Whatever his Underground was really up to, I knew for certain that Ethan had … ambitions. And that having a Faeriewalker on his side couldn’t hurt those ambitions. Which made his motives in chasing me suspect, at best.
“I think I liked it better when you were telling me Ethan was just using me and I should stay away from him,” I said, sounding a little sour.
One corner of Kimber’s mouth rose in a wry smile. “In other words, you wish I would butt out?”
“Nah,” I told her, returning her smile. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to about it. Even if you do give conflicting advice.”
Kimber examined the perfectly polished hand the manicurist had just released. “I’d whap you upside the head, only I don’t want to ruin my nails.”
“Ditto,” I said.
chapter nine
Kimber wanted to visit a little tea shop just down the road from the spa, and I wasn’t anxious to return to my safe house. I had to ask my dad for permission, since I needed him to come with me to act as a bodyguard. I don’t think I’d asked my mom permission for anything since I was about eight. She’d generally been too drunk to care what I did, and though I was glad her brain was no longer pickling in a sea of alcohol, there was a part of me that really missed the freedom I had once taken for granted.
Luckily, Dad said he had the whole afternoon free, so there was no reason he couldn’t keep watch over me for a while longer.
The tea shop was kind of like a Starbucks or Caribou Coffee would be in the United States, with a ton of varieties of tea available for sale by the pound, and a counter where you could order something on the spot. There was a patio-like area to the right of the shop, which featured a number of round outdoor tables with umbrellas. In the States, those umbrellas would be to shade the customers from the sun. In Avalon, I think they were more likely meant to keep off the rain.
Kimber, who had been on a crusade to convert me to the Church of Tea, insisted I try a variety called “Faerie Rose.”
“It’s called that because the roses used for it come from Faerie,” she told me.
“Eww,” I said, wrinkling up my nose. “Who wants to drink roses?”
She gave me a patronizing look. “Trust me, it won’t taste like roses.”
If the place had offered coffee, I would have stood firm, but they didn’t, so I let Kimber browbeat me. The tea was the color of a blush wine, and when I sniffed it, I practically sneezed at the strength of the rose smell.
“Trust me,” Kimber said again as we headed out to one of the sheltered tables. It wasn’t raining at the moment, but the sky was a bleak, solid gray, and the air felt damp. If a day went by without at least a sprinkling of rain in Avalon, that was probably a sign of the Apocalypse.
Neither my dad nor Finn had ordered tea—I think it was against the bodyguard code—and when they followed us outside, they each stood just far enough away that Kimber and I could talk in private, as long as we kept our voices down.
As I blew on my tea—more to stall having to drink it than to cool it down—Kimber glanced over at Finn, then turned to me with a smile. Finn was in his Secret Service Man mode today, wearing a bland dark suit and dark glasses that hid his striking eyes. But Kimber had seen his less formal look, and had made no secret of how much she appreciated the view.
She leaned forward, the smile turning into a grin. “If I hadn’t seen Finn without those glasses, I’d wonder if Keane was adopted.”
I stifled a laugh. It was true that Keane and Finn were polar opposites in the looks department. Especially when Finn was on duty, when his look was extra-ultra-conservative. I couldn’t help thinking Keane had created his bad-boy look as a way of rebelling against his father, though Finn showed no sign of minding.
“There’s more of a resemblance than you might think,” I said, then finally took a sip of my tea, bracing myself for it to taste disgusting.
Weirdly, although the smell of rose was as strong as ever, the taste of the tea was all spice and honey. No spice I could recognize, mind you, but it didn’t taste like roses at all. I took another sip and rolled it around my tongue.
“Well?” Kimber asked with a smug smile.
I shrugged and swallowed my sip. “You were right: it doesn’t taste like roses.” I still wasn’t sure I liked it, but I could drink it without gagging.
“Of course I was right. Being right is my specialty.” She took a sip of her own tea, then stole another glance at Finn. “So you were saying there’s more of a resemblance than I’m seeing…?”
