The Walls of Jericho

Making of a High King

The rain starts again in earnest that evening, which forces our concert back to the original venue at Ulster Hall. Channing returns looking about as tired as I feel, but since he’s one of the chipper sorts, he’s still pleasant to be around. The same can't be said for me, sometimes even when I do get enough sleep.

We spend a bit of time in the room, catching each other up on our respective days. While he showers and I sit on the bathroom counter enjoying his silhouette through the curtain.

“So that girl, Fia, and Damien,” Channing says over the hiss of the water. “Did your Sight give you a date when they pair?”

“No. Why?”

He groans. “I hope it’s soon. Damien is a train wreck. He’s utterly useless. All his blood’s been directed into the wrong head."

"That's kind of rich coming from you," I retort.

"And nobody's surprised about it, are they?" he laughs. "But it's not what you expect from Damien. He’s distracted. Fidgety and anxious. The minute we walked into the hostel he could smell her. Crashed into and upset a table crossing the restaurant. Once he straightened that out and apologized to Nora, he turned around and walked face first into the doorframe. Knocked himself flat on his ass and took another table with him. God, it’s embarrassing.”

I don’t bother disguising my snicker. “I really hope I get the chance to tell her that. Besides, do you actually think them pairing will help? You and I are mated and you’re still that way.”

The edge of the shower curtain pulls back. Channing’s wet head pokes out and he fixes me with a pointed glare.

“What?” I shrug. “I’m only telling it like it is.”

He gives a disgruntled shake of his head, then ducks back into the shower. “You are so damn rough on my ego, Jericho.”

“Don't be a baby," I laugh. "Besides, I thought you were happy for him.”

Behind the shower curtain, the water shuts off, then Channing sticks a wet arm out and pulls his towel from the rack. “I am. I’m also expecting him to request to transfer here—at least temporarily. If he can keep his head on straight that might be good for keeping this project on track, but I’ll kind of miss working with him.”

“You know if he transfers here, even temporarily, he won’t be any better until he’s claimed her.”

“Probably,” he replies, then the curtain slides aside and a billow of warm humid air floods the bathroom. “But at least here he can do that. At home, he’ll just be spinning his wheels, waiting for the next trip back so he can track her down again, only you're the reason he met her. You’ve hung out with her for a bit. Does she even know he exists?”

Leaning forward, I grip the edge of the counter, watching with rapt attention as my gorgeous, liquid-jewel bedecked mate towels his hair dry. The glistening beads of water cling to him naturally in all the best ways and I lose myself in his beauty. If you can call men beautiful. I guess. Never mind. Whatever.

“Jericho?” His damp tousled hair clings to his forehead as he pulls the towel off his head. “Oh, so you are where I left you,” he chuckles. Stooping, he dries one foot and calf, stepping out onto the bathmat with it, then repeats the process with the other one. “Did you hear what I asked?”

“She knows,” I confirm, grinning when he kisses me hard on the mouth with wet lips.

“What’d she say?” He bends, drying up one leg, then the other.

I shrug. “Not overmuch. She was concerned Damien was like Ferdi—.”

“That’s laughable,” he snorts.

“Right? She did ask whether or not he’d stay,” I warn.

Channing unfurls the towel along his back and begins drying. “What’d you tell her?”

"The truth," I huff. “That if this is where she was, nothing would keep him away.”

“Damn.” With a final sweep of the towel over his bare chest and arms, Channing tosses it back onto the rack, then pads out into the bedroom for some fresh clothes. “I guess I shouldn’t worry. Once she learns all the options she has, I suspect she’ll be curious about where else she can live.”

“Does it matter?” I lean against the wall, my arms crossed over what passes for my breasts. “You’ve just spent the last two weeks telling me how you want to move here.”

He arches that scarred brow at me. “True,” he admits, dressing quickly. “It will still suck to take on the dragon without him.”

“Damien doesn’t work in the field anyway. That's why you have Ferdi.”

“Sure.” He grabs his socks and shoes, then sits on the end of the bed to put them on. “I’d feel better about my odds if it were the three of us.”

The hair on the back of my neck rises. “What do you mean you’d feel better about your odds?” I demand. “Do you not trust him?”

“I do. He’s dedicated to wiping out the dragons. More dedicated than anyone I know.” He shrugs. “But he won’t hesitate. The first kill shot he sees, he’ll take it. He won’t be concerned about collateral damages. Mostly he’s easier to rein in with Damien’s voice in his ear too, you know?”

“No, I don’t know, Channing. But I don’t like the sound of that. You keep pitching me the story that the dragons are the dangerous ones, but that’s just as true about the wolves if one of your leadership is a loose cannon.”

