Knight in Leather (2 page)

Her relationship with Ben had started off as a dream, but as Ben got more comfortable, Dasha lost more and more of her freedom. He’d stifled her—hadn’t wanted her light to shine, professionally or socially—and Dasha hadn’t even realized what was happening until Simone had left a message on phone one day.
“Where are you, lady? I miss you. Did I upset you somehow? Why don’t you return my emails?”

Dasha hadn’t gotten any emails because Ben had screened and deleted them. He’d purged everything that might have introduced competition for him.

The breakup had been ugly. She’d lost all their mutual friends, and the dustup had put her budding career in advertising on shaky ground. He’d tried to get her fired—he’d told her bosses all of her business, and many of his tales hadn’t been true. Her bosses believed some of the worst ones. She’d had to win them back over—an months-long ordeal.

Dasha wasn’t willing to pick wrong again, no matter how pretty the temptation. She was taking too long to recover from her last mistake.

She forced down a swallow and fidgeted the ends of her scarf. “Maybe…this was a bad time to visit. Maybe I should fly home.”

“No. Stay. You’re here, and I’d love for you to stick around for a while. I really did miss you.” Simone’s smile was soft. “Hey, Matt had a good idea. Let’s go have some lunch. You can prove to Zenia at The Shell Shack that you’re still alive and kicking, and maybe she’ll give us the friends and family discount on the midday seafood buffet.”

Dasha stuffed her hands into the pockets of her palazzo pants and shifted her weight. “Are you trying to distract me with deep-fried yummies?”

“Yes. And also, I’m just hungry. I’ve been so busy today, and all I’ve eaten beside that little piece of chocolate were the few coffee grounds that managed to float into the four cups of java I’ve had.” Simone grabbed her wallet and nodded toward Matt. “Hang out here for a while?”

Matt shrugged, then grabbed the remote control from the counter and turned on the set mounted high in the corner. “I don’t have anything time-sensitive to do until tomorrow. I can hang out for the rest of the day. That’s better than helping Sully and Gareth lay bathroom tiles back in the new units. They’re so growly about those grout lines. Are you
sure
you don’t want to outsource that flooring?”

“I tried to. They insisted they could do the job better. Whatever
that
means.” Simone rolled her eyes. “I haven’t even looked at their work. I’m afraid to. Listen, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She ruffled the young man’s hair and hooked Dasha’s arm on the way out the door.

Dasha scrambled to grab her tote bag.

“Where’s the rest of your luggage?” Simone asked. “I know that one bag isn’t all you brought.”

“Nah, I’ve got a couple of suitcases in the trunk of my rental car.” Dasha crooked her thumb toward the nondescript tan sedan.

“You can drive. We’d be sweating our tits off if we walked down to The Shell Shack, and I like this shirt too much.”

Simone’s top was a black-and-gray plaid, button-up, short-sleeved, cowgirl-looking thing, and not her usual pretty style. Simone didn’t do plaid.

Dasha wrinkled her nose at it.

“Don’t make that face. The shirt was a gift.”

“From whom, Heath? That doesn’t look like his style.” Dasha clicked the button on the rental car’s key fob and unlocked the doors.

“No, a
friend
.” Simone blew a raspberry at her and opened the passenger door. “I do have others.”

“No need to be cruel.”

“I’m just sayin’. I get around a lot more than I used to.” Simone pulled her seatbelt across her chest and let the seat back about half a foot. Whoever had been sitting in that position last had to have had his or her nose pressed to the dashboard.

Dasha started the car, and backed out the space slowly, carefully checking for the motorcycles parked on either side of her. One looked new…or at least, unfamiliar to Dasha. The bike may have been Matt’s. He’d been catching rides from whoever in the crew had space, and had been overdue to get his own whip. “You have friends with penchants for plaid?”

“Yes, Viking friends.”

Dasha closed her eyes briefly and gave her head a hard shake. “Eh, explain that to me later. I feel like we’ll end up in one of those situations where I wish I’d never asked.”

“Probably.”

“Is the explanation totally TMI?”

Simone shrugged slowly. “Depends. You live in a liberal safe haven. Your idea of what might be scandalizing may be a little different than the average American’s.”

Dasha decided that, intrigued though she was, she
really
didn’t want to know what kind of fun Heath and Simone had behind closed doors. Or even on the other side of open ones.

Dasha hadn’t spent much time around the Hearth Motel in the past few months, but she’d learned that magic folk were a lusty bunch. And gorgeous. They were all probably discretely getting their brains fucked out while they were on the road doing fairy law enforcement stuff. Ethan included, probably.

Dasha rolled her eyes at the thought. She didn’t care who he was putting his dick into, because she didn’t want him. Why her brain had even gone there, she didn’t know.

“Ah, I can smell the deep fryer even from here,” Simone said.

