Melissa Marr - Desert Tales - A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

“I need to talk to him,” Rika said. At Jayce’s nod, she released his hand reluctantly and went to stand beside Sionnach. In a very low voice, she told the faery, “Maili’s in need of a few reminders of her place . . .”

“No courts out here, princess,” Sionnach murmured softly enough that Jayce wouldn’t hear. “Rule of strength or influence.”

She growled a little and said, “They’re acting like animals.” She reached up to check the injuries on his face, touching him as she only did when he’d come to her injured and seeking help. “That’s my fault. . . . I’m—”

“Shhh.” Sionnach stepped away, leaving Rika with one hand still in the air, and turned his attention to Jayce. “So . . . Jayce, right?”

Jayce nodded. “And you’re . . . ?”

“Sionnach,” he said, drawing out the word so it sounded like “shhh knock.” The faery circled Jayce, not looking very human. He leaned in behind Jayce and sniffed him. “If it’s easier, you can call me ‘Shy.’”

“Thanks for the help at the club, Sionnach,” Jayce said levelly.

Jayce either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Sionnach had just sniffed him. Rika had spent enough time with Jayce that she couldn’t say she was completely surprised by how well he’d reacted to everything so far; he was naturally mellow. But Rika didn’t like Sionnach acting more like an animal than a human. He wasn’t even playing at being one of them right now; he could act like a human. She’d seen it, but right now, he was acting like himself. Seeing him around Jayce, being so much the solitary faery, made Rika remind herself that he was all faery; he wasn’t someone she should trust. He was and had always been a faery, one with motivations she’d never wanted to understand—and still didn’t.

She scowled at him, thinking back on his earlier visit, when he had so casually told her that he knew that Jayce was in danger and that he’d done nothing about it.

However, Sionnach was well accustomed to her censure after several decades of their friendship. He merely folded his arms and gave her a wide smile. He sniffed Jayce again.

“Stop it, Sionnach.” Rika stepped between them and took Jayce’s hand. Then, she walked toward the same pallet where she’d been sitting when Sionnach had visited earlier and sat, tugging Jayce down beside her in the process.

Jayce looked a bit amused, no longer seeming as perplexed as when they’d first arrived or as awed as when they were in the tunnel. He leaned back against the wall, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and then looked from her to Sionnach and back again. “You’re both a little unusual.”

“Quite,” Sionnach said, and then he laughed.

Rika knew him well enough to understand that he approved of how Jayce was responding to the situation. A lot of people would be freaking out over her cave home, the fight, the speed at which they’d moved, and Sionnach’s odd behavior. Jayce wasn’t. Still, Rika told Sionnach, “I can’t ask him to stay here.”

“I don’t mind,” Jayce said softly from beside her. “I’d like to spend more time with you.”

Rika glanced at him, but didn’t speak. She couldn’t . The flare of happiness inside of her threatened to make her sound like even more of a fool than she probably already had. By all rights, Jayce should be fleeing. He should be trying to escape her, wondering if she was crazed and dangerous. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask.

Still staring at her, Jayce added, “I can go get my gear and—”

In an almost human-like walk, Sionnach went to a shadowed edge of the room. When he retrieved a rucksack and bedroll and dropped them on the ground in front of Rika and Jayce, they broke their locked gaze and looked at Sionnach instead.

“How? Where? . . . Never mind.” Jayce smiled wryly and shook his head. “I’m guessing you’re part of the I-can’t-answer-questions team.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Ask away.” Sionnach sounded somewhere between amused and malicious, and Rika wondered what game he was playing at.

After a tension-filled pause, Jayce asked, “Anything?”

With a speed too quick to truly appear human, Rika stood and snatched hold of Sionnach’s arm. “Move, Shy. Now .”

She pulled him away from Jayce, toward the door, so they could speak in relative privacy.

“Oh my . . . Are you asking me to keep secrets, princess?” He widened his eyes, but his tone was very serious, and Rika was reminded yet again that he had always been a faery. “Are you telling me that it’s okay to keep secrets from those we care about?”

There were layers of meanings under his words that she couldn’t begin to fathom. The tension had grown thick, but Rika couldn’t decide if it was anger or something else that was driving the fox faery. She released his arm. If she were any other faery in the desert, Sionnach would’ve reacted as if she’d just challenged his authority.

“Rika?” he prompted. His gaze told her there were more things hidden in his words than she knew. She wasn’t sure, though, what he was thinking as he waited for her reply—any more than she was sure what her reply was.

Do I think keeping secrets is okay? That was his question. She simply wasn’t sure why her answer mattered to Sionnach, but it was apparent that it did. To some degree she had to believe that it was okay to keep secrets. Elsewise, she would have to tell Jayce how often she’d watched him. She rolled the question over in her mind. There was no way the fox faery meant it to be purely a question about her and Jayce. She knew that much at least.

Behind her, she heard movement, and glanced back as Jayce stood and grabbed his things from where Sionnach had deposited them. He started toward the entrance to the cave. “You two obviously have something to sort out, so I can—”

“Please don’t go.” Stricken, Rika stepped farther away from Sionnach and shot a plaintive glance at him, wordlessly asking him to be less . . . him, less fey.

“She wants you here.” Sionnach stepped in front of Jayce. “I took care of what needed taken care of so you could be here with Rika. Don’t waste this chance.”

And then he left the cave.

Rika was utterly motionless for a moment, Jayce on one side, Sionnach outside the cave opening. She was confused by Sionnach’s help, by his actions here tonight, and by the way he’d seemingly helped push Jayce toward her while saying such things that made her wonder if she really knew the fox faery at all.

Carefully, she touched Jayce’s forearm. “Please stay here for a minute. I need to talk to him, but I’ll be right back.” She swallowed nervously and then added in a rush, “I really want you to stay . . . not just for your safety, but because . . . I want you here. He’s my friend though, and I need to find out what happened, and he doesn’t want to talk in front of you. Please just give me a minute.”

After a moment, Jayce sighed and said, “Why not?” Then he walked toward one of the tunnels with his bag without saying anything else.

As soon as Jayce disappeared into the tunnels, Rika ran outside and found Sionnach staring at the desert. He’d slid to the far side of the ledge in front of her cave, precariously perched so he wasn’t visible from inside, and Rika wondered briefly if he’d stood out here like this when she was unaware of it. Right now, that wouldn’t surprise her.

“What did you do to get his things?” Rika demanded in a whisper.

“Nothing special.” Then in a blink Sionnach suddenly looked like Jayce, but still dressed in his own clothing. “Just a simple glamour, princess. You might only use them to stay hidden, but there’s a world of possibilities. I stopped at Jayce’s house before I came out here so I could explain to Jayce’s father that I’d be off camping with Del . . . and then stopped and told Del I’d met the girl of my dreams and was going to see her.”