Okay, that was . . . different.
Because another thing the fey didn’t do was to give a shit about their dhampir housemate. They’d always treated me as something between a high-ranking servant—because I traded protection for rent—and a friend of Claire’s. Which meant that I was well below them in the household hierarchy, but also not theirs to order around. That had worked out, leaving us on a casual, vaguely friendly footing, with no obligations either way.
Including whatever the heck this was.
“Good coffee?” I finally asked, when the silence stretched a little long.
“You need more,” one of them said, holding up his mug, which was the size of a soup bowl. And had another elbow him in the ribs.
“I thought you guys didn’t like it.”
“We’re trying to acclimatize ourselves to your strange Earth foodstuffs,” a second one said, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at another tall, well-built blond, a carbon copy of all the rest except for his expression.
His expression was . . . well, shit.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, because clearly.
There was no answer. But the stare-down continued—why, I didn’t know. I’d spent the day sleeping. Pissing off somebody while unconscious was a new one, even for me.
“Reiearr,” a taller fey said, and put a hand on the angry one’s arm.
And had it immediately shrugged off.
I looked between the two of them. “Okay, what?”
“It’s nothing,” Coffee Lover said.
“Seems kind of tense for nothing.”
“He’s being ridiculous—”
“Watch yourself!” Reiearr flushed, and his hand flexed. The one on the same side as his sword. “It’s my right—”
“It’s your neck!” Coffee Lover snapped. “The king likes this one—”
“Then he should have put her under his protection!”
The tall fey, who was also a little bulkier, and who hadn’t liked having his hand shrugged off, smiled at him. It wasn’t a particularly nice expression. “Maybe he doesn’t think she needs it.”
Angry Ass didn’t like that, turning flashing eyes on his supposed ally.
“You’re only doing this because the king’s away,” Coffee Lover accused.
“He’s still away?” I asked.
“He remains at your Senate. He should be back soon.” He shifted his gaze to his buddy. “Which is why you should wait until he returns.”
“He’s afraid he won’t allow it,” one of the others said. “I told you—”
“Won’t allow what?” I asked. Because I hadn’t had my coffee yet—or eggs or toast or anything else—and was getting annoyed.
“Tell her,” the tall one said.
“It’s my right,” Reiearr repeated, ignoring him. Because I guess I didn’t merit an explanation.
His fellow fey just looked at him, with expressions ranging from embarrassed to pissed off. Like when the angry drunk guy who wants to fight everyone is your cousin. Only I didn’t think this guy was drunk.
I didn’t know what he was, and wondered if I cared.
“It is!” he insisted.
Annnnd the verdict was in.
“Fuck this,” I said, and headed for the stairs.
And had a heavy hand grab my shoulder and spin me around, which was not the problem.
The problem was that I was unarmed and it was from behind, and that sort of thing—
Wakes the beast.
It happened in an instant, as it always did. Rage spiraling up out of nowhere, red haze descending, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. But this time, it didn’t come from her.
This time, it came from me.
I felt her start to rise—the familiar, hateful rush—and something in me snapped. I’d spent most of my life containing my anger, trying to tamp it down, to beat it back. I’d spent years learning techniques to quiet the beast.
But not this time.
This time, for the first time, my rage matched her own.
I saw again the puckered skin, the bloody wounds, the glittering pieces of shrapnel Louis-Cesare was going to have to dig out of his healed flesh at some point, yet more pain. Like all the rest he’d suffered for me, but because of her! She’d hamstrung me in battle, almost gotten him killed, like she’d taken over time and time again, blacking me out and using my body to do unspeakable things.
Not this time!
I threw everything I had at her: five hundred years of pain and fear and hate, a storm of fury with all the raging wildness of a hurricane. And it felt good—God it did! To let go for once, and let her know how it felt for a change!
And it was a change.
Because, instead of everything going black, the sunlit room merely darkened. Instead of gutting the fey with the knife that my hand had decided—on its own—to pluck from his boot, I drove it into the floor. And instead of passing out, and leaving my body in Dorina’s hands, it felt like there were suddenly two captains on this ship, each fighting for control.
And I wasn’t finished yet!
But the fey almost was. He was trying to scramble away, after my leg swept his out from under him and we followed him to the floor. But Dorina was faster, grabbing the still-quivering knife out of the floorboards and—shit.
The knife was a blur even to my eyes, hitting down a dozen more times in a staccato beat, as she ripped it out of the floor and I drove it back in, over and over, trying to bury it. That didn’t work, and it was everything I could do to keep it out of the fey’s flesh. Which wasn’t helped by his twisting and turning—and squealing, when the latest strike sliced through his trousers in a particularly vulnerable area.
It didn’t slice through anything else, but it was close. I needed to get rid of the damned thing—now—and started struggling to throw it out the window. But all that did was screw up my vision, making it look like someone was flipping a switch on and off, on and off, while the damned fey yelled and rolled around some more instead of taking the chance to—
Finally! He’d made it to his feet, but he didn’t run. And then things got interesting.
Darkness: She tripped him, grabbed his hair, used it like a handle to bare his throat—
Light: I twisted the knife at the last second, slammed the hilt into his temple, tried to knock him out, hoping that would end this.
Darkness: But he stayed conscious and she latched onto the idea, jackhammering the thick wooden handle repeatedly into his face.
Light: I shoved him away, toward the wall, and ran for the stairs—
Darkness: She spun us around and lunged for him, catching him before the paneling did, and then crashing his head through it—
Light: So I threw him at the stairs, hoping he’d take the hint and run, goddamn it!
Instead, he snarled and whirled, face a bloody mess, but eyes flashing, and unsheathed a sword. Immediately, a wave of heightened rage flooded my body, tingled my fingertips, sapped my control. And sucked all the light out of the room in a split second, leaving me fumbling in the dark.
But not unconscious; not yet.
But I was left trying to stop a fight by hearing alone, because she had my eyes now and she wasn’t giving them back. And the idiot had a weapon, and if the fey’s reputation was anything to go by, he knew how to use it. And his buddies weren’t interfering, despite their earlier attitude. I didn’t know why; I just knew—
Fuck.
I heard the fey curse, my own voice snarl, and a sword go clattering. Felt my hand closing on a long, pale throat, a pulse beating rapidly in my palm as I squeezed. Felt it start to slow, weakening his attempts to free himself, which weren’t working anyway, because Dorina had a hand free.