The Shell Shack really was within walking distance of the motel, but Simone had been right that it was oppressively hot. Driving hadn’t been a bad idea. Dasha parked by the side door and pulled up the brake.

Before she and Simone got their fingers on the door handles, the ever-present waitress Zenia stepped close to the plate glass window and did a restrained happy dance. The restaurant wasn’t packed—May was the start of the busy tourist season at the beach—but likely, Zenia wasn’t too geeked by the folks seated in her section.

“Chick’s gotta get out more if she’s that excited to see us,” Dasha muttered.

“We’re the most interesting people she knows.”

“And she still doesn’t know you’re a fairy?”

“Nope. Still doesn’t. Guess what? She has a fairy mate, too. So…”

Fuck.

Dasha bumped the door closed with her hip and made her way to the front of the vehicle. With her back turned to the restaurant windows, she muttered to Simone, “Don’t say anything about the f-word, right?”

“Right.”

“Because whoever her mate is happens to be a deranged fairy stalker, too?”

“No, Sully’s laid-back. And besides, if he really doesn’t want to be seen, he won’t be. You’d never know you were being stalked.”

Dasha turned on her. “You’re
not
making me feel better about this. You’re making me want to drive my ass back to the airport and pay out the ass for a last-minute ticket back to the West Coast.”

“I’m sorry. But you’ve gotta see this from my perspective. I can’t un-know what I know, but at the same time, I’m sensitive to what you’re feeling. I know what you went through, and promising that won’t happen to you again would be disingenuous of me. I’m not a psychic. I can’t see the future. I only know that the Fates say you and Ethan are connected. They never make promises that being together will be easy. He might need fixing, or you might.”

“Well, there’s the problem then.” Dasha hitched her bag’s strap up to her shoulder and headed toward the door the peach-haired Zenia was holding open for them. “If he needs fixing, I’m the wrong girl for him, and I sure as hell don’t want any man trying to change
me
. Not fucking ever going through that again.”

Prince Heath had Ethan halfway to fucking Narnia by the time Ethan got frustrated enough to sidle his bike beside the prince’s and flag him over.

Maybe they weren’t really on the road to Narnia, but in Ethan’s opinion, they may as well have been. They were somewhere around the Great Dismal Swamp, and unless the mission the prince was taking Ethan on was to acquire as many mosquito splatters on his helmet’s visor in as short a time as possible, he didn’t see the point of the route. They generally avoided traveling near swamps. Fairy magic had a way of awakening beings lurking in them they would rather have kept sleeping indefinitely.

Prince Heath pulled over at a roadside table, killed his engine, and lifted his helmet off his sweaty head.

Ethan did the same and fixed his gaze on the prince’s suspiciously neutral expression.

Ethan didn’t like that look. He’d been rolling with Prince Heath for the last eighty of Ethan’s hundred and thirty-one years—a lengthy tenure which was rivaled only by that of Heath’s second-in-command Thom. If anyone should have mistrusted that blank look, Ethan and Thom would have been the right men.

“With all due respect, Prince, do you perhaps have something to tell me? You usually give me a little more information before we hit the road, even if the missions are unexpectedly urgent.”

Grunting, Prince Heath balanced his helmet on the sliver of seat in front of him and pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans. “Nearly three o’clock.”

“
And
?”

“Should be settled in by now, or nearly so.”

“Who should be? Are we supposed to be somewhere right now?”

“No.” The prince put the phone back and drummed the fingers of his right hand against the top of his silver helmet. The helmet was new. The old one had been black, but Princess Simone had replaced it because she had a hard time telling the members of the crew apart when they had their helmets on. All the men had had black, just because that color was easily available. They were rough on their gear and had to replace components frequently.

“Can you tell me the point of this, then?” Ethan asked.

Prince Heath stopped drumming and gave Ethan a searching look.

“You know you can trust me to keep secret anything you need to tell me.” Ethan assumed that was why they were out in that boggy piece of the country—that the prince had something to say that he couldn’t be completely candid about back at The Hearth. “Is there a problem with one of the other men? Is Thom all right?”

Thom hadn’t come back from his and Prince Heath’s last mission. Prince Heath hadn’t been particularly chatty about what had transpired, but his tight-lippedness wasn’t uncommon. The prince and Thom kept a lot of secrets, and through the years, Ethan had learned that they kept their mouths shut to keep the group’s morale up. The weight of Prince Heath’s figurative crown was heavy, and he wanted to do his best by the little band of “daft reprobates”—as Queen Rhiannon tended to call them—who’d pledged their loyalty to him.

“Thom’s fine,” Prince Heath said. “He’s spending some time with his mates.”

“Oh. They got it together, then.”

“Aye, they did, finally.”

