Trueheart (Portland After Dark Book 1) (7 page)

Thomas broke into a run. His sudden movement caught the attention of half the market—
just what she needs, for me to draw all eyes to her
—including Tess and the kelpie. She turned with a delighted smile.

"Thomas! Fancy meeting you here."

"Yes, fancy," drawled the kelpie, not looking away from Tess. Her head began to turn back toward the irresistible allure of the handsome form that overlaid the water-horse.

"Back off." Thomas glared at the kelpie, whose pale, river-wrinkled fingertips halted an inch from Tess's arm. "She's not interested."

"She certainly seems to be," the kelpie asserted. "We're going to take a stroll and have a chat."

"Not tonight."

Tess watched the byplay for a moment, then interrupted. "I was just asking about my friend and his problem, Thomas. That's all. No harm done."

"You shouldn't be here, T—" He stopped himself from speaking her truename just in time, because it had hovered on his lips with such pleasure from the moment he saw her from his window. "It's not safe." He was relieved that his arrival seemed to have broken the kelpie's spell.

"I'm all right." She turned fully toward him at last and the kelpie thrust an ugly gesture at the two of them behind her back before slinking away into the evening drizzle.

"You don't even have a raincoat," Thomas fretted at her, "and you're talking to dangerous strangers. I'm not certain you understand what 'all right' means."

Now Tess seemed offended. "I have adequate judgment and can take care of myself. You're making me sound like an idiot. Surely you can't mean that."

Thomas drew a deep breath to control the turmoil inside him. He reminded himself Tess could not see through the fae glamour and had no idea she'd been dealing with a creature from a hidden world, one with different rules and moral code, not to mention menus. In her mind, she'd been talking to a street boy, a very pretty and forward street boy. She didn't know that pretty boy would have drowned her and dined on her delicious, salty liver without thinking twice about it.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the market seemed back to normal on the surface, but the denizens were still furtively eyeing them. He'd drawn a target on Tess as surely as if he'd walked into the center of the milling crowd and shouted, "Look, a foolish human! Free for the taking!"

He'd have to do something about that, but what? He couldn't work magic well enough to throw a glamour over Tess to change her appearance, nor make the fae forget they'd seen him take her from a kelpie. The best he could do later would be to spread a tale about the kelpie and make the water-horse seem at fault somehow. Maybe something about how the city seemed to be concerned about the number of drowned and gnawed girls that washed up lately. Urban fae well knew they had to keep their inhuman behavior within limits in order not to be discovered by the hundreds of thousands of humans living so near their mound.

It might work. The market fae knew him and trusted him, as far as Unseelie trusted anything not Unseelie. They knew he did the Queen's bidding, and for all they knew, he had her ear. After all, he'd been her lover once upon a time, in a fairytale. One of the rare few who survived their trysts with her.

"Thomas? Just let him go." Tess drew his attention back from the darkness where the kelpie had gone to squat near the railing along the riverbank, glaring at them, his eyes shining like coins in the dark. Good thing Tess couldn't see what those eyes belonged to.

"I'm sorry. It's just...like I said, it's not safe here, and he looked like he was feeling a little too comfortable. How've you been?"

To his relief, she smiled. The stilted moment had passed. "Fine, though work's a bit frustrating at the moment. You?"

"The same." A rattling noise behind him alerted him to the hobs, still playing knucklebones. And listening. Thomas reached out and tucked her hand into the bend of his arm. "I'm up for coffee, even though it's way ahead of schedule. You?" Her fingers were warm, and with the touch, he could more effectively convince her with the little fae magic he possessed.

She resisted, but only for a moment, then his charm pulled her along, out of the market. "I was trying to find out more about Aaron and his dealer. That's what I was asking that boy about when you came along."

"So I gathered. I'm serious about how dangerous it is here in Underbridge."

"What an interesting name you've given it, like Goose Hollow or Irving, as if it's a Portland neighborhood." When he quickened his pace, aware he was giving away too much, she matched his stride and kept chatting, her hand snug in his elbow. "It really is sort of a neighborhood, after all. So many of these people live here, more or less."

"That's why I know so much about them. Look, why don't you let me do the asking around for you? They know me, and I'm big enough that no one messes with me."

