself I’d been seeing things when another pair joined the first, then another. The shadows moved across the rocks, avoiding the avalanche of boulders with sure-footed leaps from crag to crag.
And keeping up with the struggling transport’s egress.
“Black dogs,” I muttered to myself. There was a niggling want to call Ryder’s attention to the magic-spawned horrors shadowing us, but there was more than enough to worry about without adding
ainmhi dubh
to the mix.
There was no way of knowing if they were a rogue pack or one with a Hunt Master. A few glances to check on their progress confirmed my fears—they were hunting the transport, keeping their distance but never falling behind. My brain hoped for rogue, cut free of their command restraints following the death of their maker, but my gut told me I was wrong.
Most rogue
ainmhi dubh
lurked around outlying settlements, feeding off of humans and livestock rather than culling the herds roaming San Diego’s mesas and canyons. They’d never stalk a vehicle, it wasn’t in their nature, not unless they were commanded to… and their Master told them exactly who or what to track.
So they were
definitely
hunting the transport. Or… one of us.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out the odds. Of the three of us, I was the most likely candidate, especially since I’d probably killed my brother the last time I’d seen him. Probably. Valin could have survived the plunge into the 163 rapids. I’d hoped I’d never know the truth of it, but fate sometimes decided differently.
As it always did.
I punched the truck’s acceleration pedal as hard as I could, praying Sparky used every last bit of her brilliant mind to dump power into the heavy-duty cell engine. Fast wasn’t the way to drive in a growing storm, not with the minilakes forming in the road’s uneven surface, but hydroplaning and fishtailing were a hell of a lot easier to live through than being crushed beneath tons of solid, dense rock.
The transport wasn’t fast enough. Almost but not quite. The rush of water hit the back tires, pushing us off the road. My shoulders took the brunt of the steering wheel’s wrench, and my arm shook and screamed with the pain of keeping the truck straight and moving forward. Something hit the back cab. Then the tires found a bit of purchase and the transport shot forward, twisting and sliding on the water-soaked roads.
With the exception of Malone’s praying and Ryder’s heavy breathing, the transport felt fine, its engine grumbling along as the tires moved freely in their wheel wells. When I tested the steering wheel, it responded sluggishly, more from the water than any damage, and the transmission shifted up and down as we moved through the gears.
“You can stop asking Thor to save us, Malone,” I called out over my shoulder. “We’re through the worst of it.”
“That’s what you think.”
Ryder’s breath hitched, and I could feel his heart pounding through the hand he’d clenched over my right thigh.
“Knowing you and the trouble you get into, Kai, I am going to say that was just the start of it. So pray all you like, Malone, because we’re going to need it.”
VIOLET CRACKLE
weed covered most of the ruins, their twisting vines crisscrossing the bones of the fallen buildings. The V-shaped main tower’s metal bones rose up from the fog, the jutting bent beams bristling with the vine’s enormous serrated leaves. Bits and pieces of the buildings’ gaming history peeked out. An Ace of Spades neon sign hung lopsided and broken from a blown-out window, the storm banging it against a pair of heavy steel doors standing in the middle of a weed-engulfed plot, the rest of the cigar shop’s walls scattered in ruins behind a weatherworn dumpster lying on its side.
Only a string of squat, plain-faced bungalows remained of an old hotel, its cheery turquoise and gold wooden sign welcoming us to Changa’s when we drove in. The wood was burned at the ends and flecked with lava grit, but the sign’s grinning sun leered out from under the low stand of squat palms, its toothy smile nearly black from soot and dirt.
A few heavy rigs were squatting in the corner of the parking lot, huddled together as if muttering about the rain over beers and cigars. Their drivers were probably doing just that in Changa’s lounge, eyeballing the men and women Bryan, the owner, somehow conned to work at the stop. The front office was a long rectangle of space with an L-shaped high counter and mainly served as the entrance to the restaurant and lounge.
