One Thousand Kisses (33 page)

“You’ve known for so long.”

“Technically, I’ve only known the specifics for five years.”

She picked a yellow flower. “Long enough.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, issuing his first formal apology. “But this is why I couldn’t let things progress at the hotel.”

She plucked the blossom apart, her fingers nimble. “You shouldn’t even have kissed me.”

“Would you prefer that I could resist you?” He’d certainly like to be irresistible to her but had no idea how to go about being so.

Her cheeks reddened more than the sun and wind could account for. “You had no trouble resisting me for five years.”

“On the contrary. I’ve been increasingly troubled.” Since she knew everything else, he had no reason not to lay everything out before her. “Take the gardens, for example. I shifted my schedule in hopes I’d cross your path.”

“Because of the election?” She yanked another flower out of the ground, roots and all. “Did your cabinet decide it was time for you to marry?”

“They mentioned it,” he admitted. “But I decided to pursue you a year ago for myself. I wasn’t very good at it.”

“A year ago?” She rubbed her forehead. “When I think over the past year, I can’t even… Oh my stars. I’d be sad for you if it didn’t involve me.”

“What would you have had me do?” The rare fairy received a bondmate prophecy. There were no rules for handling such a situation. Most Primaries were already married when elected, and the majority of Fey weren’t allowed access to the Seers. “If you’d been the one to receive the prophecy, how would you have told me?”

She opened her mouth and shut it again, her brow furrowing. “I’d have offered you a proposition card.”

“As I understand it, once you offer a card, the next move belongs to the receiver. If I didn’t accept your card, how would you have told me then?”

She huffed out a breath. “Probably in a note. With a checkbox. That I would have given Skythia to give to you. It doesn’t matter, Embor. I wasn’t the one who knew.”

He smiled, the sensation like ice breaking on a lake. “I wish it had been you. You’d hardly have managed things as poorly as I did.”

She drew her knees to her chest and laid her cheek on them, facing him. “Would you have wanted a card from me?”

Before he’d known about Anisette and Talista, he’d accepted few cards and had offered zero.
The Thousand Kisses
had unnecessarily systematized the way fairies handled courtship. “I don’t follow
The Thousand Kisses
.”

“But you know what a card means,” she said, her blue eyes meeting his.

“I’d take a card now,” he offered helpfully, patting his suit pockets. “I’m sure I have a paper and pen somewhere.”

“Stop it,” she said. “Stop making your dry jokes. I’m not at all pleased with you.”

She’d downgraded from angry to not pleased, and she’d recognized his jest instead of being shocked he’d attempted humor.

“I do want to please you,” he said. “I’ll try to be tedious.”

She looked, for a second, as if she might laugh. Jake was right. Anisette wouldn’t allow negativity to direct her. He’d do well—anyone would do well—to emulate her.

“What did you think when you found out?” she asked.

He’d avoided that particular visit to the Seers the first several decades of his term until Skythia threatened to set him up on blind bond tests. After the Incident, his attentions had been far, far from marriage.

“I was gratified to know I had bondmate,” he told her, choosing his words carefully. “I didn’t know which of you it was. You were adults but both so young that—well, Skythia told me you wouldn’t appreciate knowing your future so soon.”

“Talista,” Anisette said, “would have gone ballistic.”

“Or worse.” Embor noticed she didn’t claim she’d have been upset herself. Was her objection the fact that it was him—or that he’d kept it from her? “When I received the prediction, your sister wasn’t at Court. I had to arrange for her denial to be reversed.”

This time Anisette did laugh. “She likes to tell people I needed more training, so I had to come sooner.”

“She’s jealous of you.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“She also understands how unhappy you’ve been in a way no one else did.” He hadn’t recognized Anisette’s deep discontent, but as soon as Talista described the hole in herself, he’d comprehended instantly. He’d sensed it on some level. It was part of why he always wanted to please Anisette. She wasn’t where she wanted to be, and he desired her happiness above almost all things.

“I’m unhappy now.” She straightened her legs, rotating her feet. “I wasn’t unhappy before.”

“Before what?” When she didn’t answer, he continued. “I get the impression Talista’s envious of how easy you are to like compared to how…difficult she is to like.”

Anisette’s chin snapped up. “My sister isn’t difficult to like.”

Embor raised an eyebrow.

“She’s a little difficult. But I’m—”

“Easy to like.”
Easy to love.

“Easy to ignore. Easy to manipulate.”

“People assume that about you. They’re wrong.” Talista. Skythia. His staff. The Torvals. They all thought Anisette would be amenable to whatever they needed. He himself had imagined their life as a smooth journey and her presence as some spiritual curative for him alone.

“Did you assume that?”

