“Shy, no laughing,” Rika ordered, and he knew that she was well aware of the way it was making him feel.
“Yes, Rika,” he demurred, giving her a very obedient look, and then he smirked at Keenan. “She’s a natural leader, only a fool wouldn’t see that.”
Keenan continued to glare at Sionnach, holding the other faery’s eyes for a heartbeat or two, and then returned his attention to Rika. “We can talk out the details. Things are different now. You’d be an extension of my court. It’s not a difficult task, and you could enlist whatever”—he gestured vaguely at Sionnach—“faeries you wanted as staff.”
“Did you miss the part where I said no when you were here before?” Resolutely, Rika walked past Keenan and came to gently sit down on the bed beside Sionnach, putting herself between them. Her hand brushed his cheek gently, a gesture that looked like affection but Sionnach knew to be a subtle way of checking his fever.
As she withdrew her hand, Sionnach realized that he was barely resisting touching her. He’d let Keenan think that she was his. She wasn’t. He’d known that for decades. They were friends. He’d all but shoved Jayce into her arms. Still . . . he could rationalize it away right now as simply encouraging the image he had set before the Summer King. He ran his fingertips over Rika’s upper arm, enjoying touching her as he so rarely could. She didn’t pull away.
“I’m not interested in what you are offering,” Rika told Keenan, her voice soft but firm. Her body was motionless, but Sionnach felt the tension in her muscles. He didn’t know if it was her anger or his touch that made her so stiff. Just in case his touch was making her unhappy, Sionnach stilled his hand.
“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say,” Rika said.
Keenan raked his hand through his hair. “Be reasonable, Rika. You can’t think that having this many uncontrolled faeries without leadership is wise. The Summer Court can establish order here. If you help—”
“No.” She glanced over her shoulder at Sionnach then and added, “I have all the help I need.”
Sionnach reclined, letting himself relax farther into the pillows now that she was there. The pain from hiding his injury and moving as if he were unharmed had made him feel sick. A wise Alpha didn’t show such things—especially to court faeries who were determined to take over where they weren’t wanted. Moreover, an Alpha didn’t show weakness to the one who’d hurt the faery he most wanted to shelter. Sionnach wrapped an arm around Rika’s waist and closed his eyes as if he were bored. “Wake me when he’s gone.”
“He’s leaving now.” Rika wrapped her hand around Sionnach’s where it rested on her, keeping him held tightly to her, letting him know that his embrace was wanted. This, at least, was familiar territory with them. He had embraced her a few times over the decades when she was upset—usually because of the Summer King’s unwanted visits.
Sionnach could feel her tremble as he held her. Seeing Keenan had always upset her, and the helplessness Sionnach felt every time hadn’t faded. He couldn’t undo the hurt, the self-doubt, the sorrow that Keenan’s actions had caused her. He couldn’t even strike out at the faery king. All he could do was stay by her side, and try to help her when he had a chance. He squeezed her hand reassuringly, reminding her that she was not alone.
“There are other faeries who would be strong enough to run the desert for me if you won’t, Rika.” Keenan’s words were spoken softly, but the threat in them was implicit: he would control the desert with or without her.
Sionnach’s eyes snapped open as his temper flared, but even the strongest Alpha was no match for a faery king. Years ago, when Keenan was a bound king, Sionnach might have considered attacking him. He would’ve lost, but he might have survived it. Now, though? The Summer King was unbound; he was all but invincible. A fight would likely end in death, or at the least, such a severe defeat that Sionnach would be useless to Rika. And attempting anything while he had poison in his body would be a potentially fatal act.
Rika, however, didn’t seem to have even reacted to Keenan’s quiet threat. She said only, “You need to go, Keenan. I don’t have anything more to say to you, and I don’t want to see you.”
The Summer King, however, was nothing if not persistent. He was a faery who had spent nine centuries seeking one girl. He didn’t surrender easily. “Think about what’s best,” he said. “The solitaries here don’t need to be without protection. The Summer Court has a plan to create sub-regions with local rulers and—”
“No,” she cut him off. “We are strong enough without you. No one bothers us out here.”
