Hex on the Beach by Kelley Armstrong
Chapter Twelve
When we returned to Elphame, my husband was standing there looking far-from- cheerful. His gaze took me in, which was fairly normal. Pre-matrimony, Eli had stitched me up so often that I thought he’d earned an honorary field medicine degree.
“Geneviève.” He bowed his head to the king then. “Uncle.”
Marcus looked at me. “Someone’s apparently in trouble.”
“Did no one think it prudent to notify me that my wife and my king were off in a skirmish?” Eli’s formal tone said more about his mood than anything else could. He reverted to increasingly fae mannerisms when he was upset.
“It was six draugr.” I gave a little twirl. “Barely a scratch.”
Marcus met Eli’s gaze. “I do not twirl.”
Then the king bowed to me. “You are a worthy warrior, Death Maiden.” He paused, eyes still holding mine, and added, “Do not forget our conversations.”
Without another word, the King of Elphame departed, his soldiers dipping their heads to me as they trailed the king.
When it was just the two of us, Eli sighed. “Bonbon. Really? Even at a spa in a draugr-free city?”
I shrugged. “They came out of the ocean, apparently.”
We walked to the house. Our house. And I tried not to smile at the sheer joy I felt. Successful battle. Magic back. Husband here.
“Where are the others?” I asked.
“Sera and Christy are on a beach, and when I left them, Allie was trying to convince a kelpie to give her a ride.” Eli sounded amused, so I figured that despite their reputation for being monstrous, the kelpies in Elphame were not murderous water horses.
“The king thinks he’s going to marry her.”
“A kelpie?” Eli stopped mid-step. “Because you certainly cannot mean that he wants to wed the widow Chaddock.”
“Destiny,” I offered as we reached the cottage. I stripped outside the door, leaving my pile of toxin-covered clothes on the ground to be destroyed. It was a casualty of the job, but I still frowned at losing another pair of reliable boots. “I really liked those boots.”
Eli said nothing as we walked to the shower.
“I spend an awful lot of time cleaning away my work,” I muttered.
My husband held his words, simply looking me over as if I’d hidden injuries. As the grime washed away, as the flecks of blood washed away, Eli relaxed. “You are uninjured.”
“I am.” I softened as he visibly relaxed.
“Geneviève . . . you weren’t here. You had no magic. And my uncle, who has not left Elphame in at least a century and change, was in San Diego. I was . . . alarmed. What foe would be so fierce that the king himself would take up arms? What danger were you, without your fierce magic, facing?”
He stripped as I stared at him, understanding dawning on me. I hadn’t realized exactly how serious it was that the king had joined me.
“My magic is back,” I whispered, summoning it to my will to touch him without moving a muscle. The very air stiffened into intangible hands that brushed along his bare chest, marveling that a man like him was mine forever.
“Shouldn’t I want you less now that we’re an old married couple?” I whispered.
Eli laughed. “Never. I think my need and love grow stronger by the day.”
I nodded, words failing as he stepped into the shower with me. His hands were curled around my hips, and finally we were kissing.
It had only been two days, but just then, two days felt like an eternity.
When he pulled back, I teased, “I have it on good authority that Girls’ Weekends often include someone ‘hooking up’ with a gorgeous stranger . . .”
“Hello, I’m Eli. We’ve never met before, but would you mind if I ravished you now?”
“Yes, please. I’m . . .” I managed to whisper as he parted my legs. My attempt to role play failed instantly as he slid two fingers inside me. “I’m . . . I’m yours, Eli.”
After our not-really-make-up sex,Eli left me there with my friends for the next two days to enjoy a proper Girls’ Weekend. Wined, dined, and sun-soaked, my friends were relaxed. Although after the first twenty-four hours, we’d all given up on convincing Allie that the fact that magical creatures suddenly obeyed her was because Marcus told them to do so.
“Did you know that if a kelpie chooses to do so you can breathe under the sea?” Allie was explaining.
“Yes.”
“And did you know that the village for mortals here is just . . . basically . . . like a big artist colony?” Allie was carefully packing a blown-glass kelpie in her luggage.
