Bad Boy's Bard, page 11
“I thought you just said they didn’t care about anyone else. Why would they need to justify themselves?”
“And that is the kind of argument I’d expect from a druid.”
“Enough!” Bryce slapped the coffee pot onto a ceramic trivet. “Blame is irrelevant. What we need to do is figure out what the underlying problem is—if there even is one—and form a plan to remediate it.”
“Spoken like a college professor,” Gareth mumbled.
Niall glanced from one man to the next—a druid, an achubydd, a Seelie fae bard . . . and me, the dog in the manger. As far as any of them knew, he was the only one without a stake in the game. They didn’t know Eamon was his brother, didn’t know Faerie was his home. Although they might suspect he hadn’t relinquished his ties to Eamon—:Stockholm Syndrome!:—they didn’t know for certain. And Niall wasn’t about to tell them, not with Gareth certain the whole thing was an Unseelie plot.
For all Niall knew, it was an Unseelie plot. The presence of Tiarnach in the woods—with guards who did his bidding rather than restraining him—was troubling. What if Eamon hadn’t ordered him to be there? What if there were other factions with a stake in the outcome of the Convergence, their own reasons for wanting it to fail? :Hidden agenda!:
Niall barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. As much as he appreciated the way the ethera made him at home in the Outer World so quickly, the random communications—:Instant messaging!:—were extremely distracting.
He shifted in his chair, and David immediately focused on him.
“Is your back bothering you? Is it time for another dose of the potion?”
“No. I’m fine.” Physically anyway, but trying to untangle potential Unseelie conspiracies made his brain spin.
“Have you remembered something else?” Gareth’s tone was hopeful.
Niall shook his head. “Nothing.” He cradled his coffee cup in his hands. “What do you suggest, Bryce?”
“First—” Bryce took a sip from his own cup. “Christ, that’s good, David.”
David dipped his chin. “You always say that. Thanks, but it’s nothing. Please go on.”
“Right. First, I need you two to tell me everything you remember about the ceremony up to the point where you bolted.”
“We didn’t—”
“Gareth.” Niall cocked an eyebrow. “We bolted. Wouldn’t self-justification be an Unseelie trick?” :Cheap shot!: Fabulous. Now the ethera were rating his remarks. What next—sex tips? :Lubed condoms!:
Bugger.
Gareth carded his fingers through his curls, sending them awry, more than ever like a golden halo. “A point, I suppose. All right. I’ve told you everything already.”
“Are you sure?” Bryce asked. “Any detail might be relevant, no matter how small.”
The binding stone seemed to pulse against Niall’s thigh. Even if it was a key to the ceremony, or at least Eamon’s handfasting, if he couldn’t return it, there was no point in revealing its existence and enduring the awkward questions about why Eamon would have entrusted it to him.
Still, there was some information he could share. He cleared his throat. “There were some fae who hung back in the woods. I think they were probably among the ones who are most opposed to the Convergence.”
Gareth stopped pacing and sat down heavily at the table. “Why didn’t you say so before?”
“It didn’t seem relevant. There were so many on the plateau. I thought maybe they just didn’t want to be part of the crowd. I mean, I didn’t.”
Bryce leaned forward. “Did you recognize them?”
Niall avoided Gareth’s sharp gaze, looking directly into Bryce’s eyes with the false sincerity he’d perfected in the days when he’d hidden the worst of his rebellion from Tiarnach. “No.”
Bryce slumped in his chair. “Damn it.”
“I’m sorry.” Gareth stood. “I have to go now or I’ll be late for our sound check. We can talk later.”
“I’ll be with the druid council, but if either of you remember anything—anything at all—for God’s sake, call me immediately.”
As Gareth prepared to leave for the concert, he wavered between cautiously optimistic and flat-out panic-stricken. What if he’d caused Alun and Mal to be trapped? Despite his feelings about the Queen’s alliance with Eamon-the-kidnapper, Gareth didn’t want to be the cause of the death of everyone he knew. Especially now that Niall was safely out of the crosshairs.
