Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

‘Okay, thanks,’ I said, then dived into a subject change. ‘So, when are you going back to the Fair Lands and Nicky?’

He eyed the shoebox with a frown. ‘You don’t want to talk about these and your dreams?’

I don’t want to talk about Malik and his dreams with you , no. ‘Not right now.’

For a moment he looked as if he wanted to argue, then he nodded. ‘I’m going back later today. Look, I know you think I’m an idiot for letting my brothers rile me up about you and Sylvia and Ricou—’

‘If the hat fits.’

‘Guess I deserved that.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘But if I’m honest, in a way I wanted to believe them.’

My jaw dropped. ‘What?’

‘I know, sounds crazy even to me.’ Bafflement briefly crossed his face, and he scratched behind a horn. ‘I mean, I hated the thought you might have found someone else, but at the same time . . . Hell’s thorns, that is crazy,’ he said, almost to himself. He shook his head then turned to stare out the window, tension tightening the broad muscles of his shoulders under the thin T-shirt. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Gen.’ His hand against the window frame curled into a fist. ‘Something I don’t want you to find out from anyone else.’

I stood, dread settling like lead in my gut. ‘Okay, so tell me.’

‘Gods, this is a mess,’ Finn muttered, before turning to face me with a determined expression. ‘Helen’s been staying at the Morrígan’s castle while we’ve been there. Not that we’re staying together. It’s a big place,’ he finished quickly.

Shock rocked through me and I sat abruptly back on the bed. Ugh! I hadn’t seen that coming. My own green-eyed monster reared up and snarled, surprising me with its strength. But my fury was more than just jealousy. Damn it. Helen the Witch-bitch was pure poison; even if he couldn’t admit that before, surely he couldn’t deny it now, not after what she’d done to him and their daughter.

I balled my hands, glared up at him. ‘How the hell could you let her near Nicky again, after what she did?’

He raked his hand through his hair. ‘Nicky doesn’t know. She doesn’t remember much about what happened, and she was brighter once Helen turned up, so I agreed not to tell her anything.’

I shot him a disbelieving look. ‘You agreed?’

‘Helen . . . yes, I agreed.’

In other words, it had been the Witch-bitch’s idea, and she’d somehow persuaded Finn to go along with it. Nothing had changed there then. After all, Helen had persuaded Finn to keep his daughter a secret from me in the first place, despite the fact that we were supposed to be on the fast track to providing Nicky with a curse-breaking baby half-brother. And how the hell was Nicky going to feel when she found out that both her parents had been lying to her by omission? If my own experience, right up until I was fourteen, was anything to go by – my vamp father had been an expert at that sort of leaving-out-the-important-stuff style of communication (such as, the princely vampire he planned to marry me off to just happened to be a psychotic sadistic murderer) – then I could pretty much guarantee Nicky would be shocked, angry and betrayed. Much like I felt now.

When the fuck was Finn going to learn to stand up for himself? And his daughter?

I blew out searing breath. ‘You haven’t forgotten what Helen did, have you?’

He frowned. ‘No, of course not.’

‘So the fact that she’s responsible for Nicky being pregnant, that she’s lied and deceived you throughout all the time you’ve known her, and she used her position as a police officer to try and ensure I ended up either dead or pregnant, or both, more than once— Oh, and let’s not forget she’s responsible for the death of my best friend and the continuation of the fertility curse. And you still let her stay?’

A puzzled look flickered over his face as if he couldn’t believe it himself. ‘I know . . .’ Then his expression settled to resignation and he held his arms out in surrender. ‘She’s Nicky’s mother, Gen. What was I supposed to do?’

‘Protect your daughter and keep her mother the fuck away from her.’

‘She can’t harm her, not with me there.’

‘She’s already harmed her, Finn! And it’s going to harm Nicky even more once she finds out the truth!’

‘Hell’s thorns, Gen. Don’t you think I haven’t thought about that? If I could’ve stopped Helen joining us, I would have. I’ve told her she had until after the baby’s born, then she had to leave.’

Right. So Helen got to Nicky first. By the time Finn had found out, it was too late. Or she’d made him think it was. Fuck. I wanted to scream with the anger and frustration, and yes, the hurt boiling up inside me.

‘You know she’s wanted by the police?’ I said flatly. ‘She can’t come back here unless she’s prepared to pay for her crimes.’ Though even being burned at the stake was way too good for the Witch-bitch.

‘Of course I do. And so does Helen. She’s not going to return here.’

Not if I had anything to do with it. ‘How long’s she been there?’

He looked down at the pot of violets. ‘A couple of days after we got there. Jack brought her in.’

Jack was Helen’s changeling son. And one of the Morrígan’s ravens. I narrowed my eyes. ‘So Helen was there before the Morrígan took you all out of sync? And you didn’t think to tell me this first?’

He half shook his head, then sighed. ‘I wanted to tell you from the beginning, but . . . hell, Helen said it wasn’t a good idea, and even my brothers said not to. That I should just keep it to myself. That you wouldn’t be happy’ – I wasn’t! – ‘That you wouldn’t understand’ – I didn’t! – ‘That if you thought there was something going on between me and Helen you might not be waiting when I got back’ – Got that right! – ‘Then when I did, they started bringing up Sylvia and Ricou.’

I stared at him. My own dysfunctional family wasn’t any better than Finn’s. But at least they didn’t try to run my love life for me. Oh, wait, they did. They’d stuck me with the Fertility spell and all its problems. Fuck. ‘I don’t have a clue what to say, Finn.’

He took my hands in his. ‘Gen, I want you to know there’s nothing going on with Helen. I don’t spend any more time alone with her than I can help, and I don’t want to. But she likes to play happy families with Nicky, and she’s using it to . . .’ He trailed off, colour staining his cheeks. Embarrassment? ‘It makes things difficult,’ he finished lamely.

Why the fuck would he be embarrassed if nothing was going on? Something broke inside me. I’d had enough. I couldn’t listen to him tell me any more about the Witch-bitch. He’d always had a blind spot where she was concerned. The suspicious part of me thought she’d sicced him with some sort of spell, in fact he’d sort of admitted that she had, which just made his continuing acceptance of their relationship worse. And if he couldn’t break away from her, especially now, then I was done.

I jerked my hands from his. ‘You need to leave, Finn.’ His brows knitted. ‘Leave?’

‘Yes.’ I strode from the bedroom through the living room to the front door and yanked it open. ‘Now.’

He followed me, an earnest frown on his face. ‘You truly want me to go, Gen?’

Part of me wanted to say no. I didn’t want to lose Finn. He was my friend. And he had a place in my heart. But his Witch-bitch ex was as toxic as nuclear slag. Almost everything bad was down to her, and no way did I want her to get her evil claws back into Finn and Nicky. But I couldn’t stop him from letting her. He had to do that himself. And if she was part of their lives— If he let her stay part of their lives, his life , then I couldn’t stay his friend.