Shadowspell

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, but 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.