CHAPTER TWO

NOW—Las Vegas, Nevada

“Sir, would you excuse me, please?” Noelle Flint—the elf once known as Fionnuala—shifted the strap of her heavy leather tote from one forearm to the other. She waited impatiently for the space-hogging man to let her past the ordering line in Whitney’s Coffee. As always, she was running late to an appointment. Even after selling Vegas real estate for a decade, she only needed ten fingers to count the number of times she’d been early for a new client interview. Her tardiness wasn’t her fault, really. People always got in her way, and the boorish nitwit in front of her was a fine example of the city’s bold and oblivious tourists.

Rolling back her aching shoulders, she laid her head from one side to the other to loosen the knots in her neck. The chronic pain made her already sour mood worse. After an hour stuck in construction traffic, she needed people to behave as though they had an iota of civility. She wasn’t going to hold her breath waiting for that, though. It was inevitable. Her body aches would get worse as winter approached, and she’d hate everything and everyone even more than usual.

Even living in the desert Southwest, she could sense the change of season beckoning. Her joints ached and muscles throbbed. Her temples constantly pounded. Trying to ignore the pain exhausted her almost as much as her overactive pineal gland. An excess of winter melatonin was every elf’s plague. In the thousand years since elves had integrated into human lands, most had come to dread Samhain and the Winter solstice that came soon after. When the sun went down in winter, their bodies demanded sleep. It didn’t matter if the hour was four-thirty or six—they’d crash soon after, no matter where they were. The shortened days made being productive members of modern society a real farce.

“Excuse me, please,” she repeated louder, still managing to keep a modicum of sunshine in her voice. Ninety-five percent of people responded predictably to politeness, but there was always the loutish five percent. She’d encountered them on six continents, and had figured the seventh was a lost cause, even with its perennially low population.

The five-percenter blocking the line gave her a sneering glance before resuming his conversation with his friend. He didn’t budge.

“Oh, aren’t you a peach?” she murmured, cracking the knuckles of her left hand.

She was working on being more patient. Not so much a New Year’s resolution but a new century’s goal. She’d had the same goal for the past five centuries. Though she wasn’t a quitter, she figured she’d give up on that particular self-improvement endeavor. Her intolerance for having her time wasted was why she’d been so damned good at her first job. A lady had to have a short fuse if she were going to follow the elf queen around as chief handmaiden, bodyguard, and closest confidante.

Groaning softly, she hung her head for the duration of a heartbeat, and then raised her chin. She was Noelle Ka-ching! Flint. The locals knew her as much for her killer sales record as they did for her smile. No way was she going to let some tourist with a half-cocked pompadour worsen her mood.

She gave the man’s arm a light tap. “Excuse me, sir. I’ve asked you to let me through twice, and there’s no way around you.” Common sense was rarely common, so she pointed for his benefit to the metal barrier that separated the line from the seating area.

He flicked his middle finger over his shoulder at her. “I heard ya. Wait your turn, broad.”

“Oh. I see.” Her voice dropped a bit with each word and her tight grin snapped in.

Her hands had curled into fists. Her body had gone into the stiff warrior stance her muscles defaulted to whenever she was assessing her options.

Threat or not?

Fight or not?

She may have been four-feet eleven, but she could take him down with a single blow upside his smug face. She would only have to jump a little.

Pushing her lips back into the phony smile, she cleared her throat.

Try harder. Be the bigger person.

Figuratively, at least.

“You know, in Ancient Greece and Rome,” she said in a sugar-sweet voice, “that particular gesture was intended to be a threat of sodomy. I’ll forgive you for your crudeness, because you probably didn’t know that you’re casually intimating assault, did you?”

He dropped the hand, but raised a brow at her.

She had to be showing nearly every one of her teeth with her crazed grin. “Perhaps you don’t see what that sign ahead says, dearie, but that’s all right, because my vision is just fine. It says Pick Up, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

And she was certain that if she didn’t pick up her coffee cup and get the contents into her caffeine-starved body within the next two minutes, she was going to be picking him up. She’d also be finding a nice, comfortable canyon to drop him into. If her memory served her correctly—and it sometimes actually did—Red Rock was quite nice. He could do some more work on his already umber tan while he awaited rescue. She’d even leave him with his cell phone.

Not that he’d get a signal.

“We’re all trying to pick up, lady,” he said with a scoff.

That sound was a trigger that primed her body to commit violence. Being bred to fight, she never needed much incentive. But she was in public and she needed to behave.

