Chapter Eleven

“That went well,” Ray said, sipping beer.

Claire came up behind me, saying nothing but sliding a slim white hand onto my shoulder. And reminding me that her usual passive abilities were nothing compared to what she could really do. Like when she abruptly pulled the rage off me, as fast as someone whipping off a cloak.

“Stop it,” I choked out. I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted to break something. But instead, I saw myself slowly replacing the receiver, and my hand didn’t even shake.

“It’s better than having you burst a blood vessel,” she said drily, her own hand sliding away. Her cheeks were a little pink, but otherwise she looked perfectly normal. I tried to work up some annoyance about that, but it fizzled out, too. When she was making an effort, Claire was like a dozen Prozac in a shot of whiskey. If I’d been wearing a mood ring, it would have just flipped to mellow, stoner blue.

“Damn it, Claire,” I said, trying for heat and getting only warm fuzzies.

“He’s right,” she said simply. “You know he is.”

“I don’t know anything of the kind.”

“You can hunt other things.”

“I don’t want to hunt other things.”

“You’ll get used to it,” she told me, with zero sympathy. Claire wasn’t big on sympathy. Claire was big on getting your shit together and getting on with it, as demonstrated when she took a stack of plates off the counter and pushed them into my stomach. “Can you set the tables?”

I glared at her, black eyes into green, and she narrowed hers back. She didn’t budge. But the plates poked me in the stomach again, a little harder this time. I bit my lip on a smile, amused and pissed off at the same time because I shouldn’t be feeling amused.

“You’re gonna need more plates than that,” Ray piped up.

Claire glanced at him. “Why?”

“You got company.”

I took the damned plates to the window, and spotted a parade coming at us from across the road. “What company?” Claire asked. She was blind as a bat without her glasses, which as usual she’d misplaced.

“It’s just the guys from next door.”

There was a similar Victorian monstrosity wilting across the road, only it was even larger than ours, a relic from when people around here could afford servants’ quarters. That made it a hard sell these days, with too much to air-condition and too much to heat—not that the house appeared to have either. But the artists who had taken it over didn’t seem to care, and the many little rooms were perfect for communal living.

“Just the guys?” Claire asked sharply.

“No, some of the girls are with them.” A couple blondes, a redhead and two brunettes were bearing casseroles and covered plates that looked like they might contain cookies—or, if I was lucky, some medicinal brownies.

But Claire didn’t seem so enthused. “Crap!” she said, searching around in her clothes for the missing glasses.

“What’s the problem? Throw another bag of rice in the pot, maybe a few more peas—”

“It’s not the food I’m worried about, Dory!”

“What then?”

“They’re…women of questionable morals.”

I laughed out loud at that one. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Claire. You do realize what century it is, don’t you?”

“And you do realize what we have in the backyard, don’t you?” she snapped back.

“What? You mean your bodyguards?” The fey had pitched tents back there rather than stay in the house, because there wasn’t enough room inside for everyone and it was some kind of no-no in their culture to not treat people of the same rank equally. Luckily, they seemed to enjoy outdoor living. No reason not to. Retrieving my underwear had been the most work they’d done in two weeks.

“No,” she said, finally locating the glasses in a pocket of her apron. “I mean a bunch of young male fey who are currently without supervision.”

“Where’s Heidar?” I asked, talking about Claire’s fiancé, who was supposed to be in charge of the motley crew.

“He went back this morning. Something his father wanted—I don’t know. But that leaves us—damn it!” She’d gone to the kitchen door in time to see the group being greeted warmly by what looked like the Norwegian male swim team. A dozen tall, well-built guys with long blond hair were hanging over the back fence, grinning like Christmas had come early.

The artists were grinning back. “We keep hearing this crazy music,” Jacob said, holding up a guitar. He was the tall one with the Jewfro and the Grizzly Adams beard. “Do you guys play?”

“Yes. We will play with you,” one of the fey told him, his eyes on the pretty Hispanic girl at Jacob’s side.

“Oh, I love your accent,” one of the other girls told the nearest noble of the Royal House Blarestri of the High Court of the Fey. “Are you Swedish?”