"Nobody's messed with me, either." They paused at the corner to wait for the walk light. Thomas nonchalantly turned up the cuffs of his oilskin sleeves and popped his collar, then retied his belt knot backward. It was the closest he could come to turning his coat inside out in order to thwart any pursuers.

"That kid tonight...if he'd managed to get you to come along, he'd have tried to rape you. Worse, maybe." Thomas turned his head to the right, where he could see the ornate red gate into Chinatown. He subtly increased his pace and hoped Tess would not suggest cutting through there tonight. But he didn't want to make Tess suspicious by resisting entering Chinatown, either. She picked up on nuance far too quickly.

"How can you know that?" Tall as she was, she still had to look up at him, just a little.

"There's our light." They crossed and continued walking west. Thomas let out a breath when the red gate was out of sight.

"Seriously, Thomas. Do you know him?"

"Yes. And he might look like a nice enough kid, but he's not."

"I didn't get a bad vibe from him, and I work with addicts and thugs all the time. I've learned to trust my instincts."

Thomas stifled a sigh. "Just this once, please trust mine." He was going to have to do something about Tess. If she kept messing around Underbridge, she'd end up hurt or worse. If the Queen got word that a human was on the track of one of the Queen's lovers, it would definitely be the "worse" option.

Tess pulled her hand from his arm and knelt on the sidewalk to tie her shoe. Thomas heard her say, "Huh. Look at that," as she reached for something tucked into a cavity, a bit of damage at the base of a light post.

Thomas saw the glimmer of fae magic too late; it was in her hand, and Tess was smiling.

"I find the oddest, most interesting things down here in Old Town. Look." She held up her hand, palm flat. A glass thimble sat there, glinting with the electric purple that was the Queen's magical signature. He knew Tess would only see the clear, greenish glass of the thimble.

Thomas's gut clenched sickly, and it was all he could do not to strike the thing from her hand. Instead he reached out slowly, taking the thimble as if he only wanted to examine it.

Those are my possessions, and I will not have them taken from me.

With a shiver, he knew what the Queen had been talking about at last. But he was no closer to understanding why they were at or near the goblin market.

The golden band on his left arm began to warm, and he saw his mistake in touching the thimble. Because he had, the Queen had been alerted to the movement of her trinket.

He had to get Tess out of here, and now. He glanced at the wristwatch on his arm, the one he wore because certain human devices entertained him, and because it helped to dress like a human if he wanted to pass as one. "You know, I was so pleased to see you again that I forgot about my evening appointment. I can't go with you for coffee. We're still on for our date Friday?"

Tess blinked, slowly rising. "Sure, Thomas. I wouldn't miss it."

He saw her uncertainty at his sudden departure, a little line of concern puckering between her brows.
Give her something else to think about
. He smiled, feeling the armband burning. Any moment, if he didn't head for the fairy mound, he'd smell the stench of his own flesh cooking. The Queen would not be ignored for long.

"Thanks. Where's your car?"

She pointed up the street. "In the parking garage, for a change. That ticket cost me an arm and a leg."

"Promise me you'll go straight there? I don't like the thought of you blundering around Underbridge without me, especially tonight."

"Don't be silly, I—"

Thomas leaned down, not really knowing he was going to kiss her until suddenly that peony mouth was beneath his, and her words had stopped, and her eyes flared wide and then fluttered closed.

Her lips burned in a way the Queen's shackle never would. A sweet fire, electric, without the thistly prickle of the bone and gold on his arm. The skin hunger surged even more powerfully than it had when Tess first touched him last week. How long had it been since he'd kissed a woman, someone not fae...someone not the Queen? Decades.

It was Tess who closed the gap between them, taking a step toward him. Her face tilted. Her mouth pressed his firmly, and when he reflexively put a hand at her back to steady them both, he felt her lips part under the pressure of his own.

She was sweet and salty together. As he tasted her, tongue sweeping slowly between her lips, his fingers slipped the thimble into a pocket of his oilskin. Her hands came up and clutched at his lapels. He cupped the side of her neck and jaw in his empty palm, his thumb on the pulse beneath her ear, where he could feel the blood throb past in a quickening tidal rhythm. Her breath hitched in a gasp and he caught her even closer.

