Desert Tales

  Being with him, being out around people, made her realize how much of living she’d been missing. She wanted more of it, the silly jokes and the casual touches. She wanted to spend days doing nothing but kissing. She wanted to be lost to the dizzying joy of touch. What Jayce wanted, however, was more talking.

  “I want to know you better,” he repeated. “It was a sentence he’d used far too often, one that hinted at more than she could offer right now.

  “You do know me. We’ve spent hours talking and—”

  “Are you happy being with me?”

  She paused. If there was a right way to say that she was happier than when she had watched him in secret, she didn’t know it. Instead, she said, “I never expected to get to touch you. I didn’t think I’d become this . . . I don’t know . . . free.”

  “Free enough to answer more questions?” His voice sounded teasing, and his fingers trailed over her arm.

  If Rika had only her desires to consider, they’d spend more time touching and less time talking, but she knew she was being unfair. She’d had time to learn about him before he knew she existed. Still, she let herself simply enjoy his caress for a moment more before asking, “What else do you need to know?”

  “Everything. What you did before we met.” Jayce stepped away, clearing his throat briefly as if the temptation was more than he wanted. “I just want to know everything about you, your world, your history. Everything.”

  She knew he suspected there were plenty of things she hadn’t told him—especially when she slipped and commented on things she wouldn’t know since they’d only just begun dating. The times they spent together, unbeknownst to him, had taught her so much about him. She’d already felt like she’d known him so well . . . at least, she had thought so until he took her into his arms. Then she realized that there was this entire part of him she couldn’t have known until now.

  When Rika thought about her life, about memories she’d tried for years to ignore, there was nothing in her remembrances that she wanted to share with Jayce. She’d made a bad choice, and she’d suffered for it until the next girl made that same foolish choice. Then she’d hidden herself away until a strange fox faery slowly lulled her into friendship. These were not memories she wanted to share—or even have.

  As calmly as she could, she told Jayce, “Nothing about the past makes me happy. It’s now that matters. Who cares about what happened then?”

  When only silence met her words, Rika wondered if she needed to say more, but then he brushed his lips over hers.

  “It’s good that I want to know everything about you.” He offered her a teasing smile. “You really aren’t good at the dating thing, are you?”

  “Well, I’ve only done it one other time.” She tried to match his playful tone, but failed. So she kissed him and then added, “And he wasn’t as exciting as you. He was just a jerk of a faery.”

  “Right. I’m more fun than a faery.”

  “He didn’t want me, Jayce,” she said quietly. “And the person he pretended to be wasn’t real. I wasn’t a person to him; I was a game.”

  “Then he was a fool.” Jayce rested his forehead against hers. Their bodies touched, and in the way he had of making things seem better with the right words and gentle caresses, he eased the shadows she was trying to forget. “Don’t make everyone suffer because of it.”

  Rika stepped away from him, trying to think of the words to give him what he sought without surrendering her past. “I’m trying not to. I’m happy now. I made some mistakes; then, I came to the desert trying to forget them. Now, I’m with you. The rest doesn’t matter.”

  “Sooner or later, it will. I want to be with you. That means I need to understand your world.” Jayce took her hand.

  “This is my world too,” Rika objected. “I wish it was the only one. . . .”

  He tugged her forward, but instead of continuing the conversation, he resorted to the only thing other than kisses guaranteed to make her smile. “Art fix?”

  “Art fix,” she echoed. “Did you find something new? Where? Did you do it? We could run if you tell me where.”

  He laughed. “Patient one,” he teased. “It’s just this way. Let’s walk.”

  They walked along the street for a short distance, and then turned into a shadowy alley. Graffiti decorated the side of the buildings—intricate murals and abstract sketches, faces and artists’ tags.

  Rika leaned her head on Jayce’s shoulder and looked up. “Good dimensions with the reds . . .”

  “Too busy,” Jayce rebutted.

  “Minimalist.” She mock sighed.

  “The simple things are best.” He kissed her.

