“Are you going to help me move this?” Law said. He understood Boden had spent a long time unable to interact with the world around him, but he was about to be enrolled in manhood lessons if he didn’t stop acting like a damn irritating teenager more interested in the latest gadget instead of helping out around the house.
Boden’s head came up, and he gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry. So, we’re changing the rooms around, why?”
“I need to replace the carpet in the bedroom because Kenna cannot remember to wear shoes to save her life. Until I can trust that the workers aren’t going to bring in some nasty little fae type with them, though, I can’t order it.” He needed patience. He knew this, and yet, it eluded him. He’d ordered the bedroom set Kenna wanted when they found it the other day on the Internet. Part of him wanted to kick Boden out to fend for himself, but he couldn’t. Unlike Clover’s dickhead younger brother, Chaz, who had tried to sell her to pay for a gambling debt, Boden had issues that didn’t stem from immaturity. He needed a boost in this money-dominated time. Law was willing to give the boost if the man could focus longer than the span of time between beeps and sound coming from the tablet in his hand. “Put the tablet down. The Internet will be there when you get back to it.”
Boden took the other end of the large box holding part of the cherry canopy bed. “It is an ingenious invention.” Both of them could lift it without help, but getting it up the stairs alone would have been awkward. He’d picked the house because he had a choice of bedrooms. It had two masters and two for guests. At first it had been because he’d wanted to be close in case Rune needed him, but now, he could almost see a family living in these walls, his family.
He refocused on Boden. “You can’t believe most of what you see on it.”
“I know, I mean, really, I did a search on the Celtic gods. Most of the information is parroted on the different sites, and what they do have is mostly wrong.”
“Exactly, so you can go back to reading wrong information as soon as we get the bedroom set up.”
“Wouldn’t your time be better spent teaching her how to use the dwarf weapons?” Boden walked backward up the steps, holding his end of the giant box.
“We all need to eat,” he said. “And I am not making her move this stuff.”
Boden harrumphed. “But she probably could.”
“I am sure she could.” Law shoved the box up, knocking Boden on his ass. “Focus. Right after dinner she will begin her lessons.”
“Okay.” Boden was blissfully quiet while they finished getting the bed into the room. “Can I change the wall color to the one she wanted?”
“After you help me put this thing together.” He used a knife to open the box. “Please tell me you were not always this annoying.”
The smile on Boden’s face fell. “I guess not.” He pulled out the instructions on how to put it together. “Let’s do this.”
Great! Now Boden was making him feel like an ass. Yes, he was edgy and short-tempered, but he was not going to spin it in his head again. He knew what needed to be done; it was the making himself do it giving him the difficulty. A man should not bring a woman into a fight. If he dared to leave her, he knew how it would all end. Whatever happiness he was finding would end. She would be dead, and it would be his fault for being just one more person who’d abandoned her.
If she was older and knew more about what she was, it was possible she’d be able to protect herself. But, as things stood now, even with a few lessons, she wasn’t ready for it.
“Hey,” Boden said after they had the bed put together, “I don’t mean to be annoying.”
“It will wear off,” Law said. “I can’t even imagine what it was like living in that thing around my neck for two thousand years.”
Boden shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself. This is just all new to me.”
Law smiled, or tried to smile. “At least I didn’t have to send you to kindergarten to teach you to read modern American English.”
“Being Sidhe does have its perks.” Boden put the tools back into their box. “I don’t have to stay here.”
“And let Morrigan get you? No.” He picked up packaging and put it into the bed box. “She, Kenna, loves me. I’m not sure I’d believe it if you hadn’t…” He couldn’t say, “undone the first time we’d mated.”
Boden put a hand on his shoulder. “The two of you didn’t need fate to help you. What you feel—”
“Do not say it.” Law jerked away. “Why have things been so damn quiet? A week and I haven’t felt anything from Altair.”
“Dagda,” Boden said as if it explained everything.
And he guessed it did. When your father was an allfather, it tended to be a game changer. “So you think he’s already taken care of all my issues?”
