Cathmoir’s Sons (Bad Boys of Bevington #5)

1. My Own Dark Room

Chapter 1

My Own Dark Room

KELLAN

“ A nd that’s how I became a queen of Faery,” I say, before taking a tequila shot, licking salt from the back of my hand, and biting into a lime.

Six pairs of eyes watch me drink. Black, brown, bright blue, forest green, and the pale green of the Cait Sidhe.

“I’ll drink to that,” my friend Rachel—of the bright blue eyes—says, grabbing her own shot glass. She downs the shot and burps, breaking the tension. Even Jane, sitting wan and lost beside me, laughs a little.

“Well, that’s fucked, innit?” asks Teddy, her brown eyes steady on me.

Teddy’s the only one of us not drinking, because she’s nursing her newborn. Carrie Prince Nowak Tate-Wilson, third cutest baby in the world. Even if she does still look a little like a red alien. But she’s getting steadily cuter. She’s much less red and wrinkly than she was three days ago when I first saw her. She wasn’t even an hour old at that point; both she and Teddy were looking a little worse for the wear.

Teddy’s already bounced back to her usual form, sitting on Jane’s couch in red and green pajamas printed with the words “proper crimbo” all over them, with baby Carrie sleeping in a bassinet at her feet. I’m not sure what “proper crimbo” means, but Teddy’s British and her humor sometimes escapes me. Despite the fact she gave birth three days ago, Teddy was the one who insisted we have our long-delayed “Mega Girls’ Night” tonight.

I think she wanted a night off from her other kids, the Terror Twins. And maybe from her husbands. Since she has three husbands, all of whom are very alpha even if they’re “sweet buns” inside, I can understand why she might want a night with the girls.

“Yup,” I agree. “Fucked in the ass with a flaming poker.”

That provokes another round of giggles. Except from Larissa, one set of pale green eyes, who is sitting on a cushion on the floor in front of the fire while we all crash on Jane’s comfortable couch. Larissa doesn’t speak, at least not according to Lawson. Not that I can put any stock in anything he told me, given what a consummate liar he turned out to be. But she’s good at communicating without words. When she turned up at Jane’s townhouse four days ago, she handed me a note and a suitcase. The note was from Allie, Law’s mother and Larissa’s—employer? Owner? I’m not sure what you call someone who has a “handmaiden” but the whole concept still makes me squirm.

In the note, Allie apologized for her sons’ behavior and asked me to please keep in touch with her via Larissa. The suitcase contained clothes from the extensive wardrobe Allie and Larissa provided for me when I was living at Cait House.

I put the suitcase in a closet without unpacking its contents and told Larissa I was fine but she was welcome to visit any time. She evidently took that as an invitation to move in. Except for short trips back to Cait House, she’s stayed with me and Jane. Jane only has one guest room, so Larissa’s been sleeping with me.

I guess I should be used to Cait commandeering my bed by now.

If I’m being fair and not letting the two other tequila shots I’ve done turn me sour, I’d admit that Larissa’s been nothing but helpful as Jane and I go about the heart-rending business of dealing with Carrie’s death. Yesterday, Jane broke down in tears while we were sorting through the contents of Carrie’s desk. Larissa stepped in without us even asking. While I consoled Jane, Larissa sorted everything into three boxes: personal records, academic records, and memorabilia. I put the memorabilia in the attic, took the academic records to Bevington College’s offices, and left the personal records for Jane to go through when she felt stronger.

Larissa’s been a Goddess-send. But I’m finding it very hard to be fair at the moment, particularly to a Cait.

Which reminds me of the other pair of eyes watching me. I glance at the long French doors at the far end of Jane’s living room. The doors look out into the garden, now covered with snow. A small, black figure, white paws disappearing into the frosty groundcover, stares back at me with sage-green eyes.

He’s been there for the past three days, even though I’m sure he’s not recovered enough from his injuries to leave Cait House. I haven’t let him in, not even when he meowed at me for a solid hour after breakfast while I was trying to read. I toyed with the idea of flattening him under an avalanche of snow off the roof, but in the end, I shut the curtains and went upstairs where I couldn’t hear him as clearly. He’s not coming in. I’m not interested in anything he has to say. That’s final.

I glare at him before twisting around on the couch until my back’s to him.

Larissa watches me snub her prince. She presses her lips together, then reaches over and pours another shot of tequila into each of our glasses. She lifts her shot glass to me, downs the shot with a small cough, then licks salt off the pad of her thumb in a very cat-like gesture before biting into a lime wedge from a tray on the coffee table between us.

“So,” Teddy says, drawing my attention back to her. “What are you going to do about it, Kells?”

I hold up my free hand. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“You closed the gates into your court, right?” Teddy asks. I nod. “What about the bwg and the afanc and the other fae you said could live there?”

