The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) (3 page)

I drank in the sight of him in his slim black jeans and a t-shirt that was close to ratty. He’d just had his unruly hair cut shorter, and it made him look younger. He carried his black satchel at his side, and surveyed the room with his bright eyes.

He raised an eyebrow at the unconscious man. “Gods, woman, it is scarcely ten a.m.” He yawned and then strode across the room toward me. My wizard wrapped his arms around me and gave me a long and warm kiss. I closed my eyes and fell into him, I let the moment eclipse everything else and no one smelled like him and no one felt like him, and….

“Ahem, excuse me, etcetera,” Lila said.

I pulled away from Merlin and saw Lila smirking at us.

“Apologies, dear girl,” Merlin said. “This witch seems to have laid a spell upon me.”

“You wish,” I said and ran a finger across his stubbled jaw.

He grabbed my hand and held it. I shivered with the memory of his touch, of his spells, and of him keeping me up most of last night.

“Aren’t you going to ask about our faerie minion?” Lila asked.

“A faerie minion in Seattle? Is there some infestation of fae I am unaware of?” Merlin went to the card table and sat down beside the man, studying his slack face.

Lila and I sat down at the other two spots of the small square table. We filled him in on the details.

“A crown and a woman and the base of a hill. And a rotting trouble, you say?” Merlin asked.

“Yes, it isn’t much to go on. Perhaps we could use the ambient faerie dust on the man’s clothes to create a finding.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed.

“Or….” Lila sat forward and grinned. “Or you could ask your super-smart Marid girl to think about it and use her genius brain to figure it out, easy!”

We both looked to her.

Her grin widened, but she said nothing.

“Lila,” I said.

“Excuse me for savoring this moment on the momentous day when the student finally surpasses her master in skills of deduction and—”

“Tell us,” I ordered.

“A Queen and a hill. Queen Anne Hill. The faerie place is at the base of it somewhere. It’s gotta be there, right?”

“Queen Anne. Of course. A bit obvious, now that she says it,” Merlin said. “Well done, Lila! And now, are there any thoughts on what might be attacking the fae?” As he spoke, some troubling thought came to him. My clever wizard hid it swiftly, and another would not have caught it. But I knew him better than anyone. I knew that he suspected something.

I gave him a measured look.

He gave me the picture of innocence.

“It doesn’t even matter what’s attacking them,” Lila said. “Because I can just throw some ‘destroy all the monsters’ magic all around the bottom of Queen Anne. I can make it so that any bad monsters will explode.” She held up her hands, readying to clap them together.

I grabbed her hands, hot and shivering with blue magic. “Don’t. Mordred. Don’t you make that spell.”

“Mordred?” Merlin asked. “That cannot be your nickname for the girl. That is beyond twisted.”

I pulled Lila closer to me. “You must think, friend, before you ever use any huge magic. You must think about all of the varied consequences. What defines a monster as evil, their essence or action? Who defines it? Your spell would just as likely slay the faeries as help them. A blanket spell will never reliably solve the ills of what we do not yet understand. We need more information. We need—”

“Geez. Got it. Okay.” She drew back and upright, sitting a full head taller than me. She gave me a look that was half the girl I’d trained in magic, and half the haughty and wild creature she had become.

“Do not,” I ordered.

“Yes, master.”

“I agree that we need a precision strike. I will take care of it,” Merlin said. “I will go in with some Knights of Hell to investigate. I have been meaning to do some trainings with them and see how they do following orders. In truth, I’ve been putting it off. They are an exceedingly unpleasant lot, but I am sure they will rise to the occasion and—”

“You will not send your demonic hoodlums into a faerie hill. They know how to do one thing with much too much enthusiasm, and will surely cause unneeded strife and death. Gods, the both of you, are you so enamored by your own powers that you believe you should use them at every provocation? I will go to the faerie hill myself and see what is to be seen. I will gain some rudimentary understanding of the problem before making some rash and terrible action because even though the both of you have power, does not mean it must always be fully exercised. Agreed?”

Both of them stared at me like scolded puppies, tails firmly lodged between their legs.

“Agreed?” I repeated.

