He smiled faintly. “Yeah, but would you let me swat a bee?”
“Probably.”
“How about set off a bomb and outrun it?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not.”
“Then I guess we can’t be friends anymore. Because I will set off bombs and outrun them. And I will get to climb on that big beautiful bike of yours and wrap my arms around you and lean into all that gorgeous hair and smell you, and hear you laugh and see your eyes flash fire. Or I may as well just kick it right now because you, Dani Mega O’Malley, make me feel alive like nothing else does. And I don’t want to miss a moment of it.”
I forgot how to breathe. Wrap his arms around me, he’d said. He thought I had gorgeous hair and my eyes flashed fire. I deflected instantly, “Smell me? I always smell bad. Like blood and guts and sweat.”
“You smell fearless. And you smell good a lot. Like fall leaves, hot apple cider spiked with dark rum, and a fire topped with twigs of sassafras. You smell like life and the kind of days I want to enjoy while I’m here. Do you have any idea how I felt when you came back older? I was so pissed that you’d gone off and lived so much life without me getting to be there for any of it, but then I thought the angels must have heard my prayers to let me live long enough to kiss you. Not a fourteen-year-old kiss. A nineteen-year-old kiss. A really hot, sexy nineteen-year-old kiss.” He grinned. “Assuming you don’t have a problem with younger men. Do you have a problem with younger men, Mega?”
I ignored the part about kissing. That was too much for my ears to hear right now. He was trying to not only insist that I face his heart issue, but kissing, too? That was total bullshit. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said coolly. “You not only want us to stay friends, you want me to care about you even more? Are you batshit crazy? Or do you think I am?”
“Yes, no, and no,” he said evenly. “Or will you only care about someone you know will live forever?”
“Like that even exists,” I evaded.
“I happen to know it does. I watched two of Ryodan’s men die. They showed up fine a week later. I’m not stupid, Mega.”
I barely managed to conceal a wince. Bloody hell, if Ryodan knew Dancer knew that, I wouldn’t have to worry about his heart killing him. Ryodan would.
He reached for my hand but I snatched it away, then tried to soften the insult by using it to tighten my ponytail.
Ire flashed in his eyes but faded quickly. He gave a snort of soft, wry laughter. “Mom had the same reaction when she found out. Pretty much everyone in my life did. It was years before people stopped acting weird around me.”
I asked stiffly, “How did you find out?”
“I died. I was playing soccer with friends and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I’d been having problems breathing for days, but hell, I was a kid and it was a hot summer. We don’t pay any attention to that kind of stuff. We don’t know diseases like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy exist. I didn’t even know diseases existed. Life had been a long endless summer for me up until then.”
“Did you really die?”
“Sure did. Flat-lined. I was gone for three and a half minutes then my heart just started up again. No clue why. I was unconscious when the ambulance took me to the hospital and they lost me on the way there. Then I was just back. Mom said it was because I had something important to do. I didn’t tell her that suddenly everything seemed important to do.”
When he reached for my hand this time, I let him take it and lead me to the couch. Suddenly all my usual reactions were suspect. I was seeing each of them as potentially the last thing I’d ever do with him.
I put my bowl of fruit on the coffee table, no longer hungry. As I sank down and tucked my legs beneath me, he reached for a pack of matches and lit two candles on the table in front of us, put the matches back down and stood looking at me for a long moment. “Do you know how beautiful you are?” he finally said.
I shrugged it off. “I figured it out Silverside.”
He burst out laughing. “Christ, I should have known that’d be your response. You clinically assessed yourself, decided you were symmetrical and your features met some obscure mathematical criteria, you had gorgeous skin and flaming hair to top it off and were therefore beautiful.”
That had pretty much been it. That, and my appearance had proved an effective distraction in battle with men.
“So,” he said, taking a seat next to me. “What did Caoimhe tell you?”