“No, but he can give you more time,” Boden said.
“And why would he want to do that?”
Boden gave him a look before shaking his head. “We are not all evil. We’re not all good either, but we are what we are. Some of us are so old we forget what it is to have control of our feelings and react like children every time we get hurt. There needs to be a balance of everything. There is a time for control and a time to let it go.”
“People die when I let it go.” Bran finished cleaning up the room. Everything was in place. They could enjoy dinner without work looming ahead. He also didn’t have to worry Kenna was going to continue to butcher her toes on splinters. “I can’t do it and still have her love me.”
“You don’t understand what justice is,” Boden said more seriously than Law had ever heard him. “Justice is about balance. One thing happens here so something else has to happen there, or everything gets knocked off-kilter. It can take centuries to correct an imbalance. You are correcting an imbalance in your life and in Kenna’s life. It’s time to let it go.”
“But—”
“No,” Boden said. “Cóir has not the power to decide the fate of men. It’s a sword created to serve the hand of justice.” Boden went over to the wall and touched his finger to it. The white wall immediately turned a soft, misty green. “It only works the way you want it to work in the hands of the just.”
“But Clover used it once to test her brother,” Law protested. Clover had nicked her brother’s arm with Cóir to confirm if he’d been lying about his motives or not. “She is not a Sidhe of justice.”
“She did, but Chaz was guilty of his crime, and Clover is a Valkyrie. She is also one of the just.” He tapped on the wall again to make it a darker green. “I would expect it to work for the people you choose to be part of your inner circle.”
“Kenna?”
“Is the companion to what you do.” Boden played with the tint of green on the wall. “Justice can be cruel and can also be blind. Mercy and forgiveness have their place in the balance of things, and you have been too long without both.”
Law did not like where this conversation was going. He didn’t go around sticking his sword into people just for the hell of it to see if they were guilty. “I—”
“You need to calm down, young grasshopper.” Boden settled on a stunning green that would make Kenna look ethereal. “How much kindness have you received in your life?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“But it is. You, too, deserve justice.” Boden went to the adjacent wall to make it the same color as the first. “As does your Kenna. It is up to you if it is served with a cruel blade or with mercy. Only you can know what is enough to balance out your suffering, her suffering.” He changed the two remaining walls. “I may be excitable and annoying, but I still bore the sword longer than you have. It is easy for you to pretend it’s the sword meriting out a death sentence, but it is you. There are things that require death, but you refuse to kill anyone who can be redeemed. You give the sword its power to kill or pass through someone.” Boden came to stand in front of him. “You’ve lived long enough to know killing is sometimes the mercy.”
“What does this have to do with Altair and Druids or Kier?” Law demanded.
“Nothing and everything,” Boden said. “This is about you understanding your power center. You crave fairness. You want good to prevail, but you also know the best of intentions can have the cruelest outcomes. Sometimes what seems cruel is a kindness. You struggle with the concept of butchering her parents, both her biological and stepfather. You worry when she sees the rage-filled Celt in battle and when the blood of her kin is dripping from your hand, she will turn from you. You worry the justice owed to you will tear away the one mercy that has been given to you. What is justice for you? For her?”
Boden left Law standing in the middle of the bedroom. He was tempted to smack Boden in the back of the head just for giving him a headache. He went over to the bed, sat down on the corner, and rubbed at his temples. There was no justice for the damned, but maybe he did deserve something for not going on a mad killing spree and saving the world from Sidhe stupidity.
Instead of dwelling on it, he made the bed, finished cleaning up the room, and then brought the box down to take it out to the trash.
“Bran?”
Kenna’s magical voice. Her voice could take him to his knees every time. He turned. “Yes?”
“Dinner is ready.”
“Okay,” he said softly. “Let me take this out, and I’ll be right there.”
“Something’s wrong.” She padded closer to him. “What is it?”
“A lot on my mind. I promise,” he said, and a smile touched his lips at saying those words to her, “I will talk to you about it.”
“Okay.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “And we will have a lesson after we eat?”