I nodded. “If you see them right next to each other and you ignore Keane’s dye job, you can definitely tell they’re related.”
She looked unconvinced. “I saw them next to each other at the party,” she reminded me.
I couldn’t help making a face at the memory. I hadn’t seen Keane since. I hoped his wounded pride was all healed up. “You saw them in a dark nightclub, and Finn was so pissed off he was scary. I don’t think you were comparing their looks. Oh, and by the way, I’m sorry Keane was such an asshole to you. If I’d known he would behave like that…” I let my voice trail off because I didn’t know what I would have done if I’d known. My choices at the time had been go with Keane, or skip the party. I couldn’t help noticing that Kimber was wearing the pendant I’d given her, which reminded me why I’d taken the risk of going in the first place.
Kimber licked her lips, and a hint of pink colored her pale cheeks. “You don’t have to apologize. I actually, um, kind of liked him.”
My eyes widened, and my jaw dropped. I reached up and wiggled my ear. “Excuse me, but I think there’s something wrong with my hearing. Did I just hear you say you liked him?”
The color in her cheeks deepened. “Boys are often intimidated by me,” she confided. “Either because of who my father is, or because I’m smart. I liked that he wasn’t intimidated.”
There went that annoying little stab of jealousy again. I fought it down ruthlessly. “What about that guy I saw you with the first night I met you?”
It had been my one and only meeting with the Student Underground, and Kimber had been hanging out with a Fae boy who I thought at the time might be her boyfriend. Though come to think of it, if he’d been her boyfriend, she’d have talked to me about him by now. And it wasn’t like they’d been all over each other or anything.
Kimber leaned over the table and lowered her voice even more. “I assume you mean Owain. He’s a friend, but…” She stared at her tea as she swirled the cup around. “The members of the Underground all know I’m younger than them and treat me like a kid. Owain flirts a little, but I know he doesn’t really mean it.”
“Do you want him to mean it?”
She frowned in thought. “No,” she said at last with a resigned sigh. “He’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t really … do it for me, if you know what I mean.”
That I did. “But Keane does?” I prompted, hoping I was keeping my highly annoying and inappropriate jealousy deeply hidden.
Her smile turned mischievous. “I’m not sure yet, but I think it’s a possibility.”
“You’re nuts,” I replied with authority. “Or a glutton for punishment.”
“If I only liked to hang out with people who were agreeable, what would I be doing here with you?”
I threw my little wooden stirrer at her. She laughed and ducked. She needn’t have bothered, not with my lousy aim and the poor aerodynamics of wooden stirrers. I tried to imitate Keane’s fierce scowl, but that was hard to do when fighting laughter.
Kimber sat up straight, still giggling. But then her eyes focused on someone or something behind me, and the laughter died.
“Shite,” she said.
I looked over my shoulder to see what had bothered her. And that’s when I saw Ethan threading his way between the tables toward us.
My heart made a strange, fluttery feeling in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight of him. When I’d first met him, his looks had struck me spee
chless, but I’d been in Avalon long enough now that I was getting used to the otherworldly beauty of the Fae. So it wasn’t his looks that made my insides start doing backflips.
I licked the taste of Faerie Rose tea off my lips and put my cup down. I’d been prepared to have to face Ethan eventually, because I knew he wasn’t through with me, but I certainly wasn’t prepared to face him now. Then again, there’s a distinct possibility I was lying to myself and I’d never have been prepared.
Out of the corner of my eye, I checked on Finn and my dad. My dad tolerated Kimber, despite her being Unseelie and Alistair’s daughter. He was less fond of Ethan, whether for political reasons or just because Ethan was a guy. I half expected Dad to chase Ethan away—or have Finn do it for him—but they both held their positions.