I was more acutely aware of his body next to mine than I’d ever been. His sudden…impermanence seemed to erase all filters from my vision, leaving only a young, very hot, very brilliant man that I cared deeply about. “Only the diagnosis.” I didn’t want to know and I had to know. “How bad is it?”
He looked away a moment and when he looked back at me he said, “Let’s put it this way: I know I have to live each day to the fullest, and I’ve known that for a long time.”
I suddenly understood something I’d never been able to fathom about him before. He’d always been completely unfazed by folks like Barrons and Ryodan, Christian, even the Fae, and I’d endlessly wondered why. I’d admired him enormously for it, been quietly proud of him each time he stood his ground with such powerful immortals, because it had never been bluster, just confidence and laissez-faire equanimity. I knew why now: he’d been living with the threat of death most of his adult life. “Caoimhe loves you,” I told him, with absolutely no idea why I’d just said that.
Apparently he liked hearing it, though, because his grin widened. “I know.”
His response left me feeling unsatisfied and weirdly anxious. I know? That was it? Did he love her? Were they boyfriend and girlfriend? On the verge of setting up house together? Did he bring her here? Cripes, maybe she’d picked out his furnishings for him, brought him the rugs and candles!
I was out of here. I couldn’t deal with this. Any of it. I turned away and began to push up then glanced back and said, “So, are you and Caoimhe…” I trailed off as I sank back down. I was out of my depth. I wanted to leave. I couldn’t leave. My butt was a spring that couldn’t make up its mind, bouncing me off the sofa, dragging me back. I was conflicted by the sure knowledge that the hands of time were eating away at one more thing in my life. Clocks. Of course. Kill the clocks, those time-thieving bastards, he’d written. He’d been telling me, in his own way, the night he gave me the poem and the bracelet, that time was short and every moment mattered. I closed my eyes, recalling the last stanza. It had been his wake-up call, the one he’d been trying to get me to hear, without incurring the risk of me refusing to accept it and running away.
Kill the clocks and live in the moment
No cogs or gears can steal our now
When you laugh with me, Mega, time stands still
In that moment, I’m perfect somehow
Being with me gave him that—the feeling of being unhunted, unhaunted by the ancient, eternal Footman who was holding his coat at the ready, any day, anytime.
“What are you trying to ask me?” he said levelly.
“Do you and…” I trailed off again.
He let the silence stretch, watching me intently, gaze shifting from my right eye to my left and back again. Finally he prodded gently, “What, Mega? What do you want to know?”
“Have you and Caoimhe—bugger it, Dancer, help me out here!”
“You want to know if we’re lovers,” he said with such quiet maturity that I shifted uncomfortably.
He hadn’t said boyfriend or date. He’d used a word that had made me abruptly picture his long strong body stretched out on top of Caoimhe as he whispered something passionate in her ear, regarded her with desire. And it made my stomach feel hot and tight.
“Why is that so hard to ask? You just have to say, ‘Dancer, are you Caoimhe’s lover?’ ”
I scowled, poised on the verge of freeze-framing out the door and never coming back.
He leaned back, kicked his long legs up on the coffee table and spread his arms wide al
ong the back of the sofa, and I got the distinct impression he knew exactly how good it made him look. Showing off his pecs and those arms he’d worked so hard to make cut and strong, arms that could wrap around me when we rode the Ducati. He flashed me a smile. “Nah. I’m still a virgin.”
I gaped with disbelief. “You are?”
“Hey, I’m only seventeen. It’s not that unusual.”
“But you might have, I mean, you knew that…” I trailed off.
“I was born with a shorter fuse than most?” he finished for me evenly.
I nodded.
“So, what—I was supposed to jump out there and grab whatever I could get my hands on while I had the chance? You know I’m discriminating, Mega. On the contrary, it made me want to ensure that every experience I had really counted. That it be the best it could be, or not happen at all. I didn’t want to rack up bad memories, no regrets.”
