Sirensong

Chapter Three

When my mom had come to Avalon looking for me, my dad had tricked her into handing over custody of me. (Tricked her because she’d been too drunk at the time to pay attention to the papers she was signing. Yep, she was a paragon of parental responsibility all right.)

Aside from losing legal custody of me, she’d also been declared legally incompetent, which involved my dad using either his influence or his money to manipulate the courts of Avalon into giving him what he wanted. That meant she was also in my dad’s custody. To make me happy, Dad had promised that as long as she was in his custody—living in something resembling house arrest—he would make sure she had no access to alcohol. The weeks I’d been in Avalon were by far the longest stretch of time my mom had been sober in my memory.

The phone call I’d gotten was from my dad. He’d broken the news to my mom that we were leaving for Faerie the day after tomorrow, and she’d gone ballistic. There was a hint of what sounded like desperation in his voice when he asked me to come over and talk to her. Unlike me, he didn’t have sixteen years of experience dealing with her fits of hysteria, and I could tell he was in completely over his head.

Strange how I could move all the way to Avalon, find out I was a Faeriewalker, have people trying to kill me, and yet some parts of my life remained exactly the same. I’d hoped that once my mom stopped drinking, she’d also stop being a drama queen, but that was obviously asking too much. It also occurred to me, as Finn and I hurried through the streets of Avalon to my dad’s house, that with both me and my dad going off to Avalon, my mom’s house arrest was about to come to an end.

The thought made my stomach tie itself in knots. No house arrest meant no way to stop her from drinking. No way to stop her from drinking meant that when I came back from Faerie (assuming, of course, that I made it out alive), Mom the Drunk would be here waiting for me.

Once upon a time, I’d let myself believe that if she would just sober up for a little while, my mom would come to her senses and decide she was staying off the booze forever. Dad tried to explain to me that we couldn’t cure her alcoholism by force, but I hadn’t wanted to believe him. The fact that she still wouldn’t admit she had a drinking problem made my dad’s point of view more convincing.

My head wasn’t in a good place when I arrived at my dad’s house, and I wanted to talk to my mom about as much as I wanted to stick my head in the toilet. I’d halfway decided to tell my dad to just deal with it, but when he opened the door and I saw the glassy look in his eyes, I swallowed my words. I didn’t like it, but I was far better equipped to handle my mom than he was.

“She’s in her room,” my dad said as he led the way up the spiral staircase from the garage to the first floor, which was where his living room, kitchen, and dining room were located.

As soon as I set foot in the living room, I smelled the distinctive scent of tea in the air, although I saw no sign of any mugs. Then I saw the dark, wet stain against the wall beside the plasma TV.

“Let me guess,” I said with a sigh, “she threw her tea at you?”

Dad crossed his arms and nodded. “I’ve never seen her like this before.” He looked completely mystified, and if I weren’t caught in the middle of the mess, I might have found it amusing.

“I have,” I grumbled. I looked back and forth between Dad and Finn. “You guys stay down here no matter what, okay? She’s not going to throw deadly weapons at me, but you’re a different story.”

Finn was giving me a look of pity I could have done without, but I think Dad was just glad he didn’t have to face Mom again in the near future. With a sigh of resignation, I trudged to the door to the stairway and climbed to the third floor.

Mom’s door was closed, and I braced myself for battle before I knocked on it.

“Mom?” I asked. “Can I come in?”

The door opened almost before I got the last word out, and before I knew what was happening, I was wrapped in a smothering hug, Mom’s arms so tight around me I could hardly breathe.

“Dana,” she said, then started to sob, holding me and rocking me like she’d just found out I had a terminal disease.

I let her hug me for as long as I could stand it, then wriggled out of her grasp. She looked terrible, her eyes all swollen and puffy, her nose red, her hair disheveled. But at least she’s sober, I reminded myself. For now.

I invited myself into my mom’s room and sat on her bed. Sniffling, she reached for a tissue and scrubbed at her eyes.

“I’m not going to let him take you,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, either from all that crying or from an earlier shouting match with Dad.

She didn’t have the power to stop him, and we both knew it.

“I’m sure Dad told you what will happen if I don’t go.”

