SIX #3
"So, Smoke. You think you can fit in with the humans?" he asked, the two of them moving forward since, apparently, I was the only one who didn't know exactly where we were heading, leaving me trailing behind. "Might have to rein in the attitude a bit, don't you think?"
"I think that if you don't shut up, I will slice that tongue of yours off. Then what will you use to catch all your food?"
"Now why would you do that to yourself?" he asked, hands tucking into his front pockets, clearly not intimidated by Smoky's chilly demeanor, leaving me to wonder if it was because there was some warmth inside her, or if he was simply the kind of man who was charmed by prickly women.
"'Cause you know you're gonna let me between your thighs again, Smoke. "
"Why would I take you for another ride? Don't you have, like, fifteen brothers?"
To that, a hiss escaped Sal, low, threatening, a sound that made a throaty chuckle escape Smoky.
"So, where in the human realm are we heading?" she asked a while later while Sal fell into what I interpreted as a sulking silence. Or maybe it was seething. It was hard to tell.
"The Big Pear," I offered somewhat confidently.
"Apple, bud. The Big Apple," Sal corrected, turning over his shoulder to shoot me an amused look. "Where about?"
"Some museum," I told him, patting down my pockets to find my note. "By a terran..." I trailed off, not wanting to embarrass myself again if I was wrong.
"T-rex," Sal supplied. "At the Museum of Natural History. What?" he asked when Smoky sent him an odd look. "The kid who fed me crickets smuggled me on his field trip with him. Almost fucking froze to death, but I'm familiar."
"Will we be anywhere near that when we go through the veil?"
"Been a while, but if I remember correctly, we end up just across a stretch of ocean from there.
A small stretch," he clarified when my shoulders slumped.
"We can take a train or bus or ferry. Ferry might be preferable," he went on.
"Less metal," he added even though no one asked.
Coming from such an abundant tribe, he likely wasn't as comfortable with silence as we were.
"How long does a ferry take?"
"An hour or two?" he said, shrugging it off. "Not long. Are we on a tight schedule?"
"Trying to beat the Dark King, Prince, and a slew of Redcaps and other evil baddies there, so, yeah, you could say we are on a tight schedule," Smoky supplied.
"Oh, for fuck's sake. You're getting me involved with the Dark Court? What kind of mess did you two get yourselves into?"
"First, it's his problem. And I like when I am owed favors. Second, that is for him to answer if he chooses to. Which he doesn't have to."
"Shit. I like favors too, Smoke," he said, tips tipping up. "From my scoreboard, you owe me six."
"Orgasms are gifts, not favors. Nice try."
"Fine. Then I like a good adventure. And it's been a while since I saw the humans. It's always fun to see what kind of trouble they have gotten themselves into every couple decades or so."
So now I owed two fae I didn't even know favors.
But for Amy, hell, I guess it didn't matter if they wanted my firstborn. Though I had a feeling their interest in me ran more toward protection than anything. Maybe asylum. Or simply bragging rights.
"So, Smoke," Sal tried again a few hours later.
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to say. Maybe I was going to say I like that new knife you made yourself."
"Were you?"
"No," he admitted, shrugging it off. Like water on his Salamander skin, everything seemed to roll right off this guy.
"I was gonna say that it didn't exactly escape me that that is my piece of Unakite in your hair," he told her, hand reaching out, snagging one of her braids with a pink and black stone hanging from it.
"Always were such a little thief," he told her, but his tone was warm, affectionate even. "You trying to attract the one, Smoke?"
"I'm saving it to trade next time it is safe to travel to Tenray Square," she countered. But the words fell flat. To me at least. I think the warm inside under all her ice wanted to have a piece of him, even if all she wanted him to think was that she used him for sex.
"Yeah, heard that place is a bit rough lately. Well, rougher than usual. You run into some trouble there?"
"Nothing I couldn't handle," she told him, but her voice had taken on an edge. Like maybe it had cost her. Like maybe it had been a close call.
"Handle, yeah. But that wasn't the question, Smoke."
There was a moment of stony silence before Smoke shot back, words lethal, "Get over me already, Sal," before grabbing a low tree limb, swinging herself up.
"Nah. Don't wait for her," Sal said, shaking his head.
"She's following. Just from above." He jerked his chin up to where the limbs were swaying.
