Blood Kin (30 page)

Adam, with a solemn gesture, motioned to the door. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” Tucker said, grim determination on his face. Niko, behind him, bit his lip, but moved forward. I nodded at him as he passed. He nodded back and disappeared through the door. I followed; Adam came behind me. As Adam’s head cleared the opening, it closed with the same pop of air pressure that had signaled its appearance.

I blinked in the sudden darkness. A moment, then a darkling light began to glow, the very walls, smooth stone, emanating enough luminescence for us to see by. I’d not lay odds for any human being able to see here, but I was doing fine. “Can you all see?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

“Yes,” three voices answered, nearly in tandem, nearly as quiet as mine.

“Welcome to Faery,” I said a little more loudly. “Enter at your own—”

“Keira,” Adam warned.

“Just trying to keep a sense of humor. I could’ve said ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter.’” I gave up on the wittiness and moved down the hallway a short way. These weren’t the halls of my own past, light and airy. These halls were dark—dim corridors with darkling light—not the bright luminescence of where I lived as a child. This was somewhere else.

Gray mists swirled around our feet as we cautiously walked forward, releasing a sweet scent, reminiscent of musky spice vanilla—oh holy hells—Adam. The mist smelled of Adam … or he smelled of the mist. The scent I associated with him was the scent of the world Below, the Unseelie Court. Niko seemed to realize it at the same time I did, his nostrils flaring. He glanced at Adam, yet remained in place, lips tight with anxiety, face set in determination. My brother walked beside us, ever wary, ever watchful. When we returned to Above, I needed to complete the bonding and Mark him—he would be a brilliant Protector, someone I could trust to be that close—Tucker, nearest to me in spirit, if not in age.

“Where should we head?” I asked as we eventually reached a spot where two corridors branched off from the one in which we stood. There was still no obvious source of light, nor of the underlying vibration that I could feel resonating in my bones. “Do you know, Adam?”

Adam reached for the wall, one hand taking my own, the other, palm flat against the dark glowing stone. “Feel this,” he said.

Without even directly touching the wall, I felt the continuous rhythmic humming, the heartbeat of Faery, pulling, tugging. “That way,” I said and with my other hand, pointed to the left-hand corridor.

“You know this?” Niko asked in puzzlement.

I nodded. “I felt the way.”

“It calls, doesn’t it?” Adam sounded almost … glad? I stared at him in surprise, but said nothing.

“Niko, Tucker, stay close,” I said. “And don’t forget, no food, no drink.”

“It is true, then, the tales?” Niko’s eyes widened. “About Faery?”

“Yes,” Adam said harshly. “It would be like my father’s people to want to keep us here. We can’t partake of anything—not even blood.”

I stifled a laugh. That hadn’t actually occurred to me, but yeah, I supposed that would qualify as food if you were a blood drinker. “We won’t stay long,” I said. “Just find out what the hell is going on and then get out. I’ll pull out the Gigi card if I have to.”

“No need, Keira Kelly.” The voice came from behind me. I jumped and turned to see a small person, one of the lesser fey from his gray-green skin and matching garb. “This way please. The king will see you now.” The fey bowed to Tucker and Niko, a deeper bow for me, and for Adam, his brow touched the floor. “It is good to have you back home again, Aeddan.”

“Only for a short time, Llwyd.”

The wee man nodded, head bobbing quickly as he stood from his bow. “A time and then a time more. Follow me.” With a scamper and another bow, he scurried up the left corridor. We followed, less with the scampering and more with the caution born of not trusting the fey.

“Was it me, or was his response as cryptic as it sounded?” I whispered to Adam.

“That’s Llwyd,” Adam replied, being as cryptic as the little man.

“Okay …” I began, but stopped as he continued.

“He is my father’s Fool. No answer will be precise from that one.”

“Hmm.” The Court Fool. There’d been one at my mother’s Court and her cousin’s as well. I remembered only that he’d been, well, foolish and amusing. He’d treated me well, though. I remembered that.

“This can’t be all there is to see of Faery,” Tucker remarked as we walked down yet another featureless corridor, the small Fool gamboling ahead of us, turning and twirling and motioning us to follow. We larger, humansize folk kept moving cautiously, each of us still wary.

“It’s not,” Adam said. “For lack of a better word, they’ve cloaked a lot of the passageways.”

