“Like old times,” he said, and she laughed.
“Borg mind. I was thinking the same. I’ll set the table, and we’ll feast.”
Bollocks let out a bark—not a warning, but a greeting. When she glanced over, she saw Keegan about to knock on the glass door.
She caught just a glimpse of Cróga’s gold-tipped green tail slashing as the dragon rose into the night sky.
She walked, plates in hand, to the door to open it.
“Sorry,” he said straight off. “You’re about to have your meal. I won’t keep you.”
“Hey, come on in,” Marco called from the stove. “Had dinner yet?”
“Ah, no, I was just—”
“You can have dinner with us. I made plenty. Grab another plate, girl, and let’s get the man some wine.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not.” She stepped back. “Marco’s right. He made more than enough.”
“It’s kind of you. It’s smells very good.”
“Hope you like spaghetti marinara.”
“I do. It’s been some time since I’ve had it.”
“You’re in for a treat.” Not quite sure what it meant for the normality of the evening, Breen went back to pour another glass of wine. “Marco’s a terrific cook.”
“I wanted to see that you’d settled in, and that I’d meet you, Breen, as usual tomorrow. It seems I’ve timed myself into a meal.”
“You earned it. Take off that really fine coat I lust for,” Marco told him. “Go ahead and put the salad out, girl. You can light the candles your way. I’m almost sort of used to that.”
Before she did either, she walked to Marco, hugged him hard from behind.
“She worries about me,” he said to Keegan.
“Friends will do that. You look steadied up right enough. Morena said you had. And you met Marg and Sedric.”
“Sedric’s a lucky man. Or cat. Met your sister and her two boys.” At home in the kitchen, Marco poured the pasta into a colander. “Saw some dragons. Don’t know what to think about that yet, but I read in Breen’s journal how she rode on yours.”
“You keep a journal?”
“Yes.” She concentrated on dishing the salad into bowls.
“We’re going to want another bottle of wine,” Marco decided. “How about you open one, Keegan? I’m going to mix the pasta and sauce up family style.”
Marco fussed, as Marco did, with slices of bread, dipping sauce, with placing basil just so on the pasta. When he sat, he lifted his wine. “It’s nice having company for dinner. Back in Philly we didn’t have room for many people, so we mostly hung out at Sally’s.”
“A good place for it.”
“The best.” Marco dug into his salad, sampled it. “Good job here, Breen. So, Keegan, you’re the head guy around here. Or there. Over there.”
“I’m taoiseach.”
“I read in the journal how that’s done. Jumping into the lake and all that. You found the sword, brought it up. And boom. Except you could’ve said, ‘Nah, not me,’ and doggie-paddled right away.”
“It’s a choice.”
“Not an easy one, I bet. And you were just a kid.”
“Old enough.” Keegan shrugged that off. “We’re taught and trained all but from birth to know the duties of taoiseach.”
“And Breen’s training and learning now. But not to be the head guy.”
“If I fall, she could choose to enter the lake and bring up the sword.”
“Don’t talk about falling.”
Keegan spared her a glance. “He asked. That’s the answer.”
“She could do that,” Marco continued, “even though she’s half-human or Earthling or whatever you’d call it.”
“She’s of Talamh as well, carries the blood of the Wise, of the Sidhe. What comes from her mother, her grandfather, is what makes her unique. Not other, if you understand, but—”
“Special.” Marco gave Keegan an approving nod. “I’m always telling her that. Her mom really tried to make her ordinary. Didn’t work.”
Taking it on himself, Marco dished up a huge portion of spaghetti for Keegan’s plate.
“Anyway, I’m glad you came by tonight, because I was going to try to find you tomorrow. Hey, I’m not supposed to call you ‘sir’ or ‘your highness’ or something, am I?”
“No,” Keegan said, with feeling. “Gods no.”
“A third of that, Marco. I mean it. Damn it.” Breen only sighed when he served her pasta. “He always gives me too much.”
“You’re seriously buffed up, girl. Those muscles need some carbs. You helped her get them.”
“Ah …”
“With training. I was going to be pretty pissed at you, chief dude or not, for knocking my girl down, bruising her up.”
“Marco, please.” Breen felt the redhead’s curse of a flush creeping into her cheeks. “Just eat.”
“I’m gonna. But I figured out you were tough on her because you needed her to fight back. To want to. Her mom—and I’m not going to dis her. When I came out, my family didn’t support me. My sister did, but my parents, my brother, different story. But Ms. Wilcox did, so I won’t slap at her too hard.”
“Where did you come out from?”
Marco laughed. “The closet, man. I’m gay.”
“Aye, Breen said that means you prefer men for sex and such. We don’t have closets for that in Talamh.”
While Marco just grinned, Keegan wound spaghetti around his fork, ate. “Well now, this is brilliant. Better even than I remember eating in Italy.”
“You’ve been to Italy?” Marco pointed at him. “I’m going to ask you all about that, but before I do, I’m going to finish my thoughts here.”
“Finish whatever you like. I’m eating this.”
“I want to say, it’s hard to learn to fight back, to want to fight back, when most of your life, basically all of it, you’ve been told not to. More, told you’d never win anyway because you’d never be good enough.”
Keegan nodded as he continued to eat. “Breen’s mother was wrong. Whatever her reasons, it doesn’t make her less wrong. You are what you are.” He looked at Breen then, straight on with those amber-flecked green eyes. “And you know what you know now. It doesn’t mean I won’t still knock you down or put bruises on you on the training field.”
“Because you want her to live.”
“I do, aye, I want her to live.”
“That’s why I decided not to be pissed at you. Plus, you saved her life. Twice.”
“It wasn’t her life so much in danger.”
“Try the dipping sauce. It’s my own blend. You swooped out of the sky on your dragon when some evil faerie dude had her. You— swipe!—cut off his head.”
“It’s good, your blend here.”
“And when the bitch witch’s snakes bit her, you got her through it.”
“She did much of that herself.”
“Not the way she tells it, but I’m going with you on it. Either way, and any way, she’s the world to me, so there’s nothing you can do— except hurt her—that’s going to piss me off very much. I guess I have to stay off the training field.”
“You choose your friends well, Breen Siobhan.”
“I’ll take credit for that. Marco, I don’t want you to have to think about any more of this tonight. You’ve had a day.”
“I’m almost done. I’m going to need you, or somebody, to train me. Other than a few lucky punches, I’m crap at fighting.”
“He says he’s going to stay,” Breen began when Keegan looked at her.
“I don’t just say it, I mean it. The world to me,” Marco repeated. “As long as she’s here, I’m here.”
“Well then, brother, we’ll train you up right enough, though you may not thank me for it. You should learn to fight—to defend yourself and others. But I’ll say there are more ways to help than with a sword or a fist.”