“Well, good on ’em.” Ethan was genuinely happy for Thom. He was jealous, yes, but that wasn’t any fault of Thom’s. Circumstances hadn’t unfurled in Ethan’s favor. He’d already been slapped on the wrist twice by Prince Heath and once by Princess Simone for trying to get near Dasha, but he didn’t know how they could have expected anything different of him.

Haven’t they looked at her? Haven’t they seen how lovely she is?
Don’t they know she’s mine?

Ethan was desperate to have her near. The unnatural separation made his body ache and his heart sputter every time someone whispered her name.

“All right,” the prince said on a sigh. “I’m going to tell you something, but before I do, I need you to give me your word you won’t act until I give you leave to do so.”

“I’ll follow whatever order you give me.”

“I’m sure you’ll give obedience your best try, anyway, but I need more than just trying from you.”

“What more can I give? I’d bow and bare my neck for your sword if I thought that was what you wanted.”

“I don’t doubt that. You’ve been loyal and true for all these years. I have no doubts that you’ll endure any task in regards to Sídhe matters. But this isn’t a security matter. This is about
you
.”

“Me?”

“Aye.” Prince Heath scraped his damp black hair back from his face and loosely knotted it at his neck.

Stalling
. Ethan knew he had to be. The prince didn’t usually care if his hair was in his face. He and his sister, the princess Siobhan, both tended to hide behind their hair, either for comfort or shielding. They may have inherited the predilection from the king. The only reason Brandan’s hair wasn’t in his face was because of the crown his wife insisted he wear whenever he was upright, or…
breathing
at all.

Ethan gave the other man time to gather his words, being in no real hurry to be chastised about yet another thing. He knew that given his longevity on the crew that he was held to a higher standard than some of the younger men, but knowing that didn’t stop his ego from taking the occasional hit.

“I hurried you away,” Prince Heath said, “because when I was walking from the office toward the new construction, I saw Dasha pull into the lot.”

Ethan reached to turn his key.

“Wait,” the prince snapped. “Just
wait
. I brought you out here so you wouldn’t do anything rash. Nothing has changed. Her visit wasn’t planned, so you can’t go rushing into this as if she knows the score.”

“I can’t court her if I can’t get close.”

“Aye.” The prince nodded. “My wife and I certainly understand that, but this isn’t a situation where a fairy is courting another fairy who knows how this works or someone who’s
used
to the vagaries of fairy personalities. We’re talking about a human woman who knew nothing of our world until last autumn and who, for the most part, has avoided association with us since then.”

“I’m not understanding what you want me to do, Prince. Wait, you say. But for how long?”

“Hold on a moment.” Again, Prince Heath pulled his phone from his pocket, but instead of glancing at the time, he dialed out. “Surprised to have a fuckin’ reception at all way out—oh, hello, love.” He perked up.

Ethan sighed.
Must be a treat to just be able to call one’s mate and hear her voice.

“What’s the verdict?” The prince asked.

Prince Heath studied the palm of his leather glove and besides letting out the occasional “Mm-hmm” or “I see,” he didn’t give away much about what the princess might have been saying.

Ethan reached over and nudged him. He couldn’t take the suspense. He could be patient when he had to be, but given the circumstances, he’d been behaving far too damn well. He couldn’t take much more.

“All right. We’ll be back shortly. And we’ll do what we can, aye? Love you.” He disconnected, put the phone away, and shifted on his bike—straightening the orientation a bit.

“Well?” Ethan said as a nudge.

“Best watch your P’s and Q’s,” Heath said. “Simone said Dasha’s not in a great mental place right now, and if you go at her full force, she’s going to run. Be chill. Be easy.”

Ethan scoffed and squashed his helmet back onto his head. Through the open visor, he said, “So, what does that mean? Am I allowed to talk to her? Bloody wonderful relationship we’ll have if I can’t even fuckin’ talk to her.”

“We will…bridge appropriate interactions for you.”

“Are you shitting me? You’re going to chaperone two full-grown adults?”

“Not chaperoning. Just putting an extra body in her space for a time so she’s comfortable.”

“For how long, Prince?”

“Until she seeks you out on her own.”

“Fuck.”

The prince let out a most uncouth grunt. “The circumstances aren’t ideal, Ethan. I get that. But, look, with all the turmoil of our world, don’t you want to do this right? If you dump all the heavy shit on her all at once, she’s not going to be able to cope. You’re going to strain the relationship before you’ve had a fair chance to heat it up.” He let down his visor, and Ethan did the same.

He chewed on the prince’s admonition and tried to digest his words as they eased their bikes back onto the asphalt and turned back in the direction they’d come from.

Prince Heath was a reasonable man, and there was wisdom in what he’d said, but Ethan didn’t understand why he couldn’t be trusted to handle the relationship as he saw fit.

