An Embrace of Salt & Storms (Fallen for a Fae #3)

Chapter One

Robin

One revolution at a time.

Fifteen minutes from clocking out for a long weekend of fae wrangling, and Robin made those words his mantra. He would not stage a coup in his office. Not even if some bastard from Business Development had insulted his favorite rookie coordinator.

“You are wasted on recruiting,” Robin told Isobel, not for the first time. “The minute I get the greenlight…”

“I know, I know,” she replied, laughing. “You’re poaching me.”

“Straight to my own corner of corporate hell.” He pushed himself back from his desk, setting his shoulders. “Wait here. I’ll talk to him.”

“Try not to kill him,” she said, sounding like she wouldn’t really mind.

“One revolution at a time.”

By the time he was done, the asshole had the fear of audits and a nonexistent god in his heart. Sure, Robin was ten minutes late getting home, but it was worth it, even if Robin had to pack his shit within twenty minutes or go to Faerie with an insufficient amount of underwear.

His Aunt Jan stood in the doorway as he packed, watching as he stuffed a pair of socks into his messenger bag. She had that look in her eyes, like she was trying to decide how best to say something.

Robin knew better than to rush her. Better to keep packing.

“He was being a fuckboy,” Robin said, instead of asking. “He’s lucky Isobel accepted the apology and I didn’t feel like wearing only Faerie-weave for the week.”

“When I was your age, we just called them rat bastards,” Jan said. Robin didn’t need to look up from rolling his t-shirts to know she was grinning. “Or maybe a scuzzbucket, if we were feeling frisky.”

“At my age, you were occupying Rushmore and marching cross-country.” Shirts, underwear, pairs of socks, five each. “Pretty sure you were feeling frisky.”

She laughed, short and sharp. Robin always wondered how Jan managed to laugh the way she did without sounding mean. He’d asked her once, when he was just a teen, because his laugh always had a cutting edge.

“I’m a butter knife, Birdie,” was her answer. “You’re made for steak.”

(Fourteen-year-old Robin had picked that moment to come out to her, because he’d nearly pissed himself laughing at being made for meat.)

“It’s the only reason I’m not throwing a fit over this.” Jan waved at his two bags, one full of clothes, the other with things he’d need outside of clothes. Pens, paper, highlighters. Meds. “You’re too much like me, Birdie.”

He hated it when she started conversations that way. The we’re so alike, so I’m going to say something you don’t want to hear because I have a lived experience introduction to a talk.

He used to try and play it off, joke about how much they looked alike, with the same light olive skin that deepened when they ventured outside for more than twenty minutes.

They used to have the same hair, too, a mess of dark brown waves.

Now, her hair was mostly gray, and it’d been straight since she’d been in remission.

So what if he was a gangly 6’1” and she hit maybe 5’8”? Or if she was more canary fluff to his hawk edges? They passed for relatives easier than he and his own brother did. Bo took after their sperm donor, an average white guy trolling around Florida. Robin did not.

“Please don’t try and talk me out of it.” Robin stopped packing and made himself sit on the edge of his bed. He reached for one of the shirts, shook it out only to start rolling it again. His hands itched to move during chats like this. “They’re going to be here in five minutes.”

Anyone else, Robin would have sniped at them just for walking into his room, let alone sitting next to him. But it was Jan, who knew to sit out of arm’s reach and not fiddle with his things and rarely hesitated to speak her mind. Robin’s chosen Mom.

“I’m not an idiot; of course I’m not going to try and talk you out of it,” Jan said, proving his point about how awesome she was. “I know better than to try. But I need you to keep yourself safe, Birdie. Okay?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s my top priority. Like, in general.”

“Not like that. Don’t be a tit. You know what I mean.”

Maybe? He thought he might.

“I’m not… I’ll be okay. Really. I’m going over to help organize things and show them how to actually keep it that way.

” Robin nudged his foot gently against hers and held it there until she nudged back, striped sock to polka dots.

“A bit piece. I like being that cog, you know that. Bo and his friends are the ones doing the heavy lifting.”

Jan laid her hand on the bed between them, palm up and silent. Robin ignored it like he ignored a lot of things, but edged closer to her, until he could lean over and rest his temple against her shoulder.

“A bit piece,” he repeated. “Paper pusher. That’s my happy place. I’ll be alright.”