“But if there’s trouble from one of the other courts—”
“Why would they bring their conflicts here? Our only troubles are from our own, and Shy and I are strong enough to mete out discipline. You made me stronger than most every faery when you stole my humanity. I didn’t need your help these past years.” She faltered then, looking bereft for a moment.
“You were already strong inside. That’s why he chose you,” Sionnach murmured gently, giving her the encouragement she deserved. “Still are. You can hold order over the desert, Rika. Without him. Without me.”
Rika glanced back at Sionnach. An all-too-familiar look of worry crossed her face. “Am I? You were always Alpha here.”
“Only because the stronger faery didn’t take it from me. You’re strong and brave and smart,” Sionnach told her honestly, not caring that they had an audience. “You know that. We don’t need him here.”
After a grateful smile at him, Rika looked back at Keenan and announced, “We have nothing to discuss.”
As Keenan glared at Sionnach, heat wafted toward them. The Summer King said bluntly, “Maili has approached me.”
“Rule of might, sweetheart.” Sionnach gestured in the air with one arm, pointing toward Keenan. He smiled sweetly and added, “Maili can’t act as liaison unless she’s the Alpha, the top. She’s not. Rika’s the strongest faery here. Aren’t you, princess?”
“I am.” She nodded her head and straightened her shoulders. “This is solitary territory, not court territory. You have no rights unless the Alpha allows it . . . and since Shy and I are the strongest faeries here, and I’m telling you again that you are not welcome here, you need to go away.”
Sionnach made an agreeing murmur, once more trying to seem unconcerned that Keenan was there, but inside he was rejoicing. Rika was acting as if she was already Alpha, as if she was the one in power here. This was what he’d been trying to convince Rika to notice for years: she was strong. She could rule the desert. It was unfortunate that it took him getting stabbed and taunting the Summer King to get her near the point of accepting the truth, but that mattered little in the big scheme of things. Rika was declaring herself.
“Leave, Keenan,” Rika demanded.
“Good idea, princess. Make the distraction go away.” Sionnach released Rika’s hand.
Rika’s voice sounded like laughter was about to replace words as she told Keenan, “It’s past time for you to go, Keenan.”
Then, she stood, walked over and took Keenan’s arm, and led him to the mouth of the cave. “Go. And don’t walk into my home again without my permission. You have no authority over me—or right to walk into my sleeping chamber.”
“Ashamed of your choices?” Keenan asked.
After a quiet moment, Rika answered, “Only the one, but that was a long time ago.”
CHAPTER 13
Keenan stared at the faery he’d once hoped would be his queen. “You’re ashamed of loving me?”
Rika laughed. It was painfully different from the soft sound that he’d once found so enchanting. When she was a mortal, she was sweet. She’d trusted him, looked at him with such hope in her eyes, smiled at him with love. He still remembered her that way. He remembered all of the formerly mortal girls he’d wooed. Most of all, though, he remembered those rare girls who had been brave enough or in love enough to take the test to be his queen. Until this year, they’d all failed, but they were sp
ecial. Rika was special.
“I’m not ashamed of it,” he said quietly. “You were br—”
“No,” she interrupted. “I don’t want to hear your flattery, Keenan.”
He stood silently beside her for a moment before muttering, “The fox doesn’t deserve you.”
“Sionnach knows me better than you ever did.” She shook her head. “All those years I was cursed to stand against you, I’m not sure you ever tried to know me.”
There were words he could say, wicked phrases and lovely reminders, but they would only hide the lie. He hadn’t known her. Sometimes, he thought that the only faeries he truly knew were the Winter Queens—the one he loved and the one he’d killed. For nine hundred years, he’d spent all of his time seeking his missing Summer Queen and trying to rule without his full power. He was realizing of late that he had made more than a few mistakes.
