Kelpie (Come Love a Fey) (7 page)

She
turned and headed over to address whatever urgent issue was going on in the
kitchen, hips swaying.

I
stared at Leith for a moment.  His face was a blank mask, but his eyes were
furious.  I reached for my burger and he shook his head.  “Don’t eat that.”

I
sighed.  “We
did
come here to eat dinner.  And it smells delicious.  Who
knew a bunch of role-players could cook like this?”  Honestly, role-play was
the best explanation I could come up with.

He
didn’t look amused.  Still with that flat mask.  “We’re leaving.  Someone
poisoned me- a powerful fey- and left me for dead.  What makes you think they would
hesitate to slip something into your burger?”  He sighed.  “Besides, haven’t
you ever heard the rule about never eating fairy food?  If you eat their food,
they might decide to keep you.”

I
closed my eyes and prayed for patience and understanding.  “Leith, I’m tired,
I’m hungry, and I’ve had a bad day.  Can we drop the fairy bullshit for like
two seconds?”

He
stood and grabbed my wrist, pulling me after him.  I scrambled to snag my purse,
and he ushered me out the door and onto the dim sidewalk.  “Dine and dash is
illegal, you know?”  I said, peeved.  No one seemed inclined to stop us
though.  Maybe they were used to it in this part of town.

He
headed toward my car and I followed.  We left the gloomy parking lot in silence
and I made a pit stop at the nearest fast food joint for drive-through. 

“Look,
I’m sorry if what that woman said upset you.  She probably picked up on your
issues and decided to get you riled up.  No one is going to poison you.”

“She
wasn’t trying to anger me; she was trying to warn me.”  He was quiet for a full
minute.  Then he slammed the flat of his hand into the dash with a sound that
could only be described as a growl.  There was a sharp plastic
crack. 
“Someone
has betrayed me!”  His deep voice was filled with venomous hate.

I
was taken aback.  In the time since I’d taken him in, Leith had always been
gentle and calm.  His outburst was a reminder that I didn’t really know
anything about him.  I glanced at the dash as we passed a streetlight, scowling
at the dent he’d left there
.  That’s not strange
, I told myself.  Cars
these days were kind of flimsy.  Any big guy could do that.  Right?  “Look, I
can still drive you straight to the police station and turn you over!”  The act
was wearing thin.

He
turned to me, his beautiful face once more covered with that flat mask.  His
eyes glinted in the semi-dark.  “And I could do all sorts of terrible things to
you.  Things you can’t even imagine.” 

Goosebumps
broke out on my arms.I kept my eyes on the road.  “But you don’t.”

He
turned to face forward once more.  “And you don’t.”

We
were quiet again.  I pulled into the burger joint and ordered a meal for each
of us.  He got the fish sandwich.

I
pulled out and headed toward my apartment.  “So how do you know that woman,
anyway?”  If he had friends, people that knew him well, maybe I could stop by
there alone and see if I could find out what I should do with him.  Maybe he
had family somewhere.

“Mair
is Bendith Y Mamau.” 

I
kept my eyes on the road.  “Uh-huh.”

He
sighed.  “It’s Welsh.  Your people would call her Mother’s Blessing.”  He ran a
hand through his hair, making it stick up in a wild mass.  “
She is one of my
closest friends.  She has served my family for hundreds of years.  What she
said wasn’t just a story.  She was trying to tell me what happened to me.  I
cannot believe she has changed this much.  Someone must be watching her...”

I
honestly didn’t know what to say.  He never responded to my attempts to pull
him back to reality, so this time I went along with it.  “What do you mean?”

He
dug around in the bag, pulled out one of the cardboard fry boxes, and set it in
my cup holder.  I gave him a grateful look and popped a couple in my mouth.  Lunch
had been a long time ago, and chocolate mousse wasn’t really a hearty,
sustaining kind of meal.

