“You’ve recovered wel ,” he said, to my surprise.
“I have,” I said, trying not to glance down, as if my scarred thigh would show through my clothing. “It took a while.” Nial meant I looked good for someone who’d been tortured. Two notorious fairies who’d had their teeth sharpened like the elves’ had left me with some permanent physical damage. Nial and Bil had arrived in time to save my body parts and my sanity, if not al of my actual flesh. “Thanks for coming in time,” I said, forcing a smile on my face. “I’l never forget how glad I was to see you-al .”
Nial waved away my gratitude. “You are my blood,” he said. That was reason enough for him. I thought about my great-uncle Dermot, Nial ’s half-human son, who believed Nial had cast a crazy spel on him. Kind of contradictory, huh? I almost pointed that out to Great-Grandfather, but I did want to keep the peace since I hadn’t seen him in so long.
“When I came through the portal tonight, I smel ed blood in the ground around your house,” he said abruptly. “Human blood, fae blood. Now I can tel there is fae blood upstairs in your attic, recently spil ed. And fairies are living here now. Who?” Nial ’s smooth hands took mine, and I felt a flush of wel -being.
“Claude and Dermot have been living here, kind of off and on,” I said. “When Eric stays over, they spend the night in Claude’s house in Monroe.”
Nial looked very, very thoughtful. “What reason did Claude give you for wanting to be in your house? Why did you permit this? Have you had sex with him?” He didn’t sound angry or distressed, but the questions themselves had a certain edge.
“I don’t have sex with relatives, first off,” I said, an edge to my own voice. My boss, Sam Merlotte, had told me that the fae didn’t necessarily consider such relationships taboo, but I sure did. I took yet another deep breath. I would hyperventilate if Nial stayed very long.
I tried again, this time making an effort to modify my indignation. “Sex between relatives is not something humans condone,” I told him, making myself stop right there before adding any codicils. “I have slept in the same bed with Dermot and Claude, because they told me that would make them feel better. And I admit it helped me, too. They both seem kind of lost, since they’re not able to enter Faery. A bunch of the fae got left outside, and they’re pretty miserable.” I did my best not to sound reproachful, but Hooligans was like El is Island in lockdown.
Nial was not going to be diverted. “Of course Claude would want to be close to you,” he said. “The company of others with fairy blood is always desirable. Did you suspect … he had any other reason?”
Was this a hint, or just a simple hesitation in Nial ’s speech? As a matter of fact, I did think the two fairies had another reason for their attraction to me and my house, but I thought—I hoped—this reason was quite unconscious. This was a chance to unburden myself of a great secret and gain more information about an object I had in my possession. I opened my mouth to tel Nial about what I’d found in a secret compartment in an old desk.
But the sense of caution I’d developed in my life as a telepath … wel , that sense jumped up and down, screaming, “Shut up!”
I said, “Do you think they had another reason?”
I noticed Nial had mentioned only his ful -fairy grandson, Claude, not his half-human son Dermot. Since Nial had always acted very lovingly toward me, and my blood had only a trace of fairy, I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t equal y loving toward Dermot. Dermot had done some bad things, but he’d been under a spel . Nial wasn’t cutting him any slack for that. Just at the moment, Nial was looking at me doubtful y, his head cocked to one side.
My cheeks yanked up in my brightest smile. I felt increasingly uneasy. “Claude and Dermot have been real helpers. They carried down al the old stuff in the attic. I sold it to an antiques dealer in Shreveport.” Nial smiled back at me and stood. Before I could say Jack Robinson, he’d glided up the stairs. He came back down them a couple of minutes later. I spent the time sitting there with my mouth hanging open. Even for a fairy, this was odd behavior. “I guess you were up there sniffing Dermot’s blood?” I said warily.
“I can tel I have irritated you, dearest.” Nial smiled at me, and his beauty warmed me. “Why was there bleeding in the attic?”
Nial didn’t even use the pronoun “he.” I said, “A human came in looking for me. Dermot was working and didn’t hear him coming. The human clocked him one. Hit him on the head,” I explained, when Nial looked confused.
“Is that the human whose blood I smel ed outside in the ground?”
There’d been so many. Vampires and humans, Weres and fairies. I actual y had to think a minute. “Could be,” I said at last. “Bel enos healed Dermot, and they caught the guys …” I fel silent. At the mention of Bel enos’s name, Nial ’s eyes flashed, and not with joy.
“Bel enos, the elf,” he said.
“Yes.”
His head turned sharply, and I knew he’d heard something I hadn’t.
We’d been too involved in our conversation to hear a car on the driveway, apparently; but Nial had heard the key in the lock.
“Cousin, did you enjoy the show?” Claude cal ed from the kitchen, and I had time to think, Another OSM, before Claude and Dermot walked into the living room.
There was a frozen silence. The three fairies were looking back and forth like gunfighters at the OK Corral. Each one waited for the other to make some decisive gesture that would determine whether they fought or talked.
“My house, my rules,” I said, and shot up from the couch like someone had lit my ass on fire. “No brawling! Not! Any!”
There was another beat of the tense silence, and then Claude said, “Of course not, Sookie. Prince Nial —Grandfather—I had feared I’d never see you again.”
“Claude,” Nial said, nodding at his grandson.
“Hel o, Father,” said Dermot very quietly.
Nial didn’t look at his child.
Awkward.
Chapter 2
Fairies. Never simple. My grandmother Adele would definitely have agreed. She’d had a long affair with Dermot’s fraternal twin, Fintan, and my aunt Linda and my father, Corbett, (both dead for years now) had been the results.
“Maybe it’s time for some plain speaking,” I said, trying to look confident. “Nial , maybe you could tel us why you’re pretending Dermot isn’t standing right here. And why you put that crazy spel on him.” Dr. Phil to the fae—that was me.
Or not. Nial gave me his most lordly look.
“This one defied me,” he said, tilting his head at his son.
Dermot bowed his head. I didn’t know if he was keeping his eyes down so he wouldn’t provoke Nial or if he was concealing rage or if he just couldn’t think of where to begin.
Being related to Nial , even at two removes, was not easy. I couldn’t imagine having a closer tie. If Nial ’s beauty and power had been united with a coherent course of action and a nobleness of purpose, he would have been very like an angel.
This conviction could not have popped into my head at a more inconvenient moment.
“You’re looking at me strangely,” Nial said. “What’s wrong, dearest one?”
“In the time he’s spent here,” I said, “my great-uncle has been kind, hardworking, and smart. The only thing that’s been wrong with Dermot is a bit of mental fragility, a direct result of being made crazy for years. So, why’d you do that? ‘He defied me’ isn’t real y an answer.”
“You haven’t got the right to question me,” Nial said, in his most royal voice. “I am the only living prince of Faery.”
“I don’t know why that means I can’t ask you questions. I’m an American,” I said, standing tal .