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“Like hiding out in the backwoods while other men, men of real courage, served Tannisford? We lost good men in our battle against the Ancient Fae. You weren’t there.”
Rez’s nostrils flared as he took a step closer to Stone. “You’re a prick, you know that? A Goddess be-damned, self-righteous prick. You’re just pissed because Rosamunde wanted me that night. And I could have had her.”
Stone launched at him and Rez was ready. He blocked Stone’s punch then threw his own but it never connected.
Instead, it was as though his arm shoved through several layers of thick clouds. His momentum, however, carried him forward and the next thing he knew he was rolling on the ground, yet not the ground.
He was on the floor, but nothing he recalled from Stone’s house.
He looked up and saw Holly. Her eyes glinted. “I’m going to have all kinds of trouble with you, aren’t I?”
Still on the floor, he looked around. The air was blurred. “You took me into the continuum again. What am I doing here and where is here?”
“My house in the mountains.”
“What the hell? Take me back to Stone’s house. Now. I have business with that asshole.” He rose to his feet. His face felt tight and pinched and his hands kept making fists.
“Not until you calm the hell down.” She turned and waved her arm. The blurriness disappeared and he was fully in the present.
But she hadn’t returned him to Stone’s house.
The need to finish things with Stone had him pacing. He wanted to leave, but he couldn’t teleport and he had no idea where he was. He hadn’t been to Holly’s house before. “So, this is your home.”
“It is. Would you like another drink? I, too, have a fine single malt, though not Houndstreath.”
She moved away from him toward the left then disappeared behind a wall. He realized he was in a large stone foyer and the door was behind him. Opposite was a long hall with a bank of skylights that angled down a pitched ceiling. He could see stars.
To the left was a living room and to his right, a large kitchen and dining room that opened to a vista of forest. “You really do live in the mountains.”
“I do.” He couldn’t see her, but he could hear the clinking sounds of glass as she prepared a drink.
She peaked around the corner then jerked her head in the direction of the hall. “There’s a guest bedroom and bath down there. My art studio and my fae workshop as well.
She stepped into view and waggled a tumbler at him. “More scotch?”
He nodded, but couldn’t seem to move. He had a strange mixture going on in his blood. He had too much adrenaline from a broken-up fight and confusion from having been time-pathed to an unfamiliar environment. He wanted to punch something.
When she rocked the glass again and offered a smile, he finally put his feet in motion. He all but grabbed the glass and took a deep swig. He’d been smoking a cigar. He wondered where it had gone to and what kind of apologetic note he’d need to send to Rosamunde.
Damn all the elf-lords to hell.
Fine.
Whatever.
As he moved into the living room, he was impressed. The ceiling was very tall, at least fifteen feet and angled to another bank of windows that had an incredible forest view. Her home sat on a hilltop and the Tannisford forest rolled in the distance for miles and miles. The opposite peaks were still capped with snow. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful, Holly. This must be a custom home and it must have cost a damn fortune.”
“It would have, but I did a lot of the framing and sheet work, even some of the flooring. I only used a troll contractor when I needed him. I did have him do the roof and sometimes we’d work together. But I did most of the interior work myself, including the plumbing and electrical. Well, not the rough work. I’m on a septic system.”
He frowned as he turned to stare at her. “You’re serious. You built this house?”
She turned and poured whisky from a decanter into a second glass. “I refuse to be offended. I loved every second of it. The experience was worth all the torn nails, cuts, bruises and wrecked work boots.
He noticed a hallway beyond the bank of windows. “What’s over there, past the fireplace?”
She turned to look. “The master. It’s not big, though the closet’s a good size. But it suits me.”
A couch sat opposite the windows and a stone fireplace flanked the wall shared by the master bedroom.