I understood that. We were so different yet so much the same.
“We’re totally different,” he said, like he was reading my mind, “but so much the same. You were born super everything: super strong and smart, super hearing, smell, eyesight, and super freaking fast. Man, I love that one. I think your speed-demon power is the one I’d want the most. And I was born super…well, not weak but with a flaw in my design. After I died when I was eight years old and discovered what was wrong with me—”
“You were eight when you died?” I’d been eight, too, when I’d pretty much given up the ghost.
He nodded. “Yeah. Dying did the same thing to me all your superpowers did to you. Made me fearless.”
“You do realize a lot of people wouldn’t have taken that lesson away from it. They would have felt more vulnerable and been more careful with themselves.”
“I saw something that day, Mega, during those three and a half minutes, and I know that there’s more after this. I have faith and it’s strong. I’m not afraid. Death is just the door to the next big adventure.”
Yeah, well, that was a door I wasn’t letting open for him for a long, long time. “I used to wonder if you had some secret superpower,” I told him. “I saw you walking down the street one day, and the ZEWs peeled away from you like you were one of Barrons’s dudes or something.”
A dazzling grin lit up his face. “Yeah, they do, don’t they? Talk about perplexing the fuck out of Ryodan,” he said, and laughed. “Should have seen his face the day I was with him, Barrons, and Mac, and the ZEWs gave me the same wide berth they gave him and Barrons. It was priceless. I’ve got the Rhino-boys’ number, and a few other lower castes, too, but I haven’t made progress with the higher castes yet. Got diverted, working on the song.” He reached down and pushed up the cuff of his jeans, revealing a sort of watch strapped around his ankle with a small black cube attached to it, covered with blinking lights. “I got started thinking one night about how the Fae are made of energy and how dogs and invisible fences and silent whistles and things like that work, so I began experimenting with a transmitter, modulating and testing frequencies on the Fae, goal being to repel, not kill. Sometimes we set our sights too high when a lesser goal would be both quicker to attain and virtually as effective. I figured if I could invent something that kept all the Fae away from you, well, I’d be the Shit.”
“You’re already the Shit, Dancer,” I told him.
“Yeah but I want to be even shittier shit,” he said, and waggled his brows at me.
I smiled, forcing myself not to let the sadness I felt show. I couldn’t do that to him. It wouldn’t be fair. “You’re the shittiest shit I know and probably ever will.”
He sobered quickly, looking into my eyes, studying me with unnerving intensity. “Shittier than Ryodan?”
I was instantly wary, defensive. “What do you mean? What does Ryodan have to do with any of what we’re talking about?”
“Don’t be a porcupine, Mega. Not prying or judging. It’s just that sometimes I think he…well, maybe you…the two of you, er—” He broke off, sighed, and shoved a hand into his thick hair, ruffling it. “I’ll never be like him. I’m not wired that way. I’m a brainy, geeky seventeen-year-old with a bad heart. Not much makes me feel insecure but that dude does. He’s everything you are and I’m not.”
I bristled. “Don’t you ever tell me you have a bad heart! Never say those words again. You’ve got the biggest heart in the world. You bring out the best in everyone around you and people love you. But you’re right. You’re not like him and never will be.”
He shifted uncomfortably and went crazy on his hair again, running both hands through it. I let him stew for a moment, trying to absorb this bizarre moment, that he cared about me enough that it made him—the man not even Death rattled—feel insecure. Then I got distracted watching his arms. Now that I knew how perilous working out was for him, I admired even more deeply the patient will that had found a way to work within limits that would have made a lot of other people give up. I’d learned at a young age that every day mattered, that killing time was the worst thing you could do to it. Dancer had learned it, too.
“Wow. Not helping much here,” he muttered.
