Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

“I think I deserved that,” he said.

I snorted. “I think I should have broken your nose.”

“Evy, you can break every bone in my body if it helps you forgive me, just please, don’t do this to yourself. What happened to you … it’s not like the other times. You were hurt, and then you died. You never got the chance to heal. It’s not something anyone, even you, bounces back from in a day. It takes time. You need time.”

My throat closed. “What if we don’t have any more time?”

“Then we take what we do have and live it. No more regretting what we can’t change.”

I finally met his eyes and looked into such depths of sincerity and affection that my knees buckled. Wyatt caught me around the waist. My rage was gone, stripped away by understanding, leaving exhaustion in its place. Strong arms looped beneath my legs and lifted me up, cradling me against his chest. I closed my eyes and pressed my face into his neck.

We were moving. Silk sheets fluttered around me, against my skin. The mattress sank. In my mind, his warmth turned to cold; dry and human skin to slick and oily skin. No! I inhaled, could smell the apples and soap and heady scent of male. I clung to it. And to Wyatt.

He turned me onto my side, my back to him, then stretched out behind me. His left arm snaked beneath my head, a warm pillow. The other lay lightly across my right hip. I threaded my right hand through his left and held tight. His breath tickled my ear. We lay together for a while, not moving, not talking. Everything had been said. All that was left was this—tender moments in an underground paradise.

My tears dried. The soothing scents of the room relaxed my tension, and soon my breaths matched his.

We dozed a while, and I woke still in his arms. An innocent embrace that made me feel perfectly protected. I could have stayed like that for the rest of my afterlife … only I had to pee. He muttered in his sleep as I slipped out of the warm bed.

Our clothes were neatly stacked on the vanity stool, freshly laundered and dry. I was a bit unnerved by the idea of a sprite or gnome or whatever wandering in and leaving things. Still, I hadn’t expected to see those goo-drenched jeans again, and getting back into civilian clothes would make me feel more like a functioning Hunter, and less like a princess. They reminded me of what remained to be done aboveground.

I couldn’t sit down here and wait to die.

A quick search of the room made one thing abundantly clear about our hosts—the Fey don’t have toilets. The empty tub, however, had a drain. It wasn’t elegant, or even moderately sanitary, but I did my best, and then fetched my clothes.

I started tugging my jeans back on. One leg in, I realized I was being watched.

“You’re getting dressed?” Wyatt asked. Sleep made his voice thick, husky.

“As much as my inner goddess appreciates the compliments, I feel more comfortable in my own clothes. You?”

“I’m comfortable.”

“Suit yourself. Just get a move on.”

He sat up and scrubbed one hand through his tousled hair. “What for?”

“So we can talk to Amalie.”

A frown creased his forehead. “Talk to Amalie? For what?”

I stopped with the purple sash mostly unspooled, gauzy dress material hanging loose around my shoulders, and gaped. “What do you mean? I do care for you, Wyatt, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life, short though it may be, in this room talking about our feelings. There’s still something left to be done. We just have to find out what.”

His jaw twitched. I finished dressing and finger-combed my tangled hair to the tune of Wyatt’s pants zipping up. Moments later, we left the comfort of my room for the activity of the outer cavern.

Activity that continued much as it had before, with the Fair Ones flittering to and fro. They paid us no mind, as though human visitors were a normal occurrence, and parted to allow us to pass. A small pack (school? swarm?) of creatures buzzed by, no larger than dolls, their batlike wings beating the air. They flew up toward the source of the waterfall and disappeared into the shadows. An exit, perhaps.

No one stopped us on our journey to Amalie’s chambers, and we arrived quickly. Jaron stood outside and pulled back the curtain. I ducked inside, with Wyatt close behind.

Amalie still sat at the head of the food-laden table. At the other end, an elderly gnome sat on a cushioned chair. His white hair was tufted around the edges of a bald head and nearly connected with his bushy eyebrows, creating a comical mask. Tiny eyes peeked out from below those eyebrows. Gnarled hands gripped the edges of a spiraled wood cane.

“Please, join us,” Amalie said.

I stepped farther in, but didn’t sit. “I apologize if we’re interrupting.”

“Not at all. Horzt was discussing an unusual message he received through the emergency communiqué channels.”

“Message?” I had no idea what an emergency communiqué channel entailed for her people, or for the gnomes. “From whom?”

Amalie looked past me. “He’s one of yours, I believe,” she said to Wyatt. “His name is Rufus St. James.”

Wyatt stepped forward, lips parted, fists clenched. He had a bead on Horzt, and I could practically see the bull’s-eye on the elderly gnome’s chest. I put up a hand to keep Wyatt still.

“He was wounded when the Halfies took me,” Wyatt said. “How do we know he wasn’t taken and turned? It could be a trick.”

Horzt grunted. It sounded more like a gurgle, given his stature. He wrinkled his button nose. “We can smell humans no matter their disguise, and vampires are even more disgusting. Trust me, human, he was not turned, or my cousin would have known it.”

“Your communiqué channel is your cousin?” I asked. It was definitely less impressive without the mystique.

“The Apothi see and hear things others do not,” Amalie said.

“Apothi?”

“Those you call gnomes. I trust their judgment, and you would do well to do the same. This man, Rufus St. James, requests your presence in order to share information. He says that he wishes to help.”

“He said that once before.”

“When?” Wyatt asked.

“Right before you were arrested. He said he believed us. He helped me escape, and I believe he was going to help like he said, only the Halfies attacked.”

Wyatt was not convinced. “Two-thirds of his team is dead, Evy. He was shot less than a day ago. How’s he going to help?”

“I don’t know, but Nadia is still out there, and you can be damned sure she wants revenge on the people who killed her Triad mates and wounded her Handler. We should go see him.”

“Returning to the city,” Amalie said, “is both dangerous and foolhardy. You will be captured again.”

“Don’t count on it.” I looked around the room. Something else the Fair Ones lacked was a clock. “Amalie, what time is it?”

“It is quarter until eight in the morning,” she said without looking at anything for confirmation.

“I have twenty hours, then.”

She nodded. Wyatt winced.

I turned to Horzt. “Can your cousin get a message back to Rufus for us?” At his nod, I continued. “We need him to get Nadia to meet us. She could be helpful.”

“The decision is unwise,” Amalie said.

“Well, then, call me stupid and get it over with,” I said, hands on hips. “I thank you for what you’ve done for us, Amalie, and for giving us a safe place to rest. I just can’t give up on this, not when I know there’s a piece to the puzzle I’m not seeing.”

Her face darkened to cobalt. Not good. “And if you are captured again, despite your confidence? What if Tovin claims his prizes? Will you take the chance of him summoning a Tainted from the other side of the Break?”