It was early enough in the day for the kitchen to be fully fired up, and from the sound of clicking dishes and glasses filtering past the beaded curtains separating the dining room from reception, the kitchen was doing a booming business. The place hadn’t changed since I’d last been there. The carpets were still an odd vomit of mingled colors, indeterminate swirls dappled with greenish stars, and for some reason a faded red
P
broke the pattern every foot or so.
A couple of burly women stood hunched over a rollo-slots machine, dumping wooden nickels into the thing then jerking the lever to watch dancing fruits spin about before stopping in a high-kicking chorus line. A hairless, ancient Chihuahua lay stretched out on the carpet at their feet, a grimy, fat land manatee staring off into the distance or perhaps the wall. I couldn’t tell exactly because its eyes roamed about, bulging and flexing while the machine sang its chiming ditty.
Leaning against the reception counter was Bryan, a lean middle-aged man, his amiable mouth set into a nearly permanent smile beneath a trimmed mustache. Dressed in slacks and a bright orange button-up shirt, Bryan was regaling everyone with his glory days as an elephant trainer or tire salesman, because much like the dog’s wandering eyes, it was hard to tell which way Bryan was headed when he started telling a story.
Judging by the smirking leer Bry gave me when he spotted me, Ryder, and Malone by the door, he’d just gotten worked up and was bringing it home.
Bringing it home to a haughty, elegant sidhe woman with emerald-gold eyes.
I didn’t need Ryder stiffening to a board next to me to tell me who the woman was. She wore parts of his face, pieces I was drawn to, from his long-lashed enormous forest-dappled eyes to his full lower lip. Their cheekbones were nearly the same, hers a touch rounder, and her chin was pointier, angling her jaw down a sharp, inward slope. Her hair was whiter than his, more starlight than metallic sunbeams, a starker contrast to the coppery antique gold streaks underneath.
But while she had the look of her brother, her expression was pure Sebac, a cunning, cruel knife of a smile profaning the mirror of Ryder’s generous, amiable mouth. Turning, she flicked her gaze over me, and if anything, her face hardened still, flattening any softness in her appearance. Malone she ignored, only having a glittering stare for me.
“Ryder, Clan Sebac, Third in the House of Devon and High Lord of the Southern Rise Court, I greet you,” she murmured in sidhe, and my body jerked inward, reacting violently to a language too similar to my father’s, a behavior learned under dull iron implements and sharp steel. “I see you still have the
beathach sgeunach
Grandmother disciplined before—”
“Do not finish those words, daughter of Devon.” Ryder flung his sidhe at her, a furious volley of molten anger, splattering her with its visceral sting. “You’ve crossed into the Southern Rise. You do not have my leave to breathe its air, much less speak poorly of my
luranach
.”
I knew less than nothing about how the sidhe said hello, other than it sometimes devolved into a list of clans, houses, and maybe even what they ate for dinner the night before. Since my sidhe was mostly cobbled together by what I’d learned in vids and its similarity to its darker cousin, unsidhe, I didn’t understand what she’d called me or the last word Ryder said, but it definitely wasn’t something the woman wanted to hear, because she bristled, straightening her spine, and tilted her chin with an arrogance so casual, she wore it like I wore my favorite T-shirt.
“Introduce us, then, Lord Ryder,” she sniffed. “So I may know your
luranach
.”
I was about to tell Ryder I didn’t need an introduction or snap that I was his
nothing
,
but he was angry and serious, so I let it go. She’d suckled on Sebac’s marrow and knitted herself a skin from the old woman’s venomous bones. There really was
no
mistaking who the bitch standing at the counter was. The only question was why was she there and what the hell we were going to do about it.
“Kai, Clan Gracen, Stalker and Defender of the Southern Rise Court, please meet….” Ryder paused, slanting an inscrutable glance at the woman. “I would like you to meet Ciarla, Clan Sebac, Fourth in the House of Devon, Sister to the Southern Rise High Lord and Heir Contender to the Clan Sebac… and blood mother to our nieces, Kaia and Rhianna.”
