But Claire was a vegan nurse; she didn’t hunt.
I didn’t know what that meant for her.
But I didn’t say that, or anything else. Because the back door suddenly slammed open and a bunch of trolls spilled out. And they weren’t looking happy.
Chapter Eleven
“What now?” I said, as Claire scrambled to her feet.
“Is the little one okay?” she asked, looking worried.
But the trolls weren’t stopping to chat. They were already off the porch and halfway across the garden, leaving me and Claire looking at each other, because they were obviously heading for Caedmon. And I don’t think either of us knew what to do about that.
But the royal guards didn’t seem to have that problem. They went from relaxed and mostly supine, lounging around the fire in that boneless, catlike way the fey have, to on their feet in a row in front of Caedmon, swords out and game faces on, in about the time it took for me to blink. I sometimes wondered why the hell I spent so much time worrying about hurting people, when I was probably the weakest one around here anymore.
That didn’t change when Olga came out of the door a moment later, and then just stood there, hands on hips, looking pissed. Because she’d clearly had enough of the macho brigade for one day. She started down the steps, but Claire grabbed her arm.
“What’s going on?”
“They being stupid,” Olga said.
“Is the boy all right?”
She nodded. “He asleep.”
“Then what—”
“They want to know why he help,” Olga said, gesturing at Caedmon. Who was on his feet now, too.
“Why wouldn’t he? He had the power to spare—”
Olga started to say something, and then just gestured at them. Because yeah. Inside voice was apparently not a thing in trolldom.
We took off for the latest crisis, despite the fact that we could hear them from the porch. And so could half the neighborhood, not that they’d probably understand what they were saying. I sure didn’t.
But not because of the language barrier.
“Boy has no clan. No one pay for him. You get nothing!” That was the big troll with the scraped face, and yes, I’d been right. Now that we were in better lighting, I could see that it was definitely some kind of black, sparkly gravel embedded in his skin, from temple to neck, and glinting redly in the setting sun. The skin had grown back around it, in scarification-like swirls, as if it had been in there for decades. Because sure. Why pull it out, right?
I didn’t understand trolls at all.
And it looked like Caedmon didn’t, either.
“I don’t recall asking for anything.”
It was said mildly enough, but for some reason, it seemed to enrage the trolls, several of whom took a step forward. To the point that they were almost touching the shiny tips of the royal guards’ swords, which no one had lowered. And which a couple of the boys looked like they’d enjoy having an excuse to use.
Claire must have thought so, too, because she started forward, only to have Olga hold her back. It would have been funny under other circumstances, because Olga’s gesture was that of a mother reaching an arm across a child during a sudden stop in a car. But Claire wasn’t a child, and she didn’t look like she appreciated it.
Like, really didn’t.
And, suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.
“I have a grandson,” Caedmon was saying, apparently oblivious. “The boy is scarcely older. I wanted to help—”
“No Light Fey help Dark! Not for no reason!” Gravel Face looked pissed.
“He did. Boy fine. Go home,” Olga told them, but nobody was listening.
Possibly because a lot of them wanted a fight. The royal guards were bored out of their minds, with nothing to do all day but hang around Claire’s garden. And the trolls—well, I frankly didn’t know what their problem was, but they definitely had one. Making me wonder what the hell they had expected to happen.
“Did you want us to just let the kid die?” I demanded.
I didn’t really expect an answer, but for some reason, I got one.
“He too sick, can’t get to healer in time,” Gravel Face said, still staring down Caedmon. “Olga say she know another, so we come. But not to him!”
“But . . . he saved him—”
“And now we owe debt! He want us fight for him, die. We not die for Light Fey king! No more!”
The garden exploded with the chant, and with chest-beating and growling and half lunges toward the guards, who planted their feet and stood their ground. Even though the only thing keeping Dark Fey blood from smearing the tips of those swords was the thickness of the hide battering into them. Great.
“He doesn’t want you to fight for him!” I yelled, to be heard over the racket. I looked at Caedmon. “Tell them!”
“I’m always happy to recruit new auxiliaries—”
“Caedmon!”
“—but that wasn’t what I was doing today. You owe me nothing.”
“See?” I asked, and Olga nodded. And then threw up her hands, because they clearly didn’t see.
“You say that now,” White Hair said, in perfect English. So I guess he’d just been being a dick inside. “But when the time comes, you’ll call in the debt, and throw us in front of your own troops to spare their blood. We know how you see us, fey king. We know how all of you see us, as nothing but animals—”
“My daughter-in-law is not an animal,” Caedmon said, his eyes on her.
Like mine should have been, I realized, because Claire was looking a little . . . odd.
It wasn’t physical. She was the same slender girl in an old-fashioned floral print dress, which should have made her look dowdy but somehow never did. All she needed was a big, floppy-brimmed straw hat, her hair in messy braids, and a wheat field to model for one of Vogue’s “Girls of Summer” covers.
And a different expression.
A really different expression.
“Claire?” I said, and got a low, rolling growl in return.
Uh.
“Maybe we should go inside? Check on that soup?” I began, only to be cut off by raised voices from the crowd.
This time, they weren’t in English, so I don’t know what they said. But whatever it was prompted a quick interjection from Olga, who wasn’t looking so concerned with etiquette anymore. There was some yelling and gesturing and then—
“You lie!”
It was Hothead again, and I was beginning to understand how his face got like that. I was hankering to chain him to the back of my car and drag him for a few miles, and I’d just met him. But if pain hadn’t taught him something before, it probably wouldn’t this time, either.
Not that I got a chance to find out.
Not before he jumped for Claire.
Annnnnd that probably wasn’t his best move, I thought, stepping abruptly back. Or what he’d expected, judging by his expression when his back slammed into the ground, hard enough to tremble it. And to add some rocks to other parts of his anatomy as he thrashed around, in full-on panic.
And went nowhere.
Because the taloned claw suddenly pinning him to the earth didn’t belong to the girl I knew, or even to the cute baby dragon I remembered. But to something else entirely. For a long moment, I just stared.
The first time I’d seen Claire in her alternate form she’d been . . . well, frankly, adorable. I’d still been weirded the hell out, because dragon, but even then, I couldn’t help noticing the absurd tuft of purple hair between the two little glasslike horns on top of her head. And the tiny black wings squashed against the ceiling in the hall, because she’d transformed in a too-small space. Or the, um, healthy thighs and butt, neither of which those wings were gonna be lifting anytime soon.
Of course, I could have been wrong about that.