She dismissed that with a wave. “Some nonsense about your aunt Grace. I don’t believe it for a moment. He’s just using that excuse to scare you into doing what he wants.”

My dad can be majorly manipulative, but he wasn’t sneaky about it, at least not with me. I wasn’t sure Henry really would have me arrested and carted off to Faerie if we refused the “honor” of the Queen’s invitation, but I was sure my dad believed he would.

“I want to go,” I told my mom. It was a total lie, but I wasn’t above lying if it was the only way to get my mom to calm down. She’d obviously run through her repertoire of hysterics with my dad, and if I could get her to skip the repeat performance with me, I was all for it.

She shook her head. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Not if I’m the Queen’s guest. I’ll be fine.”

I’d been angry with my mom for almost as long as I could remember. Angry at her drinking, angry at her neglect, angry at the way I had to function as the adult of the family from the time I was about four. Until I’d run away from home, I’d been real, real good at hiding that anger, stuffing it down inside me so I could do what I had to do to take care of her and run the household.

I was out of practice keeping my anger under control, and I ground my teeth to keep myself from saying anything about how absurd it was for me to be comforting her under the circumstances.

“Dana, honey,” Mom started, but she couldn’t seem to figure out where to go from there. At least she wasn’t throwing things.

She came to sit on the bed beside me, her head bowed, her shoulders slumped. “I can’t stand the thought of you going off somewhere where I can’t protect you.”

A little more tooth-grinding was in order. Since when had she ever protected me? It wasn’t that she wouldn’t protect me with all the ferocity of a mama bear if I were in danger and she were sober enough to realize it. The will was there, and I knew that she loved me. But being willing to protect me and being able to protect me were two very different things.

“You can’t even protect me here,” I said, trying to keep my voice gentle. “Not with the kind of enemies I have.”

Ever since she’d stopped drinking, she’d been fidgety, constantly moving like a hummingbird on caffeine. The more upset she got, the more she fidgeted, and she had a major case of the fidgets this time. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this couldn’t be easy for her. She’d tried very hard to keep me away from my dad and from Avalon precisely because she wanted to keep me safe from the political intrigue. She might not be a candidate for mother of the year when she was drinking, but I knew she loved me.

Once upon a time, I’d thought that if she would only stop drinking, she’d become more like a normal mom, that she’d take care of me and protect me, et cetera, et cetera. But all the evidence suggested that she was pretty damn needy even without the booze.

“I want you to make me a promise,” I said.

“Of course, sweetheart,” she said after a momentary hesitation. “Anything.”

I refrained from snorting. My mom wasn’t big on making promises, and she was even worse at keeping them.

Why was I asking her to keep one, then? Because it was the only thing I could think of to do, the only faint hope I had that when I returned from Faerie, she wouldn’t have morphed back into her drunken alter ego.

“I want you to promise me you won’t drink while I’m gone,” I said, then braced myself for her inevitable reaction.

She stood, too agitated to hold still, and I could see the emotional barriers going up. “Dana, really!”

How she could act offended when she had to know why I was asking this of her is anyone’s guess. I don’t care how deeply in denial she was. There was no way I believed she didn’t know she had a problem.

My fists clenched in my lap, and I forced myself to relax them. “It won’t be for that long,” I said, hoping it was true. “You keep telling me you’re not an alcoholic, so it really shouldn’t be that hard for you, should it?”

“I am not an alcoholic! But you don’t get to decide whether I can have a drink or not. I’ll be a nervous wreck while you’re gone, and if I can’t even have a calming drink now and then…”

A calming drink now and then. That’s what she called starting her day with whiskey in her coffee and ending it passed out with an empty bottle or three at her side?

“What happened to ‘I’ll promise anything’?” I asked bitterly. “You only meant anything that didn’t really matter to me.”

I could see from the look in her eyes that she was hurt as well as angered by my accusation. At that point, I didn’t care. I was pretty hurt and angry, too.

“That isn’t fair,” she said, and I wanted to scream.

“I’m going to be out there risking my life, and it’s too much of me to ask that you stay sober for a little while? That’s just great, Mom. Thanks a lot. Glad to know I matter to you so much.”