Great. No rescue from that quarter. I turned to Kimber, hoping she’d help me shoo her brother, but the traitor smiled sadly at me, then pushed her chair back and headed into the shop, claiming she wanted a different kind of tea. I glared holes in her back as she retreated.
I heard the scrape of metal on stone as Ethan pulled out a chair and sat, but I refused to look at him. I picked up my tea and sipped it just to have something to do.
Ethan sighed heavily. “Tiffany—the girl you saw me with at the party—is an ex. Very ex.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I could tell by the way she was hanging all over you.” I stared into my pretty pink tea, but couldn’t bring myself to take another sip. I’d have to unclench my jaw to do that, and I wasn’t about to.
Ethan sighed again. “She’d been drinking. She hung all over the next three guys she danced with, too.”
I finally found the courage to look at him. His teal blue eyes had a haunted look to them, and for half a second, I almost felt sorry for him. Maybe I hadn’t really seen enough to justify being so jealous. Then I remembered the way Ethan had looked at the redhead—Tiffany—and I knew I wasn’t making something out of nothing.
He must have seen my opinion of him in my eyes, because he squirmed and dropped his own gaze.
“I’d probably had a little too much to drink myself,” he admitted. “I don’t claim to be a saint, but trust me when I say that two months dating Tiffany was about one month too long.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Yeah, it looked like you were hating every minute of being on the dance floor with her. If this is the best you’ve got, you might as well leave.”
To my surprise, Ethan actually blushed a little. “I can’t make myself not notice when a girl is sexy. When I first started going out with her, that was all I noticed. But I was with her long enough to know what she’s like underneath the pretty trappings, and it isn’t pretty at all. I can’t help liking the way she looks, but I have no interest in her. If I’d known you were going to be there…”
His voice trailed off, probably because my glare was ferocious enough to be scary. If Ethan thought it was okay to flirt with other girls just because I wasn’t there, it was one more piece of evidence that I was better off without him. Now, if only I could convince myself of that fact …
Ethan sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. He dropped the hangdog look, raising his chin and meeting my eyes with something that looked like a challenge.
“What about Keane?” he asked.
I blinked at him, startled by the change in subject. “What about him?” I asked. He gave me a knowing look, but I remained clueless.
Ethan shook his head, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “I guess you never once noticed his looks, huh?”
“What?” I cried, my jaw dropping.
Ethan looked exasperated. “Don’t act so shocked. He’s a nice Seelie boy who comes with an automatic seal of approval from your father. And I know girls go for that whole bad-boy thing he’s got going on. You mean to tell me there’s nothing going on between the two of you?”
I honestly couldn’t think what to say. It had never occurred to me that Ethan might be jealous. I was too focused on my own jealousy to consider the possibility. And let’s face it, before coming to Avalon, I’d been such a loner that I wasn’t really used to boys being interested in me. This was uncharted territory.
“He’s just teaching me self-defense,” I said, but it sounded lame even to me.
“Uh-huh. Now compare how many hours a week you spend with him and how many hours a week you spend with me.”
My cheeks were heating with a blush. It was true that I spent a lot more time with Keane, but that was hardly my fault. Unfortunately, it was also true that I’d noticed more than once that Keane was a hottie. Maybe I wasn’t in a position to throw stones after all. That didn’t mean I was going to admit it.
“I spend even more time with Finn,” I retorted. “Are you going to get jealous of him, too?” The spike of guilt his words had caused started to recede. “Are you trying to tell me you started flirting with that Tiffany girl because you were jealous of Keane? So what, you did it to try to make me jealous? Even though you didn’t think I’d be at the party?”
I didn’t get a chance to hear his answer, because all of a sudden, the air filled with the deafening roar of motorcycles.
chapter ten
The Erlking must have been doing some kind of magic to muffle the roar of the bikes, because by the time I heard them, they were practically on top of us. Cries of alarm filled the air as the Wild Hunt effortlessly wove through the pedestrians and onto the patio as people scattered and scrambled out of the way. Ethan and I both knocked over our chairs leaping to our feet.