He hated this distance between them. In these few days, he’d grown to look forward to the way she reached for him. He wanted the right to reach for her. “It wasn’t as if I considered you weak, but I didn’t know you. You have more strength than anyone realizes. You told me once I wasn’t easy. You’re not easy, either, Anisette. You’re just easy to like.”

“That doesn’t feel like a compliment.” She blew a piece of hair away from her mouth.

“It’s a fact.” She wasn’t challenging in and of herself, but she challenged him to be the one man who deserved her trust and her friendship. Her love and her future.

“You’re the first person besides Tali I’ve ever yelled at.” She stretched, as sinuous as the cat. Her spine cracked, and she sighed. “I’ve wanted to yell at you for twenty years.”

“That’s how long you’ve been at Court.” He inched back to give her space. He didn’t think she’d appreciate the offer of a back rub. “What do you suppose that means?”

“I don’t find it hard to decipher.” She rose, dusting sand off her pants. “You’ve been inflexible, critical, secretive and scary. I understand why you focused on Tali and me, but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed the experience.”

His turn to squint into the sun. “It will be different now.”

“It will be different no matter what we do.” She caught her hair in her fist before the sea wind blew it into tangles. “But I need time.”

They had a great many years to act on the prophecy. A bond was viable as long as both members of a pair were fertile.

But he wanted her sooner rather than later. He wanted her physically and emotionally. He wanted her now. He stood and arranged his body to block the wind. It required that he stand close to her. “How much time? I have a half-day open in my schedule a week from tomorrow.”

“I told you to stop that. This isn’t a negotiation. I’ll take as long as I want.”

“Will you indeed?” He hid a surge of adrenaline. If she wanted to challenge him, if she wanted to be chased, at least that was familiar ground.

Hunting, he could do.

His anticipation must have shown through. She edged away like his proximity might melt her resolve. “It’s my decision.”

She’d asserted herself and he’d respect it, but all he could imagine was kissing her senseless. He inclined his head. “As you wish.”

She began picking her way through the rubble and rocks. “I’d like my jacket now.”

He accompanied her back to Vegas without speaking further about sex and forgiveness. Once there, they were so consumed by preparations, they didn’t have another opportunity to speak.

More likely she was avoiding him. Taking her time.

To the hells with this. As soon as the Torvals, the AOC board and this new issue with the lost ones had been dealt with, he’d give her a thousand of those damned cards. She’d have to pick one of them, and he didn’t much care which, as long as it meant they belonged to each other at the conclusion.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Dammit all to Fet, I didn’t miscast the globes.” Tali’s face grew as red as her hair as she defended her handiwork. “Someone screwed up the timing.”

Ani grabbed her drink before Tali kicked it over. They sat on a fat couch in the living room of the Vegas green ring station. Five minutes ago, Gret had transported from her post in Hawaii. She’d confirmed what they feared. The global locator grid had received only a single ping—Milshadred Torval, at the repository in Alaska.

The Drakhmores, Tali, Jake and Embor had erupted into so much bickering, Ani sensed the beginning of a headache. She could only imagine how Embor felt. Being in humanspace had delayed his recovery, and she could do nothing for him. So she remained silent, Master Fey purring in her lap.

“The timing was correct.” Embor, beside the front window, closed the blinds with a snap. The green ring was situated in the outskirts of Vegas. Most of it lay inside a one-story dwelling. The Court had purchased a number of buildings on the block as a safeguard against human incursion.

“Could we have missed them because they’ve got shields like ours?” Gret, at the computer desk, shrugged a blouse over her bikini top.

Embor shook his head, his frown deepening. Whatever lightness of spirit he’d evidenced yesterday on the beach during their oddly sweet heart-to-heart had disappeared. “The spells located Milshadred. I doubt they have shields stronger than mine.”

“See? It wasn’t me. My location spell could cut through any shield.” Tali whumped against the back of the couch, and Jake slipped an arm around his frustrated wife.

“Don’t be so sure. We don’t know what their loons can do,” Horace said. “I can’t wait to meet these kids.”

It had been discussed how the onesies should be handled when this was over. Embor and Jake thought the Seers should generate predictions for each lost one. The Drakhmores were more interested in a training program. The Elder Court would have to be informed about them, even if they didn’t become common knowledge.

Ani hadn’t ventured an opinion. She was too worried about the Torvals and the AOC. All she could imagine were new things that might go wrong. The onesies might be too powerful. The Torval Elders might have turned the tide at Court. The Elders might not be forgiving of Embor, Jake and Tali. The AOC might be too entrenched.

The people she loved might get hurt, and there was nothing she could do. Was there?

