Blood of the Exiled (Witch Fairy Book 10) (5 page)

I mull it over a moment. “True.
 
I guess it’s something to think about.”
 
Right now, I can’t think of any way that would work, but who knows.

“Can I
be
in your new Witan?” my little brother Zac says from the doorway.
 
I’m surprised to see him.
 
He’s spent most of his time lately at the Palace where Dagda has set him up with private tutors for different areas of his education.
 
Isla does most of his magical education but there’s a tutor who fills in for her when her schedule as High Chancellor gets too busy to work with him.
 
I’m not sure how Mom and Dad will feel about it when they get back, but Zac loves it.
 
Dagda is treating him like the son he never had, and therefore is spoiling him rotten.

“Sorry, buddy,” I say, “You haven’t learned enough magic yet.
 
Maybe when you’re older.”

His look of disappointment is heartbreaking.
 
“Tabitha told me to come get you for dinner,” he says in his best pouty voice.

Taz, who has been sleeping curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed, opens an eye and says, “Hasn’t the boy been learning magic for approximately the same amount of time you have?
 
Surely he knows just as much as you do about it, which seems to be practically nothing.”

Taking off one of my sandals, I throw it over Alita and at Taz.
 
Lucky for him I have terrible aim.
 
“Keep your thoughts to yourself,” I say, trying to make my voice threatening.
 
Taz just stands, arches his back in a stretch, and then curls back into a ball on the bed.
 
The part of me that thought it was cool to have a Familiar is struggling to stay alive.
 

We don’t know why Alita and Taz can be in the same room now.
 
Isla suspects there was a link between him and Tana’s dark magic.
 
Now that she is no longer practicing it, the darkness has fallen away from him.
 
I don’t really understand the theory, but I’m glad Alita doesn’t get a blinding headache whenever he’s near.

“What did he say?” Zac asks, gingerly crawling on the bed to pet Taz.

“Must the boy touch me?” Taz grumbles, but he shifts his head so Zac can scratch around his ear.

“Can I go with you at least?” Zac asks.
 
“I miss home.”

Again, my heart is breaking.
 
“No, you can’t go with me, but maybe we could arrange a time for you to visit Aunt Barb?”
 
Our aunt moved back to Denver when we all left for this realm.
 
I’m sure she misses us and I think she’d love it if Zac spent some time with her.
 
I wonder how long we’ve been gone in her
time?
 
The Fairy realm and Cowan realm are not linear in the way time moves within them.

Zac grins.
 
“Okay.”
 
He flings himself off the bed and is out of my room in a flash.
 
I’m guessing he wants first pick of whatever Tabitha cooked.
 
He doesn’t really need to hurry; she always saves him the best pieces of whatever she makes.
 
She has taken on the roll as grandmother in a big way and Zac loves being spoiled.
 

I’m glad his life has expanded out of the isolation of the mountains.
 
My childhood was a happy one, but I spent a lot of time being lonely.
 
Zac is far from lonely.
 
Both Isla and Dagda are not only making sure he is well educated, they also make sure he has kids his own age to play with and he’s making friends.
 
He is having the childhood he deserves.

“I am not really hungry,” Alita says.
 
“You can go down without me.”

“Oh no,” I say, “You need your strength for tomorrow.
 
You need to eat something.”
 
I walk to her and tug on her hand.

Reluctantly, she gets off the bed.
 
“If you insist,” she says, not looking at all thrilled at the prospect of food.

“I do.”
 
I hook her arm with mine.
 
“You’re just nervous.
 
It’ll pass.”
 
Alita looks at me doubtfully but starts walking.
 
Adriel joins us and the three of us go downstairs for dinner.

Kegan and Kallen return from the village when we are half-way through our meal, making them both disgruntled.
 
Usually, Tabitha would wait for them, but she’s too stressed to worry about niceties right now.
 
The food was done, so she served it.
 
That means Kegan and Kallen both get lukewarm soup and slightly wilted salad courses.
 
They lose their sour mood when the meat course is served, though.
 
They eat like they’ve spent the day digging ditches instead of decorating the beach and running errands.
 
We don’t usually have meals this fancy but both of Alita’s parents and Raziel and Adriel are here and Tabitha wanted to make it special.

All conversation focuses on the hand-fasting, and Alita is getting more nervous by the second.
 
She would have been happy with a small family ceremony on the beach.
 
Kegan’s dad wouldn’t agree to it, though.
 
After finally consenting to the hand-fasting, he wanted all of the important Fairies to be in attendance so he can put on a lavish show.
 
Alita’s dad will need to have a good hold on her arm to keep her shyness from making her run in the opposite direction of the altar when she sees all of them.

The quietest one in the room, as always, is Tana.
 
Since she generally avoids me, I don’t see her much except at meals.
 
I’m pretty sure that in her mind, I am responsible for everything bad in her life.
 
She often gives me furtive glances which make me really uncomfortable, but I try not to act like it.
 
Since she can sit at the same table with Alita now, she obviously isn’t doing any dark magic, but she still kind of gives me the creeps.
 
I try not to sit across from her.

The rest of the night is spent making sure all the tiny details have been taken care of for tomorrow.
 
Tabitha is crankier than I’ve ever seen her as she orders us about to do this and that.
 
