“Dana, what did you do?” he asked. His voice sounded bleak, and I wondered for half a second if he suspected the truth. Then I dismissed the idea. I was pretty sure he’d be pissed, not scared, if he’d known I’d pledged my virginity to the Erlking.
I raised my chin and hoped I wasn’t blushing. “What I had to do to rescue Ethan from the Wild Hunt.”
“And what was that, exactly?”
Covering up for my mom had given me plenty of practice both in making up good lies and delivering them convincingly. I’d learned that it was always best to keep the lie simple, and to mix in as much truth as possible. Oh, and not to avoid eye contact, which made you look like you were lying even if you weren’t.
So I looked right into my dad’s eyes as I lied to him. “I didn’t do anything. I just had to promise to do something in the future. And before you ask, he put a geis on me to keep me from telling anyone what it is.”
The starch seemed to go out of Dad’s spine, and he dropped onto the couch. He looked like I’d just told him someone had died. Since I hadn’t told him much of anything, I wasn’t sure what I’d said that bothered him so much.
I ventured a little farther into the room, but didn’t sit down. I was too agitated for that. “What’s wrong, Dad?”
“What’s wrong?” He laughed bitterly. “What could possibly be wrong when my daughter has promised the Erlking something he wants so badly he’s willing to release one of his Huntsmen to get it?” He let out a heavy sigh. “You don’t know enough about him or about Faerie in general to make fully informed decisions. Whatever you promised him, you don’t dare give him. Even if it means he takes Ethan back.” He sounded resigned, like he didn’t expect me to listen to him.
I thought about the promise I’d made, and knew I wouldn’t be fulfilling it any time soon. No sexy dream was going to make me want to have sex with the bogeyman. Besides, Dad was right. I hadn’t made an informed decision. I had no idea what the ramifications of fulfilling our bargain would be, and until I found out, there was no chance in hell I was going to do it.
Too bad pretending a geis prevented me from revealing the promise also kept me from asking anyone who knew more about Faerie just what might be hidden in this deal.
“I don’t have to do it anytime soon, if that makes you feel any better,” I told my dad.
“It doesn’t!” he snapped, and I finally saw a hint of the anger I’d been expecting. “Listen to me, Dana: you mustn’t give him what he’s asking for. Period.”
I bit back my immediate response to being ordered around. “Do you know what he’s asking for?” I asked, wondering if that would explain the intensity of his reaction.
“I don’t have to,” he said. “There was nothing Titania, the Seelie Queen, could offer the Erlking that would tempt him to let Connor go. Can you really imagine he would hand Ethan over to you for something that wouldn’t have devastating consequences?”
No. I might not know what those consequences were, but I knew they had to exist.
“I couldn’t let him keep Ethan,” I said. “Not when I could save him. I’ll just have to find some way around the consequences. Like I said, it’s not something I have to do anytime soon. I’ll figure something out.” I hoped.
Dad was far from appeased, but he backed off for the time being. I had no illusions that we wouldn’t be talking about this more in the days to come.
He frowned suddenly and looked up at me. “Wait a minute. You said the Erlking put a geis on you?” His eyes widened in what looked like horror. “How did you manage to meet him without Finn knowing?”
“I didn’t,” I said, not losing a beat even though I hadn’t anticipated this question. “He called me.” Again, a little bit of truth, mixed in with the lies to create a believable cover story. No way did I want my dad knowing about the brooch. He’d take it away from me for sure, and I had a feeling it might come in handy again someday.
“He placed a geis on you over the phone?”
Oops. I guessed that did sound a little unlikely. Then again, I had the distinct impression that no one was sure what the limitations of the Erlking’s power were, so I stuck to my story. “Yeah. Don’t ask me how he did it. I don’t get this magic stuff at all.” Unfortunately, that was nothing but the truth.
I wasn’t sure Dad was convinced, but he didn’t ask me any more questions. Perhaps the Erlking’s alleged ability to place a geis on me over the phone wasn’t any harder to believe than the truth of how he’d managed to get me out of the safe house without Finn knowing.
* * *
I wasn’t in the least bit surprised that my mom called me not too long after my dad left. Although Dad had her under his version of house arrest, he didn’t have her completely cut off. She had no idea what I’d promised the Erlking in exchange for Ethan’s freedom, but like my dad, she assumed it was something terrible. Unlike my dad, she wasn’t any good at staying calm during a crisis. I’d always thought it was the booze that caused her sudden bouts of hysteria, but apparently not.
I did my best to talk her down off the ledge, but she was still in tears by the time I hung up. I was glad Dad had removed all the booze from his house, or she’d no doubt have gone on the bender to end all benders.
I was much more surprised to receive a phone call from Alistair, Ethan and Kimber’s father. Despite his rivalry with my father, the two of them were working in something that resembled a partnership to make sure I survived to full adulthood. The partnership was close enough that my dad had let Alistair have my phone number, but not so close that Alistair had any clue where my safe house was located.
