She didn’t cry, but she did curl into his embrace, accepting his comfort or maybe forgiving him for wanting to know. He felt a flash of guilt at the thought. He’d dated a few girls, but he wasn’t sure how to truly date Rika. Part of dating was getting to know each other, but it was hard to do that when the girl in question was some sort of supernatural creature with secrets too big for him to truly grasp.
Moments of silence passed, and he wished he had a clue how to be in her world without asking for answers that she wasn’t willing to share. He didn’t want her to be unhappy, but he wanted to know her. He stroked her hair and kept her clasped tightly to his chest. Talking wasn’t the right way to grow closer to her right now. After a moment, though, he had to ask, “How’s Sionnach?”
He knew that the faery was obviously alive and alert; Jayce had heard his voice. That didn’t mean he was fine, however.
“Weak.” Rika pulled back a little and looked toward the tunnel leading to the cavern where Sionnach was resting. “He’ll be fine in time, but she poisoned him. He’s not going to be truly well anytime soon.”
Jayce nodded, trying to find the right words to tell her that he was there for her without asking any questions that would make her grow quieter.
But then Rika blurted, “There’s no one but you in my life.”
When he looked at her, she took a deep, shuddering breath and continued shakily, “I’ve been alone for . . . ever, really. Keenan left me when he realized I wasn’t who he hoped I was. Shy’s been my friend, but we’re not . . . we’ve never . . . been anything else.”
“He’s something to you.” Jayce wasn’t accusing, merely stating the obvious. He wasn’t the sort of guy to make a scene or be possessive, but he wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t notice what was right in front of him either.
“Not what you are.” She blushed. “I’ve never felt like I do with you.”
Jayce paused before he said, “He’s in your life in ways I’m not.”
“And you’re here in ways he isn’t.” She looked back out to the now darkened and shadowy desert. He knew without her saying it that she’d been checking to make sure that Keenan had left. Now that the glowing faery was gone, Jayce could see her visibly relax. Quietly, she said, “I can’t change who I am. I won’t. I made that mistake once.”
Jayce stepped behind her and pulled her against him. His arms wrapped around her, and he rested his cheek against her head. “I don’t want you to change. I just want to know you. Everything seems like such a secret.”
He could feel Rika tense in his arms, but he didn’t let go of her.
“I want to be with you,” he added. “Just talk to me, please?”
She leaned back into Jayce’s arms. “Shy sent me to see you today. He stayed here, injured, while I came to you. He’s my friend. Until you, he’s been my only true friend.”
Jayce kissed her head. “And the other one? Keenan?”
Rika laughed bitterly. “He’s never been my friend. He’s never been my lover either.” She turned in Jayce’s arms, so she was facing him. “You can trust me, Jayce. There’s no competition for my heart. My attention sometimes . . . but not my heart. Until you, I’d never even been properly kissed. No one wanted to draw with me or hike in the desert. I watched you, wanting you, and now I have you in my arms. I want to be with you.”
Jayce leaned down and kissed her, meaning to be sweet, worrying that he’d been too forward after what she just admitted. He believed what she’d just said was true, too, because according to Rika faeries couldn’t lie. It seemed crazy that the beautiful girl in his arms had been alone for most of her life. It was a little scary.
And cool, he admitted to himself.
“I didn’t know you were so innocent. I won’t push you.” He started to step away from her, but she held him close and kissed him thoroughly. One of her hands entwined in his dreads, clutching them to hold him to her.
When they parted, she whispered, “You’re not pushing. I’m trying to let you in, but I’ve been on my own for longer than the town even existed. It takes time. Ask me something else.”
Jayce held her tightly, one hand on her back, one hand cradling her head. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so lucky. Rika was unlike anyone he’d ever met, and she wanted to be with him. They’d figure it out.
They stayed like that for a few moments, enjoying the closeness that they were creating. When he let go, he took Rika’s hand and asked, “So why was Keenan here? If he doesn’t want to date you. . . . Did he want to try to be friends?”
“No.” Rika made a sound that might’ve been a laugh. “He wants me to be his subject, swear loyalty to him. In exchange, he’ll back me in controlling the desert.”