“Yes.”
He took out the trash. It surprised him when nothing attacked him. Dagda appeared to be taking the role of father seriously, but this couldn’t last forever. Dagda had to get back to his own life, whatever it was. The gods helping him produce this haven in the middle of a storm would eventually become resentful. Thunder rumbling in the distance from a passing storm reminded him of Thor. He hurried back into the house, back to Kenna.
“Where is Boden?” he asked when he got into the kitchen.
“I handed him a plate and sent him up to his room.” She laughed. “He was quite excited to be able to search the web while he ate without having you grumpy with him.”
“I’m not that bad, am I?” There was an odd, tight feeling in his chest.
“You’re fine,” she said and pulled out his chair for him. “Sit. Let’s eat. I cannot wait to learn how to use my new jewelry.”
He sat and pulled Kenna on to his lap. “Stay here while we eat.”
She twisted and tilted her head back. “What happened?”
“Just Boden having a lucid moment. This could get bloody,” he said, not giving himself time to stop and think about what he needed to say to her.
Kenna stilled. She turned back around and stared down at the plate in front of them. “My parents’ order is hurting innocent people. They need to be stopped. I don’t know Kier well enough to know if he should die or not.” She let out a breath. “Your sword would know.”
“About that, Boden said it’s me making the decisions and not it.”
“Okay, so how do you make the decision?”
“That’s just it,” he said, trying to keep a rein on his temper. “I don’t know.”
“Chill,” she said softly as she wiggled around in his lap to straddle him. “Maybe you’re just the man version of the Norse Valkyrie?”
“Don’t try to make this better,” he snapped.
Her arms folded over her chest. “So, it’s perfectly acceptable for Clover to decide who goes where after death on a whim, but it’s not acceptable for you to give her people to send to Valhalla or whatever afterlife resting place they go to?”
“Well, when you say it like that.” He clenched his fists and then dropped his head, resting his against hers. “How do I know I am making the right decisions?”
“Well, do you ever stab someone and it doesn’t work when you were sure it would?”
Damn, he did love her, if only he could dare to say it. “Yes. There have been times people didn’t die when I was sure they would, and it’s worked the other way too.”
She held his face, petting her thumbs down his scruff. “Then it’s not something you are consciously doing. Some extra-sensory part of you is making the ultimate decision. The same way it works for Clover, yes?”
“I am not a Valkyrie,” he said between his teeth.
“No, but don’t all the pantheons have people who perform basically the same function?”
“I guess,” he said. He suddenly felt tired as though he hadn’t slept in a year. “My sword was the one supposed to be making the decisions.”
“I know, but you are not human. You are not Druid. You are Sidhe. You are part of your pantheon. You cannot perform your function if you’re going to worry you’re always doing it wrong.” She stretched up and pressed a tender kiss to his mouth. “Maybe we are just a bunch of supercharged humans with bad attitudes, but we don’t have to be the way the others are. We don’t need to be petty faeries or whatever. You dedicated your life to Cóir and what it stands for. Maybe not of your choosing, but you sucked it up, and you did it anyway. I cannot believe you would allow yourself to kill an innocent person, no matter what you personally thought of them.”
He halfheartedly curled his lip at her. “I want to be freaked out about this.”
“Too bad,” she said. “I am not going to let you question your entire being because you’ve suddenly found out the truth. Trust me, it’s not a very fun place to go.” She turned, picked up a slice of cucumber, and fed it to him. “It was easier for you to trust the sword because you understand your own fallibility.”
“Men die under my sword,” he said. “In battle it’s not as critical because my opponent understands the risk when trying to kill someone else, but it might be for the people I cut into to prove their innocence or guilt. Kenna, how do I know it wasn’t what I wanted deep down?”
“Because deep down you want to see justice served.” She fed him a bit of steamed rice. “Think of the people you have not cut into. Kier for instance. Why have you never cut into a man who totally altered your entire life?”
