Chapter 14

It shouldn't have surprised me that Raven turned out to be one of those people who looked beautiful even when he'd cried his heart out into a rough T-shirt. Actually, he'd gotten as puffy-faced and creased around the edges and disheveled as anyone else, objectively. Maybe it said more about me than it did about him that I could've worshipped his swollen lips and reddened eyes and the damp, pink tip of his nose until the end of time.

Yeah, it definitely said more than a few things about me.

But after he'd peeled himself off my chest, and I'd kissed him for a while and mumbled the kind of nonsense people say at times like that, I reluctantly had to let him go. As I'd known I would at the beginning of that stolen hour of petting him and kissing his hair and taking comfort in the fact that no one could hurt him while I was there.

Knowing didn't make my chest ache any less, or quiet the growing storm of panic that'd started to echo around in my skull.

"Stay with me," I said, because I couldn't help it, as he started to fuss with his hair, pulling down the sun visor to peer into the little mirror there. "We'll deal with him together. You can't go back to him."

I might lose my mind if you go back to him .

He glanced at me, and it took him a moment to tear his eyes away. I knew I had to be looking grim: glowing eyes, pale around the mouth, clawed fists clenched, barely restraining myself from a roar that would've shaken the strip mall's foundations.

"I already have gone back to him from you, twice." He twisted his hair together and fastened it, and then passed his hands over his face, muttering something I didn't catch but that made my ears feel like someone had poked them with a feather. When he took them away, the traces of his tears had vanished. "And I need to do it again. If I don't fulfill my obligations, my magic will wither, and there won't be anything left of me for you to keep."

"I don't give a fuck about your magic. You think that's why I want you?"

Raven flicked the visor back into place and turned on me, eyes flashing. "My magic is me. You of all people should understand."

That hurt, unexpectedly deeply. "You wouldn't have any use for me without my alpha magic, is that what you mean? If I were a human guy?"

"It's a moot point, because I never would have sought you out if you were a human guy. No, don't look like that. You also, ah." A dark flush had crept up from his neck and stained his cheeks, and he avoided my eyes as he said, "There's more to you than that. If you lost your alpha-ness, you'd be as—what you are. Even though you'd probably miss it terribly, and that's what I meant when I said you'd understand. But if I lost my magic, that's the entire fabric of my being. There's nothing else. I'm not partly human, the way you are. I mean it, Tony. I'd die."

Sincerity rang in his voice. For once, Raven wasn't feeding me fae half-truths. I nodded. "Then I won't ask you to stay, but…be careful." Don't ask, don't ask…I couldn't stop myself from fishing for that hinted-at compliment, pathetic as it was. "And what am I? With or without my alpha magic?"

Raven reached out, brushing his fingers down my cheek, the saddest smile I'd ever seen teasing at one corner of his mouth. Whatever he'd done to his face, it hadn't fixed him completely, and his upper lip still had that soft, trembly look to it. His mouth had tasted like salt and misery when I kissed him a few minutes ago. It felt like years ago already.

"You're an exception," he said, and whisked his hand away, opening the passenger door and slipping out before I could even process the words, let alone respond to them.

He shut the door behind him and strode across the parking lot toward his own car, hand in his pocket and already beeping it open.

My muscles and joints locked into painful rigidity with the effort of staying put.

But he was right. He had to go back for now, and killing Cunningham would be…I watched Raven get into his car, back out of the spot, and pull away. He didn't turn his head to look at me, but his hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

A last resort, I decided. Killing Cunningham, with the associated risks of being killed for it by his guards or his friends, or of going to a supernatural supermax prison for the rest of my life, would be my last resort. Raven would be free. He could use his magic to scoot back to his own world, either via Endless Sky or some other portal, and any guilt he felt over my fate wouldn't last forever.

Not that I wanted any of that to happen. But I'd committed, now. Made a choice. And I'd see it through no matter what that entailed. My glimpse of Raven's face as he drove away fighting back a new wave of tears made that a certainty.

I waited a few minutes, until there was no chance at all of my catching up to him on the drive back from Summerlin, before I started the car and headed home.

***

Sometimes, when I had a seemingly insoluble problem, I had to exhaust myself until I couldn't think anymore. With my conscious mind out of commission—and let's not kid ourselves, it wasn't all that useful most days anyway—my unconscious could range far and wide, ideally coming back with a solution I'd never have come up with if I'd wracked my brain about it.

