Two years. Two bloody years since Mal had last crossed this threshold, yet now he was lounging in the doorway, as if he dropped by for a visit every day. Maybe in Mal’s eyes, his last visit was only yesterday, since he was still living under the stars of Faerie, where time passed at a different rate. But Alun had felt Mal’s absence—indeed, the absence of both his brothers—every minute of every Outer World day, making his exile all the harder to bear.
Alun glared, derailing the prickle in his eyes. He gathered up half a dozen issues of Psychology Today to hide the trembling in his traitorous hands, and whacked their edges on his desk until they lined up. “What do you want?”
Chuckling, Mal kicked the door closed with one booted foot. He placed a hand on his chest and bowed. “A gracious good afternoon to you too, brother.” He sauntered forward at perfect ease, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his leather pants, as if Alun’s office were his own personal domain. “You’re looking slightly better these days. Brow ridges less pronounced. Jaw not as Neanderthal. Cheekbones still capable of slicing a tough steak, but promising, brother, promising.”
“I can’t say the same for you. What in the hells is that on your face?” No high fae sported facial hair, yet stubble shadowed Mal’s jaw and chin.
Mal snagged Alun’s framed diploma off the wall and angled it to preen at his reflection in the glass. “Like it? They call it scruff.”
“You’re using glamourie to emulate poor grooming?”
“Men find it sexy, and it’s such a small illusion. Simple to maintain, expends no power to speak of. I recommend it.” He replaced the diploma, then flicked the corner so it hung a fraction off true, laughing at Alun’s resultant growl. “You’re so easy to wind up, Alun. Especially when you’re horny.”
The back of his neck heated with the memory of his reaction to David. “I’m not horny.”
“Don’t try that on with me, brother. The lad at the front desk? Exactly the type to make you play the fool.”
“You’re just as likely as I am.”
“Nah. The soft, pretty ones were never my taste. I like mine with a bit of steel. An edge.”
“Well he’s not my type either. He’s human.”
“So?”
“He doesn’t belong here. Humans aren’t equipped to face our world. They have enough trouble interacting with normal supes—”
Mal snorted and picked up the geode paperweight from the corner of Alun’s desk, tossing it from hand to hand. “Assuming any supe is ever normal.”
“Precisely my point. All my clients, with the exception of the PTSD group, are disturbed supes. Even if the councils tolerated the threat of human exposure, the danger to his psyche is too great.” Alun stood up and snatched the geode out of the air mid-toss. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“I’d stop by more often if you acted happier to see me.”
And I’d act happier if you could bear to look at me. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Maybe I just want to catch up.” Running a negligent finger down the stack of magazines, Mal shoved them into a sloppy fan over the polished oak desk. “Seen any good movies?”
“No.”
“Any new restaurants?”
“No.”
Abandoning any pretense of nonchalance, Mal actually met Alun’s gaze. “Goddess save us all, what do you do with your time?”
“I read. I listen to music.”
“What do you read?”
“Psychology texts. Magazines. I write self-help articles for the supe community.”
“There’s a bloody irony for you,” Mal muttered. “Who do you kick back with? Friends? Acquaintances?”
Alun raised a heavy eyebrow. “Brothers?”
Mal had the grace to flush. “A point. Sorry. I plan to do better. But what about supes? Do you socialize with any of the families you treat?”
“That would be unprofessional.”
“But it might be fun.”
Could his brother truly be that oblivious? He was the Queen’s Enforcer—did he restrict his knowledge of the supe races to what he required to track and kill them?
“I dare you to play poker with a clutch of dragon shifters. None will ever place a bet. They’re too busy hoarding their chips.” Still holding the geode, Alun ignored Mal’s wicked chuckle and walked to the wall to straighten the off-kilter diploma. “The top flight of the vampire council invited me out once. For drinks. It struck me as ill-advised.”
“All right. I can see how that might turn . . . unfortunate. What about sex? When was the last time you had a date?”
Alun snorted. “The last man who agreed to sleep with me—whom I paid to agree—couldn’t bear to look me in the face.”
“He doesn’t have to look at you for you to shag him.”
Goddess preserve me. “Mal. I don’t have time for guessing games. Why are you really here?”
“Have you seen Gareth?”
Alun flinched, his fist clenching around the geode, and its rough surface bit into his palm. He hadn’t seen Mal for two years, but his youngest brother hadn’t spoken to him since the day of his exile. The day of Owain’s death. He forced his hand to relax and set the stone in its rightful spot on the desk. “Of course not. He’s still in LA, partying like a rock star.” He restacked the magazines and moved them out of Mal’s reach.
“He is a rock star. But I expected him to . . .” Mal took a deep breath, his shoulders rising under his leather jacket. “He’s in Portland. His band has a gig at the Moda Center.”
So close. Anger warred with hurt in Alun’s chest. He sat down heavily. “I didn’t know.”
