Page 39 of Ulune's Daughter

RHODES

SNAFU.

Situation normal, all fucked up. My neem uncle, Webb, is ex-military. He took great delight teaching that term to me and my cousins.

My situation is not normal. And it is still all fucked up.

Walking up the back stairs of Kellan’s apartment, I ask myself how I got here. How have I ended up going out on a date with the fated mate of the guy I love? Under completely false pretenses? What am I going to say to her, knowing what I know about her? What I don’t think she knows?

The possibilities for this to slide even further sideways are endless.

When I get to the top of the stairs, twin stares swing to me: red and green. The red’s an albino raven who appears to be nesting on her porch. The green is fucking Law in his cat-form, sitting just inside the screen door and waiting for me. When he sees me, he rises and stretches, his tail curving into a sickle shape. A miniature, furry Grim Reaper.

Is there any chance of this being a normal date?

No, not one chance.

Once I get inside, after several swipes from Law at my ankles, things go from bad to worse. Kellan’s finishing up a salad at the counter in her kitchen. After greeting her with a cheek-kiss—which still gets me a hiss out of Law, I swear I’m going to squirt him with my Water-magic before the night is through—I try to sit down on the stool at the kitchen island.

Only to have what feels like an entire hive of fire ants set in on my ass.

Moving to the bistro table in her dining nook is worse. The fire-ant sensation spreads up my back and down my legs. Kellan and I both try countercharms, which do nothing. I may despise the furry fucker, but there’s no question that he’s a strong magi.

Thank the Mother, he’s not omniscient. He forgot the chairs on her porch when he hexed her furniture, and we settle out there without a plague of fire ants setting in on me.

Then I bite into the barbeque chicken and discover it’s been laced with fucking cinnamon. I haven’t been able to stomach cinnamon since a pancake disaster when I was eight. The five bites I manage to bolt down come straight back up—and up and up—rebounding onto my face from some kind of hexinsidethe toilet. What kind of monster puts a hex inside a toilet?

Fucking Law.

I wash up and remove the stains with magic, but if I never have partially-digested cinnamon chicken tossed at my face again, it will be too soon.

Determined to salvage something out of the night, I go to get my car from the Athletic Department lot around the corner, only to discover I have four flat tires. What are the odds of that? Evidently pretty good when your boyfriend’s twin hates your guts.

Sloping back to Kellan’s apartment, I meet her in the front yard and admit we’re going nowhere in my car. In a gesture that I will be forever grateful for, she puts down that purring fuzzy date-wrecker, takes my hand, stretches up on her toes, and kisses my cheek.

“No problem. We’ll just take my car.”

I give Law a huge grin as Kellan closes the gate in his furry face and leads me to her battered Jeep.

“I figured you’d just fly everywhere,” I say as we strap in and she pulls away from the curb.

“Mmm, very frowned on by the Aedis Astrum unless you have a cloak of invisibility.”

She shoots me a grin that I return. Her wry humor tickles me. Why did she have to be Luca and Law’s fated mate? I’d love just getting to know her, being her friend, and letting it develop into something more if it wasn’t for all this bullshit.

“I can walk the Fae Ways,” she tells me. “But that’s tough on humans. Have you ever been on the Fae Ways?”

What do I say? I have, of course, with Luca. But would a normal human mage have walked the Fae Ways?

“No, uh, what’s it like?” I ask.

“Cold. Disorienting. It’s easy to get lost if you’re separated from the Walker. The World Wood is not a place you want to get lost.”

“No, I’d guess not. So, tell me to back off if this is too intrusive, but are you part fae?”

She nods. “Four generations back. Banshee blood.”

“No urge to wash winding clothes in streams?” I ask.

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