Betrayal (6 page)

***

              Late nights at the range were relaxing even if I wasn’t hitting a single target without a touch of magic.  It was fun seeing my “object moving” get increasingly better.  I went there to get away and not think.  I wanted Lorah back.  I wanted my life to be just the way I wanted without heartache and too many choices and lonely nights.  Queenliness wasn’t as appealing as everyone made it sound with the exception of gaining the white knighted prince.

              Not recognizing the scent behind me, my alarm inside my head went off hightailing it around full circle only to deck the guard reaching out to gain my attention.

              “I.am.so.sorry.” I grabbed the poor man’s face and checked the redness of my very girlish punch.

              “I didn’t mean too....” I checked him over again.

              “Your aim would suggest otherwise,” he surmised.

              “Well, next time announce yourself for me,” I snipped needlessly out of embarrassment.  I couldn’t detect friend from foe in my own court.  What was wrong with me? 

              “Is there a problem?” Pike was standing beside me now, checking me over with a glint in his eye and feeling satisfied enough I was okay.  He moved his eyes slowly to the guard.  “Jack, can I help you with something?”

              So much for relaxed.  This was the opposite of relaxed.

              Jack was his name.  I’d remember that so I could apologize again later. 

              “No sir, Master Pike.  I was sent by Ian to have her moved inside.”  Jack said with a bow to me and at the same time eyeing me with fear from having to possibly
move
me.

              “I will take the task.  You are excused.”

             
I swear I’m going to lose my temper if one more….

              Already lost, Beautiful. 

              Huff!                I still felt uneasy when others addressed Pike as “in charge” but worries aside, he had my best interest at heart.  Jack bowed again and dissipated behind us without so much as a budge from Pike or me. 

              “Are you okay?”

              “Yes!”  No, as in why was he asking.  I eyed something silver shine off the light by the weapons stand behind him making me blinded for a split second.  

              “Can I walk you in?” Pike interrupted my lost thoughts. 

              For the first time he shifted his stance to search the area around us as if indecisive about something.  What was he looking for?  I followed his head and saw nothing.  I briefly wondered if the little escapades while spying on Kin were among his thoughts, but he gave no indication.

              “Where is Ian?” I felt foolish for asking and not knowing.  He must have picked up on my discomfort for he hesitantly moved his hand to my back and nudged me toward the door.  In midstep, I reached for the shiny silver dagger I’d spied, tucked into a belt even with the holding contraption to keep it safe.  It was uncomfortable, but I decided to keep it secret.  Yeah,
that
didn’t work. 

              “You’ll feel safer having it, but it would never protect you the way your magic can.  Just remember that.”

              Why were men always so smug in the way they told a woman how they were so totally inept at protecting themselves, yet they couldn’t possible attain the skills to ever achieve it anyway?

              “Come, the kitchen is baking bread for tomorrow.” 

              I found out Ian was taking a turn following Kin to the very place I’d been myself.  Not able to hide much from either man, Pike questioned my nervous energy from his telling of the conversations overheard by the winter court boundaries.  When I finally confessed, he laughed.  I pour out secrets to Pike so easily.  I couldn’t figure my own logic on why he was so easy to talk to, he jus was. Maybe because he always told it like it was, no sugarcoating surfaces. 

              “No more trips like that.  I’ll speak to Rion.  And for the record, Ian already knew.  He just didn’t want to evade your space so he had me tracking you.” 

              When my face paled he continued, “You offered up, so I gave it back.” 

              Would there ever be a time I couldn’t get away with a secret?  I regretted the thoughts as soon as they were out there.  Ian would no doubt wish just that about the missing days with Kin.

              Rion walked to the entrance.  Pike gave him a hard look before addressing the kitchen.

              Pike asked the ladies when we entered if we could have a loaf to test out with that smooth, sultry voice of his.  He gave the older woman one of his killer smiles and she was a goner.  He was cutting the bread either because he was being a gentlemen or attempting to tell me what I couldn’t do.

              While slicing, he said it was time to replace my guard.

              “Oh, no you won’t Mr. Try to Order Me Around.  And I will remain in charge of my own guard.  You can leave well enough alone and tend your own.”  Rion belongs to me now. He will
not
talk to him.

              Pike grabbed the sides of his head.  Oh no!  Magic moment.  I vowed to practice holding in my emotions with the commanding thing.  It was better than it used to be, but still uncontrolled and unpredictable.  After I took a long breathe, his hands retreated and carried on with a knife in hand.

              “Pull in your claws Beautiful, I’m just looking out for you.”  He handed me a piece of bread he’d spread with a thin layer of butter.  He popped his neck side to side dulling the pain I gave him.

