We finally ended the lesson with him giving me a heavy gold ring that he’d put part of his essence into. It was an anchor. Now if he left the Otherworld through a thin spot, he could transition to mine without appearing in a corresponding thin spot. He would simply travel to wherever the ring was. It would save both of us extraneous travel time.
What it also meant was that he planned on coming to my world for some of the lessons. I had mixed feelings on this. Certainly it would be more convenient for me. But the fact that he could even jump with an anchor like that indicated how powerful he was. That realization was just a teensy bit unsettling, as was the thought of him in the human world at all. And yet, by being there, his powers would diminish. He would be safer-or rather, humanity would be safer.
Back home, the following couple of days were more of the same: fights, fights, and more fights. Yet, as Dorian had predicted, some of the traffic dried up. I liked to think this was because my reputation was scaring would-be suitors away. More likely, my new connection to the Oak King made my assailants think twice about incurring political fallout.
As it turned out, I had to deal with my own share of fallout over this alliance-from Kiyo.
“Are you sleeping with Dorian?”
He stood in my doorway, his dark hair backlit by the late afternoon sun. He wore a white lab coat with KIYOTAKA MARQUEZ, DVM on the pocket. He must have driven here straight from work.
“Good news travels fast,” I said. “Come on in.”
I offered him a drink and a seat at my kitchen table, but he just kept pacing around restlessly. He reminded me of a wolf or a guard dog. I didn’t really know anything about fox behavior.
“Well?” he asked.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and gave him a sharp look. “Don’t take that tone with me. You have no claims to what I do.”
He stopped pacing, and his expression softened. “You’re right. I don’t.”
It wasn’t exactly an apology, but it was close. I sat down in a chair, folding my legs up underneath me. “All right, then. No. I’m not sleeping with him.”
His face stayed the same, but I saw visible relief flash in his eyes. It was petty, I realized, but knowing he’d been jealous made something warm flutter up inside of me.
Grabbing a chair, he turned it around and sat down so that his chin rested on its back. “Then what’s up with the stories?”
I told him. When I’d finished, he closed his eyes and exhaled. A moment later, he opened them.
“I don’t know what bothers me more. You turning to magic or you turning to Dorian.”
I beckoned behind me. “Have you seen my living room? I am not going to be responsible for inflicting Hurricane Eugenie on Tucson.”
That made him smile. “Tucson already deals with Hurricane Eugenie on a regular basis. But yeah, I get your point. What worries me…I don’t know. I don’t really use magic, but I’ve spent half my life around people who do. I’ve seen how it affects them. How it can control them.”
“Are you questioning my self-control? Or my strength?”
“No,” he replied in all seriousness. “You’re one of the strongest people I know. But Storm King…I saw him once when I was little. He was…well, let’s put it this way. Dorian and Aeson and Maiwenn are strong. Compared to other gentry, they’re like torches beside candles. But your father…he was more like a bonfire. You can’t use that kind of power and walk away unscathed.”
“I appreciate the warning, Gandalf, but I don’t know that I have a choice.”
“I guess not. I just don’t want to see you changed, that’s all. I like you the way you are.” A smile flickered across his lips and then faded. “And as for working with Dorian…well, that just makes the situation worse.”
“You sound jealous.”
“Of course.” He answered without hesitation, not really ashamed to fess up to his feelings. “But he’s power-hungry too. And he wants to see the Storm King conquest happen. Somehow I doubt he’ll be content to have you be his pretend-lover for long.”
“Well, hey, remember I’ve got a choice in there too. Besides, contraceptive technology is a wonderful thing, right?”
“Absolutely. But Maiwenn says-”
“I know, I know. All sorts of wise and compelling things.”
Kiyo eyed me warily. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just that I think it’s funny for you to talk to me about Dorian when-”
“When what?”
I set down my cup of coffee and looked him in the eye. “Honesty again?”
He returned my stare unblinkingly. “Always.”
“You two seemed…more than chummy. Is there anything going on between you? Romantically, I mean?”
“No.” The answer came swift and certain.
I reconsidered. “Was there anything going on?”
This got a hesitation. “Not anymore,” he said after a moment.
“I see.” I looked away and felt my own wave of jealousy run through me as my cruel mind pictured him and that beautiful woman together.
“It’s over, Eugenie. Has been for a while. We’re just friends now, that’s it.”
I glanced up. “Like you and I are friends?”
His lips turned up wickedly, and I saw the temperature in his eyes dial up a few degrees. “You can call it whatever you want, but I think we both know we aren’t ‘just friends.’”
No, I supposed not. And suddenly, after so much time with him and the fact that I’d made out with a full-fledged gentry, Kiyo being a kitsune wasn’t really a problem anymore. The lines that organized my life had all blurred. That scared me because I wanted Kiyo, and suddenly I had no excuses standing in my way. And honestly, I realized, it was a lot easier having excuses. Excuses meant you didn’t have to work or open yourself to someone else and be vulnerable. If I really wanted to be near and with Kiyo now, I was going to have to look beyond sex. Sex was easy-especially with him. What was going to be hard was remembering how to get close to someone and trust him.
I looked away, not wanting him to see the fear on my face, but he already had. I don’t know what it was about him, but sometimes he seemed to know me better than I knew myself.
He stood up and moved behind me, his hands kneading the kinks in my neck and shoulders. “Eugenie,” was all he said, voice warm.
I relaxed into him and closed my eyes. “I don’t know how to do this.” I referred to him and me, but considering the rest of my life, that statement could have applied to any number of things.
“Well, we stop fighting, for one. Let’s drop this other stuff and go out.”
“Now? Like on a date?”
“Sure.”
“Just like that? Is it that easy?”
“For now. And really, it’s only as easy or hard as we choose to make it.”
We took Kiyo’s car, a pretty sweet 1969 Spider, to one of my favorite restaurants: Indian Cuisine of India. The name sounded redundant, but the latter part of it had been a necessary addition. Considering all the local restaurants that served Southwest and American Indian cuisine, a lot of tourists had come in expecting to find Navajo fry bread, not curry and naan.
The tension melted between us-the hostile kind, at least-though he did have one pensive moment in which he asked, “All right, I have to know. Is it true you kissed him?”
I smiled enigmatically. “This is as easy or hard as we choose to make it.”
He sighed.
After dinner, he drove us out of town but wouldn’t say where we were going. Almost forty minutes later, we were driving up and around a large hill. Kiyo found an area with other cars but saw there were no spots left, forcing him to drive back down and park a considerable distance away. Twilight was giving way to full night, and it was hard to find the path up the hill with no lighting. He slipped his hand in mine, guiding me. His fingers were warm, his grip tight and secure.
It took us almost a half hour, walking until the path finally crested to a small clearing. I hid my astonishment. It was filled with people, most of whom were setting up telescopes and peering up at the clear, star-thickened sky.