Suzanne Johnson - Elysian Fields

I shook my head. “No, it’s more than that.” I explained the bonding, the loup-garou angle, the elves’ bureaucratic maneuvering, Rand’s suspicion that Mace considered me a political liability. “So I did it,” I said. “The loup-garou nightmare is over.”

Alex hadn’t moved. He hadn’t spoken. I felt the distance between us growing. “Did it ever occur to you that you might talk to me before making a decision like that? Did it not even pass through your mind that you’re not the only one this affects? Jesus.” Alex ran his hands through his hair and stood abruptly.

“Wait.” I stood too fast and stumbled until the room stopped spinning. “I don’t want to be tied to Quince Randolph, but I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life running. The elves know about me, Alex. They know I’m carrying the loup-garou virus, and they know Jake caused it. Mace Banyan could destroy us all. If this neutralizes him and puts the whole issue to rest, we can get on with our lives. Rand’s a minor nuisance by comparison.”

“Shit.” Alex sat on the edge of the bed with a slump of shoulders. “How did they find out?”

I sat beside him. “They saw it when they were plundering through my head—watched the whole scene with Jake more than once, like a freaking movie. Rand thinks Mace plans to let the Elders kill me, or set me up in some way so they have no choice. Then the elves can get their staff back.”

“Why not just give it to them?”

A question I wished I could answer. “I tried, but there’s something more going on with them I don’t understand. I think the staff is just an excuse. Something political that Rand’s involved in. Maybe some power play within the Synod.”

I had to make him understand. “I don’t want to leave you here and live in the Beyond like I’ve done something wrong. I don’t want to be like Jake, afraid of who I’m going to hurt. I don’t want you to end up being afraid of me.”

Finally, the tears came. I tried to stop them, but the levee had broken, flooding me with so much hurt and anger and fear I thought I might drown in it.

Alex pulled me against him. “I get why you did it, but I don’t like the idea of Quince Randolph in our lives. I don’t trust him.”

“Neither do I, but we’ll figure it out.” We had to.

He held me but didn’t say anything more. We were touching but I felt the gap between us and didn’t know how to bridge it.

“DJ, I’m doing my best here, but . . .” Alex shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. What’s right, what’s wrong, what’s best for everybody. Nothing can just be simple with us.”

With me, he meant. I swiped my palms across my swollen eyes and stood up. I knew Alex was frustrated by yet another layer of my messy life, but as much as I’d like to fix it for him, I didn’t have any answers.

“I’m going to take a shower.” I turned and walked to the dresser, looking in the mirror at a woman whose face said she’d spent the last few hours in hell.

Alex cleared his throat, making me think he’d choked back a few tears of his own. “Make it a quick one. Zrakovi’s downstairs.”

More than an hour later, just after two a.m., I stood in the living room with Eugenie while Alex, Zrakovi, and Rand sat at my kitchen table—the latter only because Zrakovi insisted he stay. They were waiting for me to do some quick damage control with my best friend and send her on her way.

“Tell me what’s going on, DJ.” Tears shone in Eugenie’s eyes. “I’m begging you. Look at Rand. He’s been beaten up, and it’s obvious Alex did it. He told me things weren’t working out between us and he didn’t want to see me anymore.”

She tightened her lips as she looked over my shoulder at Rand. “The only thing Alex and Rand have in common is you, so tell me what happened.”

I was going to hell for lying, no doubt about it. “Rand got mixed up in some of our business, that’s all. And my boss from the FBI is here.” I pointed through the kitchen door at Zrakovi, who sat at the head of the table in his business suit, his expression blank but his shoulders tense. “Let us talk and then I’ll come to your house and tell you everything I can. I promise.”

Eugenie looked at the floor, and the hurt in her eyes when she looked back at me broke my heart. “You always say that, DJ. Do you know how many times you’ve said, ‘I’ll tell you everything when I can’? And you never do. I know you have an important big-shot job. I know I’m just a hairdresser. But we’re supposed to be friends.”

God, I’d never made her feel inferior, had I? I didn’t think of her as “just” anything. She was the funniest, most warmhearted, most generous person I’d ever met. She didn’t have a dishonest bone in her body.

But I did. Maybe my reasons were sound, but I had lied to her again and again. I closed my eyes because I was too chickenshit to look at her when my hollow “I’m sorry” came out. “I’ll try harder. I really will.”

“Trying’s not enough.” She pulled her shoulders back and gave me a fierce look before walking out, ignoring Rand. Any grounding ritual had long worn off, and there was enough hurt and anger floating around this house to drown in. I didn’t know if I could ever put things right with her unless I told her everything, and my hatred of Quince Randolph—who would now and forevermore be a part of my life in some way—grew deeper.

I’d made what I thought was the best long-term decision for everyone and hadn’t considered what the short-term fallout would be for Alex and Eugenie. Asking Alex his opinion before I made a decision hadn’t occurred to me, and it should have. I’d tried to do the right thing for everyone and still screwed it up.

When I returned to the kitchen, Alex was seething at Rand, Rand had pressed a bag of frozen peas to his battered face, and Zrakovi thrummed his fingers on the tabletop.

Quince Randolph might not be the scariest elf on the block but only because he’d gotten his way so far. He was strong, devious, and God only knew what kind of powers he had. Eugenie thought relationships were all about love. In the prete world, love was an inconvenience or, at best, a perk. In the prete world, it was all about power.

I sat in the empty chair, wishing I could be anywhere else, except maybe Elfheim. “Can’t we talk about this tomorrow?” My voice rasped like a three-pack-a-day smoker. I didn’t remember many details of what my body had been up to while my brain was being plundered like one of Jean Lafitte’s pirated galleons, but crying and screaming had been involved.

“No.” Zrakovi sipped a cup of coffee someone had made, probably Alex. The Elder’s usual laid-back friendliness had turned terse and somber. “I must know what happened. The full Council of Elders will convene in a few hours to decide on the actions we wish to take against the Synod. Start at the beginning.”

I glared at Rand. “Please. Feel free to go first.”

He gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Mace Banyan asked me to bring Dru—I mean DJ—to the Synod instead of waiting for the meeting you’d set up. They wanted to question her in Elfheim without any of you controlling her answers. No offense. It wasn’t supposed to be any more than that. Just questions and answers.”

Zrakovi turned to me, his expression leaving no doubt that a recap was non-negotiable. I clutched my coffee mug and went through it in monotone. I didn’t leave out any details, even the most private ones about my mother or how I’d trashed my parents’ house when she died using raw, emotion-fueled physical magic more powerful than any I’d been able to duplicate since.

Gerry always said it was because I got in my own head too much, a detail I didn’t share.