Gareth would push aside his bias against the druids—as difficult as that might be—because if Bryce was able to find out what was happening in Faerie, or find a way for Gareth to get inside, resisting because it was a druid plan would be bloody idiotic.
“You really want to cozy up to the blighter who ties up your brother and buggers him regularly—just like yon human and his paramour?”
Gareth froze in the act of putting on his shirt. He’d known it was likely—that Niall had not only been kidnapped by Eamon, but raped by him as well—but he’d done his best to deny it.
“Ah, come now. What other reason do fae ever snatch humans? What good are they besides arses to shag?”
“Shut up!” Gareth yanked savagely on his shirt, sending a button flying off onto the floor. Shite. He didn’t have a lot of spare clothing here since he’d expected to go home to LA after the Convergence. He’d expected a lot of things that hadn’t happened—he’d expected Niall to remember him, for one thing.
But he’d never expected him to still be alive. That had to be the most important thing. Niall was alive. Niall was safe. Even though the Convergence wasn’t something he’d have chosen, what possible difference could it make to him since he wasn’t planning to return to Faerie again?
Once they had the issue of the portal alignments resolved, once Mal and Alun returned, Gareth would absolutely concentrate on winning Niall back. He’d done it once. Surely he could do it again.
But now he needed to focus on his job, because if he did intend to make his permanent home in the Outer World, he couldn’t afford to bollux up his career. It made him appreciate humans a bit more—or anyone who only had the option of a living in a single realm. If you fucked up your life, you had to . . . well . . . live with it.
He dug his last clean shirt out of the bag he kept at Alun’s house for emergencies. It wasn’t exactly something he’d choose for performances—a collarless button-front shirt in black with silver pinstripes. Tiff would no doubt give him grief for looking like an office drone. Hamish would just say he looked like a wanker.
But then Hamish never wore anything other than a tank and shorts. He always said he got too overheated under the stage lights otherwise. He also claimed he worked harder than the rest of them.
He certainly bounced about more—Josh was nearly stationary, communing with the music with either guitar or violin; Spence was constrained by his keyboard rig; Tiff took her job laying down the bass line too seriously to leap about. Probably comes from being a kangaroo.
Hamish’s hopping was another part of Hunter’s Moon’s percussion—a counterpoint that was lost in their recordings. That was one of the reasons their concerts were so popular—because the visual experience gave a whole other dimension to the music. Gareth spent his time as front man looking out into the crowd as he sang, and their reviews always mentioned the way his gaze mesmerized the audience, how everyone in the venue felt he was looking directly at them, singing directly to them.
That’s because he was. That was one of the gifts of the true bard—connection to the listener on every level. It was one of the reasons—other than the problem of the fairy circle—that Hunter’s Moon never played stadiums. They kept to more intimate venues—venues where Gareth could still see the faces (albeit tiny) of the people in the back row.
He finished getting dressed and was about to run a comb through his hair when Niall peeked into the room.
“Am I— That is, is it still all right for me to come to the concert tonight?”
Gareth hesitated in the act of rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Do you still want to?”
“I do. I loved the rehearsal today. I was looking forward to hearing a true performance. But if you don’t want me to come—”
“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
Niall shrugged. “I don’t know. You seemed a little different when we got back from the park. Distant.”
“I’m sorry. If I did, it was because this whole Convergence thing has me completely bonkers. Setting aside the fact that my brothers might be in some kind of danger, I hate the whole idea. Well, you’ve heard my opinion of the Unseelie.” He smiled and shrugged. “I haven’t made a secret of it.”
“That’s for bloody sure.”
“But that has nothing to do with you.” Gareth took a breath. Now’s the time to find out. Find out exactly what happened to him. “Niall . . .”
Niall looked up, his eyebrows raised. “Yes?”