“Knowing you doesn’t mean deserving you” was all he said.
Rika stared at him for a moment, and foolishly, he felt a brush of hope that they could talk rationally. Unfortunately, that hope faded as she folded her arms over her chest and said, “Go away. Don’t come back here.”
He couldn’t truly blame her for thinking she could confront a regent so boldly. It had been her role from the time she became fey until Donia became the next Winter Girl. He lifted a hand to brush back her hair, but she moved out of his reach. “You can’t demand that, not of me,” he told her. “Not now.”
Instead of replying, she turned and returned to her cave. Later, he could try again, but for now, he let her go. Some battles were about steadily wearing away at the defenses, not winning in one glorious fight. He wasn’t done here.
Nonetheless, Keenan felt the weight of failure on his shoulders as he left Rika’s cave. The desert had always been one of his solaces; it was one of the rare places in the world where the last Winter Queen had been unable to extend her power. When Rika had first been freed from the then–Winter Queen’s curse and fled to the Mojave Desert, Keenan had believed that he’d have a future ally there. She’d been angry during her time as a Winter Girl, good at convincing girls not to trust him, but she’d loved him once. He’d believed that her anger would fade, that the core of her love was still there. Now, as he walked across the scorching ground, he realized he’d been tragically wrong. Like both his Summer Queen and the new Winter Queen, Rika simply didn’t trust him.
There were times when he wished that he could explain, could make them understand that he was as trapped by the curse as they had been. The problem, of course, was that they were trapped because of his choices, whereas he was trapped because of the choices of the last Winter Queen. She’d bound his powers, hidden them away inside a mortal girl so he couldn’t stand against Winter, and he was left seeking a single grain of sand in the expanse of a great desert. Literally, billions of girls could have been the one he needed. Each time he chose a girl, she was cursed; her humanity faded. She became either a Summer Girl, whose very life required contact with him, or the Winter Girl, who was filled with ice. He understood the anger some of them felt, probably deserved it, but if he hadn’t tried, the earth would freeze. Over time, every mortal and every faery not of the Winter Court would die.
He bowed his head as he walked. There hadn’t been a lot of choices left to him. He’d had to try to find his missing queen. He’d succeeded after nine hundred years, but somehow even success came with problems. His queen refused his affections; the faery he loved had become the new Winter Queen; and war seemed imminent. Even after completing a seemingly impossible challenge, he was still losing.
As Keenan reached a rocky outcropping, the faery he’d been contacted by stepped out.
“Your, ah, highness, or . . . what do you call a king?” Maili asked.
Her attitude irritated him, so he ignored the question. “What do you need?”
“You weren’t able to reason with Rika. I can do it. I’ll defeat her for you.”
Keenan looked at the faery. Her tone was far more impertinent than he was accustomed to these days, and her posture was anything but respectful. He didn’t expect meekness, but whether he was her king or not, he was a regent. He was the embodiment of summer itself, protector and leader of a court. That deserved a bit of respect.
Honestly, he simply didn’t understand the solitaries; something about their lack of court always unsettled him. Court, especially the Summer Court, wasn’t just about order. They reveled. They danced. They cared for the other members of their court. Sure, there were questions of obedience, but he didn’t ask his faeries to do anything that wasn’t for their own good or the good of the court. He had spent his entire life striving to make them safe, to protect them from the cold that had threatened, to lead them even though he’d been weakened by the curse. Choosing to be solitary wasn’t something he could fathom.
“No,” he said. “Talk to her first.”
Maili flinched as if he’d struck her. “Talk to her?”
For a moment Keenan thought about the angry way Rika and her fox had looked at him. They’d never believe he was trying to be fair, never believe he was trying to do the right thing. They saw only their own desire to keep the desert, not the fact that he could now protect them. The desert was a place of heat; it was only logical that it should become part of his territory. Admittedly, his interests weren’t totally selfless. He was a faery. Allies were increasingly necessary to his court right now. Skirmishes seemed imminent. The Dark King was angry, and the Winter Queen was upset about the time he’d been spending with his queen. Even his own court held the possibility of conflict as his Summer Queen discovered how much he’d misled her in his attempts to hide her mortal lover’s whereabouts. Trouble was definitely coming from at least one side.