“Mair
was…
is
…my closest friend.”  His voice sounded small.  “I’ve known her
since I was born.  She was friend to my parents, maybe what you would call a… godmother.” 
He was thoughtful for a moment.  “Who is she afraid of?”

I
reached for another fry.  “How could she possibly have known you that long? 
She looks even younger than you do.”

He
laughed bitterly.  “You never listen.  You refuse to see.  It’s all glamour. 
It’s not real.  Mair is at least twice my age- and I’m ancient compared to you.”

I
ate my fries in silence.  Usually he just ignored my refusal to accept his cock
and bull stories.  But just now he sounded… disappointed.

Leith
kept his gaze trained out the window into the night.  “I need to try to find
what is left of my clan.”

“How
about tomorrow we go to the police station?  Maybe they can help us find your
family?”

He
shook his head.  “If Mair was right, they are all dead.  Did you hear her?  She
said my followers were poisoned as well.”

I
pulled into the parking lot of my apartment and killed the engine.  Scooping up
my stuff, I turned in my seat to look at him.  “Maybe not,” I said with a small
smile.  “After all, supposedly you were murdered, but here you sit.”  Here I
went, reasoning with a crazy person.

“Only
because my enemies underestimated my strength,” he said quietly.

I
shrugged.  “Maybe.  But maybe she was trying to tell you that they weren’t
dead….maybe they’re just
supposed
to be dead.”

He
laughed.  “You don’t realize how our world works.  Fey do not have the sense of
mercy humans seem to value.”  He heaved a massive sigh.  “But I will look for
them all the same.”

I
nodded.  “Good.  We’ll start tomorrow night when I get home from work.”

I
left Leith in
the kitchen with his salmon filet and the nightly news, and quietly made my way
to my room.  It had been a long day.  My shoulders were in knots, my head and
neck ached, and my stomach was roiling.  I tried to breathe deeply, tried to fight
off the building stress.  I felt a sort of numb calm creeping over me and
thought it just might be working.

Then
my eyes fell on a picture of Noah and I that rested on my dresser.  We had it
taken in one of those little booths in the mall.  I was grinning like an idiot
and he was making rabbit ears behind my head.  Before I knew what I was doing,
I had crossed the room.  The cheap picture frame shattered against the back of
the door, scattering glittering shards of glass across the floor. 

I
stood there, still feeling numb, until Leith appeared in the doorway with a
worried look on his handsome face.  My chest ached and I felt like I couldn’t
breathe.  An intense feeling of fear settled over me making me light headed. 
This had happened often enough for me to know that it was just a panic attack. 
Knowing that did not keep my world from closing in on me.  I couldn’t seem to
draw a full breath around the burning pain in the center of my chest.

“Ada?” 
Leith glanced at the shattered frame that lay on the floor at his feet.  He
gave me a wry look of understanding.  I drew a gasping breath.  Hot tears of
frustration and hurt were coursing down my cheeks and my hands were shaking. 

He
hopped nimbly over my mess and made his way to my side.  He was still barefoot,
I noted dimly.  I shook my head and dashed away the stupid tears with the back
of my hand.  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. 
Don’t step in the glass.”  My vision was going black around the edges and I
wanted to run somewhere-anywhere- but my body wouldn’t move.

Leith
shrugged and sat on the end of my bed, patting the spot next to him in
invitation.  “You haven’t cried since you dumped him,” he said, matter of
fact.  “You can’t just hold things in like this.”

I
looked at him in shock.  He had been watching too much TV.  I was going to have
to ban him from Oprah.  “How did you know about Noah?”  I took a deep breath
and put my head between my knees, telling myself it would pass.  After a moment,
I sat back up.  It wasn’t working.  I was having a heart attack.

Leith
gave me an exasperated look and continued, as if I wasn’t about to die.  “I
keep telling you, I’m not mentally impaired.”  He grinned.  “You can choose to
believe I’m crazy, but I am
not
stupid.”  You came home smelling of
tears and heartache.

I
laughed through my tears.  “I can’t breathe.”

