Hex on the Beach by Kelley Armstrong

Chapter Two

Isat at the breakfast table as the sun started to dim the next evening. Eli was out somewhere, so I woke alone and filled with nervous energy. I couldn’t say that anything specific was wrong. No open cases. No recent attacks or threats on my life. No question or doubt in my relationship. I ought to be more relaxed than I felt. Maybe I was simply accustomed to anxiety and worry.

Eli and I were bonded. Together until one of us died. We’d had a month-long honeymoon after our bonding, and although everyone else was nagging me to get on with dress shopping and venue booking, Eli was being absurdly patient about planning wedding ceremonies. Plural. I’d have to endure a wedding in Elphame as well as in New Orleans—well, in The Outs where I was raised. We were having a wedding on the land where my mother homesteaded not in the city proper.

Wedding talk was as overwhelming as my magical depletion and my newly married status.

My life was out of my control lately, and the details of the weddings were more than I could manage. I’d gotten as far as agreeing to two ceremonies. It was either that or only have the fussy future-queen ceremony in Elphame. That was a hard pass. Not everyone was able to travel there. The realm of the fae was separate from the human world, and most faeries stayed there. The man who’d once been my friend, fight partner, and was now my spouse had failed to mention that he was not only fully fae, but the self-exiled prince. I had no interest in thrones, but if that’s what I had to do to be with Eli . . . well, love makes a person do weird things sometimes. In my case, it meant politics, fussy dresses, and several weddings.

I’d decided that if there was going to be a wedding at all, I’d have at least one wedding that was to my taste. We started out discussing the two “suitable” places for formal weddings in the city: the Touro Synagogue, one of the oldest synagogues in the nation, and Saint Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, the oldest church in the nation. They both held the gravitas appropriate for the wedding of the heir to Elphame and his bride, but the thought of being a spectacle, of having strangers gawk at us, of the sheer pageantry of it all made me cringe.

And so, I’d been delaying. Avoiding. Eli and I were already married, so who needed a big fancy mess? “Avoid and procrastinate” was still my default setting for emotional things. Weddings, much like funerals, were for the attendees, and so I wanted nothing to do with either. Call me selfish, but I thought that some things, some moments, ought to be reserved for the guest-of-honor. And Eli was simply content to do whatever made me happiest.

So, I stalled.

I pondered it constantly, though.

The door downstairs opened, which meant Eli was here. No one else could enter. Not surprisingly, the home of the one and only fae prince was fairly secure.

I topped off my drink, pouring mead and blood into my glass in equal measures. Think alcohol smoothie. Add a generous splash of blood, and that was my diet. My metabolism was high—and weird. Alcohol fueled me, but I wasn’t intoxicated by it. I was basically a fanged hummingbird.

“Bonbon?” Eli paused, frowning at me. “Has something happened?”

“Nope.”

“Are you unwell?”

“Nope.”

“Are you planning on explaining or saying ‘nope’ at me until I guess?” He came to the table, took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Maudlin?”

“I’m sick of my magical depletion,” I admitted as I stared at the only person not yet frustrated with my moods lately. “I want to do things. I can’t raise the dead, and—”

“You brought a man back to life, Geneviève.”

“A bad man.”

“Iggy hasn’t done anything troubling.” Eli wrapped his arms around me.

“Yet,” I muttered.

“Perhaps you need a get-away. Something to let you relax so your magic can resettle.”

“I feel useless. To do basic things, I need to borrow your—”

“Our,” he corrected. “Our magic.”

“Our magic,” I repeated, after a scowl. “Fine. Fine. I can work, but . . .” I glanced up at my husband’s very emotionless expression.

“You are working, then?” he prompted.

“Yes.” I moved out of his embrace.

“But you must rely on me to do so, and that is frustrating after being self-reliant since as long as you can recall,” Eli explained my work anxiety calmly and succinctly.

I smacked his chest lightly. “Yes, damn it. I feel weak.”

“You have faced Death more times than anyone I know, and each time Death runs away like a frightened dog.” He caught my chin in his hand and tipped my face up, so I was looking at him before continuing, “You are not weak, Geneviève. You are trying to refill your magical core after managing a god-like feat. You ought to relax rather than trying to force it.”