“Here.” Mal removed a CD case from the pocket of his jacket and tossed it on Alun’s desk.
“What is it?”
“Gareth’s latest solo work.”
Anger won, burning like basilisk venom in his belly. Alun shoved the CD away with extra force. “Keep it.”
“Gwydion’s bollocks, man.” Mal flicked the case with his finger, sending it skating across the desk’s slick surface. Alun slapped his hand on it before it could fall into his lap. “You’re both over twenty-five hundred years old. When will you grow up?”
“He’s the one who turned away.”
“But you’re the one who let him.” Mal planted his fists on the desk. “Aren’t you over this shite by now? Stop wallowing and break the damn curse.”
“I can’t.”
“Have you ever tried? There must be a way. The end is always contained in the beginning.”
Alun stared his brother down until Mal’s gaze shifted to the corner, away from his unlovely features, as it always did. “I walked into the Stone Circle as a lord of the Sidhe. I walked out as something from a demon’s nightmares. Draw your own conclusions.”
Mal’s dark brows snapped together over the Roman nose so like what Alun’s once had been. “The achubyddion cursed you? Not bloody likely. They were healers. Pacifists.”
“Even the most peaceable will call down vengeance when pressed.”
“That wasn’t your fault. The Unseelie hordes had been tracking them for months.”
“They’d never have found the camp if I’d been more careful. If I’d—”
If he hadn’t been so thrice-damned arrogant to believe Owain willing to forsake his home and family for an oh-so-exalted position as Alun’s consort.
His jaw tightened and he shut his eyes, the memory of that night crashing through him as it did every single day, every single night. The fire in his chest and belly, as if he were being gutted by his own sword. The blinding, knee-buckling pain as the bones in his face contorted and reformed. And Owain—his poor broken body abandoned on the altar stone under the lowering clouds while the carrion birds circled overhead.
How could he ever atone for that? He deserved every moment of his curse, and more.
“Alun.” Mal’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “Don’t. I know you loved him. You wouldn’t have done anything to hurt him. His death was not your fault.”
Alun’s throat constricted, throttling his voice. He swallowed once, twice, and spun his chair toward the window, the reflection of his harsh, misshapen features an easier penance than any potential pity on Mal’s face. “This is what I am now. What I will likely be until the End of Days. It’s time to accept that the curse is permanent.”
“Have you accepted it? Truly? Because—”
“Yes. I have.” He swiveled back to face Mal, and his brother’s gaze shifted once again to the bookshelves. Despite his swagger, his words of support, his brother was still Seelie fae, the tenets of the Seelie Court branded on his soul. Alun’s curse—its cause and its result—violated nearly all of those. No wonder his brothers avoided him. “It’s only right. I was responsible for the slaughter of the last enclave of an entire race.”
With a muttered oath, Mal sat on the love seat. “About that. We found another enclave.”
Alun’s breath stilled in his chest. “Of achubyddion? You mean they’re not extinct? Did you— Were they—”
“I’m sorry. We were too late. Someone got there first.”
Eyes burning, Alun let his head fall against the high back of his chair. “How many?” he rasped.
“Two bodies. Completely drained. No soul, not a spark of life force left to regenerate.”
“An Unseelie attack?”
“Maybe not.”
“Oak and bloody thorn, you really think someone from the Seelie Court would do this?”
Mal shrugged. “No hard evidence one way or the other. However, there were signs that the colony may have had more members.”
“Some escaped?”
“Or were captured. For—” Mal swallowed hard, his expression darkening. “For later use.”
Alun squeezed the back of his neck. “Shite.”
“They had records. Computers. Those were gone, but we don’t know whether they were taken by the survivors or the attackers.”
“So the hunt may still be on?”
“If word of an enclave of achubyddion gets out? It’ll be worse than the last battle of the Oak Wars.”
“The Queen—”
“You know what she’s like. If it doesn’t happen in Faerie, then it doesn’t exist as far as she’s concerned, and this attack happened in Vermont.”
“Shite.” Alun moved from his desk to the wingback chair across the coffee table from Mal. “I— Thank you. For telling me.”
“I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else.”
“I appreciate it.”
“There’s more. There’s rumor of a power play by the Daoine Sidhe.”
“Again?”
“Fair warning—it might amount to something this time, since you’re not around to counter them.”
“I haven’t been around for two centuries.”
“Two centuries in the Outer World. Less than a year in Faerie, depending on who’s counting. At first I thought it wasn’t anything, but I’ve heard talk from more than one source, and both of them mentioned the Midsummer Revels. Something’s going down then, but I don’t know—”
A knock sounded at the door, and David entered without invitation, carrying a tray with two steaming cups.
Alun scowled, fisting his hands on his thighs. “I didn’t ask for refreshments.” Although he counted it a blessing that the dark aroma of coffee was masking the maddening scent of David’s skin.
