Loose Changeling: A Changeling Wars Novel (36 page)

"It appears we have been deceived," he said. "Grian framed Faolan in order to goad us into warring with the mortal world."

Yeah, thanks for the Cliff notes, dude. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

But he wasn't talking for my benefit. The Fae, lesser and greater, gasped and murmured. They hadn't been crawling inside Grian's head like I had.

"Mortals," Dorian called out, "please accept our apologies for any death or destruction we may have already caused."

Officer Brown didn't pay any attention to Dorian. He cuffed Grian and hauled her to her feet.

"Nicole, we should go." Kailen stood over me, his hand extended.

I glanced over at Merlin's body, and again the grief filled me—silent and cold and hollow. "He deserves better than this."

"Dorian will see to it." Kailen shook his head, the corner of his lip curled. "Fae politics. But the police won't be mollified by pretty words. They'll try to make more arrests and things will get messy. I know that. You know that. The other Fae may be able to just jump through the doorways, but we can’t. Grian is in custody. We need to leave."

Brown nodded at me as his partner walked up. "He's right. If you go now, then officially, you weren't here. It's the least Gomez and I can do. Faolan will be released, once we get her confession."

I took Kailen's hand and he hauled me to my feet. I tried not to wince at the pain in both my arm and my leg. Before I could stumble, he'd wrapped his arm around my waist. The touch of his hand distracted me, chasing away the pain.

I leaned into him, grateful for the support, and let him lead me away from the prison. The world around us blurred. Ten steps, and we were downtown. Twenty, and we stood at my doorstep.

Though he looked as tired as I felt, he helped me inside, sitting me down on the couch.

It took him almost an hour, but he removed the arrow with gentle fingers and healed the wound it left behind. We barely spoke.

We'd won, but at what cost? How long could I—could anyone—keep the Fae and the mortal worlds separate?

I needed time to process what had happened. I needed space.

He must have sensed what I felt—in my body language, in my expression. When Kailen finished with my leg, he brushed the hair from my face and put his lips to my forehead. "Call me," he whispered. "If you need me, I'm there."

His hand lingered on my cheek. I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, I was alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

When you’ve got a heritage like mine, you come to realize you have to adjust your expectations of normal. Normal isn’t sitting in front of the television with your feet propped up and a beer in your hand after a long day of work. Normal is waking up to a grushound at your door, loudly demanding food and lodging with a vocabulary that surpasses your own.

I let the hound in. Leaving a talking dog on my doorstep wasn’t the best way to lie low. Anwynn quickly made herself at home, claiming the guest bedroom as her domain and cleaning my freezer of anything resembling meat. I tried petting her wiry black fur the day after she’d moved in. She only rolled one brown eye back at me and said, “This probably doesn’t feel good for either of us.” I kept my hands to myself after that. Not a cuddly puppy dog then. More like a prickly, bitchy roommate. Still, she made me feel safe.

So when the Arbiter showed up in my living room a couple days later, I didn’t so much as yelp. I calmly asked him if he wanted tea, and inquired after the nature of his visit.

He said yes to the tea, and settled onto my couch, his arms slung across the cushions, robes pooling about his seated form. The hood inched back, revealing a face that looked rather normal, if I ignored the pale skin, the blue-black hair, and the pupil-less green eyes. “I’m granting your petition for legal status,” he said, “with conditions.”

Of course. Couldn’t just be a simple stamp-the-form-and-sign-here sort of process, could it? I flipped the kettle on and shuffled through my cupboards for the tea bags. “What conditions?”

He waited until I’d found them before speaking again. “First, you must close all the doorways Merlin has opened.”

I’d known this was coming; it what was what I’d been created for, after all. Still, hearing it out loud was a shock. “Kailen’s had that watch for a while. Rooting out all the doorways it’s reopened—and closing them—that’s practically a full-time job. How will I pay for my food? For my house?” For the pony-sized hound with the insatiable appetite?