  When he pulled away, she gave him a look of adoration. “Good argument.”

  Then she looked back at the graffiti, smiling and leaning close to Jayce. They stayed together for several moments, and she marveled again at how much these past few weeks had meant to her. After long years where no one touched her in affection, now she felt like the span of minutes between caresses was too long.

  Jayce motioned toward an opening between buildings, not quite an alley but more of a passageway. “Cut through here.”

  They wound their way through it to a wider passage and then one alley and a second. Together, they crossed a small street, Jayce leading. Rika trailed behind him, holding his hand as they stepped into a third alley.

  When she saw the ground, saw the body there, she yanked her hand free and ran. “No!”

  “What?”

  Jayce couldn’t see because he had only human sight, but there, unconscious on the ground, was Sionnach. He was the only faery in the desert that she’d called a friend, and he was bleeding on the ground.

  She dropped to the ground and reached out to see if Sionnach was alive.

  As she touched his arm, he became visible to Jayce as well.

  Jayce dropped to his knees beside her, looking as shocked as she felt, and she wished now that she could shelter him from her world. Seeing bloodied bodies appearing out of the air was understandably startling; the ugly part of Rika’s world—the part where violence was not rare—wasn’t something she’d ever planned to share with Jayce.

  He looked like he might be sick for a moment, but then he swallowed and asked, “Is he alive?”

  “Yes. He’s alive still.” As she examined Sionnach, her hand brushed the weapon, still dirty with Sionnach’s blood. She recoiled in pain and disgust. “Iron.”

  Jayce glanced at the weapon she was carefully not touching now.

  “Can you pick it up so I can have someone get the . . . scent from it later? To track who did this?” She knew she was blushing, as if the faeries’ more natural animal traits were embarrassing. This, too, she would rather have not shared with him.

  Silently, Jayce pulled a bandana from his satchel and wrapped the bloody weapon in it. His gaze darted worriedly at Sionnach, as he tucked the weapon into his satchel. Later, Rika would need to talk to Jayce about how attacks were handled in the world of solitary faeries—or hope that he didn’t ask questions she wanted to avoid answering. For now, though, she was simply grateful that he was willing to help her and that she didn’t have to touch the noxious weapon.

  Rika opened Sionnach’s shirt and held it away from his stomach. The gouges in his stomach were inflamed, swollen, and angry.

  Sionnach moaned as she prodded the injuries, and she tried to examine him without letting her own whimpers or cries of fury out. There would be time enough for temper later. Right now, she needed to be strong.

  In his state of weakness, Sionnach’s fox-ish traits were more obvious. His features were sharper, cheeks more defined, tail obvious, and the tips of his pointed ears visible. He looked more faery than she ever would.

  “Where do you go when one of you are hurt. . . . I mean . . . You can’t take him to the hospital, right?” Jayce stepped back from them, near but obviously not knowing quite what to do. “I want to help. Tell me how.”

  “In the courts, th
ere are healers. Here”—she pulled Sionnach’s shirt farther up, and she could see the slash was partially healed—“Shy will make do with my care. I need to move him.”

  “Is he going to be—”

  “He’ll be fine.” Rika looked up as soon as the words left her lips and offered Jayce a contrite smile to soften the harsh tone of her words. “But she won’t.”

  “She?”

  “There’s only one faery stupid enough to injure Shy. Maili’s going to find out how very idiotic that was.” Rika paused and glanced at Jayce, needing him to understand that she wasn’t a monster. “I’ll check first. Either Shy will wake and tell me or I’ll have someone scent the weapon.”

  Jayce nodded.

  Rika lifted Sionnach and cradled him in her arms as if he were a small child. His head lolled back, and the fear she was trying to ignore grew. Faeries are resilient, she reminded herself. Sionnach had stood against attacker after challenger after troublemaker in the years she’d known him. Being Alpha in the desert was not without its difficulties. The difference this time was in the treachery of the assault. Striking another faery with iron wasn’t done lightly—or forgiven easily. Either Sionnach or Rika would have to discipline the faery, make clear that such assaults could not happen in the desert, and they’d need to do so with enough force that no one else would attempt to do so again. First, though, she needed to remove the poison from Sionnach’s flesh.

