Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows)

Much love, many thanks, and basically just some good old fashion undying appreciation to:

My dear husband, Matt. Your boundless enthusiasm and infinite list of abilities make all things possible. You are the nerd hero that puts the swoon in my geeky little soul.

My parents and my family, who undoubtedly saw this coming. Chances are, the story itself still presented a bit of a shock. I would never have grown to be so fearless if it weren't for a lifetime of your unwavering support. Sorry about the sex, drugs, violence, and spectacular tapestry of cursing.

Alexa, Brooke, Bryan, Corinne, Kellie, Kirtee, and Lorraine. You are all devoted, unflinchingly honest friends and beta readers. It's so much better because you saw it first. Thank you for not sugar coating.

My editor Sue Toth. I am deeply grateful that your grammar is impeccable. My forays into the wonderful world of Strunk and White normally just end in booze soaked ranting. You have brilliant ideas and you're tremendous to work with.

Sam Furst from Monsters are Good for the invaluable graphic design consult. You have impeccable artistic taste, know all of the best tidbits about monsters, and always supply the most entertaining movie recommendations.

Scott Erb and Donna Dufault from Erb Photography along with Jess and Alexa who did a spectacular job with hair and makeup. Thanks to Katie, Joey, and Neil Talbott for playing along. The photos are amazing and, as always, it was a blast to work with you all.

The Oracle requires your presence.

Tian sat in an upscale hotel lobby and stared hard at the hidden Faerie Gate in the fireplace. A summons from Tir Na Nog wasn't the worst thing she could think of, but that was debatable once she got there. She tried not to think about the pain in her chest, but it was getting worse, aching in an arthritic, empty way. The suffocating discomfort caused her to wonder if she was losing vital pieces of bone marrow every time she was killed and resurrected.

"Excuse me, miss? Are you okay?"

Tian blew out the breath she'd been holding and glanced up. The kid was clearly an employee.

"Never better."

She gave him a closed mouth smile that probably read as sarcastic. He was staring at her hands like she'd amputated a thumb or shot up on the hotel's thirty-six thousand dollar couch. She was bleeding again. The phrase,
The Oracle requires your presence
, had carved itself into the ring finger of her right hand, indicating another ten minute increment had passed since she'd been summoned. This one was deeper than its predecessors. She could see bone. She hadn't felt it though, which was either due to nerve damage or the fact that she'd been inadvertently picking at the summons on her index finger.

The human cleared his throat and tried again, "It's just that you look..."

"I look like I need a bandaid, don't I?"

"You look like you need a tourniquet," he muttered, watching warily as Tian reached into a coat pocket with her un-mutilated hand. His hostility dissipated as he caught sight of the rumpled hundreds she pulled out and extended toward him.

"I'm not picky," she said.

He palmed the money and darted off. If she'd been like every other Sidhe half-breed in existence, she would have been able to throw around enough glamour to make the need for cash obsolete. She wasn't. It was inconvenient. Tian cursed and headed to the fireplace. She stepped over a coffee table and walked into the flame without slowing. The searing pain abated as the blaze took on a greenish cast, indicating the Unseelie Gate's glamour was shielding her enough to start stripping.

Naked, Tian turned her back to the Black Gate in order to avoid staring into the darkness as it churned with distorted shapes and body parts. She watched the hotel employee from earlier as he returned toting a first aid bag the size of his torso. He stood in apparent confusion long enough to look awkward before wandering off.

Tian glanced into the flames at her heap of clothing and gritted her teeth. She was already bare assed and bleeding, but she was still procrastinating. It was impossible not to assume that standing here smelling herself roast like a barbecue fillet was about to become the lousy high point of a shitty day, that had sneakily started out well.

"Fuck me."

And fuck this fucking gate too.

Tian stepped back against the writhing darkness. Every instinct screamed she should be barreling the other way as living obsidian slid silken against her skin. Teasing tendrils of nitrogen cold snaked out across her lower back with a disturbing level of sentience. Tian clenched her jaw and focused on a spot across the room. The Gate's arctic embrace spilled along her body. Its grip was firm, as if attached to something more substantive than old magic and aether. Cruel fingers dug into her hips, jerking her against the wall before collapsing in on themselves. They burst, becoming liquid, running in rivulets up her ribcage. Trails of silken midnight burned bitter cold, tracing frostbitten pathways up her thighs. They wrapped around her stomach, brushing over her breasts and pooling at the hollow of her throat.

She swallowed to quell the coup her stomach was attempting at the prospect of being rendered immobile thirty feet in the air. Then she took the only option left and went limp and let the numbness seep in from the velvet cold. She snapped her eyes shut and focused on the sound of stiletto heels clacking across the hardwood floors of the lobby. One of the drunken strides faltered.

Another one bites the dust
, she thought as both ears filled up with pitch.