The Arbiter shrugged. “Not my concern.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “You do want to live, don’t you?”

“Point taken.” As soon as the kettle boiled, I poured it over the tea and took it to him. “And the other conditions?”

“Only one more.” He blew the steam from the top of the mug and sipped. “Changelings were outlawed for a reason. If I grant you legal status, this tips the balance of power firmly in the Aranhods’ favor. I can’t have that. The other families will begin creating Changelings with or without permission. I’m severing your ties with the Aranhods. From here on out, you will be your own, separate entity. You will not be under their protection, nor will they be under yours.”

Anwynn chose that moment to pad into the room. She bowed her head to the Arbiter as she passed. “Arbiter,” she murmured. The hound stopped before the tile floor of the kitchen and sat. “I wish to be fed.” Even sitting, her head breached my countertops.

The Arbiter eyed the grushound. “As such,” he continued, “any lesser Fae that bond to you will be yours alone to control.”

Anwynn’s tail twitched once.

I was missing something here, some larger implication. I should have called Kailen to ask his advice, but I was still winding down from the confrontation at the prison. “Okay,” I said slowly. “Fine.”

He nodded and then made me swear an oath that felt about fifty pages long, give or take. There was magic in it, I was sure of it, but when he cupped my chin with his hand and I spoke the last words, I felt only a vague warmth in the center of my chest. There was no smell to speak of.

“Stay out of trouble, little one,” the Arbiter said as he rose from his spot on the couch. “Though I have the feeling that may prove difficult.” Before I could protest being called “little one,” he’d disappeared.

He left half his tea in the mug, the contents still steaming. I watched it curl into the air, bemused by everything that had transpired.

“It has been over five minutes, and I am still not fed,” Anwynn announced.

I sighed and went to the refrigerator. “Yeah, yeah.”

It took another few days for me to wrangle the hound onto a leash so I could leave the house. I wasn’t keen on going out alone, not so soon after the Arbiter had given me legal status. If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that the Fae were all about breaking rules.

But all my explanations of leash laws wouldn’t sway the stubborn beast. I tried sweet-talking her, I tried bribery. Just the sight of the leash was enough to raise Anwynn’s hackles. Finally, my patience worn thin, I ordered her to wear it, and she submitted to this indignity without another word.

I took her to a café downtown, and we waited on the patio at one of the tables. Though we received a lot of looks and a few questions on the type of dog she was (I’d settled on, “A third Great Dane, a third German Shepherd, and a third Irish Wolfhound.”), no one asked to pet her.

Owen showed up fifteen minutes after I’d arrived. He approached our table in an arc, giving the grushound wide berth.

“Hey,” he said, sliding into the seat next to me. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he’d actually taken the time to shave.

“Hey,” I said. I didn’t want to drag this out any longer, so I pushed the papers over to him. Under the hand-written “Are you sure?” note, I’d checked yes.

He stared at it for a long time, and so did I.

“So this is really the end,” he finally said.

“It is.”

He glanced up at me, briefly, and then back down. “Are you okay? You’re not being chased anymore? I heard something went down at the prison and figured that was you.”

I gave him a tentative smile and felt the corners of it wobble. “It was, and I’m not being chased anymore. I’m going to be fine. You?”

He let out a long breath. “Yeah. I got a job waiting tables, just to hold me over. My brother knows a few people—we’re forming a band.”

“Good.” And I meant it. It was the sort of work that better suited him.

The door to the café swung open and the barista brought me my mocha. Anwynn, apparently bored, scratched an ear. Neither Owen nor I spoke.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose that’s it then.” He stood and turned to go.

“Owen,” I said. He looked back at me. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad I met you.”

“Yeah?” He cocked his head, the trace of a smile on his face. “You know, you’re different now. You seem more like you, if that makes any sense. See you around, Nicole. Take care.”

“You too,” I called after him. A lump formed in my throat as I watched him walk away. Our marriage was over. I lifted the mug and sipped, trying to swallow back the tears. I’d known this was coming, and so had he.