I was so mad I felt like hitting something, and tears burned my eyes. Why didn’t she care how much her drinking hurt me? I might not be perfect or anything, but I thought I was a pretty good daughter. I never got into any trouble—at least, not until I came to Avalon—and I’d always taken care of her. Above and beyond the call of duty, no less. I got good grades, and I usually managed to keep my anger securely hidden.

She’d been the one constant in my life, when my life revolved around moving from place to place every year or so. I couldn’t make any long-term friends, had never had any other family. My mom had been my everything for as long as I could remember.

My lower lip quivered, and a tear trickled down my cheek. Usually, I fight tears with everything I have, especially when I’m not alone. Today, I let them come. I let my mom see just how hurt I was.

The look in her eyes softened into one of dismay, and she came back to sit beside me and take my clenched fists into her hands.

“Dana, honey, of course you matter to me.”

She pulled me to my feet and wrapped her arms around me. I was far too angry to return her embrace, but she didn’t let go.

“I love you more than anything,” my mother said as I stood stiffly in her arms and cried. “You have to know that.”

“But not enough to stop drinking,” I said, my voice muffled by her shoulder. “Never enough for that.”

Mom’s hands slid to my shoulders, and she pushed me away a little bit so she could look into my eyes. I wanted to look away, but she took hold of my chin.

“My drinking has nothing, nothing to do with how much I love you.” She smiled wanly and brushed a lock of my hair away from my face, like I was a little girl who’d skinned her knee. “Just because I don’t always do what you want me to do doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But you don’t care that it hurts me to see you destroying yourself.”

“I’m not going to destroy myself,” she said, sounding like she meant it. “There are lots of people in the world who drink, honey. It’s just … something adults do. I am truly sorry it bothers you, but please don’t worry about me. I’m going to be just fine.”

What was the use in fighting it? Even if I somehow managed to get her to promise, there was nothing I could do to make her keep the promise. Nothing sent her diving for the booze faster than stress, and she was going to be stressed to the max for the entire time I was gone.

I jerked away from her, no longer able to stomach the excuses or the hollow reassurances. “Fine,” I said. “Drink as much as you want. Pickle your liver and pass out on the floor in a puddle of your own puke. See if I care!”

“Dana!” Her cheeks went white with shock, although this wasn’t the first time since we’d been in Avalon that I’d given in to the temptation to let her know what I really thought of her. I was being a mean-spirited, ungrateful little bitch, and I didn’t give a damn. I was tired of pretending all was well when it wasn’t, tired of humoring her, tired of forcing my feelings into a little mental box so I could be the polite, dutiful daughter.

“Go home, Mom,” I said, pulling away from her when she tried to reach for me. “I’m sure Dad will give you your passport back before we leave for Faerie. Go back to the States and stay there. There was a reason I ran away in the first place, and obviously nothing has changed.”

I slammed out of the room before she could respond. I half expected her to chase after me, but she didn’t. Maybe my words had cut too deep, maybe she needed time to recover. Or maybe she knew I’d say something even uglier if she came after me. Whatever the reason, the fact that she stayed up in her room and made no attempt to get me to come back just made me that much angrier.

Both my dad and Finn looked at me in dismay as I slammed the door to the stairway and stomped into the living room where they were waiting for me. There was no way either of them could miss how upset I was. I might have wiped the tears away, but I’m sure my eyes and nose were all red. I suspected this was not what my dad had in mind when he asked me to come over.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I declared before either of them could say a word.

If either one of them had been human, they might have tried to talk to me anyway. However, the typical Fae reserve worked to my advantage. Finn was never big on talking, and my dad looked lost and uncomfortable.

“I want to go home now,” I said, staring at the floor so I wouldn’t have to see their faces.

There was a moment of silence.

“Call me if you decide later that you want to talk after all,” my dad said. “Anytime.”

His gentle tone almost made me start crying again. A few weeks ago, he hadn’t even known I existed. Now he was the only parent who acted like he loved me.

As it was, I managed to croak out a thanks, then made a beeline for the door so fast Finn had to run to catch up.

The rest of my afternoon sucked—I brooded about my mom and what she would do when Dad let her go. I racked my brain for something I could do or say that would make her decide to stay off the booze, but I’d already proven that nothing I said or did mattered.