“Yes,” he assured her solemnly. “I am of the Swedish.”

“Oh, cool.”

Claire rolled her eyes.

“They’re not children,” I reminded her, grinning.

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a—”

“Why do you think there are all those legends about the fey kidnapping human women?” she demanded, whirling on me. “What do you think they did with them?”

“I know, but—”

“Fertile females are like gold in Faerie, Dory—rarer even. And the fey can smell them coming. It’s like…bees to honey. You haven’t seen it—I have.”

“Well, so what? They’re all adults. If they want to—”

“Fertile females.”

“Oh. Oh,” I said, finally getting it. “Is that what you’re—”

“Yes! I know what it’s like to be caught between worlds. I wouldn’t wish that on…well, certainly not a bunch of helpless children!”

“But even if…I mean, the fey are notoriously infertile, right?”

“With their own women, yes. These are not their own women!”

“Okay, Claire, okay. Calm down,” I told her, feeling a little strange because that was her line. “You’re their commander’s fiancée. Just order them—”

She was already shaking her head. “On something else—anything else—yes. I could. But not on this. Why do you think I’ve kept them so closely confined? Why Heidar has? They’ll just sneak out tonight when I’m asleep. It’s like babysitting twelve randy teenagers, and I can’t watch them all the—”

“So why not get ’em some condoms?” Ray piped up.

Claire stopped. And then turned to look at him. “I…don’t think they know what those are,” she said doubtfully. “They don’t have them in Faerie. The birth rate is low enough as it is; there’s no reason to develop something to lower it even further.”

“Well, it ain’t rocket science,” he pointed out. “They could learn, right?”

Claire was nodding, obviously liking this new idea. “Yes. Yes, they can.” She looked at me. “How many condoms do you have?”

“What?”

“Condoms, condoms! You must have some!”

“Why must I?” I didn’t think sex once a decade warranted it. And anyway, the only guy I was into at the moment wasn’t the type to need them. Not that we would have anyway, considering that I’d spent much of the last two weeks recuperating. And that probably wasn’t going to change, since it would only make it harder when—

“Dory!”

“I’m fresh out,” I told her.

“Well, go to the store,” Claire said, grabbing her purse and shoving it at me. “I—I’ll take the food out. They’ll have to eat first. And by the time they’re finished, you’ll be back.”

“With the condoms.”

“Right.”

“For the giant orgy you’re convinced we’re about to have in the backyard.”

“Dory! Just go!”

“I’ll go with,” Ray said, getting up. “I need a snack.”

Which was how I ended up condom shopping with a vampire.

“She always that tense?” Ray asked, as we pulled away from the house in my old Firebird.

“No. She’s just…under a lot of pressure right now.”

“What pressure? Her kid’s okay, right?”

I nodded. Actually, I had no idea what Claire’s problem was. Maybe it was just residual. In about a year, she’d gone from underpaid auction-house employee to fey princess to new mother to woman on the run with her endangered child, who also happened to be the heir to the Blarestri throne. It was enough to put anyone on edge.

But Aiden really was okay, with the conspiracy that had threatened his life over and the instigator dead. And he was now in possession of a talisman that pretty much ensured that he’d stay that way, even if someone managed to get past the wards, the phalanx in the garden, and the tense, half-dragon mother. Frankly, I didn’t fancy anyone’s chances.

“She’ll calm down eventually,” I told Ray. “So what are you doing here again?”

“Living,” he said, which I’d have taken for a smart remark, except he sounded pretty emphatic. But I didn’t have time to follow up on it. The nearest store was only a couple blocks away, and we’d already arrived.

Sanjay, brother to Bawa of the world’s deadliest curry, ran it, but he went home at six and some new girl was on duty. We skirted the aisles of Ramen, cards of press-on nails and towers of hairspray that constituted daily essentials in Brooklyn, and finally located the condom aisle. It also housed the diapers and the baby food. I wasn’t sure if that was random product placement or brilliant advertising, but either way, there was a good selection.