Betrayal (23 page)

Not realizing how long I’d stared at him and he at me, Pike stirred the silence with a loud clap.  “We should be going.”

My mother stood and walked us out, once again without a hug or anything.

“I’m sorry I am so terrible in your eyes.”

He put a finger to my lips, took my hand, and led me through the court. When we were in the privacy of his room, he didn’t mess with any of our clothes, but pulled back the covers and pulled me into the bed.  He wound so tightly around me I couldn’t breathe.  And I didn’t care.

I felt his hands snake onto the edge of my hip and latch on.  I gasped and relaxed in one solid motion and felt his same reaction follow suit.

“Ian, we can make this work, right?”

“I haven’t a doubt in my mind.” he whispered into my hair tickling the back of my neck.

“You worry all the time about my safety, yes?”

“Grace, that is the greatest fear that has ever taken control of me.  I never cared before you.  Now, the thought of losing you makes me, well, I would follow you in death if it ever occurred.”

Non-relaxed. 
“No Ian.  You wouldn’t!” I twirled even in the bed like a spinner top looking at him argumentatively.

“Yes Grace, I would,” he was right there in my face, “I would not last a day without you.  And don’t ask it of me.”  His voice was hard.

I could see that I would not win that fight. 

***

I didn’t start out initially to make the three of them best buds again, but that’s the way it looked. When I saw in my hidden spot around the corner the three of them knuckle bumping each other and smiling, I was frightened at first that some evil spell was at work.  So when all three of them were somehow alerted to my presence at the same freaking time, I was angrier than I should have been.

“So Pike’s away trips to watch Kin were more than I thought?  Do they have anything to do with Kin’s court?” 
What’s up with the reunion boys? 
No one answered my thoughts or my surprise invitation to join them. 

Ian didn’t falter a single step.  “Yes.”

“And he’s found something that will help us?” My mind wandered back to a movie I once saw with Ian one night.  We’d stayed up eating popcorn and watching Ponyboy and the boys.  The three of them looked like macho tough guys all hitting each other on the arms with their fists and forcing their voice to sound darker and scratchier. 

“Yes.”

“And you’ll still tell me nothing about Pike’s little escapades away from my own court possibly endangering us to the enemy though his mother is safe?”

“I will tell you Grace.”  Pike was offering it up.

I flipped around falling over my own feet and catching Pike’s arm as he righted me to standing again.  “Oh, Pike.  You don’t have to if you,” I trailed off.  I felt embarrassed and suddenly invading his spatial boundaries, but he didn’t care.  Sure he didn’t.

“I found my mother.”

I knew this.  “Duh!  I knew this.  What else are you three powwowing about?”  I should have been more shocked.  Pike and Ian noticed my lack of usual reaction.

Pike shared a look with Ian and said, “Yes, well she was held as a slave in the Unseelie court, but others were there too.  She had her memory taken from her and there were more than Kin guessed.”  Pike’s eyes crossed the path to Kin.

Tears filled my eyes before I could contain them fearing another lost relative.  We’d already established Kin couldn't save the others in the slave quarters. “Who else?”

All three of them preferred silence at the second.   “And this is the other reason why you went to see my mother,” I asked Kin directly.  He didn’t say it aloud, but through one solid depressing thought.   My conclusions were right.  My father had been where his mother was.  And so was the brother that Kin never knew about. 

“Grace, I’m here to ask for your help.  And theirs.”

Kin was here to ask them for help.  If pigs could fly in this fairy tale, I’d believe what my ears had just heard.  Kin’s evil lost queen mother better not be standing in the shadows with a poisoned apple.

I took a quick inventory of the three pillars of gorgeous standing before me.  I was a lucky girl. When I smiled at my wayward thinking, I admonished only my daydream about evil queens.  The princes were divine and everything they should be.

“I will do what Ian deems appropriate to do in this manner, whatever that is.  Let him decide and tell me the details of what assistance I may be.”  Sometimes I noticed I tried too hard to talk like such a more refined person than I was, but who wanted a queen who said things like awesome and OMG all the time?  Whatever grown up termed the phrase, “I don’t want to grow up,” was so right about savoring every bit of your childhood before it’s gone.

Kin’s boyish smile aimed straight at me.  Pike looked proud.  Ian’s eyes warmed to a dark shade of something that only I knew what meant.

***

“I owe you a hike,” Ian’s bad boy smile turned up on the sides of his mouth at me.

“And we are going now?” I hoped, crossing my fingers.

“If you can be ready in five?”

I kissed his lips and zoomed through the court hearing him yell, “Tick tock!”

I could still taste the kiss on my lips and asserted to get more very soon—kisses and chapstick.  I can’t say I didn’t hesitate just a little.  The last time Ian and I tried have alone time like a real date ended in losing a friend, but I couldn’t live like I was waiting for disaster.  I didn’t have to really.  It followed me like a disease and standing still, it would still come.  So I might as well enjoy what makes me truly happy. 

Pink converse, jeans, awesome t-shirt, and cape to cover it all.  I was ready.  I slapped on my favorite frosted pink lip gloss that Danella kept me well stocked in and zoomed back to Ian. 