              “I know,” I answered letting go of the way my shoulders had pinned up and taking the bite.

              “Someone’s been taking the confidence pill I hid in her vitamins.  Maybe you should slide in a higher dosage of the “stay at court” pill I added recently.”

              He took his own bite after spreading a layer across another slice now sliding his eyes to see if my reaction would loosen up by his teasing. 

              We laughed after that.  He told me old stories of how Ian and he fought over petty little things as well as some of the rather silly tasks given to Ian by his mother.  Before I knew it, it was too late to even lay my head down.

              Never finding sleep or the right amount of laughter to put out the totalness of losing Lorah, I stayed with Pike in the comfort of the kitchen area till he commented that dawn had reached the sky.  I didn’t want to sleep alone and I didn’t trust myself not to wallow in self-pity for being without Ian or dwelling on about Lorah.    I felt I owed it to her memory a little to give her time in my thoughts without any possible nightmares plaguing me.

              “Am I interrupting something?” Ian’s voice was strongly undecipherable behind me.

              I jumped in the air, reeling that I didn’t sense him near and missed possible minutes with him I could have had.  “Ian.”  I ran to him, kissing his face and neck all over.  He leaned into me in that familiar way that both of us had become accustomed to.  Craved.  At least for me.  “I missed you.” Between kisses I asked with exasperated patience, “Why all night?  You’re never gone all night.  I couldn’t go to bed alone.”

              “Eh, um.”   Pike cleared his throat reminding us he was there.  “I will resume the post.  I’ll take Bane with me.”  Yeah, cuz’ Bane loved the thrill of violence and battle and would no doubt
look
for a fight.  It was obvious in his training tactics.  Pike bowed to me and left giving me a small smile.

              “Ian, all night?” I asked again yawning.

              He took my hand in his and led me out of the kitchen, through the court, and to his bedroom chambers. 

              “You’re tired, Grace.  Lie down.”

              “I don’t want to be away from you,” I sulked like a child and tried my best to persuade him with mojo.  Guess my mojo was dead. 

              I was sad about Lorah and lonely all night.  Pike knew it enough to keep me company.  His hidden side of “all caring” was hard to fathom when I thought about it, so I didn’t.  “I will be fine,” I yawned, lying to help him and not myself.  Greatest comeback of a fool.

              “I’m not leaving you,” he unbuttoned his shirt as I stood glued to the end of the bed in a sitting position.  I watched him carefully loosen his shirt and drop it to the floor without a glance towards it.  That gesture alone was such a heart stopper that I couldn’t move.  I just watched his chest move slowly up and down, seeing his scars move with him.  He let me stare for a little while and then picked me up and rested me against the pillow spilling my hair around and lying himself against the back of me.  His warm kisses lulled me into the deepest sleep without a single nightmare.

              When I awoke at noon, he was still awake and making a cocoon around my body to the point I was stifling hot.  I rotated to face him.              

              “Better?”

              “If I say no does that mean you’ll stay very still and remain locked around me?”

              His minty breath chuckled out a small sigh.  “Yes, if that’s what you need.”

              I needed him last night.  “It will always be what I need, but I could use a shower and some lunch.”

              He inclined his head, “Is that an invitation?” 

              “Oh, Ian.  Don’t tempt me,” my voice purred out a sigh.  He teased, but I wasn’t sure sometimes if I was anymore.  I was ready to be married to this man.  In every way. How I doubted his affinity to me by comparing it to Sarah and Bane was just plain irrational.

              “Take a shower my love,” he kissed the top of my head and slipped on his shirt.  “I’ll make them save a plate for you and meet you for a private lunch in the garden.”

              Ohhhh!  Even better.  I didn’t stop the smile from erupting into an explosion of giggles. 

The funeral was well...a funeral. I wasn’t prepared for what would happen yet I’d never been to a human funeral either.   It went as expected for one who had never seen a fire built tower with a death bed on top.  It was not inspiring, only sad.  I held Sarah for the time it took to enter the courtyard where everything was set up, the smoke coiling into billowy clouds of black enveloping the sadness.  When she was with her family, I took my place beside Ian and watched and listened.  When it was over, I mimicked Kin’s words from the day before to Ian, “She didn’t deserve to die, but I’m glad that she didn’t suffer.  If anymore of my friends die for no real reason, I will go all ballistic and destroy something.”

I just needed the release of anger built up in my heart.
              I hadn’t intended it to be taken as humor, but Ian lifted the corner of his mouth in a small smile for me.  The moment was broken when Pike looked at me with the most pain I’d ever seen him display and walked away.