“You’ll hear things,” she said, in that soothing way she’d used a lot when he was young. “These people are angry. I remember the voices that had to be reasoned with when I was facing down something bigger than myself, being that ‘bit piece’ that’s there to strengthen a cause.”

Monarchs who had nearly an entire generation of ‘undesirables’ wiped out. Who made it so a chance of birth decided if a fae was ‘good’ or not. Changed their name from unseelie to death aligned to wipe out identity and history and culture.

Fuckers who’d messed with Robin’s family.

“I’m not going to judge them, Jan. Jesus.”

Robin felt her smile when she leaned her cheek against his hair. “Of course you’re going to judge them. I love that you will. But don’t get wrapped up in that anger. For me. Please. It’s not your fight, Birdie. It’s there for you to support, not die for.”

“Yeah, no, not going to die for this.” Robin scoffed. “Bit piece. I go, tell them they’re idiots for not drawing up a plan other than ‘hit system, fall down,’ and hang out with a sentient universe for a little while. They want me after that, they pay contractor rates.”

That did the trick. She laughed, and this time nudged with her whole leg.

Robin didn’t protest. He closed his eyes to enjoy the last few minutes with her he had before the trip.

He liked her and loved her, his great-aunt turned adopted mother, who had seen him through his worst, darkest times only to treat him like he was her Birdie still.

“Keep it that way. And for the love of God, do what you can to prevent Bo from taking charge. The last thing they need is ‘punch the fuckers in their fucking face, then light that shit on fucking fire’ as a game plan.”

For all that Robin had grown up hating the idea of magic and faraway worlds, he’d become kind of fond of Faerie. Sure, it was weird as fuck, existing inside of a sentient world. But not necessarily a bad weird.

Fae treated it as a given, the way Faerie gave them almost anything they wanted.

But it felt ungrateful to just act like it was a breeze that brought you something to drink, instead of something that chose to do so.

It felt rude not to thank it, and asking for things in his mind was a little too much like talking to himself.

He had enough internal monologues already.

“May I have a glass of fresh, unsalted water?” Robin glanced at the ceiling as he spoke.

Faerie wasn’t there, but it felt better than just staring into the middle distance.

A tall, tapered glass appeared on the table next to him, like it’d always been there.

He waited until he tasted it, made sure it wasn’t something other than regular water, to say, “Thanks.”

“One day I’ll be used to you talking to Faerie.” The ridiculously deep voice could only be Declan, who stepped into the dining room, hands tucked in the pockets of his fitted jeans. “Does it ever talk back?”

“Antonio always talks about how funny you are,” Robin said. “I don’t see it.”

Antonio said a lot of stuff about his creepy-sexy sluagh boyfriend, and most of it with a disgustingly sweet smile on his face.

Ugh.

Robin didn’t dislike Declan. He was alright, knew shit about hockey, and Robin wasn’t going to say no to arm candy at the rink.

“What in the starlit void are you wearing?” Declan asked, as if a man with ripped skinny jeans tucked into combat boots and a ratty thin band tee could have any kind of high ground in the fashion department.

Robin glanced down at his t-shirt, with the image of a screaming possum and the usual friendly greeting that accompanied said screaming possum. “My work clothes. I like to make sure people know how pleasant I am.”

“According to Mother, you’re a terror.”

“She said that?” Robin hadn’t realized Aisling liked him that much.

“Oh, aye.” Declan grinned at him. “You’ve charmed the beast and Florian.”

“Pro tip with cats: ignore them until they don’t want you to. Works with toddlers, too.”

“Horrifying wardrobe and parenting advice.”

“You said you were collecting tips.”

Robin might not have plans to adopt an unseelie baby the way Antonio and Declan wanted to, but he used to babysit. He knew things.

The pale nightmare punk glanced around the dining room, watching as it expanded. The dining table needed room to seat a whooping sixteen people instead of the usual four. So the space was, just, getting bigger. Because Faerie. “I was informed I was requested as an early arrival. Dare I ask?”

“I need the names and species of everyone who’s coming today. I know a few of you, obviously, but I need the rest.”

“Species?”

“Your type. Secret inner spark. Whatever kelpie, sluagh, and banshee are a part of.” Robin rolled his eyes, grabbing one of the notebooks and his pen.