There were probably a million things I should have been doing to prepare myself for the trip to Faerie, but the drama with my mom had robbed me of my will. Instead of being productive, I spent hours playing stupid Internet games on my laptop, lulling myself into a zombielike trance.

I was playing a really convoluted game involving dice, cards, and—ha-ha—zombies, when I was startled out of my stupor by a knock on the door to my suite. I blinked and glanced at the clock on my screen, seeing it was already eight o’clock at night. Finn is really good at being unobtrusive, and he usually confines himself strictly to the guard room, giving me some semblance of privacy in my suite. I don’t get too many knocks on my door, especially not at night.

My pulse jumped, and I feared more bad news was on its way.

“Come in,” I called, crossing my fingers.

The door opened to reveal not Finn, but my father. I was surprised to see him, because he usually called before coming.

“Is something wrong?” I asked before he had a chance to say a word.

“No, no,” he said as he came in and took a seat on the sofa in the homey little sitting area. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“I still don’t want to talk about it,” I warned, gearing up for an argument.

Instead, Dad nodded. “Understood. I don’t know what happened between you and your mother, but I know it’s my fault for asking you to come over when she was so overwrought. I’m afraid I was a little out of my element, and I leaned on you when I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

My throat tightened with gratitude. There was no denying that sometimes, my dad could be a pretty cool guy. “’S okay,” I said, not completely sure how to respond to a sincere parental apology.

There was a long silence as both my dad and I tried to think of what to say next. This whole father/daughter relationship thing was equally new to both of us.

Eventually, my dad cleared his throat and said, “I thought you might have some questions to ask me about Faerie and the logistics of our trip to the Sunne Palace.”

Wow. My dad, volunteering information! I wanted to accuse him of being a pod person, but I didn’t think he’d get the joke. Humor is not his thing, though considering what little I knew about his life, that wasn’t a surprise. My father was something like a thousand years old, and you can pack a hell of a lot of trauma and heartache into a thousand years.

“If I start asking questions, you’re going to be here all night,” I warned.

He smiled at me. “A fact of which I’m fully aware. Make me a spot of fortifying tea and I’ll be fully prepared to face the Inquisition.”

All right, maybe he had a sense of humor after all. It was just on the subdued side. “One tea with thumbscrews, coming up.”

I made coffee for myself while the water boiled for Dad’s tea. I could drink tea in a pinch, and I could drink it to be polite, since everyone in Avalon apparently worshipped at the Holy Church of Tea, but I would never learn to love it.

I set my coffee and Dad’s tea down on the coffee table, then curled up comfortably on the couch beside my dad. With typical Fae formality, he was sitting up straight with both feet flat on the floor. I wondered if it made him uncomfortable to have my bare feet up on the couch so close to him. If it did, he made no sign of it, merely stirring some honey and lemon into his tea as he waited patiently for my first question.

It was hard to decide what to ask first. I had so little idea what to expect from this trip, or from Faerie. But instead of asking a sensible, practical question, the first question that came to my mind was far more personal.

“What’s up with you and Prince Henry?” I asked. “You obviously don’t like each other.”

Dad hesitated a moment, probably as surprised as I was that that was the first thing I wanted to know. Then he grimaced and took a sip of tea.

“No, we don’t like each other. In fact, we’d each be happy to see the other dead.”

I couldn’t help a little gasp. My dad always seemed so cool and rational, even in the face of danger. It took a lot to crack his facade, but what I saw in his eyes now was nothing less than pure hatred.

He smoothed the expression away and then took another sip of tea. “I have enemies at Court, Dana. Everyone who’s ever spent any significant time at Court does, and I was Titania’s consort for well over a century.”

“Enemies who want to kill you.”

“No, enemies who’d like to see me dead. There’s a difference.” He gave me one of his wry smiles. “If one is a courtier, one does not kill one’s enemies. That would be far too vulgar. I told you once that at Court, lying and deceit is an art form. I was speaking rather more literally than you probably imagined. The Court awards figurative style points for the subtlety and ingenuity with which one destroys one’s enemies.”

Geez, and I was going there to meet a whole bunch of courtiers and the Queen herself. Fabulous.

“So why are you and Henry enemies?” I asked.