He
sighed.  “There is nothing wrong with you.  You’re talking to me, so you must be
breathing.” 

I
glared at him and he relented, placing a big, warm hand on the center of my
back.  “Breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.”  I listened to
his deep, calm voice, and let my eyes settle closed.

He
brought his other hand to the center of my chest, turning me toward him
slightly.  His rumbling voice rose and fell like ocean waves.  I could almost
see the water.

He
chuckled slightly, a deep rumbling sound.  “The ocean?  Okay, the ocean.  Just
keep breathing.”  Had I said that aloud just now?

I
did as he said, already feeling the attack pass.  His hand over my chest felt
hot, just shy of burning.  I opened my eyes to find that his face was inches
from mine; his eyes closed as he shared the image with me.  He opened his eyes
and I stared into wide pools of turquoise the color of the ocean I had just
envisioned. 

“Welcome
back.”  His full lips curved up into a soft smile, just inches from my own.  I
wondered if they would be as soft as they looked.  I cleared my throat and sat
back, putting distance between us. 

“Thanks,”
I said, embarrassment making my cheeks burn. 

He
let out a breath.  “You do this to yourself, you know.” 

I
shot him an irritated glance, noting that his eyes were a deep, dark blue- not
turquoise at all.  “Thanks so much.  That’s really helpful.”  I stood and made
my way awkwardly around the glass.  “Don’t come out here, you’re barefoot.”

I
returned a moment later with the broom and dustpan.  Leith silently held the
latter while I swept up my mess.  “Why do humans put things in cages?”  He
asked finally.

I
stared at him, caught off guard by his question.  “What?”  I said
intelligently.

He
gestured at me with the dustpan.  “You keep that little fish in the tiny tank. 
People put tigers in big pens at the zoo.  You put yourself in a little box.  What
is the point?”

I
raised my eyebrows.  “I do not put myself in a box.” 

He
went to the kitchen to dump the glass and I followed, stung.  Leith took the
broom and dustpan and tucked them back into the little closet by the door. 
Then he turned to me, crossed his arms over his wide chest, and looked down his
long nose.  I swallowed hard.  He was glorious.

“I
have watched you.  You get up each morning and change your appearance.  You go
to work.  You come home miserable.  You cast off those god-awful clothes and
it’s like you can breathe again.”  He gestured around my apartment.  “This is
not you.  This is you playing at who you think you should be… it is just not
natural.  Your entire species seems to do this.”

I
clenched my teeth.  “What the hell would you know about me?  I’ve known you for
all of a couple days!”  I mimicked his gesture.  “
This
is me.  I went to
school and worked hard to get my job.  I love my career.  It puts food on my
table and gives me independence.  I’m not in a box!”  I turned and stomped back
to my room. 

“And
that’s why you have panic attacks?”  His voice was flat.

I
slammed the door.  Fuck him.  Tears leaked out of my eyes and I wiped them away
angrily.  Worthless, faithless, know-it-all men.  Fuck them all. 

*****

I
was apprehensive about how Leith was going to handle our trip to the police
station the next day.  I thought I would toss and turn all night, worrying
about Noah and Leith, and their assorted complications in my life.  Instead, I
seemed to fall asleep the minute my head touched the pillow.  I would have
slept much longer, I think, if I hadn’t felt a presence in my room.  I sat up
in mild alarm and switched on the bedside light to find Leith kneeling on the
end of my bed. 
Somebody pinch me.

“Good
morning.”  He grinned, at me and I could only imagine what I must look like,
hair standing on end and bags under my eyes.

“What
do you mean
morning?
”  I gestured toward my bedroom window.  “Do you see
any form of daylight out there?”  
Geez
.  Waking up at my usual time was bad
enough.  This was just sick.  I reached over and turned the clock toward me,
squinting at the glowing digital numbers.  Five o’clock.  It was five o’clock
in the freaking morning.  “What on earth do you want?”

He
stood and went to my closet, where he began pulling out clothes at random.  “We
are going to look for my kin.”