THE SQUARE
bungalow was more of a semidetached yurt made out of adobe and steel with enough space for an outhouse-sized bathroom and a single broad bed. Like the main building, it wore its years poorly, but Bryan did his best, considering Changa’s was the only rest stop on the 15 corridor for nearly fifty miles. The carpets were industrial grade dark gray tiles easily yanked up for cleaning, and the linens were always fresh. I knew for a fact the bedspreads were washed after each guest left, and the fuel cell charging fees were pretty decent, kept low by the enormous solar farm set up behind the ruins. Changa’s restaurant served massive amounts of hot food, and while not anything to rave about, portion sizes were big, and the staff was always friendly.
It was the last place I’d expect Ryder to feel comfortable in, but in seeing his sister, Ciarla, I’d come to realize he was a hell of a lot more human than I’d given him credit for. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, and his blond hair was a bit shaggy, not the polished sleek I’d seen at Elfhaime.
So it came as a surprise to me that he’d held up my birth certificate to his damned, back-stabbing sister and pretty much declared war on her, because I’d supposed—in the small, stupid brain I’d been given—he understood my reluctance to broadcast my bloodlines.
“I don’t understand what’s going on.” Malone huffed out his cheeks when he sat at the end of the wide feather bed. “She’s your sister? Then why the formal introductions? And why are you angry, Kai? How am I going to learn if no one explains anything to me?”
“Because Ryder’s a
fifl
,” I spat back, my gaze never leaving Ryder as he paced off our bungalow’s tight confines. “Because he’s a gods-be-damned
idiot
. And don’t tell me it was a mistake. Your kind never make mistakes.”
“
My
kind?” Ryder stopped in midstride, turning toward me. “You forget, you are
half
of my kind.”
“I’ve
never
been a politician,” I retorted. “I hunt down menaces, not
be
one.”
“I am a servant of my people.” His bloodline slithered into his words, hard slaps to remind me of who he was and where he’d come from. “Anything I do is to protect and nurture them.”
“Maybe….” Thing was, I could slap just as hard back, especially when pissed off and unreasonable. “But isn’t that what Sebac probably told herself when she started her damned Clan?”
Ryder bared his teeth, canines glinting. “You go too far—”
“See, Your Lordship, sometimes I don’t think I go far enough,” I countered. “Because you seem to think it’s a good idea to just toss my relationship with those kids out into the room, and she sure as
hell
knows I’m not related to
you
.”
“I….” Ryder stopped when Malone leaned forward. Frowning, he asked, “Maybe you should grab something for us to eat and bring it back here. Before the restaurant closes. Oh, and towels. We asked for towels.”
“Yeah, I could, but this is much more interesting,” he admitted. “I could write a whole paper on sidhe relationships from just what I observed today. Also, Bryan assured me he would find us more linens for the bed, blankets so we don’t have to share.”
“I’m not a goddamned research hamster, Malone.” I stepped in between Malone and Ryder. “And what makes you think I’m not sleeping in the truck, Your Lordship? Or better yet, making you sleep in the truck while Malone and I share the bed?”
“Because you don’t know him,” Ryder replied softly. “He shot you, you don’t trust him but you trust me, and lastly, because if you slept in the truck, that would leave the two of us vulnerable—without your protection—and that goes against everything you are, Kai Gracen.”
“Yeah, well….” The damned sidhe Lord was right. “Well, screw you. Not like you’ve paid me yet. There’s no way—”
“I know about Dempsey, Kai,” he murmured, taking a step closer to me. “And I’ve taken care of him… for you. So in many ways, yes, you
have
been paid.”
The heat between us intensified, and the tickling awareness of a nearby sidhe flitted over my skin. I wanted to tell him to screw that off too—all of it, his prying, Dempsey’s illness, and the ball-clenching need I had for him. I wanted to tell him all sidhe affected me the way he did, but it would have been a lie. I lusted a bit for his cousin Alexa, and I liked the look of a pretty-faced male guard I’d seen the last time I went to visit the girls, but no elfin—no
one
—dug into me like Ryder did.