“The thing I don’t understand is who these lost ones are.” Jake indicated the master list of onesies he’d printed. “None of the ones on our lists match the descriptions of the people you guys remember from Key West.” Two Cragens were systematically checking on every Fey in humanspace, pretending to be census takers, wrong numbers, whatever worked, and so far nobody was missing.

“Mildred probably kept double lists,” Tali said.

“That settles it. We need to get her to be more specific about who they are and what powers they have,” Gret said. “We’ve got to be better prepared.”

“I’ll get her sorry ass.” Burly popped into between-space a couple seconds later.

“I’m going to make some calls, rattle some cages, see what I can dig up.” Horace flipped out a cellphone and exited through the kitchen to the backyard.

Tali propped her feet on the coffee table. “I could do a search on Jake. His DNA’s in the control globes they stole.”

“It won’t work. If you’d attended your theory classes at Court, you’d know that.” Embor returned to the window and reopened the blinds. Ani didn’t know what he was looking for on the hot, dusty street. When he wasn’t at the window, he was glancing at Ani, as if he expected her to leap up and tell him she wasn’t angry anymore. And she wasn’t, exactly. He’d had a point yesterday. What would she have done if she’d been the one the Seers had told?

Something cowardly, no doubt. So why be angry with him for doing the same?

“Whatever.” Tali booted the table, rattling Ani’s drink.

Pressure built in Ani’s ears right before Burly appeared with Milshadred in tow. Master Fey growled deep in his chest. She’d expected the cat to make comments about how she needed to mate with Embor, but he hadn’t uttered a word since yesterday.

Milshadred shoved her hand into her jeans pocket and pulled out a sucker. “Hey, you guys converted my old digs into a ring station. Looks better without gnomes everywhere, huh, Embor?”

Embor didn’t bother to respond.

“You’re such a hag,” Tali told her. “You’re supposed to be on our side, but you keep reminding us why we should hate you.”

“You can only change my mind, not my nature,” Milshadred answered with a smirk. She tossed the candy wrapper onto the desk and inserted the lollie into her mouth.

The old fairy had guessed Jake had bespelled her. Ani found herself nibbling on her nail and shoved her hand under her leg. Could Milshadred switch sides again now that she knew? Embor’s eyes narrowed as if that had occurred to him as well.

“We need to know whether your sibs have ether onesies.” Gret flipped Milshadred’s wrapper into a trash can, though she looked like she’d rather flip Milshadred into the trash can.

Milshadred removed the sucker from her mouth. “We had four, but one got away.”

“Got away?” Tali asked. “I thought you conned them into being worshipful and crap.”

“Rae Ann could see the future.” Milshadred laughed. “Would you have stuck around for this? She had a vision, warned us about the Hand of Fire, and the next day she was gone.”

Gret typed that in. “Do any of them make shields?”

“Nah. The only one to worry about’s a transporter. You might be familiar with his work from Key West.” Milshadred twirled the candy in her mouth.

“Three ether, one earth. What else they got?” Horace asked.

“Not now, Dad.” Gret’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Confirmed. Shields aren’t the problem. That brings us back to a flaw with the original spells.”

“Not,” Tali said.

“I take it you couldn’t catch my sibs with your big woo-woo,” Milshadred said.

“The spells found you.” Gret rolled her chair away from the desk and faced the room. “Where in the vapor are your sibs?”

Embor cleared his throat. “Has it occurred to anyone they might be dead?”

Milshadred froze in the act of licking the lollie. For a brief moment, sorrow flashed across her features. “That’s not it.”

“Can you sense them?” Ani asked. No matter how Milshadred felt about her sibs, it would hurt any fairy to lose part of herself.

“Hell, no. I’m acclimated, remember? But you’re ignoring the obvious. You didn’t find them because they hauled ass back to the Realm to hide behind the AOC. They might be scared of reporting in, but trust me when I say they’re more scared of the Hand of Fire.”

“You can’t stop me from coming.” Anisette, dressed in athletic clothing, tightened the straps on her backpack. The damned cat milled at her ankles, tail curling around her calves.

“I’m not stopping you. I’m asking you. Stay with your sister and guard the rings.” He crossed his arms awkwardly over his flak vest and attempted to hide his misgivings and his headache. The team bustled around the station house, preparing for the confrontation. “Next time it will be an order.”

Anisette exchanged a glance with Gret. “What are you going to do? Put me on probation?”

“I suppose not.” No one in this group ever paid attention when he pulled rank. “The fact is, it might not be safe.”

“None of this has been safe. I’m the one Warran and Ophelia assaulted. The cat and I are coming.”

The cat understandably wanted to see Warran, Ophelia and this Freddie person in chains, but Anisette wasn’t vengeful. Not like the cat. Not like him.

“We need you here,” he said, thinking fast, “in case anyone needs to retreat for medical attention.”