“Behave,” Queen Cinnia had always said on a laugh, and Noelle would try and mostly fail. Hundreds of years had passed since she’d last heard Cinnia’s admonition. She wasn’t that foolhardy young elf anymore. Even without her queen’s steadying hand, she found ways to control herself. Cinnia’s path eluded her still. Noelle had given up on ever finding her, but she would never stop worrying about her. It was one more layer of anxiety she’d absorbed into her personality along with that of parting from her mate.

Him. She dug her nails into the meat of her palms and visualized a rosebud opening and closing again and again. She wasn’t going to let her air choke off at just a thought of him, not after so long. She was going to breathe, and she managed to. Shallow and in time to the rosebud’s unfurling, and much needed.

Through gritted teeth, she said, “You haven’t even ordered yet.”

“So what? Wait your turn.”

“Just let her though, man,” his friend said, and Noelle mouthed, “Thank you” to him.

“Not letting nobody get ahead of me,” his buddy said. “Sick of waiting in fuckin’ lines,” he continued. He looked around and raised his voice to the queue, “Any special snowflakes in here? Speak up now.” He cupped his ear and turned slowly as if he were a satellite in space tuning in to distant transmissions.

Naturally, no one responded. People rarely wanted to put themselves in the crosshairs of a bully, but she was used to no one showing up to rescue her. Once upon a time, she’d been the rescuer.

She folded her arms over her chest, drummed her fingertips against her biceps, and stared at his back.

Even as late as she was for her appointment, she had to maintain some dignity. She wasn’t going to climb over the metal railing that divided the line from the tables. For one thing, she’d come straight from the nail salon. She was wearing flimsy disposable flip-flops, and her toenails were wet. For another thing, she was a goddamned lady, and one in a pencil skirt, at that.

And she was carrying ten pounds of real estate crap in her tote, which was likely to spill out at the slightest provocation. She may have been the slightest bit hasty in packing her bag.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The line inched forward, and she kept a couple of feet of distance between the maggot’s back and her front. His cologne was some nauseating blend of sandalwood and desperation.

They moved forward a bit more. She checked the time on her phone, growled under her breath, and then scanned the seating area. She was supposed to meet with a Mr. Perez. He hadn’t been particularly clear about what he was looking for in a home, but she always had a few options locked and loaded for any contingency. The market was tight and she made money by being fast and ballsy. She’d shoved swords through living things more times than she’d been able to keep count of. Of course she had no fear of such a mundane thing as knocking on strangers’ doors and asking if they were interested in selling for the right price.

The room was packed, as always. Whitney’s did brisk business amongst the locals. True, the fair trade coffee was worth every penny, but they also happened to situated next door to an amazing donut shop owned by some very kind and creative Mormons. They didn’t sell caffeine in any form. Noelle wasn’t certain if the donut shop had come first or Whitney’s, but Whitney’s had hit the location-location-location jackpot for sure.

Mr. Eau du Schmuck made his way up to the cash register. Noelle began to walk past to the pick-up end of the counter, but he lunged back, nearly tripping her over his sunburned calf.

There was a to-go cup waiting at the end of the counter. Her name was written clearly on the sleeve in bold black lettering with a heart in the place of the “o,” and she’d already paid. She was waiting in line because some tourist with a small ego—and skinny calves—apparently had a problem with efficiency.

She straightened her spine, shifted her weight, and moved her tote straps up to her shoulder. Furious, she looked straight ahead at the black-and-white poster of a retro Vegas strip.

Her mother used to sing her a ballad of the goddess Brigit. Noelle didn’t know the words anymore, but the song had always calmed her rages. Noelle hummed and swayed, grinding her teeth in rhythm to the melody.

When Super Schmuck padded to the end of the line to wait for his whipped cream-topped concoction, she followed him at a distance of a few feet.

He pressed his hands to the counter, blocking her from her coffee cup—and anyone else from theirs, for that matter.

The lady who’d gotten there in front of him who’d politely, and rightly, moved to the side to wait, put on a grim smile for Noelle.

Noelle smiled in return, and then leaned against the railing, gritting her teeth some more. All the teeth in the back had crowns or implants. No one could live as long as she had without needing to have some dental work done, except maybe angels. Their teeth didn’t wear down. The beings were flawless.

Physically, anyway.

She rolled her eyes.

Maybe one day I’ll forget they exist. Ha! Actually breathed through that one.

