From the far side of the backseat, Trent said, “Quen, could we have the roof open?”
Their conversation never hesitated as Quen touched a button and the small square of roof slid back to let the wind and sun roll in. I couldn’t stop my sigh of relief, and I settled back into the comfortable leather. I hadn’t meant to telegraph my unease, but I thought it telling that Trent was trying to make me more comfortable. Taking a deep breath, I tucked a stray curl behind my ear and looked at him. I’d called his bluff and was still alive. It must irritate him to no end.
He met my eyes and simpered, destroying any illusion I might have had about him being miffed with me. Damn it, he had warned me that I wouldn’t be able to fly, and it rankled that I’d have to admit he was right. That jet of his was looking easy. Easy like a demon curse, and those always came back to smack you.
I smiled back, thinking of that curse I owed him. He wouldn’t kill me for delaying it, but I was pushing him, and he would push back eventually. That he wasn’t dressed for revenge, having gone extremely casual today, made me feel better, and whereas Quen was in his usual black outfit that looked somewhat like a uniform crossed with a martial artist’s robe, Trent was wearing jeans and a lightweight short-sleeved shirt. Instead of his thousand-dollar boardroom shoes, he had on brown boots, scuffed from the stables and comfortable.
I was sure his appearance had been painstakingly contrived to remind me of the evening we had ridden over his fields. His number one man, Jonathan, had died under a pack of dogs that night for having attempted to kill me without Trent’s permission. Killing an enemy’s enemy was probably elven tradition for cementing a new relationship, but that Trent had run his own man down like some perverted version of the Hunt left me cold. Trent had insisted that it hadn’t been Jonathan out there and stayed with me while the horns blew and the dogs bayed, but I hadn’t seen Jonathan since.
Green was truly Trent’s color, and I wondered if the buttons of his shirt were real silver. The wind shifted the collar to show a wisp of hair, and I looked away, my pulse quickening. The moon had been new that night, and it had been wonderful riding as Trent tried to show me what it was like to rule creation with dogs singing for the blood of the one who had hurt me. It had left me feeling curiously … lofty.
And then he goes and does black magic in my kitchen? My attention flicked back to Trent, his expression open and wondering, clearly curious as to where my thoughts had gone. Looking toward the front through the quietly moving car, I sighed and said loudly, “Okay. I can’t fly. You told me so. I’m still not getting on your jet. And I’m still not going to remove your familiar mark until I’m free of the coven.”
Jenks made a rude sound and a burst of dust came from his wings.
Trent shifted in his seat, inadvertently giving away his mood. “I never offered the use of my jet. There you are, jumping to conclusions again, Ms. Morgan.”
My runner instincts kicked in, a soothing adrenaline starting to flow. Trent was trying to look relaxed when he was almost sweating. “Jumping to conclusions is my only option when every third word out of your mouth is a half-truth,” I shot back. “The Withons trying to kill you for standing up their daughter is a good story, except I know she walked out on you, not the other way around. You’re still lying to me. No.”
Quen’s eyes flicked to mine by way of the rearview mirror. His conversation with Ivy had cut off, and the tension in the car spiked. “You don’t need to know why I need to get to the coast,” Trent said softly, and Quen’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. Crap on toast, whatever it was, it was bad. “All you need to do is get me there,” Trent finished.
Jenks’s wings were humming a warning, and even Ivy looked worried as she turned in the front seat so she could see me. Her window made a soft sound as she cracked it.
“You’re the only one Quen … trusts,” Trent added, his gaze on his fingers in the shaft of early sun, gray through the tinted windows.
There was that word again, and I grimaced as I looked to Quen and he inclined his head at me in unspoken encouragement. Damn it, I didn’t want to be responsible for Trent. I didn’t even like Trent. “Just get your little elf butt on your private jet and go,” I muttered, jealous that his money made everything easy for him.
“I can’t,” Trent explained patiently. “I can’t take the train, either. Tradition says I have to go by land, and I need to be there by Sunday night.”
“Two days!” I yelped. “By car? Are you nuts? What do you need to do on the West Coast in two days that you can’t do by phone?”
Jenks’s wings hummed as if he was going to join us in the back, but a look from Ivy stopped him. The car turned a corner and the sun shifted, coming in to touch my knee without warmth. Trent leaned back into the shadows, reluctant to answer. “What’s on the West Coast?” I asked again. “Trent, if you want my help, treat me like a professional. I need to know. Especially if lame-ass assassins are going to be dogging us.”
Quen sighed heavily, and at the sound Trent seemed to get mad. “It’s my personal business,” Trent said, glancing at the back of Quen’s head. “No one will be hurt by it, and it doesn’t touch on your upcoming trial.”
“It’s not a trial, it’s a pardon,” I said quickly, but we all knew he was right.
Trent looked at me across the seat, his green eyes almost black in the shadows. “If you can get me there by Sunday, I should have time to speak for you at the meeting as well,” he said, earning a bark of laughter from Jenks. “That is, if my familiar curse is gone by then.”
Carrots. Sweeter than vinegar but still unpalatable, I thought, remembering the drug-laced carrots I’d eaten once while a mink trapped in his office. Son of a bitch, what was I doing?
“Get me there after Sunday, and I’ll miss my window of opportunity,” Trent added. “Three days, and there is no reason for me to go at all. If we leave immediately, we can make both of our deadlines.”
My trial was Sunday night, and I met Jenks’s and Ivy’s eyes. This had all the earmarks of the tip of an iceberg. Trent was in trouble with the biggest elf family on the West Coast. And though he hadn’t blamed me, I might have had some part in it. Guilt licked at my soul. I had a really bad feeling about this.
“Will you do it?” Trent asked. He sounded angry but not at me, and I could hear a whisper of past arguments with Quen in his tone. Though Trent was the boss, Quen ran Trent’s life, had since Trent’s father died. It had to rankle when the only way Quen would let him go would be with me.
“No,” I said, sitting up straighter. “The last time I worked for you willingly, the boat blew up. That water was cold.”
“Atta girl, Rache!” Jenks exclaimed, and Ivy leaned over to whisper a question to Quen.
Trent’s expression was empty. “I kept you alive, didn’t I?”
“Only so you could pound my head into a tombstone!”
“I was upset,” he said, avoiding my glare as he gazed at the parking lot we’d turned into. The sun shifted to him, making his embarrassment easy to read.
“I had just saved your life!” I said. “And you try to kill me for something I hadn’t done and wouldn’t do. No, I don’t think so. You’re spouting pretty words like ‘trust,’ but you don’t give it. I’m not going to help you get to the West Coast so you can run your personal errand. Especially if you are playing around with black magic.”
Trent’s eyes fixed on mine, his anger easy to read as he put one ankle on his knee, looking both cold and professional. “Ceri does black magic. You like her.”
I squinted at him. “Ceri has morals,” I said, and Quen winced. “I might not understand them half the time, but she’s got them. You …” I almost poked Trent in the chest, turning the motion into a quick point. “I don’t trust you.”
“You