“Titania is never without a consort. Prince Henry’s father was her consort before me. There was a noticeable reduction in both their statuses at Court when Titania put Henry’s father aside. Henry, quite naturally, blamed me for it. He was only twenty when it happened, and I was a far more experienced and polished courtier. He tried to start various unsavory rumors about me, but I always managed to turn them back on him. And he never could control his temper, which is a fatal flaw in the Court. To lose one’s temper is to admit defeat, and I had little trouble making Henry do it, even in public.” Dad smiled like he was reminiscing about the good old days. “Every attack he made saw his status within the Court slip just a little more. He was forced to leave Court or eventually he’d have faced total social ruin despite being the Queen’s son.”

I gaped as Dad took another sip of tea. This was a side of him I’d never seen before. Sure, he was manipulative, and had a politician’s way with words, but I’d never thought he’d take such obvious satisfaction in basically ruining someone’s life. Henry seemed like a total jerk, but still …

Dad saw my expression, and he put down his teacup and turned to face me on the sofa.

“The primary reason I left Faerie and came to live in Avalon was to escape Court social politics. I am still capable of playing the game, but that isn’t who I am. Not anymore.”

That didn’t make me feel a whole lot better, and nothing he’d said so far made me any more pleased with the idea of going to Court. “So are you and Henry going to be taking potshots at each other for the whole trip, like you were at the dinner?”

“Undoubtedly. And he’s gotten a lot better at it since he was that sullen, untried boy. Luckily, my standing at Court is no longer of great concern to me.” Dad’s smile held a touch of malice. “And his temper is clearly still a liability. He must be beside himself at the thought that Titania would invite my daughter to Court. And he must have done something to annoy her for her to send him, of all people, to escort us.”

Glad to know Henry saw having Dad and me traveling with him as some kind of punishment. “But she didn’t really invite me,” I pointed out. “Not if she’s really planning to have us arrested if we don’t go. Or is that part Henry’s idea?”

“Hardly,” Dad scoffed. “I’m sure he’d have been happy to drag us off to Faerie in chains, but it certainly wasn’t his idea to blackmail us into going. He’d rather eat iron nails than see my daughter honored. No, he’d have loved nothing better than if we’d been free to refuse the invitation and mortally offend his mother.”

I grunted in exasperation. “How much of an honor can it possibly be when she’s blackmailing me into going?”

“Trust me. It’s an honor, no matter what inducements she felt it necessary to offer in order to be certain we come. The end result is that you will be presented at Court, and that is a very public show of favor.”

“Okay. I’ll take your word for it.” And try to remember that the Fae don’t think like normal people.

“Good. Now, what’s your next question?”

“How long will we be gone?”

“I can’t say with any great certainty, but count on it being at least three weeks.”

“Three weeks!” I’d been assuming—why, I don’t know—that it would take a couple of days.

Dad smiled at me. “Remember, this is Faerie we’re talking about. There are no cars or planes. The trip from Avalon to the Sunne Palace should take roughly four days on horseback, and you can be certain Titania will keep us waiting for at least a week before she finds it convenient to hold the ceremony. And afterward, we’ll be expected to stay awhile to fulfill our social obligations.”

Horseback? This just got better and better. I’d never ridden a horse in my life, and I’d have been just as happy to keep it that way. Though I supposed if the alternative was walking, horseback would have to do.

“It won’t be until after the presentation ceremony that we’ll be able to speak with Titania. However, I have had a chance to question several members of Henry’s entourage today, and I feel reasonably certain Titania did not send those Knights after you.”

I shook my head, not believing it for a moment. “Just because they say so?”

“No, because I know Titania. Getting her to change her mind at all takes something just short of a miracle. If she wanted you gone so recently, she would not have invited you to Court unless something catastrophic occurred, and it hasn’t.

“Of course, someone was behind the attack,” my dad continued. “Someone with enough clout to command a pair of Knights to carry out a personal errand.”

I shivered. “You mean someone like Prince Henry?”

Dad grimaced. “The thought has crossed my mind. Although hiring Knights to make threats and do bodily harm is not his style. Remember what I told you about the Fae love of subtlety. An overt attack like that would be considered gauche in the extreme.”