“So you’d be like . . . a sheriff or something? In charge of them?” Jayce sat on the ledge.
Rika sat next to him. “Yeah, but I don’t need him to be in charge. Might and will determine power out here. Shy was the one who held order. He’s Alpha, first in the faeries who choose to live here. To change the rules means changing the Alpha. Most of the rules are so minor that no one bothers. With a king though”—she scowled—“he’d have a host of rules. We’re not children to be controlled.”
“But with Shy injured . . . who’s that make Alpha?”
“Me,” she said it softly, glancing at him from behind a bit of hair that had fallen into her face. “It means that I need to be ready to deal with a few challenges—unless I have someone strong supporting me.”
“Like Keenan.”
She nodded. “But Keenan’s support comes with costs I won’t pay.”
Jayce frowned. “Like?”
“Obedience. I’ve been on my own for forever though. Even as Winter Girl, I had no ruler. I was between two courts, caught in their game, but not sworn to either.” Rika looked fierce, and Jayce was suddenly reminded of wild animals. She might have begun her life as a mortal, but there was something majestic about her that was more than human.
“So tell him no.”
“I did.” She lifted her chin a little. “It felt good too. Now I just need to hold things together until Shy is well; then he can deal with a couple dozen moody faeries. Remind them who’s in charge.”
“But you’re stronger? Why was he in charge then?”
She shrugged. “Shy’s strong, and I didn’t want to be involved. He was here when I got here. . . . I just wanted to draw and be alone.” She stood suddenly and reached down for Jayce’s hand. “Now, I just want to draw and be alone with you.”
Smiling, she led him through the tunnel to reach the room where Sionnach was.
The injured faery lifted his head from the bed and looked at them as they came into the room. He appeared relieved to see them, but he also looked feverish. Sweat was visible on his face and arms. Fresh blood was soaking through the sheet over his stomach. He quickly covered it with his arm and asked, “Keenan’s gone?”
“Yes,” Jayce confirmed. Quietly, to Rika, he pointed out, “He’s bleeding.”
“You hurt yourself moving, didn’t you?” Rika snapped at him as she went over to check his wounds. She tried to lift his arm, but the injured faery didn’t cooperate. “That’s what the blanket was hiding.”
“Stop!” Sionnach caught her hand in his. He kept the other arm tight to his stomach, holding the sheet in place. He seemed embarrassed. “Jayce? A little help?”
Jayce shook his head. He wasn’t going to agree to let anyone stay hurt, especially the faery who was supposed to be keeping order in the desert. “You’re injured. Let her look.”
Rika scowled at Sionnach and walked away to get more water. “I didn’t realize . . . when I walked out—”
Sionnach interjected, “And neither did Keenan.”
Rika returned with the basin of water. She dipped a cloth into the basin and then twisted the cloth, squeezing out the excess water. “Who cares what he—”
“Being Alpha means appearing strong even when you aren’t.”
“Maili.”
Rika slapped his arm lightly, gesturing for him to move it out of her way, and then scowled when he didn’t comply. “She contacted him to let him know you were injured.”
“I’m sure she contacted him, but I don’t think he knew I was injured.” With a sigh, Sionnach moved his arm, letting her pull the sheet away from the bleeding wound on his stomach. “I’m glad he doesn’t know I’m this weak.”
“Why?” Jayce walked over to a basketlike chair that he’d helped her bring up to the cave last week. It hung from a bent wooden frame. He settled into it, glad that he didn’t have to sit on the ground now that there was a comfortable chair. He’d felt awkward sitting on piles of blankets and furs.
Sionnach and Rika both stared at him as he started to swing in the chair. Rika’s hand paused midway between the basin and Sionnach’s bare stomach, and Sionnach turned a very appraising gaze on Jayce.
“What will happen if Keenan knows?” Jayce opened his bag. “Explain. It’s the only way I learn anything, and maybe talking it out will help you make sense of it all.”