Two days of working doubles at Lucky or Knot certainly exhausted me, keeping me dancing and gyrating and glittering from noon to four AM on Tuesday and Wednesday. But when I woke up around lunchtime on Thursday, stomach growling and glitter still visibly clinging to my eyebrows when I staggered into the bathroom and peered in the mirror, no bright ideas had appeared.

In the shower, I leaned down with my arm braced against the wall, staring at the water swirling past my toes, and took a few deep breaths.

We had time to come up with something. Raven hadn't told me exactly how long he'd been with Cunningham, but if he'd only started seriously hunting for a way out recently, it couldn't be more than a few months, I didn't think. A long time when you were in a situation like his, but in the grand scheme of things—particularly for a magical being with an indeterminate lifespan—not something to panic over. A few more weeks while we worked something out would be fine, even a couple of months, although every second of Raven in Cunningham's hands and bed and control would be a hell of Raven's misery and my fury and terror.

But he'd be fine. I had to believe it. I'd hire a shaman to help, maybe. Find a rogue fairy who didn't mind breaking his people's stupid rules. Figure out a way to kill Cunningham without getting caught, now there was an idea.

So I got out of the shower slightly more hopeful, and much less glittery, than I'd been in days.

That mood lasted until I'd tossed my towel and padded into my bedroom. The phone I'd left at the foot of the bed had lit up like a Christmas tree.

I grabbed it immediately, heart lurching—it could be Raven.

It wasn't. I had two messages from Sean and one from Louie.

I opened Sean's first.

Hey . So I just got to work and heard about it. Boss had a fit last night, threw a chair through a penthouse window and barely missed a tourist down on the ground. He's moving out of the hotel and into his house in the hills

The second read: I'm out of anything for my break so hit me up

That muffled roar had to be my own blood pounding in my ears, and the faint creak…shit, I'd nearly broken my phone. I loosened my grip with an effort, forced my claws to retract, blinked against the gold haze of the alpha glow. The few droplets of water left on my skin felt chilled, congealed, like chunks of ice.

Cunningham knew. That had to be it.

Raven had been gone too long, or he hadn't managed to magic away all the traces of my scent or his tears or his orgasm. Cunningham had gotten a clue. And somehow, last night, he'd become certain.

What had he done to him? In that plush, luxurious penthouse, full of chairs heavy enough to go through windows that were probably unbreakable without an alpha's strength.

An alpha's strength, up against a small fairy who couldn't use his magic to defend himself.

I'd done that to him, as surely as if it'd been my alpha strength he couldn't fight. Tracked him down, forced him to talk to me, touched him, kissed him, fucked him with my fingers, made him cry, put him in danger.

My fault. My responsibility.

The blood boiled in my veins, the pressure unbearable, and I roared with it, raged, black and crimson and gold flashes like lightning, and came back to myself at last, shaking and running with sweat, one clawed and orange-furred arm embedded in the wall by the bathroom door. Bits of drywall peppered the floor like snow. The silence rang around me. My rasping breaths punctuated it.

Fuck. Fuck me. I dropped my forehead against what was left of my bedroom wall and forced it down, all of it, the fur retreating, the claws pulling in, tugging my arm from the wreckage, my vision starting to go back to normal.

The sound of my own hollow laugh made me jump.

Yeah. An exception, Raven had called me, and I'd lived on those two words ever since, treasuring them up. Some fucking exception. If I'd been in a penthouse, I'd have thrown a chair through a window just now myself. Violent, and uncontrolled, and selfish. Too focused on what I wanted and what I arrogantly thought I could do for Raven to understand how much of a risk he'd taken every time he saw me.

No, he was right to hate alphas. Including me. Especially me.

He might be hurt right now, bruised and broken, crying again—although I suspected he'd die before he cried in front of Cunningham, and it broke my heart all over again, leaving me breathless and twisted up inside, to know that he'd trusted me so much and then I'd let him down.

My fault.

And any time that I'd imagined I had to come up with a plan had run out. If Cunningham meant to move to his house, which I'd be willing to bet more resembled a fortified compound, it was because he wanted to lock Raven up somewhere he couldn't come and go freely, the way he could at Audacity. What would he do to him there? What was he doing to him right now ?

I swallowed down bile and swayed against a wave of dizziness.

Cunningham wouldn't be alone, he wouldn't be vulnerable, and yes, maybe I could fight my way through his security with their magic and claws and guns and get to him and tear him to bloody shreds…but maybe not.