“Hidden, then.” Niko grimaced as he touched a wall. “They hide from us?”

“Mostly, yes.” Adam looked at Niko as we walked, two by two, Adam and I ahead, Niko and Tucker taking our six. “They don’t know what to expect from the two of you, so they hide.”

“Us?” Niko didn’t disguise his disdain. “We are the ones making them hide?”

“You are strangers. And for that, I am sorry. Nikolai, you are family to me and should be treated as such, just as yon wolf there is family to us both. It’s—”

“They like to play games, Niko,” I said, my voice weary. “It’s in their nature. Head games, mind you, and they’re damned good at it.”

“So we are, dear lady, so we are.”

A tall man stood at the bend in the corridor, the dark light that shone from the walls seeming to surround him. He wore dark shimmering clothing, tunic and trousers and highly polished boots. Long black hair swirled around his shoulder as he stood still, as if a hidden breeze
moved about him. Was this the dark bard? Or someone else?

“Aeddan. Fancy that. You have come home?”

“As if you didn’t know, Iolo,” Adam answered, voice as neutral as Switzerland. “Were you the one Above then?”

“You knew about that?” The other man chuckled, no fey music accompanying his amusement. Instead, the dark swirl around him moved more quickly, in a new pattern.

“I’d surmised,” Adam said. “I didn’t know it was you, definitely.”

“Ah well, then. Now you know.”

Was this Iolo guy admitting to having been the one that killed the Sidhe bard? I opened my mouth to speak, but held back as Adam took my hand, giving it a squeeze as he addressed Iolo.

“My father?”

Iolo let his gaze rake over me first, then Niko and Tucker. With a slight bow, he motioned to his left. “After you, dear cousin, after you.”

“I don’t think so,” I answered before Adam could. “We will follow you.”

The bard studied me a moment with a wondering look. “You are heir to Branwen ferch Arianrhod; niece to High Queen Angharad?”

“I am.” I stood my ground. What did my mother’s heritage mean here at the Unseelie Court? Would I be treated as an equal, a visiting dignitary or simply an enemy? Or, almost worse, just Adam’s girlfriend … his property?

“Welcome, Keira ap Huw ferch Branwen, you and your kin shall be as our kin.”

With a wave and a motion of his hand, the walls shimmered, then faded. We were standing in a great hall,
all inky sheen and smooth polished stone, mixed with ebony wood and silver accents. I’d venture to guess it was pure silver in the decor. No steel in those pillars, no other base metals in the whorls of shine. Nothing to weaken or cause discomfort. In the center of the hall, a man sat on what could only be described as a throne. Upholstered in the richest black velvet, looking nothing like the elaborate white bone and silver chair that held my mother’s cousin. I’d seen it only once … and once was enough to imprint the view for life. Even as a child, I could tell that chair hurt. This one, though, was the epitome of luxurious comfort.

“Father.” Adam’s voice was both smooth with diplomacy and rough with held-back emotion. What was he feeling? How long had it been?

“He who was once my son arrives.” Drystan’s voice was a twin to Adam’s, a shade deeper and a hell of a lot more amused. “Still walking the night, I see.”

“I am.”

“And your companions—how droll. The other night-walker is yours?”

“I made him.” At Adam’s words, I saw Niko’s arm tremble slightly, as if frightened. I glanced at his face. No, not fear—anger. Tucker grasped Niko’s hand and with a caressing thumb, calmed the vampire. Niko’s anger subsided and his lips held tight against the words I knew he forced back. “He is mine, but is also his.” A slight nod indicated Tucker.

“Interesting.” Drystan watched Tucker and Niko for a moment, a smile curling onto his lips. Egads. His mouth was so very much like Adam’s. The family resemblance was strong and, to my very deepest regret, obviously extended to Gideon, who, I was now realizing, was
stamped from this mold. How had I not noticed this before? Perhaps because Adam’s nature, though darker by his very being, was so completely the opposite of Gideon’s reckless abandon and need to dive into the dark. Adam, Gideon and their father were all tall, dark-haired and light-eyed. Adam’s eyes were the deep green of the ocean; Gideon’s the deep blue of midnight; Drystan’s? Hard to tell at this distance, but I would bet on hazel.

“So you are the princess who captured the hearts of both my sons.” Drystan, continuing his tack of amusement, rose from his chair and approached us.

“Not exactly planned,” I said. “I guess I’m attracted to a certain type.”