High. Really, freakishly high. But, I guess, if you wanted to travel The Green without ever being seen, learning how to swing between trees was a vital skill.
One she was very practiced at. "It's a careful balance," he said oddly as we fell into step with each other.
"What is?"
"Pushing her," he supplied. "You gotta do it, or you don't get dick from her. But if you push just the slightest bit too much, she flees."
"You two know each other long?"
"She returned my brother's egg to my parents a couple summers ago.
Ten maybe?" he said, scrunching his face up a bit.
"They were grateful enough not to limit their thanks.
So anytime she needed to disappear for a bit to let some storm she created blow over, or when the winters proved too long and she was close to starving, she stopped in, rested, refueled.
Can't tell you how many times I saw her show up so bloody or so skinny she was minutes from death.
That woman has been through hell. Not that she would tell you what kind, mind you, but some scars speak for themselves.
Like yours," he added, nodding toward my back.
"Can't even trust Light fae sometimes," I hedged.
To that, Sal snorted.
"Especially the ones who play both sides against the middle, hm?
" he asked as something cracked above us, making both of us stiffen, heads jerking up.
But there was no damsel in distress to save.
Just a woman who had learned a long time ago to catch herself, save herself, soften her own landing.
She huffed out her breath as she hauled herself up from where she'd caught a branch on her way down, resettling on a limb before disappearing again.
"She ever gonna come down?"
"When food comes out, I'd bet," he said, shrugging. "She's skinny again. Her pride won't let her say it, but she's hungry. She won't miss a meal. Judging by your bag, you got a stash. I got one too. She will come down to eat."
I mulled on that for a moment, the idea of the hard-as-stone woman above us hanging around simply because her belly was empty and her pride was too fragile to admit that aloud, that she wasn't always able to feed herself, that the long winters months could take their toll.
"So is it a girl?" Sal asked as our paced slowed, all of us seeming to sense it was time to hunker down.
"Is what a girl?"
"What would make someone like you - someone better never to bring attention to himself - take on the Dark Court, unsettle the balance between it and the Light. It's got to be a girl, right?"
Figuring he would see the truth for himself within another day or so, I shrugged. "Yeah, it's a girl."
"That all you're gonna give me? Come on, Smoke isn't exactly a great conversationalist. Someone has got to pick up the slack."
"She freed me," I admitted. "Don't even know how long I was chained up, but it was long enough that I forgot my way around The Green. And she saved me. Freed me from it. I owe her the same."
"What does the Dark Court want with her? She special?" he asked, clearly meaning skill-wise.
"From what I can tell, she doesn't have any known skills. At least none that have presented themselves yet."
"Yet? If she's got your eyes like that, she's got to be old enough."
"Her parents sent her to the human realm to age her up. It might have screwed with her internal timing. They may still be dormant."
"Possibly," he agreed, nodding. "So if it isn't some skill the King can drain to try to inject into himself, what would he want with her."
"I don't know what the deal was, but I know the Dark Prince was getting her."
"As in as a whore?" he asked, eyes going small.
It wasn't exactly a secret that the Dark Court was full of sex slaves, the most beautiful of all kinds snatched, imprisoned, made to suck and fuck their lives away for the enjoyment of men - and women - who would get off on their pain.
"If I'm not mistaken... as a wife."
"Really?" he asked, turning fully to face me. "Who was she the child of?"
"Winters," I supplied, figuring there was no way to keep it secret for long.
"They're Light."
"Only in theory."
"I'm sure she knocks your socks off and everything, but what would the Unseelie King want with some offspring of a Light family? Even if they are rich."
"Opal Winters has a way of making things work out in her favor."
"Maybe she promised that new Light Princess," Sal suggested, tone indifferent as he rubbed his palms together, smoke filtering up between before he spread them flat, fire dancing up from his skin.
Salamander fae were fire fae.
Much like me and my kind.
We controlled it.
We brought it forth.
We could warm ourselves with it in the cold months.
Or use it to burn down your village.
I could only control it in Draca form.
Sal, apparently, was not so restricted.
But even as my eyes stayed transfixed on the flames as Sal pressed his hands to some downed branches, letting them crackle and spark to life, all my mind could focus on was that possibility.
Was that Opal's grand plan?
Did she intend to use Amy's arranged - and wholly unwanted - marriage to draw Jasper out of asylum?