And if I got myself killed in the attempt, Raven would truly be alone.

Even a stupid, selfish, arrogant alpha had to be better than no one at all.

The urge to call Raven, to run out the door naked, to do any number of ill-considered things, rose up strong.

I resisted. From this moment on, I had to think everything through carefully, plan it like a game of chess.

Fuck, talk about playing to my own weaknesses. My favorite board game had always been Monopoly, and I usually lost.

So I got dressed, and I texted Sean, and I told the club scheduler that I wouldn't be in later, and I glanced at Louie's message, which told me to call him or he'd call my parents. Christ, hadn't had one like that since high school. What the hell kind of regressed mess had I made of my life? Raven had been right not to take me seriously.

Of course, Raven had also been right that I couldn't help him, that I'd put him in danger.

Keeping my cool while I drove the ten minutes to the dispensary, and then the ten further minutes to the parking lot, felt like a monumental effort, every cell in my body screaming at me to go faster and claw out and fucking do something as I braked and gripped the steering wheel and gritted my teeth and nearly crawled out of my own skin with impatience.

Right across the Strip from the parking garage, I hit traffic and stopped dead. Everyone honked and yelled, and in my rearview, a cop car edged its way through the jam and toward whatever bullshit had gone down.

The steering wheel let out an ominous creaking crack.

In desperation for something to do, I called Louie back, since I had to get that over with anyway.

"Tony, I'm glad you—"

I didn't have the patience for whatever smarmy, sneering crap he had in mind. Louie liked to lean into the loan shark persona, indeterminate accent and gold pinky ring and all. Motherfucker.

"Get to the point," I snapped. "I've got some of your money, not all of it, I'll get you a payment…" Shit, when would I have the time? Later today, I'd take him the whole pile of cash I'd made in two busy, successful days at work, because I wouldn't need it for rent, right? I'd be killing Cunningham and going to doublesupe, what the guys I knew who'd done time always called the supernatural maximum security facilities. "…tonight, I have cash for you. My parents are broke so don't bother, I already told you that. Also, my mom might eat you. Anything else to add?"

A short pause followed, kind of like the moment of quiet before the tea kettle whistled.

"The fuck did you just say to me?" Louie demanded. "You threatening me? With your mom ?"

"You threatened to call my mom, so I'm not sure—yeah, fuck you too! No, that wasn't for you. I'm in traffic. Fuck you too, though, Louie, now you fucking mention it."

A low chuckle and some static crackled out of my phone, where I had it precariously leaned against the dash with the speaker on. My car was too old for Bluetooth, or I'd have sold it to pay Louie a long time ago.

"You'll regret that," he said, totally failing to make me give a shit. Raven would be able, and probably willing, to take care of Louie and get him off my parents' back while I was in prison, I figured. Not that they'd care about their house once I went away. "I fucking own you, Tony."

"Yeah, yeah," I growled absently, because the cop had made his way through at last and it looked like we were all merging right, and if I didn't manage to get some forward motion of some kind—Raven crying, Raven bruised, Raven cursing my name, fuck—I was going to vibrate out of the car and into another dimension. "Fucking move! Not you. Louie, dude, if you call my mom before I get to you with the cash, I won't bring it. So up to you. Later."

And I poked the end button hard enough that the phone went flying down into the passenger footwell.

A minute later I finally screeched across Las Vegas Boulevard cursing and gesticulating, the way the gods intended, made it to the garage, and parked with a jolt.

Fuck Louie, Jesus. What a son of a bitch. It wasn't like I hadn't been paying him off in increments. I fucking own you . Right, as if that'd stand up in court outside of some Shakespeare silliness. Maybe a fae court.

Maybe a…fuck me sideways.

For a second I simply sat there, staring at the filthy marks on the concrete wall in front of my car, frozen into stillness.

Louie thought he owned me. Which meant he'd probably be willing to sell me.

By shitty fairy law, Cunningham did own Raven, in exchange for that coin.

The coin that wanted symmetry, that would only leave Raven and free him from Cunningham if he could somehow flip the deal he'd made on its head.

Paying me for the same thing he'd been paid for hadn't worked. But what about using the coin an alpha had used to buy him…to buy his very own alpha in turn? Louie had one for sale. Not the highest quality, maybe, and preowned always came with risks. But definitely available, and beggars couldn't be choosers.

Anyway, I'd do the begging for both of us.

Please, fuck, let him be all right .

I got out of the car, slammed the door behind me, and set out to put my plan into motion.