Hell, his own mother had thought his father was a bit of an ogre at first, but she eventually came around. She hadn’t had a choice. She hadn’t been able to stay away from him any more than he’d been able to stay away for her. They were a matched set.

And that was what Ethan was supposed to have with Dasha. His instincts wouldn’t lie about that.

___

Ethan had barely had time to park his bike before a fairy of royal lineage ran out of the motel barking orders at him. Princess Siobhan tugged at his arm, grousing, “Move your stinkin’ feet, Gotch,” and Ethan couldn’t even get any words out to dissuade her from whatever her mission was.

He was looking frantically for any signs of Dasha, and being so distracted by Heath’s sprint toward the owner’s cottage, Ethan was only half paying attention to where he was being taken.

Princess Siobhan shoved him into the suite she shared with the twins Daryn and Caryl, closed the door, and put her back against it. “Gods.”

“What?” he asked. “Where’s Dasha?”

“I’m not worried about Dasha right now. She’s safe and being well taken care of. Maybe she’ll forget about the insanity she’s come to visit if Simone does her job right.”

“Well, that’s not helping me. I need—”

Princess Siobhan grabbed him by the shirt and gave him a frustrated little shake. “You should have drowned that bitch when you had the chance.”

“No disrespect intended, but what the fuck are you talking about, Princess?”

“Laurel.”

Ethan furrowed his brow. “Pardon? What the hell does Laurel have to do with anything?” He hadn’t seen the woman in years, and he was happy enough about that, indeed.

“She was here. When you were gone.”

“Right
then
?”

Princess Siobhan nodded and scraped her hair back from her face. She produced a clasp out of nowhere—at least, seemingly—and secured the thick fall of black hair at a questionable angle, but that probably didn’t matter anyway. She always tossed clips when they started to annoy her. “Caryl!” she shouted.

“Yeah?”

“Tell him.”

Caryl emerged from her bedroom wearing a bathrobe and brushing out the ends of her silver hair. The best Ethan could remember, the hair under the dye was blond, but she hadn’t worn her natural color in so long, he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t even gauge her natural color by looking at her twin, because Daryn had been an artificial brunette for at least ten years. They claimed dying made blending in among humans easier. They may have been right, though Ethan couldn’t speak confidently on the matter. To him, they still looked like fairies. They all had the right look, Princess Siobhan included. Tall and lithe with skin that glowed. He’d always been better than most at identifying their kind from a distance, though. That skill was part of his arsenal of magic.

“Ethan, she’s still nuts,” Caryl said.

“What’s that got to do with me? And how the fuck did she find me?”

Princess Siobhan padded into the kitchen, her flip-flops slapping against the ceramic tile as she went.

He found the princess wearing anything but denim and leather to be so odd. Taking up residence at the beach had softened her wardrobe. Caryl and Daryn’s, as well. He’d never seen a fairy in short shorts until the month prior.

Princess Siobhan opened the fridge and pulled out a water-filtering pitcher. “I imagine my mother had something to do with her sudden arrival.”

“To what end?”

“Just her newest tactic to annoy the shit out of us. You know how she is.”

Hands on hips, Caryl stood in front of him. “Laurel still thinks you’re her mate.”

“I’m not.”

Caryl shrugged. “I believe you.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that she thinks that you’re running from your match, and I guess she appealed to Rhiannon to help her tidy things up. You know how fairies feel about people not holding up their ends of a match.”

“Rhiannon can’t
really
believe that scheming nag is my match. And why would she even fuckin’ care, anyway?”

“Whether she believes her or not doesn’t matter. She saw an opening to access you and the rest of us without having to engage us directly, and she took it. She granted Laurel the ability to leave the realm so that she could come fetch you.”

Ethan scoffed and arced around Caryl. He needed a glass of that water, or even something stronger.

The ladies were the only ones from their crew who’d gotten cozy and decorated their little slice of the property, but seeing as how Princess Siobhan had paid for the construction, the personalizing probably was fair. Princess Simone had had no intention of improving The Hearth, but Princess Siobhan, being the opportunist she was, had seen potential. She’d seen a place for their nomadic, ragtag crew to finally have rest, but the motel had been too small to house them all indefinitely. And because of her curse, Simone still needed to be able to provide facilities for travelers. Building something brand new behind the old motel structure had made sense. The new building was a two-story grouping of suites, all a thirty-second walk to the water. A courtyard and a pool divided the new building from the old, sprawling motel. Simone hadn’t wanted the pool—she’d thought the amenity would encourage guests to stay longer—but Siobhan was convincing when she wanted to be. At the moment, the pool was empty because the cement was still curing. They’d be filling it up any day, assuming rain didn’t throw off the timeline.

In the fridge door, Ethan found a bottle of a dark beer he hadn’t tried before and popped the cap. “Where’d Laurel go?”