David grinned, bright as a sunny meadow. “No, but your brother did, and he doesn’t look the sort to be rude enough to indulge when you don’t.”
Mal rose and took the cup David offered him, standing a little too close, damn him. “Don’t know me very well, do you, boyo? Want to change that?”
“Mal.” Alun let his voice dip in warning. His brother grinned wryly, but he retreated to the love seat, cradling the mug in his hands.
David flipped a woven coaster in eye-watering yellow onto the low table and set an oversized orange cup on it. Alun’s mouth watered at the smell of the coffee. Or maybe it was the proximity of David’s arse.
Oak and bloody thorn, he needed this human out of his sight, out of his office, out of his life. The fae were notoriously susceptible to human charm, and it never ended well—not for the fae, but especially not for the human.
“I didn’t tell you how I like my coffee.”
David cast him a sidelong glance from under his lashes. “Black. No sugar.”
Mal laughed and raised his cup in a toast. “You are so very right, boy bach. Gods forbid he should indulge himself, even in something as trivial as sugar and cream.”
Alun’s gut tightened, and he clenched his teeth, waiting for the inevitable smile and melting body language that his brother never failed to invoke in fae, supe, or human, but it didn’t come. Instead, David turned his back on Mal and faced Alun, swinging the tray at his side.
“Your first appointment should be here in twenty, Doctor. I’ll buzz you when he arrives.”
“I told you—”
David exhaled on a barely perceptible sigh. “Yes, you told me to go. But I doubt you could run the office by yourself, so why not let me do my job? I’ll be at my desk.”
He left, Mal ogling his backside until the door snicked closed.
When Mal turned around, he burst out laughing. “Goddess bless, Alun. Upgrade your bleeding wardrobe. Hair shirts went out of fashion in the Middle Ages.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You and your self-immolation fetish. Why are you trying to get rid of this man? He’s cute, past the age of consent, and seems competent.”
Alun’s scowl would have sent anyone but his brother scurrying for the nearest exit. “He’s human.”
“So you said. Get that stick out of your arse about consorting with humans or you’ll never get laid.”
“Setting aside the ethics of fae/human pairings—”
“Nobody cares about the ethics except you, brother.”
Alun lowered his heavy eyebrows and glared at Mal. “Ask the families of the humans whom randy Sidhe lords co-opted for their pleasure. Ask those humans, after they were expelled from Faerie when those same lords grew bored, only to find a year had passed for every day, the world changed, and them with no place in it. Ask Gareth.”
Mal fidgeted with his cup, pivoting it in precise quarter-circles on a lopsided knot in the burled oak coffee table. “I’m not advocating that whole changeling shite, or old-school flitting, or spiriting unwilling humans from their beds and into Faerie. I’m talking a couple of drinks at a bar and some consensual Outer World good times. Nothing wrong with that.”
“What of the unfair advantage? No human can resist fae glamourie. None could ever say no.”
Mal grinned. “Why would they want to?”
“Are you saying you’d be happy with love based on compulsion?”
“Who’s talking about love?” He leaned back, cradling his cup in his hands. “Attraction of any sort is its own compulsion anyway. I don’t see the problem.”
“The problem is that they deserve a choice. A true choice. If you’re using glamourie to pull men in your infernal clubs—”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. Of course I don’t.”
“Other than your ridiculous facial hair.”
“That’s nothing but a minor decoration. For fun. I don’t need it. You, now—”
“Out of the question. Even if I could reconcile it with my conscience, high-level glamourie is lost to me under the curse.” And without it, no one could want me anyway.
Mal shrugged and sipped his coffee. His eyes widened, and he took another sip, then a gulp. “Gwydion’s bollocks. If nothing else, keep the lad for his brew skills. Have you tasted this?” He pointed to Alun’s untouched cup. “Better than anything on the Queen’s table.”
Alun crossed his arms and grunted. Like all the Sidhe of the Seelie Court, Mal was a hedonist. Alun preferred Unseelie fae psychopaths. Those, he could treat.
Mal took another sip, and the look of bliss on his face robbed it of its usual cynical smirk. Alun glanced at the steam rising from the cup, beckoning him to taste, to yield.
“Drink the damn coffee, Alun.” Mal took another gulp of his own and chased it with a contented sigh. “You know you want to.”
Tempted as he was to dump the whole thing in the ficus pot in the corner for spite, he rose to the challenge of Mal’s lifted eyebrow. He took a sip, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. Smooth. Dark. Secret. The coffee wasn’t just a flavor—it was a seductive whisper, a stroke of sin down his throat to his belly.
“Goddess strike me—” He took another gulp. “Gaaah.”
“I’m saying. You’ve got to keep this lad. If you don’t make a grab for his balls, at least find out where he buys his beans.”