Changeling

"Take me home," she said softly, holding his face between her hands. I rolled my eyes and started pawing through my fanny pack for my keys. Do not go home with her, I thought. Sky will kill you. And I need to talk to you alone. With a sudden pang, I wished Hunter were here. He would know what to do. He would help me. I would feel so much better.

"Raven, come with us," Robbie said. My hero. "You live close to Ethan, and I can drop off. Morgan takes another exit."

"I want to come home with you," Raven told Killian. She pressed her hips against him and smiled. "And you want me to."

He laughed and disengaged himself easily. "Not tonight, Raven. I'll take a rain check."

For a moment Raven couldn't decide whether to be angry or to pout, but in the end she was too drunk for either and fell backward into the backseat of Bree's car. Robbie sighed and slammed the door shut. Bree's fine dark hair was pressed against her window, and I saw her eyes were closed. With a wave good-bye, Robbie started Breezy and drove off.

"Fun people, your friends," said Killian. His words came out with puffs of condensation.

I looked at him for a moment until I understood the actual words. "Uh-huh," I said stupidly.

Killian grinned with delight and brushed my damp hair off my neck. "Little sister, are you tipsy?"

"I'm a mess," I said, feeling like my tongue needed to lie down and rest. Then two more synapses fired. "Oh, crap!" I said. "We're both drunk. Who's going to drive? We'll have to call a taxi."

"Oh, love, you're so concerned with what's right and wrong," Killian said soothingly. "It'll be fine. You know these roads. That car's a tank. No worries."

I was so drunk that I almost believed him. Then I shook my head, which felt loose and floppy. "No. We can't drive drunk," I slurred. "That would be bad."

His dark eyes glinted in the night.

I'm related to him, I thought in a daze. We share the same blood, I have a brother.

Slowly Killian reached out again and spread his hand on the side of my head, pushing his fingers beneath my hair. Smiling down at me, he whispered some words in Gaelic that I didn't know but somehow understood the meaning of. I started to feel strange and closed my eyes. When he quit speaking, I waited till he had moved his hand, then opened my eyes. I felt stone cold sober.

I looked around. I felt completely normal. I could walk, talk, and think. Killian saw the comprehension on my face and laughed again, his white teeth gleaming against his lips.

"Okay, I can drive," I said.

We got into Das Boot, my brain clinking away efficiently. I was sober; Killian was plastered. And I was going to find out where he was staying. There were possibilities here. I might get some information from him after all.

I drove slowly back down old Highway 60. Killian was leaning against his door, his head against the window. Eyes closed, he was singing under his breath.

"How did you get home last night?" I asked. "I ran after you to offer you a ride home, but you were already gone. How did you do it?"

Killian was looking out the window, not at me, but I could still sense his mischievous smile. "Oh, didn't you see, love?" he asked. "I had my portable broomstick in my pocket."

All right, I thought. I took that as something that I shouldn't press further. Let's try a new tactic.

"Where am I taking you now? Where are you staying?"

"Oh, ah…" Killian peered out the window, as if trying to figure out himself. "I don't really know the names of the roads here. I'll just have to tell you where to turn. You stay on this road for a while."

Okay. "You and Ciaran don't seem that much alike," I said, keeping my eyes on the road.

He blinked sleepily, giving me a sweet smile. I could see how he would be popular anywhere he went. He was fun, undemanding, flexible, and not at all mean-spirited.

“No,” he agreed. “We’re not.”

“Is that because he just wasn’t around that much when you were little?”

Killian thought. “Maybe. Partly. But it’s the whole nature-and-nurture thing. Even if he’d been around all the time, signing my school mark report, It’s probably still be pretty different from him.”

“Why?” Note to self: Do not become a lawyer. Your interrogation skills suck.

He shrugged. “Don’t know.” He sat up in his seat. “Take a left here.”

So he wasn’t Mr. Introspection. Okay. New tactic. “What are your brother and sister like?”

“They’re different from him, too. I don’t know.” Killian looked out the window into the dark woods on his side of the car. There was no moon tonight; the sky was laden with heavy clouds that seemed almost to touch the treetops. “It’s just—Da is very ambitious, you know? He married Mum so he could lead her mother’s coven. He just wants power, no matter what. It’s more important than family or…” His voice trailed off, and I wondered if he thought he’d said too much. He still seemed very drunk—his words were thick and seemed to take a lot of thought.

“Is your mom like that, too?”

Killian gave a short bark of a laugh. “Goddess, no. Which is why Da inherited her coven, not her. She should be really strong, it’s in her blood, but she just pisses it all away, you know? Ma’s a housewife, a princess, really. Always complaining about her lot in life. I think she loved Da, but he loved her inheritance. Plus she was pregnant with my older brother when they got married.”

This picture of Ciaran’s life seemed so different that what I’d imagined, reading the romantic, agonized entries in Maeve’s BOS.

“Anyway—if he loved your ma, then maybe that explains why he couldn’t stand any of us.” There was a bewildered hurt in his voice that I didn’t think would’ve been there without all the Jell-O shots.

“I’m sorry Killian,” I said, and meant it. In his own way, he was another of Ciaran’s victims. Did everyone Ciaran touched pay a price for it? Did I have the same effect?

“Yeah well,” Killian gave a smile. “I don’t lose sleep over it. But I don’t want you to think you’re inheriting Mr. and Mrs. Lovely. Our family’s kind of different.” He gave what seemed like a bitter chuckle and leaned his head against the window again.