“Yes.”
“And did you know that know that Marcus says I can just pop in here whenever I want?” Allie paused, fidgeting with an embroidered linen dress.
I glanced at her. “Did he offer that to the others?”
She shook her head.
“I see.” My faery bargain was making my tongue feel twisted. There were things I wanted to say but couldn’t.
“You think he likes me . . . ” Allie held my gaze. “Why aren’t you saying anything, boss?”
“You’re very likeable,” I said, sounding as cheery as her.
And the often-underestimated Alice Chaddock crossed her arms and pronounced “You know something.”
I’d been thinking on it since the conversation with Marcus. I could not tell her the bargain, his interest, or that he’d made a bargain with me. I could, however, think like the fae and talk around it.
“Do you recall how I ended up married?”
Alice’s eyes grew comically wide.
“And do you know how sometimes an eternal being . . . like say my grandmother can be clever and outwit mortals?”
Allie nodded.
With carefully chosen words, I warned, “It’s wise to be careful, Alice Chaddock. I am, and yet, I have been accidentally married to a faery. . . and probably manipulated into going to San Diego to kill off draugr who were behaving badly but out of Beatrice’s reach.”
Allie looked around as if there were potential spies, and then whispered, “So you think Marcus has plans to manipulate me?”
It was far too direct of a question, so I looked at her, hoping she was clever enough to hear what I was really saying, “I cannot say, Alice. I simply cannotsay. But”—I shrugged as if was no big deal—“I know I ended up where I am because I made faery bargains with Eli.”
“Well, I won’t be doing that.” Allie hmphed, and I repressed a sigh. She wasn’t getting what I was saying, and the bargain prevented me from outright telling her—or anyone else. It wasn’t my future on the line, but I wasn’t going to let Allie stumble into something she didn’t want.
Later, when I was back in New Orleans, I’d come up with a plan to help her without breaking my faery bargain—right after I went to see my great-times-great grandmother Beatrice and pointed out that I wasn’t a hunting dog to be sent out at her will.
“Gen?” Sera called as she came into the room. “Alice, come on! Pack later! Drink now!”
“Coming!” I grabbed a parasol, another of the things Allie had stocked up on, and Allie and I headed outside to join Sera and Christy for a glass of faery-made whisky or two at the firepit. It might not be the spa weekend we’d planned, but we were together, and laughing.
Christy looked up from her lounger. “Fruit bowl for you on the table . . .”
Then Sera added, “And a beautiful shawl for you, Allie.” She pointed to the delicate pink thing. “Just you.”
The shawl was in a box with a tag in what looked like calligraphy but was probably just Marcus’ handwriting. “To Alice, for cold nights when you are far away.”
Alice looked at it, looked at me, and said, “He like likes me, doesn’t he?”
I couldn’t reply because of the faery bargain, but Sera and Christy simply said “yes.” And I took a long drink to cover for my silence. After all the faery bargains that I’d made, this one was proving more complicated than I expected.
“I made some ice for you.” Alice plopped several blood cubes in my whisky before settling in with her drink in a chair beside Sera.
We weren’t living in a perfect world, but I realized I’d lucked out on friends. I lifted my glass and said, “To sisters!”
“To sisters!” Sera, Christy, and Allie echoed back at me.
We drank, relaxing until Alice said, “So is it weird that you and Sera used to boink? But you’re like sisters?”
“Not literal sisters, we just--” Sera started.
“Shut up, Allie,” Christy interrupted.
And Alice grinned at us as she settled back with her drink.
“I love you people,” I added, looking at them one after the other. “Best Girls’ Weekend ever because you were with me.”
Maybe Alice’s influence was wearing off on me because I sat back with my drink and relished the stunned looks on all three faces. I could totally be sappy if I had to, and honestly, if it shocked everyone that much, I might just do it more often.
Our weekend was a little off plan, but it truly had been exactly the beach trip I’d needed. I felt ready and able to handle whatever challenges life threw my way next. Good friends, good booze, and the occasional beheading were my sort of weekend.