Henry fucking Percy, even fucking Tuffy fucking Fford fucking whatever the fuck. The Queen was right. I ruin whatever I touch.”
I felt strong fingers closing around my wrist. Strong fingers and an edge of claw. Tara twisted my arms away from my face and pinned them to the bed above my head. I was about to tell her I wasn’t in the mood for kinky shit, but the look on her face said that she wasn’t either. “I will not have this, Kate Kane.” She leaned over me in a way that somehow managed to be assertive without being aggressive. “I didn’t bring my pack to fight the Prince of Wands because I wanted to save your attractive but frequently infuriating hide. I did it because it had to be done. And when you make it all about yourself and your guilt and your regrets, you shame me and you shame the memory of those who fought alongside me.”
Crying finally happened. “I know. And I know saying I’m sorry is doing the thing you’ve just told me to stop doing. I’m trying to be better.”
“We all are.” She lowered her head towards me, kissing the tears from the corners of my eyes and the sorries from my lips.
She let my hands free and I put my arms around her, drawing her close enough to feel her heart still pounding in her chest. “Why are you…? I don’t deserve this.”
“Kate”—she pulled back a moment and gave me a sharp look—“what did I just say?”
“Not about me?”
“Not about you. Think of it as lending me your coat again.”
I wasn’t sure how I was meant to take that. So I deflected. “I still want it back, you know.”
“I’ll buy you a new one. Tomorrow.” She kissed me again, with a tenderness I honestly hadn’t realised she was capable of, and then she curled up in my arms, and I held her until we both fell asleep.
9
Mornings & Messages
In an unreal city, I stood on an island in a river and gazed out over dark and sluggish water. A familiar, wounded man stood beside me, silver-haired and bleeding.
“Fisher?”
“I am not really here.” He didn’t look at me. Instead he stood staring at the boats that sailed past. I saw he had a staff in one hand, a pair of serpents twined around it.
“Neither am I.”
“You are. This is your place, not mine. Your mistress is sleeping and the time soon comes when she must be woken.”
“I don’t know how.”
He kept gazing out over the river—was this the docklands, or a version of the docklands? I saw a hospital on the other bank, its facade floodlit in the night, a splendour of white and gold. “You know. You have always known.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It isn’t meant to.” He reached inside his bloodstained jacket and drew out a single playing card. The ten of spades. “This is yours.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted it. “I’ve kind of got a lot on right now.”
“Nothing more important than this. You will seek the blessed castle and retrieve the Sangreal. You will heal the land and awaken the one who is sleeping.”
“Before or after I stop the Prince of Wands from murdering everybody I care about who he hasn’t murdered already?”
“It is one and the same.”
The cock crowed.
Tara had barely moved in the night, and my arm had gone to sleep underneath her. I wriggled myself free and thought seriously about actually getting up. I was normally a big fan of staying in bed as long as I could possibly manage, especially if I had company. But now the spooky dreams were back sleep had lost its attraction, and Tara had enough on her mind that I’d have felt bad asking if she fancied fucking me senseless before she got on with her very important werewolf duties.
“I might need to go into town,” I told her.
She rolled around to face me. Something about supernatural beings meant that they didn’t look anywhere near as messed up and sloppy in the morning as regular humans. “I understand.” Her hand came to rest on my cheek and she breathed soft against my lips. “There will be a council of war, to which you will not be invited.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be around this evening. It’ll depend on what happens. I need to warn some people about the Prince of Wands, ring a bunch more estate agents, and also maybe find the holy grail.”
She kissed me. There wasn’t exactly sadness in it, but she