“Rika is hesitant to be in charge,” Sionnach said. “I’m half-useless. Keenan’s the king of Summer. Court fey are treacherous, but they’re smart. If he thinks we’re not strong enough to hold some sort of order here, he’ll send out someone with loyalty to him—or openly support Maili.”
“Why?” Jayce pulled out a sketch pad.
“Because it’s what he does—rally the forces, bring solitaries into his fold, expand his power base.” Sionnach grabbed the cloth Rika was now trying to use to wipe his face and gave her a put-upon look. “I can do it myself.”
Rika huffed at him in irritation and walked over to get another bowl of the icy water. As she did so, she asked, “Why is Keenan so interested in our home?”
“Because he thinks we should be his because of the heat here?” Sionnach shrugged awkwardly, even now trying to appear uninjured but failing to look convincing. “He always thought we should have been loyal to him.”
“So, it could be a revenge thing? Break us to his will now that he’s strong. . . .” Rika shook her head. “That doesn’t work. Not for Keenan.”
Jayce set his sketch pad in his lap for a moment and reached down to pull a thicker pencil from his bag. As he turned the pages, flipping past the rough sketches of Rika—looking fierce, looking vulnerable, looking pensive—he had to remind himself to focus on the conversation. Even as he wanted to know more, he knew he could quickly forget his questions once he began drawing. He looked purposefully at them and again asked, “Why?”
Sionnach wiped the blood from his skin with the rag he hadn’t surrendered to Rika, and then pressed the cloth to his wound, wincing as he did so. “I don’t like the Summer King, so I hate to say anything kind . . . but Rika’s right: he’s not that petty.”
“Strategy.” Rika returned to Sionnach’s side with a bandage. “There’s a benefit to claiming us. If he can bring those of us who are sworn free under his thumb somehow, it increases his strength. It makes him look clever.” She scowled at Sionnach and informed him, “I’m wrapping that.”
Jayce quickly stifled his burst of laughter, but the quirk of Sionnach’s lips and the way his gaze darted to Jayce made it obvious he’d heard.
“Plus, there are fighters aplenty out here,” Sionnach said. “Maybe our little Summer King is thinking of wars to come.” He kept his hand pressed to the wound as if Rika hadn’t just informed him that she was tending the wound.
“Shy,” Rika began warningly.
“Fine.” Sionnach tossed the cloth into the washbasin. Carefully, he rolled to his side so she could wrap the bandage round him. The look on his face made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t pleased that she was forcing him to be tended. Jayce suspected that Sionnach would be less irritated if not for his presence. This was the faery who was supposed to be the strongest in the desert, and here he was being coddled in front of someone. Jayce looked studiously at his sketch pad while Rika wrapped the bandage around the injured faery. He could see her out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t look up until after she had taken a new sheet and covered Sionnach with it.
“We won’t fight his battles for him,” Rika said as she stepped away from the now-bandaged faery. “We don’t do anything without choice.”
“We will if he has an Alpha out here who swears to him.” The temper in Sionnach’s voice was matched by the fury in his expression, and Jayce began to understand that the intense, changeable moods that Rika sometimes exhibited were simply the way of faeries. Sionnach looked livid where he’d been calm only moments before.
When Rika didn’t reply, Sionnach added, “I won’t stay here sworn to him, Rika. I won’t. You shouldn’t either. He’s not someone we can trust.”
“So is there someone you can trust?” Jayce turned the page and began sketching. It was a way to force himself not to stare at the two faeries, not to remind them that they were letting him see their world so much more than he’d expected.
“Donia!” Rika breathed the word. “She’s the new Winter Queen. She exists to oppose him, and she was like me, carrying Winter because we trusted him . . . and were mistreated by him. Her mortality was stolen by him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sionnach insisted. “There’s always a price with the court fey.”
“Donia was once like me, Shy. She’s not like them. Maybe—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I won’t swear to either of them—or any other court. We don’t need them here. Be my co-Alpha, Rika. Help me through this. Then, I’ll get well, and together we’ll keep the desert free. If you share Alpha status, we’re untouchable.”