I was opening the door to my car when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“You haven’t called.”

Kailen. He wore gray slacks and a slightly rumpled button-up shirt. There on the sidewalk, he turned enough heads to stir a breeze. I don’t think any of the passing women (and some men) even noticed Anwynn.

“I didn’t need to,” I said lightly. The truth of the matter was that the mere sight of him set me off balance. There were things I had to do, to sort out, and having him muddle up my feelings didn’t help me get anywhere.

His gaze settled on Anwynn. “You bonded the grushound.”

His tone inspired defensiveness. “So? It was in the middle of battle. She offered. And why didn’t you tell me grushounds could talk?”

“All the lesser Fae can. But talking to a grushound is a waste of time.”

Anwynn spoke up. “I have the sudden urge to piss on your leg.”

I jerked her leash. “Shut
up
! We’re in public, for God’s sake.”

“She turned on Grian. She can turn on you,” Kailen said.

Now the implications of what I’d sworn hit me. I was the only one responsible for the grushound. If it suited Anwynn, she could drop me at a moment’s notice for a more powerful Fae family. For a larger one. And what was I, one Sidhe, going to do?

“I find this position suits me. For now,” said the hound. And then she grinned. When a person grins, it puts you at ease. It means they’re friendly, that they like you. When a dog grins, it shows each of their pointy teeth.

I would have preferred a wagging tail.

She jumped into my backseat, the leash slipping from my limp hands. “I would like fish for dinner tonight,” she said. “I grow tired of steak.”

I slammed the door shut behind her. I wasn’t going to let her walk all over me. If she thought I would, she was in for a surprise. I could butt heads with the best of them.

“Here,” Kailen handed me an envelope. “I didn’t come here to talk about the grushound. I wanted to give you this.”

It was plain, white, with no clue to its contents. “What…what is it?”

“I paid off the balance of your mortgage,” he said. “The house is yours. I thought it might help, now that you don’t have a job.”

Overwhelming would be putting it lightly. I had to put a hand on the car to steady myself. “I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”

“It’s done.” He reached out and curled my fingers around the envelope. “No take backs.”

“I don’t even know how to thank you for this.” I’d still have to worry about property taxes, and food, but this lifted an enormous burden from my shoulders.

“Let me take you out to dinner. Let me do things the right way.” He hadn’t let go of my hand.

I wanted to say yes. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t remember the night we’d spent together, the feeling of his skin against mine, his lips to my cheek, my ear, my chest. But I’d just finished putting the final nails into the coffin of my marriage. One court hearing later, and I would be officially single.

I met his gaze. “You said you have too much baggage. What about mine? I don’t want to jump from one relationship into the next. I need some time to myself.”

He tugged on my hand and brought me closer; I didn’t have the strength to resist. “Just one date.”

I laughed, my voice a little breathy. “It wouldn’t be just a date.”

“I like that suggestion even better.” His lips brushed the side of my face.

I inhaled desire and did my best to exhale it. No scent of honeysuckle—not even the faintest hint. It took a good deal of my resolve to step back. “I’m not suggesting anything. I have a lot of things to deal with right now that I don’t want to mess up.” I pulled my hand free and slipped around the car, putting the hood between us. “I have your number. I promise, I’ll call.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

And then I was in the car.

“I could smell the pheromones eking off the two of you in waves,” Anwynn said after I shut the door. “Even from in here. Perhaps you ought to control yourself.” She lay down in the backseat. “There’s a grocery store two blocks from here.”

I didn’t say anything. I started the car and turned on the radio. Well, whaddya know? Alanis Morissette. I didn’t even think they still played her.

“Turn that off,” Anwynn said as we pulled away from the curb. “It’s terrible.”

“What’s that?” I said, turning up the volume. “You
love
this music?” I belted out the lyrics as we headed down the street, taking perverse pleasure in the way the hound’s ears flattened against her skull.

I didn’t stop for the fish.

THE END

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