Enchanted Ever After. Robin D. Owens

saw lights on in the Castle.

      * * *

      Kiri’s heart bumped with excitement. For the first time, the iron gate at the bottom of the stairs of the Castle was open. She angled out of the park and back onto the walk in front of Dan and Frank’s house. As she jogged, twilight became night. The Castle’s front door was open, too. Soft yellow light washed out around Lathyr Tricurrent’s shadowy form.

      And on the steps were people—Jenni and Aric, Rafe and Amber. Rustling came from the heavy plantings of bushes and Kiri thought she saw darting shadows. Cats? Didn’t seem to move like cats. She shivered again.

      Amber and Jenni held food dishes in their hands. Dammit, Kiri didn’t have any food offering. Her cleaner-than-new brownie pan was back on the kitchen counter.

      She did have boundless curiosity. She hesitated in going forward, just craned to see. She told herself that she hung back because she’d had enough of people today—and heaven knew that she’d been watching every minute of her behavior, very self-conscious earlier at the neighborhood party. But the truth was, the foursome had a friendly intimacy that she both yearned for, but thought she’d break up if she joined them. She wasn’t an insider yet.

      “They’re opening up the Castle?” Amber Davail asked.

      Jenni Emberdrake smiled at her with teeth that seemed to flash. “Lathyr Tricurrent got permission to move in.” Her dark brows dipped and her chin jutted. “Eight Corp informed us that this will be strictly a guesthouse from now on.”

      “Oh, that’s such a pity,” Amber said.

      Rafe Davail snorted. “Jerks.”

      A corner of Jenni’s mouth lifted. “Yes. We’d been hoping for a permanent resident—”

      “It is best that none of the...officers...of Eight Corp decide to live here,” Aric said in his deep voice, curving his fingers around Jenni’s shoulder. He nudged her up the steps. Amber and Rafe had already gone inside.

      “Very true,” Jenni said.

      At the door, Lathyr seemed to glance Kiri’s way, but said nothing, then Aric asked a question and Lathyr faded back, bowed to his guests and closed the door.

      Wind tugged on Kiri’s sweatpants like tiny hands and she shuddered. Too damn imaginative the past couple of days.

      Loneliness wrapped around her like the night, echoing that vague wish for a man, a life partner. Someone sort of like Averill, in the computer industry, who wouldn’t think she was wasting her life writing games as her parents and most of the other people Kiri knew believed. Not much respect from them.

      She trotted faster. Like her current job of dealing with irate people and their problems was fulfilling! Maybe for some, but Kiri wanted to tell stories illustrated by graphics, let people fall into worlds and play. Entertaining people, giving them an outlet for frustration or boredom or a place away from the troubles and despair of real life was important, too. And that was what was fulfilling to Kiri. Why, she could even consider herself in the mental health field. Heaven knew she’d taken enough mental health breaks where she’d played Fairies and Dragons to rid herself of the insanity of working inside a structured and office-politics company.

      She wondered how different Eight Corp was.

      Again, she shivered. Yes, summer was truly gone and autumn would come soon and bring snow. She hurried home.

      * * *

      Lathyr had gritted his teeth at the knock on the door, sensing beyond it stood Princess Jindesfarne, her husband and the humans-with-magic couple. He should have expected this, but he hadn’t. He had only arrived a few minutes ago.

      And when he opened the door, they stood there, discussing him and the Castle, rudely. He blinked. They held food in their hands—a human custom he hadn’t anticipated.

      A slight wave of a more sensual feeling hit him, and he realized that Kiri stood in the shadows of the street, watching. As he had watched her the night before.

      “You gonna stand there blocking the door or let us in, man?” asked Rafe Davail, the human with strong magic. Underwater, that would have ruffled the fine fins on Lathyr’s arms and along his spine. In human form, the hair on the back of his nape rose a little in challenge.

      It had been too long since he’d dueled in human shape to match with Davail now. And Lathyr wanted to be accepted here.

      “Welcome to Mystic Circle!” Rafe’s wife, Amber, said cheerfully, holding up a covered dish of salmon and rice that wafted to Lathyr’s nostrils. His mouth watered, and he liked how she elbowed her husband in the side.

      So he smiled and stepped back, bowing.

      The mansion—the Water King was right, the house wasn’t large, only four bedroom suites and eight bedrooms—was furnished like any royal palace, with the best Lightfolk and human items money could buy. But what was more important was that the balanced energy was exquisite, sliding along Lathyr’s skin and slipping through his veins carried by his water nature.

      He welcomed the Emberdrakes and the Davails and they toured the Castle together since none of them had been in it before.

      That didn’t stop Rafe Davail from being cocky...and Lathyr noted the man kept himself between Lathyr and his wife, and not altogether automatically like a fighter would. As if the human sensed some threat from Lathyr. Lips curling, Lathyr didn’t reassure Rafe that only Kiri Palger interested him.

      Amber Davail’s magic was too developed for her to become pure Lightfolk, and too elven.

      Rafe fingered some of the Lightfolk silk tapestries and slid his hand across the fine leather of the couch in the living room. The person who was least impressed seemed to be Amber Davail—a woman Lathyr gauged was more interested in people than objects.

      Aric Paramon Emberdrake, Jenni’s husband, had lived with the royals often enough in their palaces to recognize and accept the quality, and Jenni, as a previously sneered at half-breed, seemed the most struck.

      The glass conservatory held a good-sized swimming pool set in a floor of colorful hand-painted Italian tiles. The water was turquoise and Lathyr’s nose twitched at the Merfolk scents in the water. Large potted trees and flowering plants rimmed the windows.

      “Fabulous,” Amber enthused.

      “Nice,” Jenni, the quarter-air, quarter-fire Lightfolk said politely, staying at the doorway.

      “Don’t think I’ve seen a merman in mer shape,” Rafe hinted.

      “We have three solid shapes,” Lathyr said, then turned to find the source of water he sensed in the basement.

      Underground was made especially to be comfortable for Earthfolk—with warm stone floors, thick rugs and wood-paneled walls, large pillows on the floor. But down a hall, Lathyr looked through a large porthole to a room holding a seawater reservoir, a full submersion chamber for mers. He grinned and rubbed his hands. “Wonderful.”

      “I suppose,” Jenni said doubtfully.

      Instead of taking one of the bedrooms resonating with royal energy, Lathyr had chosen a small room on the first floor near the conservatory, meant for a servant. The others looked at him askance, and when Rafe opened his mouth again to comment Amber elbowed him, and no one said anything.

      Lathyr was very aware of always living on sufferance.

      The couples stayed only long enough for the tour and a drink afterward—Rafe, Jenni and Aric drank dwarven beer, and Amber some mead.

      Amber hugged him before they left. Aric and Rafe—and Jenni to a lesser degree—remained slightly formal, not quite trusting him.

      Lathyr sighed as he stood at the front door and watched the couples walk arms-around-waists back to their homes. He liked them all, even Rafe, and hoped he could earn their trust during this project. They’d make good friends.

      Leaning against