37. Chapter 37

Chapter thirty-seven

T his is bliss. I don’t think I have ever been so happy. It is completely irrational, so I guess I’m irrational now. And I’m completely fine with that.

It’s nighttime. The motorway is still roaring in the distance. It’s winter. My life is in danger. But Mabon is sitting on my lap and we have a roaring campfire. Mabon wasn’t happy about the idea of a fire, and he walked around all the nearby trees and apologised to them before allowing me to light it. But he is enjoying the warmth now. And he devoured the baked beans that I heated up.

The excuse for sitting on my lap is that it is purely for warmth. And so his princely ass doesn’t need to sit on a log. That’s just fine by me. Any excuse to hold him works in my favour too.

Mabon is in my arms and the fire is charming, but our surroundings are less than illustrious. There is litter strewn around our camping spot, and it’s not the prettiest place. But it is far better than a Resistance prison cell.

So, taking everything into consideration, I don’t believe I’m being completely crazy for feeling happy.

My musing, rambling thoughts are scattered by a fox trotting up to our fire. The light glows in its red eyes.

Mabon shrieks, pulls on his hood as if trying to hide in it.

“No! No! No! Shoo! Shoo!”

I’m so confused. I thought he liked foxes? He was talking about mice with one the other day? Is this fox rabid and about to attack us? Do I need to find a weapon?

I blink as the fox turns into a naked fey man with long red hair. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. I’m never ever going to get used to the sight of people shapeshifting, it is far too uncanny.

Wait a minute, is that Mabon’s brother, Tristan? Oh thank the lord, it is. That’s much better news than a random fey turning up. Or even worse, one of Mabon’s enemies.

“No!” wails Mabon. “No helping! I will not be beholden to you!”

Okay. I guess Mabon is not happy to see his brother. For reasons that are baffling to me. Surely receiving help is good? Unless, for the fey with their culture of deals and complex rules, it is more trouble than it is worth. It’s a shame Mabon’s brother can’t help us, but I trust Mabon has good reasons to refuse.

Tristan holds up his hands in surrender. “As you wish.”

Mabon squirms in my lap and pulls his hood down even lower. It must be covering his eyes by now.

“Why are you here?” he whines in clear displeasure.

Tristan settles comfortably on a log, with as little shyness about his nudity as Mabon has. I carefully avert my eyes. He came here as a fox, so it’s not as if he could have carried clothes with him. And we don’t have any spares, so I’m just going to have to deal with the nudity.

“Jamie made me look for you. He is all agitated about you being gone.”

Anger spikes within me, sudden and insistent. “It’s called being worried about someone you care about.”

Tristan’s ruby red eyes rake over me. “Humans. So strange, yet so endearing.”

“Well, I’m fine,” interrupts Mabon. “I’m camping with my pet and exploring the human world.”

As if on cue, a large lorry rumbles past on the motorway. Highlighting that this is not exactly a beauty spot.

“Your new secretary said you were off on a flowermoon.”

Mabon sniffs. “Yes. Precisely. You should have listened to Osian.”

Tristan says nothing. Then he sighs wearily. “Brother dearest, you have always been a terrible liar. You are probably the reason there are stories about the fey being unable to lie.”

Mabon straightens up in my lap. A gasp of outrage spills from him. He is acting as if his brother’s words are a great insult, and perhaps they are. It would not surprise me if the fey considered the ability to weave falsehoods an admirable skill.

Tristan holds up his hands again. “I will not pry. Your business is your own.”

A tense silence falls. The fire crackles. Neither brother moves. Darkness appears to creep closer to our camp.

Then Mabon huffs, sags back against me and crosses his arms over his chest.

Tristan grins and pokes the fire with a stick.

It seems as if a truce has been agreed.

Tristan looks at ease as he sits by our fire, and I can sense no malice in him. I’m pretty sure that his assertion that he is not going to pry is genuine. He is clearly intelligent enough to know that something is up, but he respects his brother enough to accept that Mabon would tell him if he needed to.

I like Mabon’s red-haired brother. It’s good that Mabon has some family that’s decent. He deserves no less.

“Dyfri is on the warpath. He is convinced that Carian has done something to you,” Tristan says conversationally.

I expect Mabon to sniff haughtily and say something derisive about the duke, but Mabon says nothing. And I realise that is a very wise move when you are terrible at lying. Carian has nothing to do with this. This is entirely my doing. But the duke is still a serious threat and Mabon can’t mock that without his perceptive brother catching on.

“You mustn’t tell anyone anything,” says Mabon. “But you may hint to Jamie and Dyfri that I am safe and well.”

Tristan tilts his head to the side. As if he is giving the matter serious consideration and weighing up the pros and cons.

“Little brother,” warns Mabon in a voice that scares the shit out of some primal prey part of my mind.

Oh my. I really do forget what Mabon is most of the time. It is startling to be reminded that he is far more than my beautiful, charismatic, and enchanting lover.

The red-haired fey sighs heavily. “As you wish.”

Then a wicked gleam lights up his eyes as he abruptly turns his attention to me. “May I play with your handsome pet?”

The fire blazes. It swells to double its size. The flame tips turn purple. My heart races frantically in alarm.

“Absolutely not!” snaps Mabon.

Tristan’s eyes are huge. Almost comically so. Oh my. The fire was Mabon? That power was his? I truly have forgotten that he is a powerful being from another realm. He has become simply Mabon to me. No more and no less. Special because of who he is as a person, not because he is fey.

A slow, devilish grin spreads across Tristan’s face. I have never seen a look like it. It is like pure delight, but in a somewhat sinister form. Genuine elation mixed with avarice and envy.

“Oh, Mabon!” he exclaims in a tone of great joy.

Mabon turns abruptly in my lap so his profile is to his brother. His arms are still around his chest and now he hunches over.

“Go away!” he mutters grumpily.

Tristan’s grin gets even larger as he stands. His eyes flash red in the firelight, and then suddenly he is a fox again. He lets out a jubilant yap and then disappears into the night.

I blink and stare into the gloom. I guess Mabon’s ‘go away’ was not rhetorical. But I am still surprised that Tristan obeyed it.

And now I don’t know what to think. I have so many questions. Where the hell do I begin?

“How did he find you?” I ask.

Because that seems like an important one. Because if he can, who else is able to?

“We are brothers,” says Mabon, as if that explains everything. And perhaps it does. He doesn’t seem worried about it and I’m sure he’d tell me if there was a problem and we needed to pack up camp.

He may not be worried, but he is all curled up. Small and sad. I don’t think it is from his brother’s teasing because I’m pretty sure Mabon can give as good as he gets. No, I think other things are on his mind. Tristan’s appearance has reminded Mabon of his real life and everything he is returning to.

I hate it. I hate this reminder of what I am taking him back to. I took him out of the frying pan and into the fire, and now I’m taking him out of the fire and back to the frying pan.

It’s a mess.

My fingers find his chin. I tilt his head up and kiss him. We are running from one problem to another. But here and now, in this strange in-between, it is calm and relatively safe, and he should get to enjoy it. Because right now he is free.

I’m going to kiss him until he forgets about everything else. And yes, I’m distracting myself too, but when it feels this good, who cares?

I certainly don’t.