I was about to agree that he had a point.

Then he added, “But you are an absolutely horrible patient, with the serenity of a child who ate a bowl of straight sugar.”

“Hey!”

“Am I wrong?” Eli stared at me with the same arrogance that had made him alluring to me when we first met years ago. He was not lacking in confidence.

I deflated. “No.”

“So, let us ponder options.” Eli walked away, heading into his—our—living area. I could ignore the invitation or follow. He’d offered me the control.

And I was reminded for the two million six hundred and eighth time that Eli really was perfect for me. It apparently took the patience of a faery to worm his way into my heart and to live with me.

I followed him, marveling over the wonder that he wanted me despite my catalogable list of complications. Not that he was without difficulty. He came with a damned throne, longevity, and traditions I barely understood most of the time.

We compromised a lot.

He’d added a fight dummy to the far side of the living room when we got married. To most people, it probably wouldn’t seem like a romantic gesture, but I like hitting things. My own apartment had most of the space dedicated to fighting, but now that we were bonded, I preferred to sleep here at least half of the time.

I touched the dummy, Harper, on the way past. Yes, I name all my fight dummies. Elvis, Bruce, and Doris were my first three, and I’d considered each of their names at length. I liked Doris the best for punching. She was on a wheeled mount so she “flinched.”

“I have taken the liberty of giving Christy a long weekend off either this week or next,” Eli said as I sat next to him on the sofa. It sounded like a non sequitur.

“Okaaaay . . .” I wasn’t sure why he’d given his bar manager, who was one of my closest friends, the weekend off.

“I have also taken the liberty of asking Sera if she would be free. Her schedule is more complicated, but—”

“I’m going to need more details, Eli. What does any of this have to do with anything?” I interrupted.

He held out a shiny laminated card proclaiming me fae royalty. I’d seen his diplomatic card, but this one was mine. My name. My passport.

“You are the future queen of Elphame, Geneviève. You have a diplomatic passport. No questions. No temperature checks.”

“I . . .” I blinked at him, too stunned to process. I’d never really been able to travel far or often. Sure, there were cities that were exceptions, but there were a lot more cities that were forbidden to draugr. Those were where I wanted to be, cities where I could truly relax. No dead folk to behead. No pressure to patrol. Any gate checks for such cities could expose me, and after my recent injection of draugr venom I was sure I’d fail. I had failed when we tried to go to Houston. If not for Eli pulling his own diplomatic passport, we would’ve been turned away.

And the fact that there was a draugr with a heartbeat? That was the sort of thing that made international news. The reality was that being one of a kind was dangerous.

“There were not insignificant delays.” Eli’s voice hid an edge that made me realize that he’d been angrier about those delays than he typically got about anything. “But the matter has been resolved.”

I clutched the card, staring at it and marveling. I stared at him. “I can travel.”

He nodded.

“Holy goat milk! I can travel.” I hugged Eli. “For real, travel to places.”

“Yes.” He smiled possibly because it had been a minute since he’d seen me quite this excited about anything that involved both of us wearing clothes.

Eli lifted a thick manilla folder from the side table. “Alice has been researching, and she will be available this weekend.”

He slid the folder toward me.

The last time my assistant had researched a trip, I ended up owning far too much frilly lingerie and accidentally marrying Eli. I had no regrets, but sometimes I thought Alice Chaddock had a magical chaos magnet in her body somewhere.

Tentatively, I opened the folder. “Houston?” was written in Ally’s handwriting across the top of a print-out of stapled pages. I lifted the sheath of pages. Underneath was “Prague? Probably too far.” A fanged frownie face was drawn there. Several other packets were under those two.

“Alice researched options for a ‘Girls Weekend,’” Eli said, wincing a bit at the term.

I was across the slight distance between us and in his arms in the next moment. My husband, my perfect faery prince of a spouse, had put the wheels in motion so I could go away with my friends.

“You are the absolute best,” I announced before setting out to prove that truth.