Malakai by Michele Hauf

into
gifting her the sword.
    But of course, she had an easy way to obtain
it. For she held the boon against the Saint-Pierre family. And she
suspected the werewolf Kai had fallen in love with a faery.
    Though she thrilled at the notion of holding
the werewolf's heart, the pull of the sword was stronger.
    ***
    The jukebox in the Four Leaf Clover bar
blasted Werewolves Of London . Kai lumbered toward the drunk
who had called him Casanova. His fist ached to meet flesh. It had
been days since he'd seen her. He was anxious and didn't require a
reason to fight. He simply wanted to feel something. Anything.
    As he swung toward the mortal man, whose eyes
flashed wide to see Kai coming toward him, suddenly his fist
smacked the palm of a man who wrangled Kai about the neck and swung
him around, marching him out the door at the same time the song's
chorus broke into a wolf howl. It was dark out back and smelled
like rotting fried food from the nearby dumpster. The streetlight
revealed Kai's abductor.
    "What the hell are you doing, man?"
    Kai swung an angry fist toward the vampire,
but he was quick and dodged the punch, returning with an iron fist
to Kai's gut. The punch shuddered through his system. Kai stumbled
against the wall.
    "Rev," he said, breathing through the
remarkable pain. "Did my father send you?"
    "No, I happened to be in the bar," the
vampire said. Revin Parker worked alongside Creed Saint-Pierre on
the project that rescued captive vampires from werewolf packs, and
he was a trusted friend of the family, as well as Kai and Kam's
godfather. "What the hell, Kai? You don't beat on innocent mortals
in bars. That's not your style. You look like…you've been on a
bender."
    Hanging his head and heaving against the
exhaustion that simple altercation had summoned in his muscles, Kai
growled. He did feel like he'd been on a bender, despite having
drunk two iced teas inside. It was being away from Rissa. He needed
her, for no other reason than that she inspired him and gave him a
reason to breathe.
    "I know you're not drunk because you don't
drink," Rev stated. "But I've seen that desperate look before. Is
it a woman?"
    The precision of that guess pierced Kai's
heart as if a rapier point, penetrating and exiting out through his
back. He winced.
    "I'm losing focus, Rev. I need her back.
She's more than a muse, I think—hell, I think I'm falling in love
with her. I don't like to be away from her. I can't function
without her nearby."
    Rev's dark eyes glinted under the
streetlight. "That explains a lot. Love is tough, buddy."
    "Why is that? Shouldn't it be easy and pretty
like flowers and…sugar cubes?"
    "Oh, man, when a big ole lunk like you starts
tossing out the poetic stuff then I start to worry. You talked to
your dad about this?"
    "Can't. He doesn't approve."
    "I can't imagine why Creed wouldn't approve
of a woman his son has fallen in love—"
"She's a faery," Kai hissed
out. He slammed his arms across his chest, and defiantly met Rev's
knowing gape. "I know. I know. I did try to avoid her. After we got together. I didn't know she was faery the first time."
    Rev swiped a palm over his jaw. "I know about
you and your sister's curse. Faeries are a dangerous match."
    "Says the vampire who is fucking a
faery."
    "Don't talk smack about my wife. We've taken
precautions so her dust won't affect me. It's been over two decades
and I'm still clean."
    Kai raised a disbelieving eyebrow. Of the two
of them, he wasn't sure who was worse off. Rev was a vampire in
love with a faery whose dust could prove fatal should he become
addicted to it. Kai wasn't affected by Rissa's dust, but he could
already feel his heart pound in anticipation of some faery warrior
sticking her fingers through his ribs to rip it out.
    "You want a ride home?" Rev asked.
    "Thanks, but my truck is down the street. And
thanks for pulling me out of there. I don't know where my head was.
I should be home working on the sword, but…I need her. You know?
It's like she's