“Four minutes and thirty-nine seconds.   I do believe you made a new record.”

I slapped his chest playfully and he held it there like he often did.  My heart sped up and leaned in wanting more. I stood on my tip toes hoping to get what I wanted. 

After my lips were raw once again, I realized he was holding me up completely.  I’d released every ounce of myself into that kiss.  I felt knots in my back and neck disappear like they were flying away.  He was a medicine I couldn’t get enough of.  Consider me sick for the rest of my unnaturally long life. 

“Do you want to cancel the trip?”

As much as I like what he was hinting at I wanted both.  “Hike now and make out later.  A lot!”

He raised a brow eyes were already silver and glowing with mere words spoken. 

“Why Mrs. Future wife of mine, are you making a pass at me?”

“Most assuredly.”  I reached his lips again and tugged on his top lip.  I felt him shudder and press against me. 
              “Or now,” he murmured into my mouth.

“Do you want to walk first or do you want to ride?”

The last time he asked me to ride, it was the biggest thrill of my life...that ended in a friend’s death.  No, I didn’t want that again.

“Walk.  It’s not like we are far anyway.”

I pulled away reluctantly and almost changed my mind.  Ian ran his fingers through his hair at least ten times before we started walking into the woods.  The air was cool outside, but I was on fire.  The sweat on Ian’s forehead told me he was the same.  Cooling off time.

I had the time of my life hiking for hours.  He took me to the same trail we followed in high school.  It was exhilarating!

We were halfway back to the court when I sat for water while Ian walked the perimeter of the small area in his combat oriented style of checking for danger.  A creature that resembled a goblin jumped out of the bush beside me and threw a rock into my hands.   I didn’t have time to react otherwise, so I held it to me.  It was smooth and bright red and pretty to look at.  Before I could even yell for Ian, the creature was leaving in the direction it came from and making strange noises that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.   But I couldn’t be too sure.  I yelped in surprise as Ian leapt for my prized rock, but missed only managing to knock me down.  I fell over that fast throwing the shiny rock to the ground realizing a little late that Ian’s panic steered towards the rock which indicated something bad.  Wait!  Altheon.

I blacked out. 

I heard talking in the back of my brain but I couldn’t seem to see who was attached to the voices.  No, Ian asked something.  Pike was there too.  My nose never lied to me. 

“It was cursed and she actually remembered Altheon’s advice a little too late,” a voice said to whoever else was there with Pike. 

“You brought her to me.  She will be fine.”  That was Altheon’s gruff voice.  “Go check on the guards and come back.  I will not leave her side till she wakes.”

I could tell even in my subconscious that Ian didn’t want to leave. 

“Come on man, I’ll go with you to make it fast and get you back,” Pike slapped Ian’s back.

I slipped back out of hearing or just the absence of their talking made it silent around me—I didn’t know for sure.   I didn’t even realize when I started dreaming.

Kin and Pike kept talking to me at the same time in my mind.  They were so loud I couldn’t hear Ian.  In my head I was reaching for him, looking for the life raft that he was to me.  I writhed around.  My eyes shot open. 

When I was good awake, I saw that I was alone with Altheon, the seer.             

He gave me quick attention, but moved straight to the important matters.  Didn’t matter, I only wanted Ian’s attention at the moment and he was missing.

He seemed to just watch me.  I knew he was listening to my inner monologue like a hall monitor since my defenses were down and blocking wasn’t an option.  Just when I thought I mastered parts of the magic or prophecy, something would backfire. Like the who could listen and who couldn’t part—it changed too often.  Emotions are too unpredictable.

“And yet you wondered even before now why Pike and Kinsler’s connection grows stronger in your mind, while Ian’s grows weaker?”  His voice was all alien and authoritative like it always was.

“Oh, yes.  I want to know that badly.”  I bet he saw what my mind was just dreaming about too.  

He smiled a very fatherly smile, “Grace, you choose to be allied with two, bound to one.  You are only blocked out by your own emotions.”

“That doesn’t make sense.  I have had some thoughts escape over time with Ian and vice versa but nothing major and all unpredictable,” I countered.  Where was my magic-eight-ball when I needed it?

He raised a razor sharp eyebrow at me.
              “Okay!  So some of them were
bad
.  But nothing like Pike and Kin and the myriad of emotions they play on.  And I can’t help it when they get me all riled up.” Right now they both could take a hike.

“Allies only.  Picture a calm before the storm.  You are the calm, but when Ian enters your view the storm begins and your ‘tunnel vision’ keeps you glued to the eye of the storm.  Yet sometimes you can see a little of the way out, but mostly you are caught up in the storm called IAN.”

So visual.  I sound like a love sick puppy
.  He laughed. It all made sense though.

“The prophecies don’t lie. Listen to their predictions.  They each have one.”

How was
that
part of the prophecy?   “Each?”

“Either separate or together or both.”

I gathered my thoughts before saying what might make me puke to hear, “Do I know them all?”

“Less one.”

The weather was getting worse festering strong winds.  If Kin really was the cause of such weather, why did he make it like hurricane weather?