“Gee, I feel so much better knowing that him murdering me would be a social faux pas.”

“Princes can’t afford faux pas like that, so it’s more of a deterrent than you think.” He leaned forward a little and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t worry. I’ll be keeping a careful eye on him, just in case.”

“Do you think whoever was behind that attack would be happy to see me being presented at Court?”

His face wasn’t what I’d call expressive, but even the studied lack of expression was an expression in itself. “You will be well guarded. I’ll be with you, and so will Finn and Keane.”

Keane was Finn’s son and my self-defense instructor. I had what I think of as a like/hate relationship with him. When he’s beating the crap out of me on the practice mats, I really hate him. When we’re not sparring, he can be a pretty decent guy, though things were currently a little uncomfortable between us because I suspected he liked me a whole lot more than I liked him. Still, I would definitely feel safer with him by my side.

“What about Ethan and Kimber?” I asked, because I was sure Kimber would have already started bugging her dad and mine to let them come with me.

My dad managed to look disapproving without changing his facial expression, which was a neat trick. He didn’t insist I stay away from my Unseelie friends, but I knew he’d be a lot happier if I stuck to my “own kind.” If I ever start choosing my friends based on which Court they belong to, just shoot me.

“Alistair has suggested they come along,” he answered. “I hesitate to take the risk when they are both so young and untried.”

“Kimber’s a couple months older than me, and Ethan is the same age as Keane.”

“I know how you feel about Ethan,” he said with a little smile, “but … He and Keane may be physically the same age, but Keane is an adult while Ethan is still a boy.”

I knew what my dad meant, and when I’d first come to Avalon, I might even have agreed with him. But Ethan wasn’t quite the same since I’d rescued him from the Erlking’s clutches. He was still bound to the Erlking in ways I didn’t fully understand, and the ordeal had aged him. He was not the same carefree boy I’d first met.

“However,” my dad continued, “if Alistair is determined that they come along, I shall have to take them. I fear that if I refuse, he might send them after us anyway, and that would be far more dangerous for them.”

I was glad to know I’d have plenty of company, but I hated the thought that Alistair would put his political ambitions above his children’s safety. As ambitious as my own dad was, he was practically fanatical about keeping me safe.

“I don’t believe you will be in danger,” Dad said, “especially not when you are so thoroughly guarded. However…”

I felt the faint prickle of magic, and suddenly there was a pink faux-leather case, about six inches long, in his hand. He extended the case toward me, and I took it. I hadn’t a clue what was in it, and Dad ignored my inquiring look.

With a shrug, I lifted the lid, then almost dropped the case when I saw what was inside, nestled in a bed of red velvet: a gun. The logo on the underside of the lid said “Lady Derringer.”

“It’s only for emergencies,” Dad said. “I’ll teach you how to use it, but I certainly don’t expect you to need it. I just think we’ll both feel better if you have a mortal weapon available.”

Swallowing hard, I touched the ivory-colored grip, which had a picture of a white rose on it. Despite my dad’s reassurances, I didn’t think taking a gun with me into Faerie was going to make me feel safe at all.

The next morning was one of my regularly scheduled lessons with Keane, which meant I had to get up indecently early and couldn’t have any breakfast until afterward. Not unless I wanted to risk it coming back up while we sparred. If my teacher were anyone but Keane, I’d have expected him to give me the day off on the day before I left for Faerie, but I knew better.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, examining the new high-backed tank top I’d ordered from an athletic catalog. In the catalog, it had looked like the top might give me enough coverage to hide the Erlking’s mark on the back of my shoulder. It covered part of the mark, but not all of it. I sighed regretfully, then headed to the bedroom to pull a T-shirt on over the tank. It was easier to fight without the loose, comfortable T-shirt giving Keane something to grab on to, but I didn’t have a choice.

I opened my bedroom door to find that Keane had already arrived. He’d pushed the furniture in my sitting room to the walls and was rolling out the practice mats. I admired the view for a moment, because even if I didn’t like him that way, there was no denying he was a treat to look at. He had a typically beautiful Fae face, but his hair—dyed jet black, with a lock perpetually hanging in his eyes—along with the earrings in his left ear, the Celtic armband tattoo, and a wardrobe that seemed to consist entirely of black, gave him a bad-boy edge. What could be sexier than a Fae bad boy?

