Desert Tales by Melissa Marr Page B

called him by his pet name— and that she’d rushed to his side. “I mean, Sionnach . . .”
    He grinned but didn’t call her on either of her slips.
    Beside her, Jayce grew suddenly still. He gave Sionnach a wary look, and then his gaze drifted from the fox faery to her. Rika hated that Jayce was involved in an altercation with faeries almost as much as she hated the suspicious looks he was giving her and Sionnach. She didn’t want him to think that she’d misled him—and on her relationship to Sionnach, at least, she hadn’t. What she was, what they’d fought, why he’d fallen earlier, those were all truths she couldn’t share, but on the subject of her interest in him she had been true.
    Jayce obviously had doubts, though. He released her hand.
    â€œI’m sure they make sense, but you two being here doesn’t. Come on.” Sionnach looped an arm around her waist. Other faeries, those who were here with him, cleared a path through the crowd and then vanished when they reached a doorway.
    Sionnach looked past her to catch Jayce’s eye. “This way.”
    The fox faery held open the door so Jayce and Rika could step into a short hallway. It was starkly empty, except for a mortal girl who smiled widely at Sionnach as they approached. She’d been leaning against the wall with a dreamy expression on her face, looking at Sionnach like he was a god. Sionnach flashed her a blindingly sweet expression, but he didn’t speak to her. Instead, he focused his attention on Rika, as if her slip into familiarity with him had changed something between them.
    â€œWhat do you need?”
    Rika stepped protectively close to Jayce. “I need to get him out of here.”
    Jayce started, “I can—”
    â€œSo go.” Sionnach gestured to the door at the other end of the hall. “I’ll stay and sort out the rabble. Take him to your den.”
    Rika hesitated. It made sense, but she couldn’t begin to figure out how she’d explain that to Jayce. At the same time, she rebelled at the idea of abandoning Sionnach to face the faeries who’d started trouble. He wasn’t flawless by any stretch of the imagination, but he was the closest thing she had to a friend in the desert, the only faery she almost trusted. “If they hurt you . . .”
    Not surprisingly, Sionnach was amused at the idea. “You know better than that, princess. They’re my responsibility anyhow. So go on; take your boy for a run.”
    Jayce raised both brows at Sionnach, but this time, he remained silent. The sound of an old horn interrupted the silence, and Jayce pulled out his phone. “Del texted,” he said after a moment. “They split when things got weird in there. He doesn’t like violence.”
    â€œGood,” Rika said quietly, carefully not meeting Sionnach’s gaze even as the fox faery stared at her.
    â€œTake him home,” Sionnach urged her again.
    As he waited for her reply, his twinkling eyes and crooked grin were in such contrast to the chaos she could hear inside the club, as if he weren’t at all disturbed by the way Maili had behaved, as if he weren’t encouraging her to reveal secrets to a mortal. There were rules, actions faeries ought not engage in unless they wanted the courts coming round and starting to interfere.
    â€œThey can’t do that .” Rika scowled in the direction of the main room, choosing to focus on the fight rather than the decision she needed to make. “They’re out of hand. Starting trouble around . . . people . We can’t ignore that.”
    â€œSo I guess we need to figure out how to stop them. Leash them.” Sionnach stared at her, waiting for her as he had so many other times over the years she’d known him.
    Rika knew he was right, almost as much as she knew that getting involved with faery politics was exactly what she swore she