Tucker snorted behind me. Adam and Niko said nothing.

“A type, she says.” Drystan grinned. “I like you.”

“Goody.” I let my sarcasm out again. “So, Drystan, what about the murders?”

A shock of murmuring sound ran through the hall, hidden Sidhe voices whispering. Even the walls have ears here, Keira, if they are walls at all—remember that. There may be no one visible, but they’re all watching.

“The musician crossed boundaries,” Drystan said with a dismissive wave of a beringed hand. “He disobeyed. We called him back and he would not return to us quietly.”

“How can I believe that? He was stabbed, beaten—” I said evenly, trying to keep as calm as possible.

“After being drained of life—” Iolo interrupted his king, who gave him a royal glare. Iolo gave a slight nod and subsided.

“You killed humanely?” My words were bitter, a taste of foulness in my mouth.

“As humanely as you did with the man Pete Garza,” Drystan declared. “You and your brother sentenced him to death.”

“And you know this how?”

“We have our sources.” The unseen crowd behind him tittered, an invisible Greek chorus. “You would do well to allow us our own ways here, Keira Kelly.”

“And Above?” I ask. “Your ways do not—should not—reach there. Not to the city. Not to several human dead.”

“Casualties.” He lifted a shoulder, indifference visible in every gesture. “They were attuned to the fey. They dreamed themselves to death.”

Well, damn. If he was telling the truth, this altered the picture considerably.

“Dreamed?” Niko’s voice slid through, a mere whisper.

“Old men’s dreams. They died happy,” Iolo remarked. “In the old days, many chose to die that way.”

“They were not murdered?” Tucker broke in.

“No,” Iolo confessed. “I simply meant to find information in that place. The other, the bard had been there. The men were weak, already close to death.”

I quickly sized up my companions’ reactions. Niko still held a look of anger, but Tucker and Adam both seemed to be coming to the same conclusion I was.

Adam spoke on our behalf after a silent conversation with Niko, who sighed and nodded. “The humans, then, were only accidents—not outright murders. There was no retribution involved, no intent. Your action against your bard is a Sidhe affair.”

“It could be your affair as well, son.” Drystan approached Adam with a tilt to his head as if studying him. “You look well, Aeddan. How long has it been since you came Below?”

Adam regarded his father, his face giving away nothing as his face solidified into the now familiar to me vampire stone. “Measuring in years Above? Centuries.”

“Ah, well then. Too long.” The king then came to me, his hands open in greeting. “Your mother is my rival’s cousin and heir presumptive. Welcome, daughter.”

“Why do you call me daughter?” I asked. “Unless someone’s really been pulling another fast one on me, my father is—”

“Huw Kelly of Clan Kelly. And you are heir to Minerva?”

“I am,” I said, echoing Adam’s earlier words. “You know a lot about me for someone who’s not even related.”

“I have watched you, Keira Kelly.” Drystan’s smile took on a feral quality. “You were with my son.”

“And am still,” I said too hotly, moving closer to Adam and taking his hand.

Shining laughter surrounded us, the sound of deep bells underlying the king’s voice. “I meant my other son,” he said. “The one like you.”

“So, it really is true.” I gripped Adam’s hand tighter. Despite the plainly evident physical resemblance, I was still holding out hope that all this was purely really weird coincidence.

“Oh, very much so.” The voice came from behind us … a voice I’d known as intimately as I’d ever known anyone’s.

Gideon.

“N
O AND NO
and bloody hells, no freaking way are you here.” I faced my former lover with hands on my hips. “Tell me this is not happening and that this is some secret brother y’all had squirreled away.”

“’Fraid not, lover,” Gideon drawled. “It’s me.”

I resisted the urge to move forward and slap his face. Tempting, but we were in Court; manners mattered. “Do not call me that, Gideon Kelly. What the hell are you doing here anyway? I thought you were—”

“Gideon ap Drystan, if you please and, as you can see, I’m no longer dying, dear cousin,” Gideon interrupted with a sweeping gesture. “It was long past time to come visit my father. So here I am.”

“Well, bully for you.” I shot back at him. “What’s this ap Drystan thing? Kelly no longer good enough for you?”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “I find that there are many things about my father’s Court that I find quite amenable.”

“No doubt,” I nearly spat. “I’m sure this is right up your very special dark alley. So you knew about him? How come you never said anything?”