Channing takes me in his arms. “He’s not a loose cannon, Jericho,” he soothes. “I don’t know what’s got you so spooked about Ferdi suddenly, but think about it, okay? He’s still the same guy you’ve known for years, who pokes fun at his friends, can't resist a nice pair of legs and a bubble butt and ate Esteban’s slop so his alpha could drool over his oblivious mate working as a waitress.”

“I wasn’t oblivious,” I spit defensively. “I just thought you were scummy and I wasn’t going to waste my time on some playboy with a harem of lingerie models and B-movie actresses with big breasts.”

“I don’t like girls with big breasts.”

I arch a brow. “You’re male. Of course you like girls with big breasts.”

His GQ cover-boy smile is blinding. Channing shakes his head, still denying. “Nope. I like one girl. She has perfect breasts that fit just right in my palms and a bad habit of hiding them under ratty old hoodies. I even like her skinny chicken legs and the bad attitude she gives me.”

“’Bad attitude’,” I huff. “Apparently, you like it when she cattle prods you for your smart mouth too.”

He laughs. “No. I could do without that, but there’s an upside.”

My lip curls up in disgust. “Oh God, do I even want to know?”

Ducking his head, he nibbles on my earlobe. “I may not like being zapped with electricity, but I seriously enjoy spanking your for your impertinence later, so it balances out like a win-win.”

“Eeeuuuwww.” Unmovable as granite, Channing grins down at me like the Cheshire Cat as I wiggle and squirm to get out of his python-tight embrace. “Come on, beefcake. Let’s get some dinner before we have to leave.”

The four of us catch a quick dinner in the downstairs restaurant, then split up into our respective cars to meet at the concert. 

Like a lot of other buildings in Belfast built in the 1800s, Ulster Hall is a beautiful old building with a gorgeous glass awning along the front. It boasts one of the oldest functional pipe organs still in existence, and a great deal of history to add to its incredible acoustics.

In addition to its huge stage, it has generous floor seating and two wing balconies of additional seating on either side. The High Kings are an Irish folk band that formed in Dublin several years ago, and as might be expected in Ireland, they sell the place out.

Ferdi slinks off as soon as we’re inside the venue and disappears before his backside ever hits his chair. A bit later when the lights come up during the brief recess between the opening band and the headliner, I spot his unmistakable tattooed neck and arms and bald head. He’s pinning some girl flat against the wall and has his tongue down her throat.

While I can’t argue that she certainly appears not just willing but enjoying it, Ferdi’s promiscuousness is growing more and more bothersome to me for a reason I can’t explain. I point him out to Channing with a disapprovingly arched brow and get a dismissive shrug as an answer.

As if that’s what he’s been waiting for, Damien rises. Tugging the car keys from his pocket, he hands them to Channing. “For Ferdi. If he needs them.”

“Where’s he going?” I demand, swiveling in my seat to track his progress up the crowded aisle.

My mate looks at me and grins. “Fia’s here,” he answers, pointing down below us to the aisle between sectioned floor seats to a dark-haired girl, laughing and chatting with some friends before the band begins to play in earnest. “He’s going to claim her.”

Rolling my eyes, I slump back into my seat. “You guys are pathetic.”

I must admit, it’s not the kind of concert I was expecting, but the band puts on a good show and Channing and I enjoy ourselves. The High Kings play all the crowd favorites and by the end of the show, there are people dancing in the aisles. They get the whole hall on their feet for their tune, ‘Whiskey in the Jar’, which seems entirely too stereotypical of the Irish, but it’s a lot of fun anyway, especially as good-natured as the Irish are.

Damien does turn back up at the end of the show, catching us as we’re making our way outside with the crowd. He’s got a bright-eyed and blushing Fia by the hand when he asks for the keys again. “I know you two are leaving after check-out in the morning,” he says, his voice raised over the jovial crowd’s noises. “Our flight doesn’t leave until late evening, but in case I miss you, have a good time and I’ll see you at home.”

He shakes Channing’s hand and the two exchange smiles of manly pride that are enough to make my lip curl in disgust. I roll my eyes at Fia, who just grins herself. She waves bye as Damien pulls her through the crowd away from us.

It’s as we get outside and the press of people thins that I catch sight of Ferdi again. He’s making off in another direction with a different girl than the one I’d seen him with originally. That’s when it hits me what’s so disturbing about his behavior.

Channing had said that if Ferdi was still dedicated to the splinter cell inside Avernus that had supported a policy of killing off mages, he’d take a mate and have a bunch of children.

Only with what he's doing, he doesn’t have to, and it's far more efficient and effective.

As with the droit du seigneur or jus primae noctis, the ‘right of the first night’, he’s quietly bringing the populations he encounters to their knees in absolute submission starting with the women. He’s breeding his future army of supporters, exerting a completely undetected and unchallenged power in his bid for alpha superiority.

Rebecca doesn’t see it. Channing doesn’t see it. None of them see it.

But I do, and I bet I’ve got a way to prove it.