Alistair was a relatively young Fae, and he’d been born in Avalon. He was more reserved than your average American, but much less so than my dad. While he, too, told me that I mustn’t give the Erlking whatever I’d promised him, he thanked me so much for what I’d done that it was almost embarrassing. I think Ethan believes his father loves him primarily because of his magical abilities and what they could do for Alistair’s ambition, but that sure wasn’t what it sounded like to me.
I kept hoping that Ethan would call me, but he didn’t. I told myself that was because he was too weak and ill after his time with the Hunt to manage it, but my insecurities weren’t convinced. Kimber had miraculously failed to put any blame on my shoulders, but maybe the same wasn’t true of Ethan.
What had the Erlking done to him during the days he’d been trapped in the Hunt? I was pretty sure there’d been more to it than just riding around the city on motorcycles. The Erlking had promised me Ethan had been “unharmed,” but I didn’t think that meant the same as “unhurt.”
I fell asleep that night to visions of Ethan being tortured by the Erlking and his Huntsmen. Gruesome as those mental images were, they didn’t stop me from dreaming about the Erlking. I awoke in the morning with only confused memories of those dreams, but I knew they’d involved a lot of bare skin, and I was sure they’d gone way past first base.
It’s not like I’d never had an erotic dream before, but never anything like this. Never so intense, and never so tangled up with my real world. My body still remembered what it had felt like to be plastered up against the Erlking’s chest while his tongue stroked the inside of my mouth. And even though I didn’t want it to be, that memory was hot.
I was still feeling pretty out of it when nine o’clock rolled around and it was time for my lesson with Keane. I wondered if he knew about Ethan, but the moment I got a look at his face, I knew the answer. The look he gave me was dark and angry. I would have tried to smooth things over, but he was in no mood to talk.
It was the most brutal, intense sparring session I’d ever had. No doubt he was still holding back to avoid the risk of hurting me or I’d have been in pieces by the time he was through, but it wasn’t even close to fun. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he dialed up the intensity on the insults and sarcasm. According to him, I didn’t do a single thing right the entire time. Usually his drill-sergeant tactics pissed me off, bu
t today they were cutting way deeper, to the point where I was way more hurt than angry.
I doubt we’d been at it more than about ten minutes when I decided I’d had enough. Keane, of course, didn’t give a damn what I’d decided and ignored me when I said I wanted to stop. He swung his fist at my face, but I was determined to put an end to our session right this second. So I fought my instinct to protect myself, forcing myself to hold still instead of blocking, or ducking, or dodging.
Keane realized at the last second that I wasn’t defending, and his eyes widened in a way that might have been comical if I weren’t wincing and gritting my teeth in anticipation of his punch. If he’d been human, there was no way he could have stopped the momentum of his blow, so it was a damn good thing he wasn’t human.
He cut it so close that his knuckles grazed my chin by the time he’d fully put the brakes on. Not hard enough to hurt, though, and I let out a silent breath of relief. I’d been prepared to take the hit if that was what it took to make Keane stop, but I hadn’t exactly been looking forward to it.
“What the fuck?” he shouted, his closed fist still hanging in the air.
“I said I had enough,” I told him, and was pleased by how calm and steady my voice sounded. Maybe I had a future as an actress, because I was anything but calm and steady.
Keane let out an incoherent sound of frustration, but dropped his fist.
“Get up on the wrong side of the bed?” I asked with a fair imitation of one of his sneers.
His eyes went cold. It wasn’t a look I’d ever seen on his face before. His anger had always been hot, the kind that flared up and then faded away with equal suddenness. This looked different, and a part of me wanted to take a giant step backward.
“You’re making jokes,” he said, and his voice was as cold as his eyes. “Guess this is all just some big game to you, and you take your sparring about as seriously as you take P.E. at school.”
“What? Where did that come from?”
He shook his head. “You know what? You’re not worth my time.”
Without another word, he stomped off the mat, then practically pulled it out from under my feet so he could roll it up.
“Geez,” I said, throwing up my hands. “I knew you didn’t like Ethan, but I didn’t expect you to throw a temper tantrum like a big baby.”
He shot to his feet, then gave the rolled-up mat a savage kick. “You think this is about Ethan?” He wasn’t looking quite so cold anymore, but I couldn’t say it was much of an improvement.
I blinked at him in confusion. “If this isn’t about Ethan, then what is it about?”
“You’re completely mental.” He ran his hand through his hair, and I think he pulled out a few strands in the process. Then he took a deep breath and spoke to me slowly and deliberately, like I was an idiot who had to have things explained to me in small words. “It isn’t about Ethan, it’s about you. What the fuck is the point of teaching you to defend yourself if you’re just going to run out and deliver yourself to your enemies?”
I saw a lot of things in his eyes just then, many of which I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to see.
He was my friend as well as my teacher, and as a friend he certainly had a right to worry about me—even if he didn’t know just how much he had to worry about. But the intensity of his reaction, the anguish in his expression … This was more than one friend worrying about another.
Damn it! I so didn’t need another complication in my life.
What do you do when someone you think of as a friend lets you see that he wants more? I did the only thing I could at the time: I ignored it.
“I didn’t ‘deliver myself to my enemies,’ ” I said. “I know I took a calculated risk when I bargained with the Erlking, but it was just something I had to do. I couldn’t let him keep Ethan when I knew I could save him. I’d have done the same for you.”
