Bo turned in time to see the moment Suire’s world collapsed. It only took a heartbeat, for that surprised, pleased expression at Everil’s agreement to crumble into betrayed shock. Genuine, the way her disgust and anger had been.
“You can’t,” Suire said, frantic. “Everil, I have served for centuries.”
“You have only ever served me ill. And Suire, my House does not grant allotments to the forsworn.”
Whatever that meant, it seemed to dig in the knife deeper. “You wouldn’t. Over a toy?Everil.”
“We have nothing further to say to each other.”
Suire moved as if to reach for Everil. Bo glared at her sidelong.
“You fucked around,” Bo told her, his voice flat. “You found out. Leave.”
She threw Bo one last scorching glare, and then was gone. No sticks, no sparkles, nothing. What was Suire became nothing but air and the whisper of the woods. Bo and Everil’s breathing became the noisiest part of the small clearing, but Bo didn’t let go.
“What did that mean?” Bo asked Everil’s shoulder, sinking further against the other man. Safe. They were safe for the moment, bloodied and all. “The uh, the oath release.”
Everil shuddered, still holding on. It should hurt, but Everil’s hand felt like cool relief.
“She was pledged to my House and had an allotment of land with it.” Soft, measured words. “Land is dear in Faerie. Very dear. She no longer has any, nor the position she once boasted of as a trusted member of a House.” A slow sigh, and Everil’s hand dropped. “Come. Let us heal you and find Talia.”
Bo nodded, fingers reluctantly uncurling from Everil’s hand. It took effort, blood sticking, but Everil’d been good enough to let him cling already. The kelpie would probably apologize for it before they got to the car. Apologize even though Bo was alive, not rotting, forgotten, under a tree.
He’d survived.
He’d survivedSuire.
Everil hadn’t feared Suire. She’d hurt him, yeah, but the way of a friend who knew sore points. He’d not feared her the way Bo knew he did Nimai. He’d seen Everil shrink at the thought of Nimai being nearby, looking beautiful and alone and trying to not shake with it.
Shit.
No. He wasn’t going to think about it. He was alive.
Bo slumped against thefar wall of the Amazing Alien Landing Barn, solid metal at his back instead of Everil or a net of branches. The cold pressed close, different than the chill of the outside even as it sank into bare skin from the rips in his clothes.
They’d fix the clothes later. Talia first. He’d said something along those lines to Everil, giddy with the lack of pain after the kelpie healed him. Everil hadn’t wanted to leave him, but there was no fucking way Bo was going back into the forest.
So. Big metal barn. Fake spaceship only a few yards away. No one even glanced in Bo’s direction or called the cops over a blood-covered dude in torn clothes.
Privacy ward, Everil called it.
“Fuck,” Bo said to the air. No one reacted. Bo tightened his grip on his cell, dusty and smudged from the pile of underbrush he’d dropped it in. Where he’d let it fall because he’d been lured into the goddamn woods and nearly murdered.
Even with the people, the world felt too fucking quiet.
(The world had gone silent in the woods too, except for that lulling, whispering song.)
Bo dialed a number in his number spoofing app. One he’d been surprised to find in his email that morning, along with a short message. A name.
“ ‘Tonios,” said Antonio. His voice echoed some, like he was in the barn instead of Bo.
“Can you believe I cuddled a kelpie but almost got shish-kabobbed by a dryad?” Bo asked. “Fae are weird.”
Silence down the line. The distant sound of metal on metal.
“One of those things sounds about right. You good? Need help?”
“Does an affinity bond help the kelpie cuddling make more sense? Because that’s a thing.”