I caught one of his hands in mine and slowly laced our fingers together. I’d never taken a man’s hand of my own desire before, open to the moment and what that moment might bring. I was in such uncharted territory and this was so not the way I’d always imagined it going down. Not that anything was going down. That would be like willingly ascending the mountain of stupidity to perch on the apex right before the inevitable avalanche came along and wiped you out, and that was never going to happen. But I wasn’t averse to admiring the mountain from the foothills. “Ryodan’s strength comes from knowing he’s strong,” I told him. “Your strength comes from knowing you’re not. You’re the one with the superpower in my book. And it’s only one of the many you have.”
His smile was blinding. “Mega, I’m going to kiss you now.”
I inhaled deep, exhaled slow. We’d never gone here, and once we did, there would be no turning back. Our friendship would be forever changed. You can’t unkiss a man you’ve kissed.
I let him.
ZARA
She stood motionless, staring around in disbelief.
Was this a joke?
Zara glanced up at the lighted sign that swayed on a striped pole above her head proclaiming THE STAG’S HEAD, then back at the door behind her through which she’d just exited.
It wasn’t the door she’d stepped into.
Not even close. She’d been entering a doorway in the sunny yellow part of the White Mansion and the moment she passed beneath the transom felt resistance and something diverting her sideways, casting her down a different path.
Out through a completely different door.
Into night in Dublin.
She narrowed her eyes, scowling.
Earth was the last place she wanted to be.
She wasn’t dying on this world. She was done with this planet and every other that had ever hosted the Fae race.
Nor was she staying in the White Mansion and living her final days in the cage the king had designed for her. Upon leaving the boudoir, she’d been making her way to the Passion Muse’s Garden, the one with the silvery fountain and the fabulous sunroom, the one that took her, if she passed far beyond it and went through many portals, back out into the flow of time, on another world, far, far from there. She’d found it eons ago. Had on her saddest days gone walking and walking, uncaring, taking paths and finally portals at random.
The small planet reminded her of her home, and she’d wondered if the king put it there deliberately, knowing she’d find it, giving her an escape route, because each year, century, millennium she didn’t use it, he’d continue to know she’d truly chosen him over all else.
That was just like him. He’d required endless reassurance that she was happy, that she wanted to be where he’d put her.
She’d intended to go to that small world now, and die there, alone, when the Earth ceased to exist a
nd so did she.
But no.
She was in dirty, human Dublin.
Gathering her cloak around her, she whirled and stepped back through the door of the pub.
And entered only the pub.
She hissed, “This is unacceptable!”
“Awk, unacceptable!” the T’murra squawked.
“I will not be trifled with! Show me the way back!”
“Awk, the way back!” the T’murra agreed.
Dust motes sparkled in a ray of moonlight that spilled through a broken window, spiraling suspended in a gentle, relentless current.
Was the king watching her? Still manipulating her? The idea was infuriating. She was not his toy, his plaything. She was a woman who would be free. He owed her that much.
They’d tried. They’d failed. It was time to let go.
Why would he send her to Dublin? “What do you want from me?” she demanded.
“Awk, what do you want?” the T’murra echoed.
Lips thinning, Zara whirled and stormed back through the doorway, willing it to transport her instantly to the sunny floors of the White Mansion.
A piece of toilet paper stuck to her silk slipper and she stubbed her toe on a piece of broken concrete she hadn’t seen in the dark.
Still in Dublin.
“Hey,” a male voice called out. “Are you all right? Can I help you with anything?”
She spun stiffly toward the intruder in the endless Fae drama that was her life and her eyes widened infinitesimally. A man was hurrying toward her, and as he moved into the pool of light cast by the streetlamps outside the pub, she realized he was a very attractive one, lovely in the way that had made the Fae occasionally abduct one of them. Young, strong, with dark hair, the lithe body of a dancer and beautiful eyes.
“I’m fine,” she said tightly.
“You don’t look fine to me. This city can be a dangerous place, especially for a woman alone at night, in such attire. Come. Let’s find you different clothing. There’s a store down the street.”