Sometimes, she could go weeks without thinking about them. She could forget so many things, but apparently not that.

Not about him.

“Paula?” the barista called out, holding up the waiting lady’s ceramic cup and saucer.

The guy didn’t move.

Paula edged closer to the line and waved at him. “Excuse me. That’s my order.”

He moved ever so slightly to the right, and Paula was barely able to squeeze in and grab the cup without touching him.

His friend joined him at the counter end and gestured to the space off to the side.

He shook his head.

Noelle swallowed and then hummed.

Be good, Cinnia had said.

Noelle nodded in affirmation. She’d be good. Her toenails were wet and she wasn’t entirely certain she’d let the gel polish on her fingernails completely harden under the curing light. She wouldn’t have time to get them fixed again for at least two weeks.

She scanned the seating area again, wondering what Mr. Perez looked like. All she knew was that he was visiting from New Mexico and that he wanted to chat. That was all he’d told her assistant, Jenny, or perhaps all Jenny had managed to get out of him. Some clients were so damned cagey, and Jenny wasn’t one to press people. She was actually a sweet little elf with no magic left at all, not that she’d had much to start with.

The poor dear.

“Gus?” The barista held up some disgusting concoction of liquid sugar and dairy fat and he took the cup without thanks.

He moved then to the side, ostensibly to wait for his friend while he lapped at the whipped cream.

Noelle walked forward slowly and calmly. She dropped three singles into the tip bucket for the kind ladies who never messed up her drink, and pulled her cup forward.

Her lips flattened into a tight line again.

The cup felt cold, but she took a tentative sip to be sure.

Lukewarm at best. Coffee wasn’t supposed to be lukewarm. It was supposed to either be hot enough to scald Satan’s tongue, or else iced, and she didn’t understand why people iced perfectly good coffee.

She knew her limits, so she didn’t look Gus’s way.

Be good. Be good.

She wasn’t that reckless woman anymore.

She dropped the coffee into the trashcan on her way around the railing and started weaving through the tables.

“Mr. Perez?” she asked each man she passed.

From a table at the corner, a man called out, “Over here.”

She nodded at the handsome dark-haired man, and smiled—or at least, she hoped she was smiling. The thing her mouth was fixed in was probably more of a sneer.

Mr. Perez and the lady he was with both stood as she approached, and he pushed a chair out for her. “Appreciate you meeting with us.” He gestured to the lady with the auburn tresses. “This is my wife, December.”

The name seemed, somehow, familiar, but Noelle couldn’t put a finger on why. She’d encountered too many people, learned too many names.

Shaking her hand, Noelle was actually able to put on a legitimate smile. The lady had the kind of wide-set, curious doe eyes that made Bambi come to mind. “Pleasure to meet you.”

She next shook Mr. Perez’s hand, and his palm might as well have been a defibrillator. Her body jerked as if a lightning bolt had grounded through her.

“Sweet mother Danu,” she muttered, shaking out her hand and glowering at the obviously not human male.

“Oops.” He snatched his hand away. “Sorry about that. Still getting used to the magic. Changed recently. I didn’t used to have that problem.”

“Is that so?” She settled into the seat he pulled out and eyed their coffee cups with envy. Then she forced herself to focus on important things like why the guy’s energy was so hot.

Putting her tote atop her lap, she asked in a quiet tone, “So, what’s your flavor?”

“Plain black coffee. You’re not having any? I saw you in line.”

She gave him a searching look. “Let’s not talk about coffee. Besides, you know perfectly well that isn’t what I meant.”

He grunted. “In that case, the answer is complicated.”

“That tends to be the case in matters pertaining to magic.” She pulled out her notepad and clicked the end of her pen against the tabletop. “Especially for people who are undercover. I happen to be an elf, in case you couldn’t tell.”

He gave a slow nod. “I don’t think I’ve encountered another.”

“You might have and simply didn’t know you did. Most of us don’t have any significant amount of magic left. We gave up the lion’s share to transform us so we’d pass for human, and then lost the rest over time doing major acts.”

Like blending into trees.

Blowing the memory away on a ragged exhalation, she fidgeted the end of her pen some more. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for in housing? Are you new to Vegas? Is this your first home purchase?”

Mr. Perez looked pointedly to his wife.

Her lips twitched and smile faltered.

That wasn’t suspicious at all.