“You’re the one who needs medical attention.” She picked up the cat. “Who’s going to heal your withdrawals so you can make shields and use globes? Any magic you work will be unpredictable until you’re healthy.”

“Burly and I have that covered.” The medic’s energy globes might suffice. He’d contact Gangee if that failed, though the healer wouldn’t be pleased by Embor’s condition—or his plan to use the sixth arts on their enemies. Involving Gangee would mean revealing Jake’s participation to the doctor, but it couldn’t be helped.

“You need a healer, not a medic. You need me.” She closed the distance between them, her blue eyes steely. Her hair was rolled at the nape of her neck. “I heard a rumor I’m your better half.”

“Hm.” It surprised him she’d speak of it, even though she’d done so to use it against him.

“Then it’s settled.” She adjusted the cat in her arms, scratching under his chin. “Master Fey agrees I need to come.”

“That sounds eerily familiar.” He frowned at the cat. “It isn’t part of the plan.”

“It isn’t part of your plan,” she corrected. The cat began to purr.

His plan was simple and expedient. Locate the lost ones and the Torval sibs with magic and use a control globe on them all. Milshadred said the onesies, when Realmside, were clumped together under the watchful eye of an AOC director to prohibit any magic use.

After Embor and his team pacified the opposition, the onesies would be sent through the green ring immediately. Getting them out was top priority. Every moment they remained in the Realm was hazardous to the world’s health. Jake, Talista, several Drakhmores and Anisette would be waiting in Vegas to receive them.

If they needed to be controlled, Jake would control them. If they needed to be transported to a deadspace dungeon, Talista would transport them. If they needed to be healed, if they needed proof not all fairies were crazy, deceitful Torvals, Anisette would step in.

That was where she figured into the plan. There were even backup plans this time, in ascending order of risk.

The immediate threat neutralized, they’d locate the Torvals, both agents and Elders, and pacify them if needed. Embor would contact Skythia to initiate an emergency session of the Elder Court, during which the Torvals would confess their heinous crimes and implicate the AOC.

While they might not be able to detain the entire AOC board right off, the board’s resources would be greatly limited by loss of political support. They might try to run, but there would be nowhere for them to hide. Not in the Realm, not in humanspace, not anywhere. Not anymore.

“We can’t stand around all day arguing,” Horace said as he took Milshadred’s arm. “Ani’s old enough to decide for herself what she wants to do.”

Yes, she was, in more ways than one. As Embor wished to protect her, wasn’t it a fine thing she seemed to feel the same about him?

He gave a single, sharp nod.

“On my mark.” Gret counted down from five.

At three, Drakhmores began disappearing through the ring anyway. Soon only Embor and Ani remained. He concentrated, trying to draw power from the Realm. He could grasp the magic, but when he brought it into himself, it whiffed away like smoke.

Anisette watched without comment as she cuddled the cat, but it was clear from her expression she suspected what he was about to say.

“I do need your help.” He clasped her shoulders. The cat’s wet nose touched his wrist. “Will you accompany me?”

She smiled, lighting the whole room, and his tension eased. “I will.”

This was the right decision. He couldn’t wrap her in cotton and set her apart from every danger. She’d make him stronger, and he’d make her stronger as well.

He drew her closer, his thumb stroking her skin. “Will you take us through?”

“I will,” she said again. “Hold on.”

The air began to shimmer around them as they entered between-space. Master Fey let out an eerie howl the likes of which Embor had never heard.

Watch out!

Magic wrenched them in a thousand directions and spit them out midair. Blue sky, white clouds. Falling, falling. Anisette shrieked. The cat yowled.

What in the hells?

Embor tried to bring his ether to bear, to transport them somewhere safe, but couldn’t absorb the power. They plunged into cold water. His vest pounded upward on impact, smothering him.

Bubbles spumed around him. He thrashed toward the surface but sank instead. His eyes stung. Pressure built in his ears as he descended.

Hands clutched his vest, snatching it off him. Once he was freed, Anisette dragged him up. He broke into the air with a gasp.

“Embor, I’m here.” She wrestled him, shook him. “Relax your body. I can keep you afloat as long as you relax.”

All around them, waves and blue water stretched as far as his burning eyes could see. No land, no boats, no safety. How had this happened? How had they been sent here instead of the Ellsmen station?

Curse these Torvals and their blasted ambushes.

Salty water entered his mouth. His head went under, back up. Under. Panic bulged no matter how he tried to tamp it down. He reached frantically for magic, and it slipped from his grasp like the water that surrounded them.

A surge ballooned over their heads, pushing them down. Instinctively he struggled. Weeds, no, Anisette’s hair wrapped around his hand. Their knees bashing, she pushed them to the surface.