When the Summer Queen’s mortal had returned from Faerie, changed into a faery for half the year, Keenan had realized he’d lost the battle for her affections. He could keep fighting, and maybe he would. Right now, he felt a bit like retreating and licking his wounds. He’d lost his advisor to the Dark Court, his beloved to the Winter Court, and his destined queen to a mortal boy. He wasn’t going to completely give up. He was the Summer King, but he had retreated to seek allies—not just to strengthen his court but also because it would feel good to have a victory.
But I failed at this too.
With an expression that wouldn’t reveal the morass of emotions inside him, he stared at Maili and repeated, “Talk to Rika.”
At that, Keenan walked past her. The desert wasn’t the only place where he could find allies. As he’d searched for his queen for centuries, he’d met a lot of solitaries, many of whom were organized into loose groups like those here in the desert. He’d done what he could here. Maili would talk to Rika, and then Keenan would follow up. With that in mind, he left the desert behind and headed toward the forests of California. Out there they had the tall redwoods and the wide sequoias. In the boughs of those trees and in the shadows of those forests, faeries made their homes. Perhaps some among them would be willing to join his court now that he was unbound.
CHAPTER 14
From the room where Jayce was waiting, he could see into the central opening of Rika’s cave. Through a fissure in the wall, he’d watched the glowing faery, the one Rika and Sionnach had called Keenan, leave. Jayce hadn’t heard every word, but he’d heard enough to know that this faery thought he had a right to Rika’s attention—and that Sionnach was acting like Rika was his. Despite everything that had happened the past couple of weeks since he had met Rika, Jayce still knew people. Faeries might have been a big surprise to him, but he’d come to understand pretty quickly that for all their differences, they still had the sort of emotions humans had. It didn’t take a genius to notice that Sionnach had feelings for Rika. She, however, acted like she was oblivious. Jayce didn’t know if that was because she was trying not to hurt Sionnach or because she had decided she didn’t date faeries. Either way, the emotions weren’t as hidden as either faery seemed to think.
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What am I doing with her?
Jayce walked to the mouth of the cave where Rika stood. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, although he suspected that the smart thing to do was to leave. Rika didn’t look at him. Instead, she stood staring out across the desert. He wasn’t sure what secrets she hid, but he knew that the past was something she avoided discussing. As Jayce looked at the shadowy desert vista, he could see light radiating from Keenan as he strode across the desert like a ground-level meteor.
“How many faeries are in line for your attention?” Jayce forced himself to stand slightly to the side and behind her.
Rika glanced back and frowned at him. “None, why?”
“The one who left sounded—”
“Keenan’s a jerk,” Rika interrupted. Her tone and expression softened instantly as she looked at Jayce. She stayed like that, silently watching him for several heartbeats.
“What?” He didn’t soften; he couldn’t. He was only eighteen, not looking for a wife or anything, but he wanted a girlfriend. He wanted this girl in his life with a ferocity that had shocked him.
For the first time since the night they’d first kissed here in this same cave, he could tell that Rika had just decided to reveal more about herself. Her expression tensed, fear and nervousness filling her eyes, and then she relaxed visibly. “He was the one who made me this.”
“He made you a faery?”
“A long time ago. He thought I could be someone he needed. I tried. I failed. This”—she gestured at herself and the barren cave around her—“is part of the price. The worst part was that there were full decades when my body was filled with ice.”
Suddenly, she seemed vulnerable and very, very sad, and Jayce regretted pushing her to tell him about her life. “Rika . . .”
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I’m trying to be open about everything like you asked, but it’s not easy to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry.” He pulled her into his arms and held her in silence.