I waited until I received a nod and a mumbled yes from each of them.

“I'm going with you,” Merlin said. He held up both hands. “Only me. None of my demons. I fancy a walk with my lady friend who is in a foul mood. Perhaps I might cheer her up.”

“Perhaps.” I glared at him. He wasn’t wrong about my mood. “Though, in truth, you carry your demons with you.” I pointed at his chest. “Set none of them loose.”

He nodded. “Promise.”

A long look passed between us. There was a thing between us, ever since he'd become the warden of Hell. A thing where I was always watching him, and he was always on his best behavior to prove he was still my Merlin. And we spent long nights together avoiding everything but the truth of flesh between us.

It was an uneasiness that went mostly unspoken, for we both understood nothing would change from talking about it.

I stood and got my coat, a long black thing with many pockets full of spells. Merlin picked his infinity bag off the floor.

“Can I come too?” Lila asked.

“Stay here and mind the store,” I said, and then added that I was asking as her boss and not her master, and should she choose to slack off or close for lunch, that was of her own decision.

Merlin smiled fondly at her, handed her a twenty-dollar bill, and kissed her cheek. “Take Adam to get a bite when he returns,” he said.

“And call if he uncovers any news of faeries,” I added.

“Yep, yep. And thanks for the cash, old man,” Lila said. “And Morgan… remember, I'm yours. Call me if anything gets funky, and I'll be right there.” She spoke lightly, but let a dangerous blue magic shimmer over her long arms and legs.

“I'm rather certain we'll be able to handle it,” I said.

Chapter 3

Mountains Like a Flame

Merlin and I walked up and into Pike Place Market. We linked elbows, as the tourist season was just gaining speed and there were herds of humans everywhere.

“A rotting attack on a faerie hill, interesting, no? What do you think it might be?” I asked and watched him closely for any more tells that he knew something.

“Interesting indeed,” he said mildly. “But before all that, I have a thought on how we might find the faerie door to the hill’s entrance.”

He stopped near an African imports shop and opened his infinity bag. He began rummaging around.

I pointed at the bag. “A realm inside of you and a realm you carry. Does it ever get heavy?”

“Ever and always.” He gave me a long look. “But we both carry a lot with us. You know, my dear, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your bit of a bad mood.”

“A bit? I've been in a raging and terrible storm of a funk, except for when—” I bit my lip.

He slipped something into his pocket, stood, and slung his bag over his shoulder. He kissed me. “Except for when we are together and have no need of thinking. We have been acting a bit like, how do they say it? Honeymooners. It’s been good to have the one thing. But I think we both need to steel our spines and raise our chins. It's hard to imagine my new role will ever get normal, and hard to imagine how you’ll take to that, but we should have some faith of muddling through it together.” He gave me a searching look. “Have more faith, Morgan.”

I tried to keep the frown off my face. I was still angry at him for taking Hell on. And mad at his father and whoever had made Hell in the first place, and at the whole world that never asked how much a person could bear, but acted like a chaotic storm that blew through all of our lives instead.

I took a deep breath. “And how is Hell adjusting to their new ruler?” I asked lightly.

He frowned. “Before I came to power, most of them didn't know there was a true ruler: they’d forgotten my father existed. All of that changed when I reinstalled order. They know of me. They are jostling for power and favors and waging a hundred petty battles for status and resources. I've been sure to remind them that they will never get out, and could play at games of peace and tranquility instead, but they won’t listen.” He spoke in a nervous rush of words.

I listened for arrogance. I listened for all the ways a person can become proud of their ill-gotten power. It was what I had been bracing myself against. All those tendrils that seeped into a man and turned him. But I heard none of that. Instead I heard… exhaustion. The words of a tired bureaucrat.

“How do they communicate with you?” I asked.

He sighed. “They send along clever missives when the Knights of Hell go hunting on Earth. They send treaties. Complaints. Gods, even some squalid propositions that make an ancient wizard blush.”

“I'd like to see some of those.”

He gave me a startled look. “You really wouldn't. I mean to say, how many orifices do they think one man might be interested in?”

“Orifices?” I said.

“A clogstrell has ten thousand of them.”