“Dana!” my dad shouted, and I saw both him and Finn sprinting across the short distance that separated us.
They were Fae, and therefore fast, but not as fast as the bikes. Before they could reach me, the Wild Hunt pulled its little circle trick again, the bikes barely an inch apart, surrounding my table, forming a wall between me and my bodyguards. Dad was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear it over the roar of the bikes.
Magic prickled over my skin, and I was pretty sure it came from Ethan. He was a magical prodigy, capable of spells no one his age should be able to cast, but I seriously doubted he was a match for the Wild Hunt.
A slight gap opened up between a pair of the circling bikes, and the Erlking strode through it. He was wearing the same frightening leathers he’d worn the last time I’d seen him, but he’d ditched the helmet. He smiled at me, but there was no hint of warmth in it.
My mouth had gone completely dry, and I think I was even shaking a bit. Without thinking about it, I reached for Ethan’s hand. His palm was sweaty, but I didn’t mind. The Erlking noticed the gesture and raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.
I reminded myself that as scary as the Erlking was, he couldn’t hurt me. Somehow, that wasn’t very comforting when his Hunt had me trapped and he was looming over me. I clung to Ethan’s hand a little harder.
The Erlking bowed from the waist without ever taking his eyes off me. “We meet again, Faeriewalker,” he said.
“Am I supposed to curtsy when you do that?” I asked. The quaver in my voice undermined my attempt at sarcasm.
Ethan poked me in the ribs with his elbow, but the Erlking laughed like I’d said something absolutely hilarious. The laugh even reached his cold blue eyes, though his first smile had not.
“You may curtsy if you like,” he said, his lips still twitching in amusement. “However, it is not required.”
I looked longingly past the riders and caught the occasional glimpse of Finn and my dad, standing helplessly outside the circle. They couldn’t get to me without knocking the riders out of the way, and I suspected that would release the geis that kept them from attacking.
“What do you want?” I asked the Erlking.
“Don’t talk to him, Dana,” Ethan warned.
I didn’t exactly want to talk to him, but if it would make him go away faster, I was all for it.
“What do you want?” I repeated, ignoring Ethan’s dismayed groan.
The Erlking licked h
is lips like a dog about to chomp down on a bone. “I want the freedom to hunt like I did in the days of old,” he said. “The Fae are adequate game, but the Queens dole them out far too rarely. I am lucky if I am allowed a handful of hunts a year. And, too, I long for more variety.” The smile that stretched his lips now was pure evil. “Before Avalon seceded from Faerie, I could hunt the mortals here whenever I grew tired of hunting only the Fae the Queens allow me. I have not hunted a mortal for a century.”
Oh, crap. I did not like where he was going with this.
“So what you’re saying is you want me to use my Faeriewalker mojo to take you out into the mortal world so you can kill a bunch of people?”
He cocked his head to one side, looking puzzled. “If by ‘mojo’ you mean ‘magic,’ then yes.”
“Um, let me think about that a minute,” I said, tapping my chin. I didn’t know where I was finding the nerve to be such a smartass with him, especially not when my knees were so wobbly it was a miracle I managed to stay standing.
I shook my head. “Nope. Don’t think I can do that. Sorry.”
I thought being denied might piss him off, but he surprised me by smiling again. When he let that smile reach his eyes, he was a thing of beauty. Terrifying beauty, but beauty nonetheless. “Ah, well. There was no harm in asking.”
Somehow I didn’t think he was planning to give up that easily.
“I guess we have nothing more to talk about, then,” I said, trying to sound confident.
The Erlking’s smile broadened, and he looked me up and down slowly. A shiver crawled up my spine. His eyes said he was mentally undressing me, and I had to glance down to convince myself his magic hadn’t stripped my clothes away. My face burned with embarrassment as if I really were standing there naked in front of him.