“I have a question for you. Something that might upset you. But after your reaction today, I really want to know. You can tell me to vanish into the maw of all the hells if you want, but—”
“Go ahead and ask the bloody question, all right?”
“Did Eamon . . . well . . . did he . . . force you?”
Niall’s eyes widened, and a look of revulsion skittered over his face. “Bloody hells. No, he did not forcibly bugger me, nor did anyone else. Happy?”
“Actually, yes.” He took a step forward, gratified that Niall didn’t shy away from him or flinch as he had before. “I hate the idea of anyone hurting you. The fact that you were beaten is bad enough. If there’s been other kinds of abuse—”
“Leave it, Gareth, all right? Eamon didn’t touch me. I never saw him after I was— He didn’t. Nobody did. You say you haven’t been with anyone other than me? Well in the last two hundred years, I haven’t been with anybody at all. So we’re even.”
Gareth wondered why that didn’t make him feel better. Yes, he was glad that Niall hadn’t been brutalized in more ways than his wounds betrayed, but the notion that he’d been as lonely as Gareth had been himself? That hurt his heart in an unexpected way. Not that he’d have suffered in precisely the same way—his loneliness was general while Gareth’s had been specifically for Niall.
That didn’t make Niall’s experience any less devastating.
Niall met his gaze steadily. “But I’d take it as a favor if we never discussed that again.”
Gareth nodded. “Agreed. Now are you ready for the concert?”
Niall ducked his head, scuffing his borrowed sneakers on the carpet. “I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion.” David had found another pair of sweats to replace the ones that had gotten wet earlier, and dug out one of Alun’s old henleys.
“Don’t worry about that. There’s no dress code at these things. The fans wear all kinds of clothes.” He grinned and tried to put a teasing note into his voice. “Some less than others.”
As he’d hoped, Niall looked up, that old sparkle in his eyes and his mischievous smile in place. “That kind of crowd, is it? Or are you that kind of band?”
“You’ll never know unless you come along and find out.”
“All right then. Let’s get on with it.”
Gareth led the way down the hall, picking up his guitar case and retrieving his jacket from the coatrack. “I’ve arranged for you to have a backstage pass. You can hang with us in the green room before the show, then watch it from the wings. Unless you’d rather be out front. The show’s sold out, but our manager always holds on to a few house seats until right before curtain.”
Niall looked almost panic-stricken. “Not one for crowds these days. Backstage sounds brilliant.”
Excitement bloomed in Gareth’s belly, more than the usual preshow anticipation. Niall would be there while he performed. For the first time in two centuries—if you didn’t count rehearsal—he’d be able to glance over and meet Niall’s gaze as he sang, as he played. He remembered that they were closing the first set with “Lover’s Reel,” and maybe if he played it for Niall, to Niall, Gareth could find the missing piece, the thing that would make the song whole and perfect.
And maybe Niall would remember more. Maybe he’ll be one step closer to remembering he loved me.
If Niall had felt out of place at the rehearsal studio, that was nothing compared to being the one person without a purpose backstage at the concert. He stayed in the green room while the band ran their sound check onstage. Gareth had told him he could watch from the wings, but with the crew—:Roadies!:—still running cables and stacking equipment, he didn’t want to get in the way or distract the band from their jobs.
He huddled in the corner, wishing he’d brought an extra coat. The air conditioning was cranked up back here, despite the chilly weather outside. When Hamish erupted into the room, he noticed it right away.
“Cold, mate? It’ll get better presently. They keep it refrigerated for us because we get so bloody hot onstage under the lights.”
“Ah. Makes sense.”
“You’ll feel it too, if you’re to watch from backstage.” Hamish grinned and downed half a bottle of water at one go. “We generate heat to spare.”
Tiff brushed by him and checked her eyeliner in the mirror. “He’s modest too. You might not have noticed that about him.”
Niall chuckled. “Yes. Very retiring sort. Performing must be a right chore for him.”
“Not me.” Hamish finished his water and tossed the empty into a green bin with a triangular logo on the front—:Recycling!: “Josh still vomits before every show though.”