“Not to a king or queen. He held his throne even when he was a bound king.” Rika’s voice had grown louder. Suddenly, she let out an audible sigh and walked over to Jayce. She looked down at his sketchbook. “Nice.”
Jayce flipped it around to show Sionnach a sketch of himself, but he looked healthy in it, reclining on the bed like a decadent monarch with platters of fruits and a decanter of wine in his reach. The food was overflowing, as if from a horn of plenty.
Sionnach laughed, his anger of a moment ago seemingly vanished, and he asked, “Is that a hint that it’s dinnertime?”
“It didn’t start that way, but maybe.”
Rika shook her head. “You”—she pointed at Sionnach—“rest. I’ll be back. . . .”
Sionnach made a faux-serious face. “Yes, Rika.”
After she left, Sionnach looked at Jayce and said, “I’m not interested in competing for Rika. She’s dating you, and sharing Alpha is not romantic.”
For a brief moment, Jayce considered pointing out that he knew that Sionnach had romantic feelings for Rika, but he also realized that since faeries didn’t lie, Sionnach truly wasn’t intending on trying to woo Rika away. Jayce didn’t understand how the faery could have such obviously strong feelings for her, but not act on them. He also knew that Sionnach wouldn’t tell him, so he simply prompted, “So . . .”
“So help me keep her safe.” Sionnach darted a look at the doorway. “Maili is trouble. Rika’s been in her cave so long . . . she’s never really lived around faeries. She’s been near us, but I didn’t let anyone bother her. If she’s in the world with us, she’ll need your love even more. You’ll remind her why keeping peace matters.”
Jayce didn’t respond, but he had a growing suspicion that Sionnach was more involved in Jayce and Rika’s relationship than Jayce had realized. That suspicion was confirmed when Sionnach muttered, “I didn’t mean for things to happen like this when I finally got you two together.”
“You got us together?” Jayce gave the faery a stern look, although he was probably about as intimidating as a tortoise was if it were glaring at a coyote. “What did you mean to have happen?”
The fox faery flashed his teeth at Jayce in an approximation of a smile, but he didn’t admit anything further.
“Jayce? I have fruit, bread, cheese, but”—she stepped in the doorway and paused,
her expression uncomfortable—“I can’t give you food.”
“Right. Faery rules: no food from your hand.” Jayce scrambled to his feet. “Sorry.”
Sionnach was silent as Jayce followed Rika to her pantry.
After they were out of his earshot, Jayce asked Rika, “So you talked to Sionnach about me before we met?”
She paused. “How did you . . . ?”
“Something Sionnach said,” Jayce replied. He started heaping food onto the wooden plate that Rika pointed out. “Does he spend a lot of time around humans?”
“Some. He wants everyone to be safe, so he watches out for them. He didn’t used to, but more and more over the years, he has. I’ve been glad; it’s the right thing to do.” She was filling a second plate for Sionnach. “I think it’s smart too. Both the Summer Queen and the Winter Queen used to be mortal.”
If not for the fact that Rika was a faery discussing faery politics in a cave, the quiet gathering of food would seem normal. Sometimes it was easy to see the mortal girl that she had been. Those glimpses of Rika were enchanting in a way that her Otherness wasn’t. He didn’t mind that she was fey, didn’t want her to change, but the world she lived in was a little alien and unsettling. Knowing that an entire civilization existed hidden within his own left him with a sense of peril that he wished he didn’t have. Until Rika, the desert had seemed safe—potentially harsh and filled with natural dangers, but those weren’t threats with motive. Snakes didn’t bite with malice; the sun didn’t create heatstroke with intent.
Except according to Shy and Rika, the sun sometimes did just that when it was a manifestation of the Summer King . . . who is my girlfriend’s ex.
Jayce shook his head at the oddity that was now a part of his life and then followed Rika back into the main chamber. Sionnach had been dozing. He looked up at them drowsily, eyes half-lidded. Even injured and still, the fox faery had something of the feral animal that Rika didn’t.
“The other problem is that Maili has taken some issue with Shy, so . . .” Rika’s words faded away when she noticed Sionnach blinking sleepily. “Sorry.”