“It’s not me.”

“It’s not?” I gaped. 
              “My father.” 

Oh, surprise.
  “Your father is making it rain cats and dogs? He can do that?”

“No, only I can.  I am the Firebearer, Grace.  Like you can make the sun, I can make the rain.”

“What?  I can make the sun?”

“Well, yeah.  I figured you could assume as much?”

“Well, assume I don’t.  What do you mean?”

“The prophecy said you are the summer and I am the winter.  It just makes sense.”

“To you maybe.”  I looked around for Ian or Pike to join us.  Kin and I stood at the trampoline talking.  We’d come so far from where we used to be. 

“Hypothetically speaking, I can conjure the rain for my court to keep our area safe within the winterized coverings of our court.  The king can force me as your king can force you..”

Jasmine, no doubt.  “That makes enough since, though I don’t see how mother nature would let us down. And Ian would never force me.”

“Haven’t you noticed the way humans have screwed up the ecosystem lately?  It isn’t always possible for “her” to take care of the world anymore.  She’s been upstaged by pollution and toxic waste.  And you would be the first queenly Firebearer.”

“And you the first kingly one.”  He laughed.

True enough on the pollution.  I couldn’t help but wonder if she, Mother Nature, was a real being and the Fey fell under her umbrella too.  Who knew the Fey existed?  Or goblins and Nyms?  I asked Ian once if Vampires and Werewolves were real?  He laughed at me and said no, but that there were many creatures that inhabited the earth for as long as the Fey.  The only one he would name was the Elves.  He said I’d have to get my own personal history lessons in ancient creatures in the records room another time.

“So how do you think I make the sun appear?”

“Well, from what I know of the previous Firebearers, you have to conjure the image or imagine the warmth the sun provides for your tree hugging friends, the plants.  I thought you knew what you were doing all those years visiting your trees, as you called it. I accused you on more than a few occasions.  You forced my work away every time.”

Then it dawned on me.  “You knew.  All along.  All this time, calling Ian names, torturing me at my meetings.  You knew?”

He nodded.  “You haven’t told Ian about the other prophecy.”

“He said he knew it.”

“He did?” Kin looked surprised. 

“Should he not know it?”

“Don’t know how he would.”

“Don’t know why he wouldn’t,” I countered.  I didn’t like him dissing Ian.

“Grace, I only mean that our court seers are very protective.”
              “But you knew about the summer court prophecy?”

“That wasn’t the summer court prophecy, Grace.”

It wasn’t?
  “Where did it come from then?”

“No one knows.”

Okay, this was the
da-da-da
moment in the movie.  The mystery among mysteries.  “Okay, fine, whatever.  Your metaphors are giving me brain damage.  But Ian knows.”

“But you haven’t told him what I am?”

“No, but I will.” 
Soon!
              “What are you?” Ian was behind us listening the whole dang time.  Ask me if I’m surprised?

I sighed turning to face him, “I am the Firebearer for the summer court and somehow the prophecy from his seer I told you about reasoned that Kin is the Firebearer of the winter court.  That is why I could feel him for all those years.”

“Your hands you mean?” Ian asked giving only a hint of irritation.  I expected more reaction but knew Ian enough now he was seeing if his woman had any invasions of privacy he didn’t know about. How chivalrous.

“Kin’s father removed it, but Kin can still feel me.”  I figured I better come clean on it before Kin decides to have show and tell.

“And both of you being a Firebearer means that
your
father knew this and exiled you to keep
her
mother coming to the court as Firebearer so as to keep the funds coming from her father.”   Ian indicated to Kin, then me.

“You already know all this, don’t you Ian?”

He didn’t look at me to answer.  He stared blankly at Kin. “Yes.”

“How,” Kin adjusted his jaw and I heard it crunch.

“Pike is a very good spy.”

Kin nodded in respect. 

“And now?” Ian asked.

“Now we decide our own fates.  He will not tell me how this ends.  I will make my own end.”  Kin twisted his lips into a hard line.  His fists were tightening beside me as I stepped back away from him unable to read his intentions.

“Grace, I am only angry at what I can’t control.  Lay off thinking anyone in this audience is in danger.”  Kin was stilling keeping it like a warning either way.
              I felt like I should say “yes sir” and salute.  “So we are all cool with this.”

Both boys would never see eye to eye.  They would always have to just accept tolerating each other even if it was just for me.

Grace.

I whipped my head around not knowing the sender.  I opened my mind completely having accomplished that task long ago.  Kin had his brows drawn in making me zero in on the familiarity of it.  This is what he did every time he mind talked to me directly, eavesdropping.  I blocked and cleared my mind’s path to Kin. 

Here.

There is another prophecy.

I wasn’t ready for more yet.  And Altheon already dropped that bomb.  “Okay, Kin go home.  Ian, meet me in the garden.”

Both boys stepped away watching each other as if in a duel.  So drama queen momentesque with men at the root of it.

I diffused him with the fact that I will always have a choice in anything pertaining to me, myself, and I.  He balled up more and more with all the secrets being revealed without his control.  I could feel an inevitable finale drawing near.