Blood of the Exiled (Witch Fairy Book 10) (25 page)

The patience on Kallen’s face has craters around the edges now.
 
“If you can transform into something as small as a mouse or take on the appearance of a prison guard, your time as a prisoner would be brief at best.”
 
He has a point but I’m still not convinced genocide was the answer.
 
There had to of been another way, a magical way maybe.

“Are you positive it is one of these creatures?” Gunnar asks.
 
He’s on the believing side of the conversation now.
 
Neither he nor Aiden seem to have a problem with the concept that all Skin Walkers are bad.

Kallen shrugs.
 
“I cannot be one hundred percent certain.
 
As I said, these
creature
were supposedly driven from this realm a millennia ago.
 
However, I cannot think of any other creature with this ability.”

“Are they creatures?” I ask.

Kallen gives me a funny look.
 
“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what’s their true form.
 
The figure we saw was
Human
looking and then it shifted.
 
So is it Humanoid like Fairies and Witches, or is it a creature that is animal like?”

“Does it matter?” Aiden asks.

I glare at him.
 
“Yes, it does.”

“I agree,” Gunnar says to my surprise.
 
Color rises like the tide up his cheeks when I stare at him incredulously.
 
“What?”

I shake my head.
 
“You’re willing to kill Fairies, and me, but you have issues about whether or not
this
creature is a Humanoid being?”

Defensive now, Gunnar says in a deep rumble, “I was hired to keep the King safe from you.
 
I was not hired to kill you.”

Aiden is looking at me strangely.
 
“You thought we were here to
kill
you?”

I put my hands on my hips.
 
“Considering what the Witan tried to do last time, yes, I thought you were here to kill me.
 
History does tend to repeat itself.
 
What else was I supposed to think?”

A shadow falls over Aiden’s face.
 
“When you were here last, you almost killed the King and his Witan when they tried to retrieve your grandmother. You also stripped several Witches of their power because they dared to fight back.
 
I’m sure you can understand why the King wanted to keep you away.”

I need to sit down.
 
For the first time in my life, I think I may faint from shock.
 
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I ask in a shaky voice, “That’s what they told everyone?”

“Did you expect anything less,” Kallen says in disgust.

“Are you going to tell us that is not what happened?” Aiden asks.

I shake my head.
 
“Why bother.
 
You won’t believe me anyway.”
 
Did Lailah know this?
 
Surely she would
of
warned me if she had.
 
I can’t believe Raziel let me come here knowing that all the Witches believed this of me.

Gunnar crosses his arms over his large chest.
 
“I might.”

I stare at him, wondering if he’s serious or not.
 
God, I want to go home.
 
“No, that’s not what happened.”

“Does she look like a murderer to you?” Kallen snipes.
 
He comes to stand next to me and places a gentle hand on my shoulder.

Gunnar gives a half shrug.
 
“I served in Iraq and saw things there that blew my mind.
 
Anyone can turn out to be a murderer if they believe enough in their cause.”

“What cause would I have that would justify the things you believe I did?” I ask.

“To take over, to rule the Witches and bring back the Fairies to destroy our world.”

A strangled laugh escapes me.
 
“I could barely make myself return to this realm after my last encounter here.
 
Trust me, I have no desire to do anything except go back home.”

“When you arrived, you said you are heir to the throne,” Aiden reminds me.

My lips quirk up in a half smile.
 
“You guys were pissing me off at the time.
 
I was trying to annoy you.”

Gunnar nods.
 
“It worked.”

“What can I say, I have a gift.”

“Why are you really here, then?” Gunnar asks.
 
His tone is less aggressive now.

“She came to protect the Witches from her grandfather and the corrupt Witches he surrounds himself with,” Kallen says.
 
His voice does not sound less aggressive.

“Protect us how?” Aiden asks.

I’m too emotionally drained to explain.
 
I’m relieved when Kallen takes over.
 
“When Xandra dealt with the Witches before, she learned that his Witan had been slowly taking over his mind.
 
They were stealing power from him over the course of years, so subtly it was hard to notice,” Kallen explains.
 
“When Xandra stripped the magic from a handful of Witches it was because one, they were trying to kill her at the time.
 
Two, they had been committing crimes against their own kind.
 