His fae nature flared for a moment at the taste of her, but it was his human side that swamped his iron control. Her hair caught between his fingers as he kissed her ever more deeply. He had to lock his knees when her arms went up around his neck. She was lithe and lissome, swaying with him as he swayed, both of them blind to their surroundings. Portland and Underbridge and his dread for her sake all swept away. There was only the places where they touched, skin sharing warmth and the wonder of what it meant to be human again, to live and want as humans did.

It was the overpowering urge to whisper Tess's truename as his lips grazed along her jawline that finally pried him loose. He needed all the control he had, bolstered by the increasing sting of the band, to lift his head and step back. She gazed at him, speechless, eyes dazed and dark.

"I won't apologize, because I've wanted to do that since we met, but I've got to go, and I didn't want you to think I was rejecting you, when it's my own forgetfulness that's the problem."

Tess's fingertips came up and touched her mouth, and Thomas swallowed hard. "I'll see you soon. Remember to be careful."

He turned on his heel, almost running.

At the next corner, Thomas looked back over his shoulder. She was still standing under the streetlight, fingers to her lips, watching him hurry away.

He wondered how long it would be before she noticed he hadn't returned the thimble. He melted into the shadows out of sight, let the trow-form with all its strength and speed and magic surface, and raced to Forest Park.

––––––––

T
he Queen was in a rage. To a casual observer, she might have appeared coolly aloof. But Thomas knew the signs, the little tell beside her eyes where a flicker came and went in rhythm with the fist that clenched, hidden by the cobweb drape of her sleeve.

"You touched one of my things, Thomas."

"I did, my Lady."

"You moved it."

"I did, my Lady."

"You moved it, when you knew it was mine. You must have known I would discover you, bound as you are to me."

"I did, my Lady." He stood, the trow-form uppermost, legs apart, head bowed, hand out, thimble rocking in his palm with his pounding heartbeat. He had every expectation she would kill him without a single qualm or warning. "I have it here, safe."

"Why did you touch it?"

"A human had hold of it. I took it back."

The Queen hissed, and her pupils slitted to a snake's. "You have caught the thief! Did you kill him?"

"I did not catch the thief, my Lady. Merely someone who stumbled upon its hiding place by accident. I saw it happen."

The Queen stepped down from her bristly throne, her eyes on the slow-quaking thimble. Thomas flicked a glance at her countenance and saw that he would not die tonight. Now if only he could distract her from questioning too closely about Tess. Thomas could not lie to the Queen, but like any fae he wouldn't necessarily give the whole truth. It was a neat trick he had learned over the centuries, dissembling. It was what passed for courtesy and social lubrication among the fae. The fae of the Unseelie court were masters of it, though every fae Thomas had met seemed to possess the skill to some degree.

I find the oddest, most interesting things down here.

Tess's words kept echoing in his ears.

He told himself that didn't mean she was the thief, but the pit of his stomach lurched each time he visualized Tess kneeling by the lamppost, the thimble in her hand. But what if she was? How could he keep her safe from the Queen's anger? He had to find a way. It was a good thing the Queen couldn't read his thoughts, but he'd have to guard carefully against revealing his suspicions. He didn't want to examine his motives for protecting Tess too closely. He preferred to put it all down to an evening spent drinking lattes with a kind, friendly woman, assuaging his longing for human contact. Not the kisses, or the concern for her well-being that he was rapidly beginning to feel.

"Shall I put it back for you, my Lady?"

The Queen pursed her lips and lifted the thimble from Thomas's palm. "I will give it thought, but no, not at the moment. I'll keep this with me for a time." The glowing thing vanished into the folds of her skirt. She trailed a tender hand down Thomas's cheek. "You have done well." Her hand cupped his jaw, then his throat.

At her touch, his human form surged outward, pushing aside the trow in an instant. She had always preferred to look at his humanity, though she both tempted and punished him with the trow's abilities and appearance. He could feel her long, curved nails lingering where his pulse beat in the hollow of his collarbone. She held his eyes with hers and drew her nails—bird claws, owl talons, cat claws, the ragged nails of a crone—down his shirt, slicing it open from neckband to belt. She put her hand beneath the jersey fabric and used her claws around the nipple closest to his heart.