  He’ll heal. He has to.

  More steadily than she expected, she told Jayce, “I need to go.”

  She wasn’t sure if it was the fear she was failing to hide or the anger that floated just under that fear; either way, Jayce looked even more worried.

  “Should I follow?” he asked.

  Rika shook her head. “No. Not right now. Tomorrow. I’ll come get you if I can leave him alone long enough. . . .” She paused. “Do you have your phone?”

  “Yeah . . .” Jayce pulled it out. “Who do you need me—”

  “Call Del. Go be with him,” she interrupted. “Even if it wasn’t her that did this, Maili is dangerous, and Shy is too injured to enforce rules. You need to go where you’re safe. She won’t approach a group. Witnesses can cause trouble with the faery courts. She’ll avoid that. Stay near lots of steel. Faeries can’t abide iron or steel.” Her gaze dropped to Sionnach, his injury proof of how badly the toxic metals could wound a faery.

  Jayce hesitated, as if he would speak but wasn’t sure if he should.

  “Please? I need to get him to safety, but . . .” Rika wanted to let him know that he was something rare and precious, that his safety mattered to her more than he could know, but she wasn’t sure of the words, and she’d already asked him to accept things far more quickly than he’d liked. He was trying to understand her world, but it wasn’t easy.

  “If Maili hurt you, it’d destroy me,” Rika said. “If you . . . I need you safe, and I don’t trust that you are if you are alone.”

  “Sure,” he agreed. “You be careful too, okay?”

  “I’ll come to you as soon as I can. . . . I need to get him home and remove the poison,” she tried to be careful with her words. “I can’t take you both, and it’s not safe for you to follow me on your own, and I can’t let Del know where I live, and—”

  “It’s okay,” Jayce interrupted. “Go.”

  She nodded as she faded to invisibility with Sionnach in her arms and began to run home with the unconscious faery held tightly in her arms.

  CHAPTER 11

  Rika wasn’t sure how long it took to get Sionnach to the safety of her cave, nor was she certain how many faeries saw her carrying him across the desert. She knew it was best to hide his injured state, but trying to find a stealthy way across the openness of the desert wasn’t an option. If anyone were foolish enough to further threaten the faery in her arms, she’d deal with them. Being remade as a faery strong enough to hold the weight of winter inside her skin meant that Rika—like every other former Winter Girl—was stronger than most any solitary faery. She’d never used that strength to assert dominance in the desert, never felt the need to do so, but she was willing to do so now. She’d thought she’d surrendered the anger she’d felt over Maili’s behavior on the cliff and in the club a couple of weeks ago. She’d written it off as faery posturing, but now that she was lowering an unconscious faery to her bed, she wasn’t feeling anywhere near forgiving.

  The bed upon which she’d lowered Sionnach was nothing more than a pile of various blankets and furs. Furs weren’t truly the sort of thing that made sense in the desert, but she’d never had reason to explain it to another faery. Her bed made her feel comfortable because of its familiarity; it was an admitted result of having lived in a simple home both as a mortal and as a Winter Girl.

  Sionnach hadn’t opened his eyes yet. Despite the jarring journey across the desert, he remained silent and unconscious now even as he rolled restlessly.

  Rika started a fire. It wasn’t the first time she’d tended his injuries, but familiarity with the process didn’t make it any more palatable.

  She filled a basin with water and cleaned away the blood and dirt. The skin around the wounds was already hot to the touch, and a fever had begun to consume him. She soaked a cloth in the water, tried to cool his feverish skin, and hoped that the fox faery’s body would begin to push the metal out. Time and again, she put ice-cold water on Sionnach until the fever let up a bit. Time and again, she poured the red-tinged water into a crack in the cave floor where it would vanish into the depths below her.