Tian didn't fight as her lips were pried open. She took short breaths through her nose, until that too was plugged by an invasive burrowing force. The Gate's darkness was bittersweet with a kick that burned like acid as it seared a path down her throat. When the immersion was complete it was quiet in the crush of the blackest black. Her lungs burned. The only sound came from her own syrupy slow heartbeat. The drumming was the only thing that reminded her she was conscious, until it stopped.

For a long time there was nothing. Nothing that lent itself to thought or sensation. Then slowly...after what seemed like...an eternity...a clap of thunder sounded in a distant corner of her soul, growing louder. The smell of wet desert and ozone hung heavy in the endless night, and Tian remembered what it was to be self-aware.

****

The girl's hand was in his lap. She giggled and tossed her hair over a bare shoulder, pursing the overly injected pink sausages of her lips in an attempt at sultry that managed to hit all the bullet points on the way to exaggerated. Dim lighting cast bizarre shadows across her face. The mottled darkness read like a Rorschach test, no doubt telling him that he should quit fucking random women in bars.

Not that he was likely to listen.

Sio shook off the nagging sense that he was missing something. He was vaguely aware that the girl was speaking again, ending every statement in the form of a question? She hadn't asked him anything, but the high-pitched whine of her voice added a layer to the discordant music of the room. The content to her monologue was extraneous, they both knew it, and he'd stopped listening to her a minute after she'd opened her mouth.

Sio tossed back the rest of his cognac and wondered why it was that the small talk always left him feeling more tarnished than the sex he was about to have in the bathroom. The woman in front of him was attractive enough, homogenized to the point of being a brunette version of the blonde he'd had that morning and the redhead he'd had the night before. It made his own pathological bullshit less complicated when he only had to deal with one other personality, regardless of how many different well-manicured wrappers it came in.

Goddamn, he really needed to grow up. He leaned forward.

"I make you nervous, don't I?"

So much for subtle.

She stopped talking and flushed like he'd quoted Shakespeare. Embarrassment or lust, it was the only genuine reaction he'd seen from her since she introduced herself. Her breath came out in short bursts as if she was already half way to hyperventilation. She uncrossed her legs, crossed them again, and shifted in her chair. It was the first thing out of his mouth that she'd bothered to pay any attention to and maybe that was because he'd caught her off guard. Maybe it was because they were still talking about her. Before making his last statement he could have bust out with some utter nonsense about purple elephants dancing around in his drawers and she wouldn't have flinched.

"God," she said, "Your eyes are, like, completely amazing."

"Thanks."

They're contacts. Don't change the subject.

"I've never seen gray that color before," she continued.

Liar.

"Yeah, they match your dress."

Her eyes lit up like he'd handed her a winning lottery ticket. Sio hated knowing she'd already noticed and wanted him to pick up on it. As if his bullshit destiny had anything to do with what color dress she was wearing.

We are not soul mates, sweetheart.

"Pity you won't be wearing it that long," he said.

"Promise?"

"No time like the present to make good."

His vices were becoming downright depressing.

She got bold and squeezed him through his jeans. He was hard, although it wasn't as much a compliment to her desirability as it was a conscious choice. Yeah, he was the master of his own dick. It did what he wanted, whenever he wanted, for however long he chose. Not a bad deal really. Hell, he'd used the damn thing enough to earn that kind of precision control. What he wanted right now was to move his night along; the plumbing was good for that. He cocked an eyebrow, and waited.

If he needed to roll out the red carpet she was out of luck. The girl shot him another contrived glance and stood up flashing a substantial amount of cleavage on the way. He followed and let her slide under his arm. She molded herself to his body and made a face at her friends across the room. Sio gritted his teeth and led her out of the bar.

The space had ironically been modeled to resemble an upscale hunting lodge, so it was inconvenient that they had to trek all the way down a darkened hallway and through the hotel lobby to get to the bathroom. Whatever idiot didn't think to put the can in the bar itself had become one of his least favorite people. They'd only made it a few paces down the corridor when Gray Dress pulled him against her and leaned back into the redwood paneling. She flicked her tongue against his skin where it met his collar.

"I've never done this before," she whispered.

He had. So many times he'd lost count. He couldn't even recall how many times he'd heard that collection of words in that order. It was a lot, which was fucked up. "Everyone deserves to have a little fun once in a while," he said.

He meant it, too. Who was he to judge anyone for what they did or didn't do in semi-public places? He didn't think less of her. In fact, he tried not to think about these escapades at all. He could guarantee he could do right by her physically, so that was all he was offering.

"I don't want you to think I'm that kind of girl."

Jesus, he'd always hated that line too.

"What if I'm that kind of guy?"

She groaned and rubbed herself against him as he resumed the long trek to the john.

"You're so hot," she said.