Maybe I should have kept that last part to myself, but it was true. It didn’t mean I had any interest in dating Keane, though. I’d have been just as willing to make a deal if it had been Kimber’s life on the line.
I liked Keane, but only on the infrequent occasions he wasn’t being an asshole. He was gorgeous, and, I had to admit, extremely sexy. And yeah, Kimber’s obvious interest in him had sparked an unexpected jealousy in me. But I already had one really complicated boy in my life, and now I had an even more complicated man in it, too. Adding Keane to the mix would be more than I could handle. Besides, Kimber was my best friend. What kind of friend would I be if I got involved with a guy I knew she was interested in?
“Don’t do me any favors,” Keane growled, but he’d lost a lot of the intensity.
“I’m not the type to just sit back and let other people take care of my problems for me,” I said. “I never will be. If you think that makes it a waste of your time to teach me self-defense, then I’m sure I can find someone else to teach me.”
He winced as if I’d said something cruel. I didn’t think I had.
“No, it’s not a waste of my time,” he admitted, hanging his head. “The more stupid crap you get yourself into, the more you’re going to need to defend yourself.”
I made a sound between a laugh and a snort. “Way to be tactful and supportive. With friends like you, my enemies can just sit back and enjoy the show.”
“You’re going to give me gray hair before I’m twenty.”
I shrugged. “You dye it anyway, so you’ll never notice.”
He cracked a smile at that.
“So, are we friends again?” I asked, holding out my hand for him to shake.
He gave me an unfathomable look, then took my hand and gave it a squeeze instead of a shake. “Yeah. Friends.”
He managed to say it without sounding sarcastic, and I managed to accept the words even though I knew he didn’t really believe them.
chapter twenty
Each day, I woke up expecting to hear from Ethan, but he didn’t call. I’d have told myself he was still flat on his back, except when I asked Kimber how he was doing, she told me he was much better. I was highly tempted to ask her if she knew why he wasn’t calling me, but she’d sounded both exhausted and distracted, so I decided to stick to less emotionally charged topics. She didn’t even question me about my deal with the Erlking. I didn’t know if that meant she’d already heard about the “geis,” or if she didn’t care, or what.
Almost a week passed with no word from Ethan. I saw or at least heard from my mom and dad every day, which might have been nice if everything weren’t so strained. Dad was clearly still worried, and Mom was … Well, Mom was a wreck. Sobriety wasn’t agreeing with her, not during times of stress. She even took me aside for a private chat one day when I was visiting Dad’s house and he ended up stuck on some important phone call.
Her fidgeting was worse than it had been even in her first days after the d.t.’s had passed, and I noticed with a start that she had lost weight. Her clothes hung loosely on her frame, and I saw she was no longer wearing the gold claddagh ring that I’d never before seen her take off. I could still see the impression of the band around her finger. She noticed me staring and rubbed the spot self-consciously.
“It keeps slipping off,” she said. “I’ll have to see if I can get it resized.”
“Are you on a diet?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. She’d always been just a hair on the heavy side, but she’d never cared, and I didn’t think she cared now, either.
“Not intentionally,” she said with a rueful smile. “I just haven’t been all that hungry lately.” She touched her stomach. “I always seem to lose my appetite when I’m stressed out.”
I nodded. Now I understood. In the past when she’d been stressed out, she might have lost her appetite for food, but not for alcohol. It might not be what you’d call nourishing, but it did have calories. And, come to think of it, it probably reduced her stress, too, though at a terrible cost.
I reached over and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Please d
on’t be stressed about me. I’ll be fine.”
“Of course you will,” she agreed with false cheer, then fell silent and went back to her fidgeting.
I waited to see if she was going to say anything else, but she didn’t. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” I finally prompted, not sure I wanted to know.
She took a deep breath, then turned to face me with a grim but determined expression. Now I felt sure I didn’t want to know.
“You understand that your father is keeping me here against my will, don’t you?” she asked.
I winced. Yeah, I knew that. She and I were both his prisoners in a way.
“Do you know why?”
That question surprised me. Of course I knew why. Dad forcing Mom to stay sober was one of the few really good things that had happened since I’d come to Avalon. Naturally, Mom didn’t see it that way, especially since she wouldn’t admit she had a drinking problem in the first place.
“He’s keeping you here so you’ll stay sober,” I said, bracing myself for yet another round of denial on her part.
Mom shook her head. “No. He’s keeping me here because he thinks it’s what you want.”
“Huh?”
“He’s keeping me here because you think I’m an alcoholic, and he thinks keeping me locked up without alcohol will make you happy.”
I’d never thought of it that way, but I supposed it was true. Damned if I was going to feel guilty about it, though. “Your point being?” A hint of frost entered my voice, but Mom ignored it.
“My point being that if you asked your father to release me, he probably would. I’m as much your prisoner as your father’s.”
I laughed, but it was a bitter, angry sound. “You want me to convince Dad to let you go so you can go back to business as usual. That’s great, Mom. Just great. You want to go back to being a pathetic drunken loser.”