We shared a laugh as we stopped in front of the small creperie and ordered two strawberry and whipped cream crepes. A smiling girl who had both cheeks pierced through with silver ball bearings made them swiftly and deftly.

She handed us the crepes and said, “Seven dollars.”

Merlin straightened. He said sharply. “I will not be in your debt.”

She blinked. “Okay, but it’s still seven dollars.”

He blushed while I paid her. We walked on.

“That's another thing,” Merlin said, biting into his crepe and getting whipped cream on his upper lip. “The Hell inside me bleeds into my everyday life. It changes my stray thoughts and gives me funny notions. For example, I glanced at that poor girl back there and assumed she was Hell folk. It all gets a bit jumbled.”

“You can't keep your realities straight.”

“I can, and I will, and I am trying.”

Again, I listened for arrogance. I heard only sorrow. I listened for madness or any other myriad issues that could come with his Hellish condition. I didn’t hear it, but that didn’t mean I would stop listening for it. “And all I have to contend with is being the slave owner of a girl I love.”

“Lila isn't a slave. You aren't her owner. You are merely the best case scenario for a creature who must be beholden to another to survive.”

“Beholden. Gods, humans are good with coming up with words to mask the evil of slavery. Own. Possess. Control.”

“Lila is happy. She is thriving,” Merlin said. “And you are keeping her in line.”

“She does have a tendency to want to swat flies with lightning bolts.” I bit into the crepe. “We are learning how to be together. We have a new word, learned this morning. A safe word, she called it.”

Merlin laughed. “Was that the Mordred nonsense?”

“You know about safe words?”

“You do as well. I believe we used to call that particular game the naughty peasant and the disapproving King.”

“Oh.” I reddened. “Lila knows about such things? Do you think she and Adam ever—”

“I try not to ever think on it,” Merlin said. “Though I hope the both of them are very happy in their bodies and lusts, that realm is their own.”

“Indeed. They are puppies.”

“They are young adults with powers,” Merlin said soberly.

“And roles of power. The Sheriff, anointed by the Department,” I said.

“Don't start, Morgan. Please. You cannot know the truth of it. Trust me that you must stay away from all of that.”

“The wizard lies to my face and my foul mood continues,” I said. “You know I can keep a secret, Merlin. You know I have held a world of secrets, sometimes too many, huge and bright and terrible within me.”

He gave me a long look. “You, I will always trust and watch out for you.”

“And yet you won’t tell me what you know.”

“If it’s any consolation, soon enough it will all likely come crashing down.”

I kicked a piece of rubbish from the curb to the street and on we walked.

Despite my inner storm, it was good to walk through the city with Merlin by my side. And perhaps all my fears of a changed man, of the love of my life being twisted and morphed into someone new by his powers, perhaps they wouldn't bear fruit. Perhaps the Department wouldn’t be as evil as I feared they were. But those thoughts were made of too much marshmallow and marmalade for me to believe in truly.

“You must admit,” Merlin said, gesturing to the city all around us. “There has been a decrease in under troubles since Adam became Sheriff. Which is good since we were gone for a long while.”

“But at what cost? Meddling always comes at a cost,” I reminded him.

Merlin nodded.

There had been a time when we were much younger when we’d both tried to cast big spells, here and there, to fix a big thing or two. Like the time I'd traveled to Mount Tambora to ensure the angry volcanic gnomes didn't destroy the island, and the resultant failure had caused 1816 to be the year without a summer. Or when Merlin had tried to save the dodo from extinction and his vitality spell had made the last remaining birds so nervous they’d expired on the spot.

We came within a couple blocks of Queen Anne Hill, a steep neighborhood full of parks, tony houses, and the occasional intrepid biker who wished to test their mettle and calves on the steep incline.

Merlin and I crossed the street and stepped onto the grounds of the Seattle Center. It was home of the space needle and a huge fountain, among other things. I hadn’t been back here since the night Merlin and I had come here in search of Lila and Adam. Back when I didn’t recognize him. When I didn’t know my own heart. I slipped my hand into his and held tight. Together, we walked through the bright green grass full of modern sculptures and glass edifices.