  “Wake up, Shy,” she ordered.

  The bits of metal that had broken off the rusty weapon were caught in his body, but the natural antipathy faeries had to iron should cause his body to try to expel the iron that was battering around inside his body and sickening him. She watched for any sign of the metal and continued to work to keep his fever down.

  Still, he stayed that way—thrashing in her bed but unconscious—as night fell.

  Finally, a piece of metal worked its way out of his body; it writhed under his skin, and Rika tried not to flinch away as she pushed it toward the still-open wounds and extracted it.

  She lit candles and sat beside his bed. At her side were a ceramic bowl, a tiny carved bone knife, a water-filled basin, and the bloodstained wet cloth. In the bowl was the small misshapen piece of metal. If he didn’t wake by morning, she’d have to try actively locating the rest of the iron in his body or send for a healer.

  “I hate this,” she told the unconscious faery.

  Still he said nothing.

  A second piece of the poisonous metal pressed against his skin as his body tried to expel it. This time, she had to cut into his skin to remove it. He gasped, but he didn’t wake.

  She stayed by his side, watching for more of the iron pieces. They were so small that once they were removed they didn’t hurt him or her unless they actually touched them. Unfortunately, most of them were also inside his body.

  By the time he finally opened his eyes, it was midday, and the cavern was illuminated by a blazing fire that cast dancing shadows over the stalactites and stalagmites, and the candles were dripping wax on various surfaces of the room.

  Sionnach had dark shadows under his eyes and sallow skin. He looked around the cavern, his gaze taking in every detail before looking back at her. “Where’s Jayce?”

  Rika knew she shouldn’t be surprised: Sionnach had been supportive of her interest in Jayce. That didn’t change the absurdity of his question. He’d been stabbed, and his first question was about a mortal boy he barely knew. “Jayce is with his friends; I couldn’t bring both of you.”

  “I’m here. Go get him.”

  Rika shook her head. “I can’t leave you alone and unprotected.”

  “Rika—”

  “No.” She grabbed the basin and walked away from him, trying to hide her frustration. “You have iron bits in your body. It was rusty and parts shattered inside you.”

  “You can’t leave him where Ma
ili can reach him.”

  Standing in the middle of the cavern, basin clenched in her hand, she stared at the injured faery. “No. What I can’t do is leave you here with iron in your skin, Shy. The pieces need to come out. I have two of them, but there are more.”

  “So?” He shook his head. “Jayce is vulnerable. I need you to be with Jayce.”

  “You need—” She cut herself off and walked away. Slowly, she poured out the water and then went to the little stream that ran through the cavern. She knelt and scooped up a basin full of fresh water. Convinced that her temper was back in check, she said, “You need taking care of. He’s staying with friends. Just—”

  “He’s a mortal.”

  The water was ice cold, a fact for which she had been grateful earlier when the fever had threatened to burn Sionnach’s skin. She carried it over to him and resumed her seat on the ground. “He’s a smart mortal.”

  Sionnach opened his mouth to object, but instead, he let out a small sound of pain as the skin of his arm started pulsing, like something alive was squirming under it. He blanched as he looked at his arm. “She was clever this time.”

  “No. She was stupid.” Rika tried to keep her now rising temper in check. He had confirmed that it was Maili who’d stabbed him. With a calm she didn’t quite feel, Rika lifted the tiny bone knife and made a small incision in his arm. Her face emotionless, she plucked the minuscule fleck of rusty metal out and quickly dropped it into the ceramic bowl with the two other tiny pieces of metal already in it.

  “Three for luck.” She took the bowl away, and after discarding the poison, she retrieved a new but tattered cloth and a bowl of clean water. As she walked back to his side, she said, “You know we can’t ignore something like this.”

  Despite how haggard he looked, Sionnach’s smile suddenly became a familiar tricksy one, the expression she’d seen so often and feared she’d never see again. Even sick and on his back, he was spirited, and she couldn’t help but smile back at him.