I lean in a press a soft kiss to her lips. Her fingers curl into my T-shirt.
Lightning flashes, illuminating the yard. The storm followed us out of the city. That isn’t good news. That means the gyfnosau came too.
I hand her one of my guns. “Just aim at the beast and shoot.”
“I’ve never fired a gun.”
I show her the sights and the safety and warn her about the kick. Hopefully she doesn’t shoot me, as what’s in those bullets will be fatal if I’m shot with one. The fae aren’t immortal, our lives are just longer, measured in centuries, not decades.
“When I come back, we should leave for faery.” I don’t want to let her go. I’d like to leave now.
“Where’s the breach?” There’s a worried note in her voice. The confidence when she’d stabbed me and fought me is gone, and I don’t like seeing her this scared.
“Close, but don’t go through the breach, that will take you to the outer realms and it is filled with monsters and fallen fae.” I wouldn’t like to fight my way back home from there.
“You take the gun. You’ll need it.” She offers it to me like it’s a present.
“I’ll take my sword as back up.” And hope that luck and magic are on my side. “Will you come to faery with me when return?”
“Can I come back and visit?”
I study her for a moment. “Yes, but the world will have moved on. The people you know will be old or dead. It’s hard to live between two worlds, Jenna.”
Even though I had no plans to return so quickly, I long for the long summers and sweetly scented air. The jewel like flowers and musical breeze. Living here has hardened me. Given me edges, I didn’t notice forming at first. I have become like the old guardians I used to listen to. Guardians either die on the job or return with a woman.
I know which one I want.
“What will happen to my life here?”
“What usually happens, you’ll become a missing person.”
Beneath the grumble of the storm is the howl of the gyfnosau. I need to stop them before they hurt anyone else. I shouldn’t have let that cop be eaten, but his blood isn’t the only smear on my conscience.
Jenna kisses me again, holding on to me as though she never wants to let me go. “Thank you for saving me.”
I should be thanking her for saving me. I take my sword off the wall and belt it on, then I drop the barrier that has been keeping the gyfnosau off my property and step outside into a storm that has stolen every star from the sky.