They had stolen the minds of innocent Witches simply because they opposed the Witan’s decisions.
 
They used their power to coerce and take advantage of other Witches, both in a professional arena and personal ones.”
 
His meaning is pretty clear here.
 
“Three, Xandra’s mother had called her father seeking help from two Fairy assassins who were sent for Xandra.
 
This was the first he had heard from his daughter in over seventeen years.
 
She had run from him and his Witan when they were going to force her to abort her pregnancy.
 
She had been in hiding from them but was desperate enough to cling to the hope that he would help save her daughter now that she was grown.
 
When Xandra and I returned to her home after defeating the assassins, her grandfather was there.
 
He almost immediately began to speak a spell meant to kill my wife.
 
When that didn’t work, he came back here to prepare his Witan and they came back as assassins themselves.”

“You are saying that the King tried to murder his own granddaughter twice?” Gunnar asks, doubt ringing in his voice.
 
“That is not the King I know.”

I half chuckle.
 
“We’re not exactly a close family.”

“Did you attempt to kill them?” Aiden asks.
 
I can tell from his voice that my answer to this question is very important to him.

I shake my head.
 
“I don’t need to do that.
 
I don’t need to kill my enemies.”

“Why not?”
Gunnar asks.

This is going to sound like I’m bragging.
 
I look at them both and say, “Because I can wield enough magic to strip every Witch here of their power and still have enough to tear another hole in the fabric of the realms to return to the Fairy realm.”

Gunnar considers me for a moment.
 
“Your story is hard to believe.”

I shrug.
 
“Believe what you like.
 
Kallen and I know what really happened.”

“As do I,” a scratchy voice says from the floor.
 
Great, Grandpa’s awake and he can fill their heads with even more lies.
 
I should just go home now.

“She is telling the truth.”

Four mouths drop open.
 
Mine is one of them.
 
“Excuse me?” I say.
 
My mind must be playing tricks on me.

Grandpa struggles to sit up.
 
Gunnar holds out a hand to him to help him out.
 
“How do you feel?” he asks him.

A strangled laugh escapes Grandpa’s mouth.
 
“Like someone just tried to kill me.”

I don’t think that’s really an emotion.
 
I know what he means, though.
 
Confusion, disbelief, anger, fright, and horror are probably raging in his brain right now.
 
“Yeah, it sucks when that happens.”
 
I didn’t mean for those words to come out of my mouth.
 
I don’t want to be the person who kicks people when they’re down, no matter what they’ve done to me in the past.

“I deserved that,” Grandpa says.
 
He’s on his feet now but still leaning heavily on Gunnar.

I look at Kallen.
 
“Could he be a Skin Walker impersonating my grandfather?”
 
I’m dead serious.
 
This is not the man who I’ve interacted with before.

“Sire?”
Gunnar says, catching Grandpa when he starts to teeter over.
 
“Let’s get you on the bed.”

As they begin to move, Grandpa notices for the first time that there’s a loose noose around his neck.
 
I loosened it when I came in.
 
“What the hell?”
 
His eyes shoot to me.
 
“Who did this?”

Why is he looking at me?
 
His security chief is walking him to the bed.
 
Gunnar would have a better idea than me who wants him dead.
 
“I have no idea.”

“Can’t you read the magic or some such thing?” he
asks,
his voice impatient and a tad bit whiny.

“Magic was not used,” Kallen tells him.

Dumbfounded, Grandpa says, “What do you mean?
 
Are you telling me that someone broke into my home, despite the security and your circle, and tried to kill me without using any magic at all?”

I purse my lips and pretend to think about it.
 
“Yeah, that pretty much covers it.”

Gunnar’s face hardens.
 
“It has to be someone who was already here when the circle was put in place.”
 
He looks at Kallen.
 
“It is still in place, correct?”
 
Kallen nods.
 
“No interruptions in its placement?”
 

Kallen narrows his eyes at him.
 
“No.”

I’m confused.
 
“I thought everyone who was on the grounds was in the conference room after the iron in the air thing.”
 
When the last words fall from my mouth, I feel stupid.
 
Duh.
 
Obviously, whoever it was must have been hiding on the grounds somewhere.
 
It’s doubtful they the person would come out to say hi before trying to kill us all.