“Hamish!” Tiff punched him in the biceps as she passed on her way out of the room. “That’s Josh’s business.”
“His and Spence’s.”
“Exactly. Not yours. And not any str—” She cast a furtive glance at Niall. “Anyone else’s.”
“Not a stranger’s, you mean.” Niall gave her a two-fingered salute. “Guilty as charged. But it’s not my place to judge.”
She nodded once and continued out the door. “Pee before you go onstage.”
Hamish rolled his eyes. “I’m not a bloody toddler.”
“No. You just behave like one. Who knows when you might embrace the rest of the behavioral package.”
She disappeared, and Hamish screwed up his face in something halfway between a smile and a scowl.
Niall shook his head. “Does she always give you this much shite?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Isn’t she great?” He wandered toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To take a piss, of course. I’ve had my marching orders. Later.”
Niall half expected to see Gareth, but apparently he was already in consultation with the sound engineer. The band’s manager—a tall, thin person with a shock of rainbow hair who caused Niall to do a double take because of their resemblance to nongendered fae—gave Niall a sharp look but didn’t otherwise comment on his presence.
In fact, nobody paid him much attention at all—very similar to his last weeks in the Keep, with the exception that the kitchen had been much warmer and less sterile, and the company considerably more friendly.
Shite, was he actually missing the Keep? What a comedown for the scandalous prodigal prince, who’d always seized every opportunity to escape.
After an announcement that the house was open, the band filed back into the room, Spence with his arm around Josh as usual, Josh looking a mite green around the gills. Gareth made his way over to Niall and sat next to him.
“You doing all right?”
Niall nodded. “Feeling a bit out of place”—:Fifth wheel!:—“but I’ll manage. You all ready for the show?”
Gareth nodded, gazing around at the rest of the band. “Yeah. This’ll be a good one, I think. I can always tell by their energy.”
Niall glanced at the other band members. They might be in separate corners—Spence and Josh standing close, foreheads touching, murmuring to one another; Tiff leaning against the wall, eyes closed, fingers making patterns on her thigh as if it was the neck of her bass; Hamish tossing a drumstick, bouncing on his toes—yet somehow they seemed part of a whole anyway, almost as if Niall could see the threads connecting them to one another.
And Gareth held the ends of those threads. Niall remembered the way Gareth shone onstage, the way others were drawn to him, helpless moths to his brilliant flame. He suspected that the success of the concert rested more on Gareth’s mood than anything, because a bard’s mood could influence everyone within range of his voice. For the band, who experienced it at close range all the time? It must be almost automatic.
Niall remembered his own reaction to Gareth, onstage and off. That had never gotten old, never been taken for granted.
And then it had been taken away.
The band’s manager opened the door and popped their head in. “Five minutes, everyone.”
Gareth flashed a thumbs-up in acknowledgment and motioned his bandmates to the center of the room. “Okay, mates. This is it.” With their heads together and arms around one another, their connection was even more evident. Gareth murmured something to them that Niall didn’t catch.
“And break!” Hamish called.
They parted, heading out the door, Gareth bringing up the rear. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at Niall. “Come on then. I’ve got a stool set up for you backstage. Best seat in the house.”
“Are you sure? I won’t be in the way?”
“Nah. They’re mostly set now anyway. Unless—” Gareth’s smile faltered, and Niall’s heart clenched to see the uncertainty in his face. “I mean, you don’t have to watch if you don’t want to.”
Niall forced himself to grin and rose to join Gareth. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Gareth’s smile returned. “Excellent. This way.”
He led the way down the corridor and through the stage door, guiding Niall to a stool just offstage. The rest of the band was already there, and Niall could almost feel the energy vibrating in the air between them.
The house lights dimmed. Hunter’s Moon surged onto the stage in the dark. With three rimshots and a long note from Josh’s violin, the stage lights flared to brilliant life and the crowd roared.