“Whatever you use to say ‘tell me what everyone is’ when not seelie or unseelie. Like, humans are a species, and back in the day, humans living in Ireland were all Irish, then broken up into clans. I need to know what the you call the clan equivalent.”

It took only a heartbeat for Declan’s eyes to widen in understanding before he dropped into the chair to Robin’s right. Thank fuck.

Declan wasn’t stupid—not by any margin—but he was very fae.

They had a frustratingly common tendency to assume everyone in Faerie knew the rules, the Protocol.

At least Declan didn’t mind explaining, when he either remembered Robin wasn’t at Bo’s level of fae knowledge and didn’t spend loads of time there.

“It’s contextually dependent. More often than not, we simply state what we—or they—are. As you said: sluagh, kelpie, banshee.”

Of course they did. Why wouldn’t they.

“And if I were to say I need to know what they are…?”

“In this context? ‘Type,’ generally. If you’re asking about behaviors that stem from what they are, then ‘aspect.’ Again: generally.” Declan’s smile was all teeth. “Some use them interchangeably.”

Clear as mud. Though, yeah, cultures were complex and multi-layered. It made sense to have those kind of divides, and then ignore them. Fae didn’t believe in notes or clocks or being polite to the universe, so why not that too?

Robin eyed the table as the eight seats turned to ten, twelve—

“We’re good at sixteen, thanks.” Robin said. The table, having just hit eighteen, paused, and then two chairs disappeared. “Right, so. Let’s start easy. Your boyfriend going to be here?”

Declan smiled, slight and slow, his eyes crinkled in a way that brought out the pitch black spiderwebbing along his temples. Which, still sort of creepy, but sweet.

Kind of. Ish.

“Aye, Antonio will be here. I daresay he’d not wish to miss an opportunity to mutter about ‘fucking fae’ with you.” Declan sounded far too pleased at the idea of his human bond talking trash about fae, seeing as how he happened to be one himself.

There were the ones that Robin knew. Bo and Antonio, presumably still human. Everil, kelpie. Declan, sluagh, and his banshee mother, Aisling. (Not Ashling, apparently, but what Declan called “the proper bloody spelling.”)

The ones Robin wasn’t familiar with were more interesting than those.

Metara, a siren, so cool, and her changeling ghillie dhu bond, Judah.

Ghillie dhu, Declan explained, were associated with forests and hidden places.

And Judah would be the only seelie in the mix.

The pair led House Laurel, though Judah only for a couple years.

Next up was the only other changeling in Faerie, Aultyr, and his bestie, Harke. Both big black dog unseelie fae, but different kinds of big black dog unseelie. Barghest and cu-sith, the first death in pursuit and the latter terror of death.

(“Mother calls them sweet,” Declan said. “I imagine you’ll get along.)

Then there was Abrhail and Teddai, manticore and redcap respectively. A spider fae literally named Spider. A cat-sith and his yuki-onna bonded.

And a dragon.

A dragon.

“He’s not a dragon,” Declan said after Robin made him repeat himself for a third time. “He’s a beithir. And Spider is a tsuchigumo.”

“Which you just said is a type of dragon,” Robin countered, doodling a little smiley face spitting fire next to 14. Zire. “You’re bringing a dragon, specifically the one who asked my brother about his sex life.”

“Z-y-r. Careful what you call him. He can, and will, eat you.” Declan smirked. Like the asshole Robin knew he was, not so deep down inside. “But quite. He’s the one who spoke with them regarding their intimate life.”

Intimate life. Fucking fae.

“Bo said he took notes.”

“So he did. Granted, Zyr keeps Solstice Lord pornography on hand, so I imagine it’s an area of interest of his.”

“A kinky dragon. Got it.” Robin smiled, sharp and quick, at Declan’s snicker. The next doodle was a pair of cuffs around the flames, and a blindfold over the smiley face.

“I believe that’s all of them. Are you satisfied?” Declan asked, pushing himself up. His bone wings … they didn’t rustle. Couldn’t rustle. They were wings made of bone. But they did the bone equivalent as he stood. “Others will be arriving shortly, and I must get Antonio.”

Robin stood himself, stretching until he heard the satisfying pop of bones too long used to sitting. “Have fun. I’m going to stretch my legs before sitting around for however long it takes immortals to make decisions.”

“Humans and their bloody running,” he heard Declan mutter while the sluagh walked away.

Robin didn’t want to know.