He was the one to feed her this time. “I don’t know. He didn’t make me immortal, and I guess, technically, he hadn’t cursed me either. It was a cover for what Druantia did. The worst he’s guilty of when it comes to me is lying, and I don’t count that as a killing offense.”
“There you go,” she said. “I am not trying to make light of the people who have died, or what being the person who carries out the execution does to you. Because I’m not. You used Cóir on those men at the diner because you knew it would drive Altair out of them without killing them. You’re not evil. You’re not one of those bad Sidhe. You’re like Clover. You’re like Rune. Please understand. This world is a scary place, and people like you make it a little safer.” She set the fork down and leaned up, putting her face right in his. “You chose the name Lawson. Why?”
He didn’t want her to make sense. He didn’t want anyone making this better for him, but damned if she wasn’t doing it anyway. “It seemed fitting for my function in this life, and humans like people to have more than one name. It just fit, I guess.”
She gave a crooked smile. “And the faeries threatened their kids with you for good behavior. Not in general, nor as a horrible monster who indiscriminately kills anyone in his path, but to inspire good behavior.”
He sighed. “I’d like to think my reputation might have saved a few of them.”
“It probably did.” She held his face between her hands. “Someone has to stop the bad people from hurting the good ones. It doesn’t matter if it’s the sword or it’s you. Justice is being done when you wield the sword.”
“How do you know?” he demanded. The need for someone else to make this pain in his chest stop, to hold him and let him know it was all going to be all right, became overwhelming. His arms circled around her, and he held on as tight to her as he dared. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “How do you know?”
She cradled his head against her chest. “Because I feel you.” She kissed the top of his head. “I get impressions of people. You want to do the right thing, and you’re just stubborn enough to make yourself do it no matter what.”
He abruptly let her go and set her on the floor.
“Bran?”
He shook his head as he got up from the table.
“What the hell?”
He stopped halfway across the floor. “Kenna, I don’t deserve—”
“You don’t deserve what?” she snapped at him. “Fine, we tried it the nice way. But since you are stubborn and like to give me emotional whiplash, how many babies have you killed?”
He snarled as he rounded on her. “What kind of fucking question is that?”
She planted a fist on her hip. “A good one. Now answer.”
“None,” he snapped.
“Children under six?”
“Kenna—”
“Damn you, answer!”
“None.”
“Under twelve?”
“None. For fuck’s sake, Kenna, I do not murder children!”
“Oh, well, that’s not very evil of you,” she said in a calm, even tone. Her head tilted to the side. “How many people have you gone after knowing they were innocent simply because you didn’t like them?”
“You’re pushing your luck, woman!”
“Of course I am.” She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him. “How many humans have you killed?”
He squirmed at the question. “I don’t have an exact number, but I only kill them when caught in the act or if there is a direct threat to someone I am protecting. There was the one man my sword passed right through when I was protecting Clover who I thought should have died, but, generally speaking, I let human authorities handle the humans.”
“Listen to yourself,” she whispered and held him a little tighter. “So you’re more likely to let a guilty man go free than kill an innocent one?”
“I just…I was sure my accuracy was one hundred percent. I don’t know now.” There wasn’t anything more he wanted than to let her hold him, but he was no longer sure he deserved her.
“Don’t you dare,” she snapped at him when he tried to extract himself. “Trust your own guilt reflex. Is your mojo or mana or whatever we call our powers going to do something to let you suffer for forever if you do the wrong thing?” She rested the flat of her chin on his chest to look up at him. “Deep down, would you be able to live with yourself if you killed an innocent person?”
“No,” he said honestly. “Kenna—”
“Shh,” she murmured. “I know this is hard for you, but I cannot help you if you keep pushing me away by trying to be a scary jerk.”
The muscle under his eye twitched. “Try?”
“Pu-lease! Do you honestly think you’re going to scare me at this point?”
“Good point.” He scooped her up and sat her down at the table. “Can you eat, or did I ruin it for you?”
“I am not the one who is upset this time.” She grabbed a fork. “Eat up. Meltdowns do not get you out of teaching me how to reset my passwords or how to protect you.”