***

“Altheon, I need to ask you something I forgot about before.”

“Yes, my queen.”  He bowed then lit the fire in the pit.  I hated it, but he always insisted on the bow since the proposal was made and binded.

I looked around, then sniffed the air to be sure we were alone.

“I want to know why Kin told me my hands no longer burned because of the prophecy or whatever caused it?” I brushed my hands over the warmth of the embers flaming up as if mimicking what was associated with Kin.  It seemed to ease the dark knot that had formed in my chest at what the answer might be.  More riddles most likely, but I wanted to know.

I looked up reminding myself to acknowledge the skies ever changing mood to diminish my summer air.  The clouds had dropped lower and lower.  As if brushing the tips of my fingers where I held them above the fire, it seemed the fog of wet air was meeting up with the warm heat of the flames.

“Your hands burned?” 

He didn’t know and that terrified me.  “How is it you don’t know?”

“Tell me about it.” And then he made me sit and tell him everything from every time it happened even though it was much the same every time he came near.  I told him Kin said the prophecy was wrong and that it was changed now that he would not force himself on me, but wait for me to ask for him.  He didn’t seem as shock faced as I was at that revelation. 

“Yes, this is news to me.  No, it is not a surprise.  There is another prophecy that tells of the burn but has never come to light.  At least not to everyone but you and Kin.  If he figured this out on his own, I’m impressed with his cleverness.  He has his father’s tenaciousness.”

“And you’re not concerned?” I kept my eyes on the shooting embers relishing in the fact that he did in fact know something.

“Not as of now, but I will investigate the altercations of the change and how this affects the future.  There is an old prophecy of how the summer Firebearer sensed the winter Firebearer and vice versa, but it was hundreds of years ago.  If it has happened again, then it could mean grave or great things.”

“And you will tell me if you know anything else.”  Could that mean that Kin is a
Firebearer
?  Devil Grace snapped her detective fingers together and slapped another puzzle piece onto the mystery called my-crazy-life.

He grinned a little, but a frown still drew his eyes closer making him hard to read. “I will tell you what you need to know.  To know ones’ future is the most single destructive way of ending your life before you’ve lived it.”

Yeah, because mine is laid out in easygoing intervals.  “One more thing.  Once, in the garden, I couldn’t smell Ian as quick as I should have.  Or Pike.  It was like a delay or something.”

“Well, since learning about this particular subject pertains to you alone and no one else, my guess would be that as you adjust to your abilities, that you are shifting your magic a little and displacing it at the same time.  Were you perhaps touching your amulet or trying to voodoo something or someone?”

I shied away remembering without fail, “Yes, I was.”

“Figured as much.  No worries I think.  Only time will see.”

Figured as much?  I went back to the range where Ian and Pike were practicing.   After a long week of the court on high alert and every noise setting everyone on edge, my two princes of the Seelie court were back in the range.  And working together.

The girls and I hadn’t had a book club meeting since losing Lorah and not one of us mentioned it either.  Sarah came to my room every morning after my bat having become accustomed to coffee and a biscuit in my bath area.  Even Danella and Cyly joined us on the second day helping us to somewhat find laughter in the day.

Danella went back to reminding me daily in our girlish conversations of my virtuous need to remain chaste and ready for the groom.  Harrumph!

“Maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s like,” I accused.

“Oh no dear, I remember all too well.  If I could return to those days I would.  That is why I will remain the “monkey on your back” as you so eloquently would put it.  I never forget what it’s like and don’t want to.”

Maybe she was living vicariously through me in some small way, but I couldn’t discount that she had my best interest at heart.

Talking about anything and everything, I was surprised when the conversation came back to Pike.  His past.  His present.  But not his future.  We couldn’t predict it yet.

Girlfriends galore.  Pike went through a few.  When Tren got all flushed, I kind of felt bad for her.  He was all kinds of bad news and she was too sweet for what I knew of Pike.   I genuinely thought a lot of Pike, but he had a terrible temper and not a romantic bone in his body.  Or at least not in the sense that made you giddy, just hot and bothered.

He caught us talking about him at breakfast the next morning.  He zeroed in on Tren saying her newest human term I’d repeated from Caylie’s repertoire of sayings.  Pike heard it loud and clear.  Tren was staring, undressing him with her eyes when she whispered to me, “Heard he’s a Hot Piece of As—“

“Tren!” I popped her little mouth closed.  Over the year, Tren had grown taller.  She wasn’t quite human height, more like a pixie like teenager. 

Pike was chuckling and shaking his head side to side.  I disappeared fast and never, ever brought it up again.