“You’re late,” he said to me without looking up.

“Good morning to you, too,” I responded, approaching him warily. Keane didn’t believe in giving me a warning before he attacked—he said my enemies wouldn’t do it, so he wouldn’t do it—and that meant my lesson could start at any moment, even when it looked like he was thoroughly engaged in something else. I watched his body language carefully, searching for any sign that he was about to leap into motion.

“We’ve had this discussion before,” he said as he finished arranging the mats. “I expect you to show up on time every time.”

I rolled my eyes at the rebuke. And, of course, that was when he attacked.

Despite his high-handed, annoying, and often painful training techniques, Keane was a great teacher. Not that I’d ever admit it to his face. Even though I’d let my guard down, I reacted fast enough not to take his punch in the face. My arm jerked upward like it had a will of its own, blocking the punch.

In a real fight, that block might have saved my life, because a blow that hard to my head might knock me out and would certainly at least knock me down. And in a real fight, I’d be thanking my lucky stars right now as I ran like hell to get away from whoever had attacked me.

But this wasn’t a real fight, so my reaction—very mature, I know—was to yell “Ow!” loud enough to burst a few eardrums. I knew in theory that Keane pulled his punches when we sparred, but it still hurt like hell when he made contact, even when I managed to block.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Keane said, even as he kicked out in an attempt to knock my legs out from under me.

This was the reason I hated him so much when we were sparring.

I jumped backward, avoiding Keane’s kick, and after that there was no time for complaining. Even if I’d had enough air in my lungs to make a complaint.

I knew I was getting better, knew that if I was fighting someone who wasn’t any good, I’d probably be able to get away, but I would never, ever come close to Keane’s skill level. Being the son of a Knight, he’d been taught how to fight from an early age. He’d even started to go through training to be a Knight himself, but he wasn’t Knight material. Not because he couldn’t fight well enough—I’m sure if he’d had the whole training, he’d be ridiculously good—but because he was too much of a rebel to accept the lifestyle.

The upshot of all this is that I almost never succeed in landing a blow, and despite knowing all the right moves, I could rarely escape one of his holds unless he let me. Frustration and I have become good friends. And like any friend who’s a bad influence, frustration sometimes made me do things that were, in retrospect, stupid.

Like trying to tackle my self-defense instructor.

There isn’t a single instance I can think of in which tackling your attacker is a good self-defense move. If you have enough distance to try to tackle your attacker, you have enough distance to run like hell and maybe get away. But since doing the “correct” moves never seemed to work, every once in a while I couldn’t stop myself from trying to catch Keane by surprise.

The problem is, even if I catch him by surprise, he’s bigger, quicker, stronger, and far more experienced than I am.

My tackle surprised him enough to take him down. Unfortunately, he twisted like a cat in midair, and somehow I ended up on the bottom when we landed. The landing knocked all the wind out of me, and while I was lying there trying to breathe, he landed a light blow to my face, demonstrating just how bad a position I’d gotten myself into. Not that I didn’t already know.

Escaping one of Keane’s holds when we were both on our feet was hard enough, but escaping him when we were on the floor with him on top was impossible unless he purposely gave me an opening. As soon as I managed to drag in a full breath, he gave me one of those openings, and I went for it.

Just because he left me an opening didn’t mean he was making things easy for me, so I had to work like crazy to get free. At the last moment, just as I was trying to triumphantly jump to my feet after slipping his hold, his hand closed on the back of my T-shirt.

I mentioned that the loose T-shirts gave Keane convenient handholds. He’d certainly taken advantage of it before. But I don’t know if the T-shirt was just getting threadbare from having been worn and washed too often, or if one of us was pulling harder than usual, or if it was just the angle of the pull. Whatever it was, there was an ominous ripping sound, and I lurched forward, caught off balance and by surprise.

Keane, with his Fae reflexes, managed to grab me before I hit the floor with my face, but I could feel the cool sweep of air over the skin of my back and shoulder where my T-shirt had torn. Right where the Erlking’s mark lay.

“What the fuck?” Keane asked in a horrified whisper.