“There’s nowhere else I want to be. After the years of ice, I like the warmth, and”—she glanced at the distant cliff again—“what I’ve found here.”
Keenan made a noise of irritation, but he kept his silence, and she felt no need to explain herself further, not to him. She could leave if she thought there was somewhere she’d be freer, happier, but it had only been here in the desert where she’d come close to happiness. When she’d first been freed from the cold, she’d wandered, but there was no peace in it. Since she’d made that ill-fated choice to attempt to be the queen Keenan sought, she’d been unhappy. It was only recently that she’d come near to the sort of happiness she’d always wanted.
Because of Jayce.
There was no way she’d tell Keenan about him; faeries had a long-standing tradition of cruelty to humans, and now that Keenan had no need to seek among them for his missing queen, she wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do. There were whispers of rumors, murmurs that he was even fonder of mortals lately, but he also had a peculiar possessiveness toward all of the faeries who he’d chosen in hopes that they would be his queen. He might have rejected her, but that didn’t stop him from acting like she would always belong to him.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m unbound and that Donia’s . . . the new Winter Queen.” Keenan’s eyes clouded at the mention of the Winter Girl who’d replaced Rika, the one who’d become Winter Queen when he’d found his Summer Queen. Overhead, clouds formed, their darkness matching his expression as a summer storm rumbled over the desert. In mere moments, the shadows of the clouds on the ground stretched and darkened. He was still tempestuous, perhaps more so than when she’d first met him, only now he had the strength to go with his moods.
“I know. All the desert fey heard. Donia will be a good queen.” Rika smiled at the thought of Donia’s ascendency. She, too, was originally mortal, and she’d made the same foolish mistake that so many girls had—to love Keenan and risk everything. Rika grinned before adding, “She’ll be good at standing against you too, especially since she hasn’t forgiven you.”
Lightning hit the ground behind her, and Rika laughed at him. Like so many of those born faery, he was a petulant child sometimes. When she’d first become fey, such outbursts frightened her. Now, she knew that he was merely stomping his foot in a way that only he could.
“And you have?” He stood, and both of the chairs crumbled.
Rika didn’t bother moving, letting herself lean into the collapsing chair, watching the streams of sand flow over her leg into the rips in her jeans. She grinned up at him from the desert floor. “No, but my forgiveness doesn’t matter as much, does it?”
Keenan’s face was emotionless, but lightning jags around them revealed the emotion that his face didn’t. Despite the bright display of his volatile temper, he still spoke as if he were calm: “If you need anything, I am there to call upon.”
“Actually Sionnach is here if I need anything.” She held Keenan’s gaze. “I’m solitary. Those of us in the desert . . . we don’t belong to you even now that you’re stronger. That won’t change.”
“If you need me—”
“There would be a price, and I’ve more than paid my dues for your ‘help.’ I learn from my mistakes.”
The rain hit, soaking her, but sizzling to steam before it touched him. “The Summer Court is stronger,” he said. “But because of the changes, things will be unstable for now . . . even out here. Not everyone’s happy with the power shift.”
Although Rika was wet and sand-covered, she felt victorious as she sat on the desert floor and mocked the Summer King’s understatement. “You think? We already know that.”
She looked up at him, wishing he was most anywhere but here, wishing he wasn’t still so beautiful, wishing she didn’t understand how the curse had hurt him too. She didn’t truly hate him, but she didn’t want to feel sorry for him. Softening toward him was dangerous. That truth was unchanging. “What do you really want, Keenan?”
“I want to protect you, to take you under my court’s protection.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need you.”
“I—”
“I don’t,” she repeated. “I can’t lie because of what you made me. So let me say it again: I don’t need you, and I don’t want you in my life in any way.”
The Summer King was nothing if not persistent though. He’d fought for nine centuries to reach the strength he had only just found. His sunlit skin glowed as he told her, “I can’t lie either, Rika: I do want to protect you. Make a vow of fealty to me, and I will keep you safe if the coming troubles reach the desert.”
“A vow? To you? No.” She stood and brushed the sand from her jeans. “Are we done here?”
“Other solitaries have joined my court. . . . It’s not so odd.” In that instant, Keenan looked so earnest—genuine and eager, so like the boy she’d loved. It hurt more seeing him looking at her so familiarly, but then she reminded herself that he had always sounded exactly like that when he’d successfully manipulated her. This time, he wouldn’t succeed.
“You could talk to the others out here,” he added. “The solitary fey will listen to you, and—”
“No,” she interrupted, foolishly hurt that he still saw her as a means to an end, a piece in a puzzle to be moved at his will. “I won’t ask them to join the Summer Court.”
As Keenan stepped closer to her, Rika had to grit her teeth to keep from backing away. Winds spun around them, as if it were just the two of them together, apart from the world, as she’d once believed it would be. He didn’t reach out to touch her as he would’ve when she was human, but in the same tone that had haunted far too many of her dreams over the years, he whispered, “I never meant to hurt you. You know me, Rika. It’s a simple vow. Then my court can step in if anyone needs—”
“Your court isn’t needed in my desert, Keenan. We handle things differently out here, and we have no business in court matters. The courts are a world away.”
“You’re being foolish, Rika. Letting grudges get in the way of what makes sense. Just talk to them.”
He obviously wanted a way in to the loyalty of the desert fey, and so he was here now whispering regrets and tender words, but she wasn’t a naïve girl, not now, not for decades. She turned and walked away from him, and she didn’t look back even though she could feel the swirls of sand stirring as he resisted his anger.
After a moment, a gust of wind lashed against her back, and she knew he’d left.
Melodramatic as always.
CHAPTER 2
Thinking about the past was something Rika steadfastly tried to avoid, but seeing Keenan dredged up old memories. She shivered, and even the desert heat suddenly wasn’t warm enough to counter the remembered chill. She shook her head as tears slid down her cheeks. Angrily, she wiped them away and looked toward the mortals in the distance climbing up the rock wall of one of the canyons. Three motorcycles—two with saddlebags and camping gear strapped down—were parked in the shadow of the canyon.
“At least they can’t see me.” Rika wanted to run toward them, to be near the mortals, to be far from where she’d spoken to the faery king, but she kept her pace, slowing briefly only as she passed some jumping cholla cactus. It didn’t truly jump, but like the sweetly named teddy-bear cholla, the spines were easily detached. She’d learned that lesson in her earliest days in the desert. Like some of the native desert fey, some of the plants here were beautiful but would cut her skin with only the barest touch. It was one of the things she liked about the Mojave: here, the faeries weren’t hiding their true nature behind court manners and pretty words. She liked the extreme honesty of the desert and many of its inhabitants.