“And the piskie sheep!” Rachel interjects.

I do have a soft spot for my sheep. They’re so fluffy.

“I’ve checked. They’re all fine. They can’t leave while the gates are closed, but if they wanted to leave, they shouldn’t have asked to come in in the first place.”

Larissa makes a face. I know what Cait think of confinement already, so I ignore her.

“I might ask for a loan of some piskie sheep,” Teddy says, rubbing her chin. “They’d come in dead handy for trimming the grass along the canal.”

Teddy and her husbands have several houses, including a palace in Scotland that has an underground pool and a bowling alley. All palaces should have bowling alleys, in my opinion. One of the “houses” is a houseboat on a canal in Wales. Despite the lack of bowling alley, I think the houseboat is probably Teddy’s favorite house. It has serious sentimental value to her and she takes good care of it, even when they’re away in Scotland for long periods of time.

“My piskie sheep are at your service,” I tell her. “Just return them when you’re done. I like them and I haven’t figured out the mechanics of lambing in a realm where it’s always summer, so I’m not sure if they’ll make more.”

Teddy chuckles. “You can be fairly certain piskie sheep reproduce, even in the Summerlands. As do bwg. Your castle will be overrun by the time you go back.”

I almost say the brownies can have my castle. It barely ever felt like mine. It was a dream, then a series of strange compulsions, then a grave, then ... for a dizzy moment, a playground for me and my boyfriend.

Now it’s just another place where the three boys who broke my heart betrayed me.

I’ve had two more tequila shots, and my head is doing lazy revolutions by the time I call it a night and crawl into bed. Larissa climbs in next to me and is out, snoring softly, within what feels like seconds.

I guess I should expect it when another body slides into the bed.

“Law, if that’s you, fuck off before I send you to Hell. I’m not kidding. I’ll do it.”

Teddy chuckles.

“Uncle Jou would love that,” she says, wriggling under the covers until she’s pressed against my side. I slide my arm under her head and lie on my back beside her, looking up at the dark ceiling.

“Tell Jou to give him such a hard time,” I say. “Because it’s bound to happen sooner or later.”

If only because Lawson’s the pushiest creature in existence.

“I will. Baby’s on my side of the bed. Try not to trip over her when you get up to pee. Now tell me what’s really going on.”

“Did Gabe or Charlie or Dar ever break your heart?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says quietly. “In the past and in the future.”

I’m silent for a moment as that sinks in through my tequila haze.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“We got past it. I won’t say we got over it, ‘cause there’s some things you never get over. But we grew beyond it. We forgave each other and found other ways to love each other. This ain’t about me. What the fuck is goin’ on with you?”

“Teddy, I don’t even know how to explain. Or what to do about it.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“Run away?” I suggest.

Teddy’s soft laugh echoes in the dark. “Always a good option, mate. Come back to Thistlemist with me and Rach for Hogmanay. Fuck this place and those boys.”

“I can’t leave Jane alone,” I explain. “I know she looked like she was holding it together tonight. She’s not.”

“Bring her. We’ll take care of her at Thistlemist. I can’t even imagine how she must be feeling,” Teddy says quietly. “How long were she and Carrie together?”

“Seventy-two years.”

“By the Mother.” Teddy sighs. “I know it’ll happen to us someday. Dar will probably outlive us by several hundred years. Same as his dad’s outlived all his wives. But right now, it’s unimaginable, the thought of losing any of my boys.”

I push away the thought that I’ve lost my boys. They’re not mine; they never were; it was all lies. “Yeah.”

We contemplate the depths of my mentor’s loss in silence for a long while. As I’m beginning to drift, Teddy says, “I know why you felt you had to stay away, Kells. But I hope you never forgot for a second that we love you. You’ve always got a place with us. Ripped me up that I couldn’t be with you when you were goin’ through the worst of it. Fucking spawn.”

I shift my arm until I can wrap it around her shoulders and give her a squeeze. “Love you, too, girlfriend. But there are some things I have to do alone.”

“No, Kells, you don’t,” Teddy says firmly. “I know you think you do. Charlie told me what you said to him, that you had to walk your Path alone. I pushed to get us all together tonight to remind you that you don’t. You have people all around you who love you. Who will always stand beside you. You are not alone.”

I sniffle. “Teddy.”

“Shurrup. You’re making me cry.”

“You made me cry first.”

“You.”

“That’s the best you can come up with, Professor Theodora Anne Nowak-Tate-Wilson-Miller-Dùbhghlas? You ?”

“That’s right. Go to sleep.”

“You,” I say.

She laughs and cuddles close. Blanketed by Larissa on one side and Teddy on the other, I close my eyes and let myself drift.