“I see,” Noelle said. “Well. If you’ve changed your mind, I promise, that’s fine. Real estate ownership is a huge decision, and a lot of your hard-earned money changes hands. Be realistic about what you can afford. You want to do that long before you find yourself sitting in a conference room with a bunch of people waiting for you to sign your name on a dozen legally-binding forms.”

“That sounds kind of stressful, but that’s not the problem.” December seemed to meditate on turning her wedding band around and around her finger. She did that for a full minute at the very least, and Noelle didn’t bother rushing her. Rushing usually led to lies.

“I don’t like to tell fibs,” December said, “so I’m going to own up to ours. We’re not actually moving here.”

“Oh?” Noelle depressed the pen’s end.

“No. We’re happy where we are now. We came to Vegas specifically to see you.”

“Why?” On instinct, Noelle slipped her hand to the underside of her tote. She slid her thumb under the handle of the knife she kept tucked into a specially constructed rig there. Chances were a little better than average that the couple meant her no harm, but she’d learned to be cautious whenever people admitted to singling her out for some reason—especially non-human people. December may have been perfectly human, but that man of hers certainly wasn’t. They could have been people from one of her old lives, catching up to her to demand satisfaction over some old debt or looking for a fight. That happened at least once a year. Most elves had learned to leave her the fuck alone if they had the misfortune of stumbling into her. Her reputation for bold carnage was good for that.

“We’re doing this as a favor to someone,” Mr. Perez said, his tone careful and inflection precise.

A favor, he’d said. Favors were sometimes better than money for supernatural people. She banked them whenever she could. People with rare abilities were good to call on in a pinch.

“Tell me about this favor.” One little flick of her thumb beneath the leather latch, and her knife would be in her hand.

“I owed him,” Mr. Perez said with a shrug. “We said we’d come talk to you, and here we are.”

“Talk?” There didn’t seem to be any particular emphasis on the word. He either really meant talk, or he was a very good liar. Many of her ilk were. Survival demanded that they be.

He let out an exhalation of frustration and nudged his empty coffee cup aside. “This was the only day we could come, really, and we’re rushing. I gotta work tonight, and I’m hoping to be home before our daughter gets out of school. Forgot to ask Ma if she was gonna be there, and Cruz is only six. We can’t leave her waiting on the porch. If we wait too long, she’ll try to squeeze into the house through the basement window again, and that ain’t safe, you know?”

Noelle furrowed her brow and slid her weapon hand back to her pen. He was harmless. She didn’t have the experience to answer his question honestly, though. She wasn’t a mother, and doubted she’d ever be. Motherhood would require mating, and she didn’t have a mate, anymore—only people she slept with. Unfulfilling attachments. People who warmed her bed, but not her spirit. No one could fill the void Tamatsu had ripped into her.

Or perhaps what she had was more like an open wound that couldn’t be stitched together unless she had the right medicine first, and he was the medicine.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and counted breaths until her chest stopped aching.

One … Two … Three …

Mr. Perez twined his fingers. “He wants to set up a meeting with you, face-to-face since he can’t talk. Wants to—”

“Stop.” She shook her head.

He couldn’t talk. She’d taken many voices, but coincidences rarely were, and she’d thought of him twice in one day. Her dreams as of late had been more taunting than usual. Of there being a hole in her chest where her heart should have been. Of her missing her right hand. Magnets that wouldn’t cling because one had turned the wrong way.

She was fae. She knew better than to ignore signs.

She started tapping the end of her pen—softly at first, and then harder—so each plunger click sounded like a bomb ticking down. Him. If it were him, she’d need to kill him so she could breathe.

Mr. Perez looked at his wife, who fidgeted with her ring some more.

“December,” she said softly, clacking the pen end harder. There was a reason that name sounded familiar. Noelle had pushed the interaction to the back of her mind along with the resurging memories of the creature the woman’s phone call had set off. She’d called Noelle in July on behalf of Tamatsu, and Noelle had …

Well, she couldn’t remember what she’d said. She’d snapped and hung up without asking if he’d found her queen. She’d been snapping at every memory of him for nearly nine centuries because he was the one person in her life who wasn’t supposed to betray her or leave her. He’d disappointed her worse than all the rest.

She still hadn’t figured out what she’d done to deserve it.

“Well?” she asked Mr. Perez. “What does … this person want?”

“Tamatsu has located your queen. He’ll tell you where she is in exchange for his voice.”

“Oh, I see,” she murmured with contrived blandness, and stared down at the pen she must have shattered.