Puzzling. There was more going on here than met the eye, and Ben had pretty good eyesight.
“Let’s finish breakfast,” he said. “Before Dylan shows up and ruins our appetites.”
“This is good.” Rhianne resumed her fork and devoured more eggs. “I’m surprised.”
“Now don’t break my heart.” Ben pressed his hand to his chest, feigning offense. “I worked damned hard on these eggs. And the toast. And the pig stomach.”
Her nose wrinkled in a cute way. “Don’t ruin it.”
She continued eating, complimenting his cooking by finishing everything on her plate and sopping up the last of the eggs with her toast. She even ate most of the bacon. Between the two of them, they consumed everything Ben had made.
“I guess getting captured and rescued makes you hungry,” Ben observed. “Rescuing is hungry work too.”
“Do you do it a lot?” Rhianne rose with him and carried her dishes to the sink. “Rescue people?”
“Unfortunately.” Ben took her plate and scrubbed it off under the running water. “I don’t mean I dislike rescuing people. I hate that others put them into situations where I have to do it.”
“I’m glad you came for me.”
The words were soft, the light in her eyes sincere. Ben’s chest felt tight, as though his heart was trying to climb into his throat. He whipped his attention back to the plates and scrubbed them as hard as he could.
“I’d like to see this place.” Rhianne had turned away, surveying the room.
Ben rinsed the plates and started stacking them in the dishwasher. “I take tourists around the downstairs and the grounds twice a week. Or at least I did until the dokk alfar made me their bitch. Jazz hired a new guide who hauls tourists out here from New Orleans. But I don’t mind showing you around. The house was built in the eighteenth century, beginning as a modest farmhouse, and growing to its present size by the turn of the nineteenth century.”
“No, I mean …”
Rhianne paced the middle of the big room, her gaze straying out the window to the trees and the glimpse of industrial lots beyond.
“This world,” she finished. “If it’s to be my prison, I want to know all about it.”
“Not prison.” Ben folded his arms and leaned against the counter. “You’re not locked in. This house is a place of refuge—it’s safe—but if you want to go somewhere else, you’re free to do so.” He’d have to go with her, though, because he didn’t trust the hoch alfar or her father not to sneak through from Faerie and try to grab her.
“It’s exile, then.” Rhianne ceased pacing, her braid swinging. “If my mother thinks Faerie is too dangerous for me, she’ll not let me back in.”
The distress in Rhianne’s eyes broke Ben’s heart. He knew exactly what it meant to wake up on this side of the gate, knowing he could never go back home, that he had to figure out this bizarre world of humans and survive in it. When he’d crossed, it had been about the year 1000, as they’d counted years in Europe, and he’d found chaos.
“I’ll show this world to you,” Ben offered. “We’ll go wherever you want. I have some places that are favorites. Favorites now, I mean. Things change.”
They’d changed a hell of a lot in the last thousand years. He realized that in Rhianne, he might have met someone who’d seen as much change as he had. Tuil Erdannan lived a long time.
Couldn’t really start off their relationship asking her age, though. Bad idea.
Ben made his tone light. “We’ll listen to Dylan try to convince us to do whatever he has in mind, and then I’ll take you out. How’s that?”
He’d intended to make her smile, but Rhianne gazed mournfully at her sweatpants and jacket covering the T-shirt Jasmine had picked up in New Orleans.
“I’ll need different clothes. This shirt seems to be telling everyone that it’s hot outside.”
Ben hid a grin. The heat level was rising in here, that was certain. “I’ll find you anything you want. I’m here to take care of you, love. Promise.”
It wasn’t long before Dylan showed up. Even though he in theory had to ride from Austin, which could be an eight-hour trip, Dylan seemed to cover distances in half the time as other mortals. True, he might have already been in Houston or thereabouts, making the rounds in his territory, but Ben swore he must have some Fae magic hidden up his sleeve.
Only an hour or so after Ben had cleaned up the kitchen and taken Rhianne on a tour of the house to distract her from her troubles, he heard a motorcycle roar to a stop outside. Not just one, but three. Dylan always brought backup.
Ben had been showing Rhianne the rear veranda, on which Jazz kept comfortable chairs, tables, and a small bookcase, and explaining to her about the ley lines that ran under the house. When Rhianne heard the engine noise, she swung around in alarm.
Ben took her hand. As she’d done when he’d pulled her from the cell, she closed her fingers around his, not letting go as he led her through the house and to the front door.
The house whispered. Ben touched the wall by the doorframe. “I know Dylan’s a pain in the ass, but we should probably talk to him. Put it this way, he’ll camp out here until I either let him in or go outside and see what he wants. I think Rhianne will be okay.”
He felt the weight of Rhianne’s stare. “Who are you talking to?”
“The house.” Ben gave the wall a pat. “If it doesn’t want to let them in, it won’t. It’s very protective. I think we’ll have to meet them on the porch.”
“I thought you said they were only Shifters.”
Ben bit back a laugh. “Yeah, but Dylan’s special. He usually doesn’t mess with me, so stick close.”
Rhianne’s puzzlement settled into caution. She kept hold of Ben’s hand as he opened the door and led Rhianne out onto the porch.
Dylan had already climbed off his motorcycle and stood waiting for the other two Shifters to join him. One was the huge form of Tiger and the third … Uh-oh. Liam.
Dylan had the smallest build of the three who approached the porch, though that wasn’t saying much. Despite this, Dylan had more power even than Tiger, who, well …
Tiger was big and bulky, with tiger-striped hair and a golden stare that could skewer you until you shriveled up and tried to find somewhere to run. But it didn’t matter if you ran because Tiger would catch you. He always did.
Liam Morrissey was Dylan’s oldest son. He resembled his father with his near-black hair and intensely blue eyes, tall body, and swagger. Dylan had honed his swagger into something subtly intimidating, but Liam, young, fairly newly mated, and father to a female cub who was his pride and joy—his arrogance had reached its height.
Liam now led the Shiftertown in Austin, having taken over from Dylan when Dylan had stepped down. Actually, Liam had kicked Dylan’s butt in a fight while Liam was going through issues, though Ben always wondered whether Dylan had let his son win. Dylan had much more freedom now to roam over the Morrissey territory, which was vast, and more time to annoy everyone inside it.
Both Morrisseys wore Collars—the chain with the Celtic knot pendant containing a mix of magic and technology that in theory controlled Shifters’ violent tendencies. Tiger wore a fake one—when he’d come to live in the Austin Shiftertown, Liam had tried to put a real one on him, and it had not gone well. They’d given Tiger a fake one to fool the humans, and life had been better for all concerned.