It’s tempting to slip out the back door and hide in the forest until right before the hand-fasting because when Tabitha gets cranky, she finds an endless amount of things that need to be done right this minute. It’s close to midnight when Isla finally steps in and deems everything good enough.
 
Exhausted, we all trudge upstairs to bed.
 
  

Everyone except Alita, that is.
 
She left with her parents around eleven to spend her last night as a bachelorette in her room at her parents’ house.
 
Kegan was really disappointed since he is staying here, but I think her parents knew what would happen if she stayed.
 
Okay, we all know what would have happened if she stayed.
 

Even though his father acquiesced in regards to the hand-fasting, there is still a lot of tension between Kegan and his father.
 
So much so, he has remained at Isla’s instead of returning home.
 
I suspect that also had something to do with being in closer proximity with Alita and a less hostile environment for them to spend time together.
 
After the hand-fasting, they will both live here as Kegan’s father made it clear they were not invited to live at his house.
 
Apparently, it’s customary for young married couples to live with parents at first so it’s huge his dad said they couldn’t.
 
Isla keeps muttering things like ‘I find myself running a boarding house’ and ‘just one day of peace and quiet is all I ask for’.
 
But, she’s the one encouraging us all to stay.
 
Kallen and I suggested that we find our own place and she barely spoke to us for three days.
 
We took that to mean she likes running a boarding house.

Closing our bedroom door, I lean against it.
 
“Did the house really need a fresh coat of paint before tomorrow?”

Kallen grimaces.
 
“At least it only took a couple of hours.”
 

I don’t know why I’m complaining, Kallen did all the work.
 
Well, he performed the magic, which still had to have been exhausting.
 
I tried to help, but I somehow managed to change the color of the paint to pink instead of white and I was forbidden to get near it again.
 
So, I got stuck doing all the dusting by hand and other drudgery Tabitha deemed necessary even though I know darn well she did all that herself yesterday.

Kallen flops down on the bed.
 
“It will all be over tomorrow.”

Crossing the room, I lie down on my back next to him and hold his hand.
 
“I’m really happy things worked out this way.
 
They belong together.”

Kallen’s response is little more than a grunt.
 
“She could have done better.”

I laugh.
 
“Don’t give me that, you’re happy for them both.”

Rolling onto his side, he gives me a peck on the cheek.
 
“If you tell my cousin, I will have to kill you.”

“I know,” I laugh.
 

His next kiss is not on my cheek.
 
It’s a slow, sensuous kiss on the lips.
 
I suddenly find myself less tired than I was a few minutes ago.
 
As his hands start to wander, I can’t even remember a few minutes ago.
 
There’s just Kallen and me and I’m in heaven.
 
Our caresses continue until we are finally making love.
 
I am definitely in heaven.

Morning comes a lot sooner than I care for, though.
 
Perhaps if we hadn’t stayed up most of the night, I wouldn’t have dark circles under my eyes and a sour disposition when Tabitha rouses us by coming into the room and opening the curtains in front of the balcony door.
 
I do a quick check to make sure the covers are doing their job of hiding my naked body.
 
It doesn’t matter, though.
 
She doesn’t even spare us a glance after telling us to get up; she just goes to the next room.
 
When did Tabitha become a drill sergeant?

Kallen wraps an arm around me and pulls me close.
 
“Five more minutes,” he whispers in my ear.

“And risk the wrath of Tabitha?
 
No way,” I say, slipping out from under his arm and getting out of bed.
 
Looking at the clock, I add, “Besides, Alita is supposed to be here any minute.
 
She’s going to be a nervous wreck.”

Throwing the covers off, Kallen stands up and stretches.
 
My eyes are immediately drawn to his lean, muscular body.
 
God, I will never get enough of him.

“If you keep looking at me like that, you will not leave this room for another hour at least,” he growls in a deep, sexy voice.
 
I get goose bumps at the thought.
 
So tempting.

“Tease,” I say dragging my eyes from his gorgeous body.
 
I give him a grin over my shoulder as I head to the bathroom for a shower.
 
We don’t have time for a bath.

“May I join you, love?” Kallen says from behind me.
 
How did he cross the room so fast?

“As if you need to ask,” I purr.
 
This will definitely not be the short shower I had planned.

When we are finally dry and decently dressed, Kallen and I walk downstairs into the chaos.
 
Fairies hired to do this and that are moving around everywhere.
 
I don’t know any of them, proving again that I would be a bad choice to decide who gets a visa.
 
Outside is just as bad, but the result is incredible.
 
The beach has been transformed into a beautiful expanse of flowers and garland mixed in with the decorations put in place yesterday.
 
It’s like a garden in the sand.
 
The scents of sea water and flowers combine to create an intoxicating aroma and I take several deep breaths, knowing this hand-fasting is going to be perfect.
 

“Is it too late to revisit the small ceremony idea?” Kegan asks when we find him about twenty yards from the house, staring at the Fairies moving about.

I understand his attack of nerves.
 
I remember feeling the same thing when Kallen and I were hand-fasted.
 
Dagda had turned it into a much bigger deal than either Kallen or I wanted, which then backfired on him when the body swapping debacle occurred. “Unfortunately, yes.”
 

“Maybe we could hold the hand-fasting in the Cowan realm instead,” Kegan suggests.
 
“We could leave right now.”

Only half teasing, Kallen says, “Will I need to wrestle you to the altar?”

“You may have to wrestle both of us,” Alita says, joining us.
 
“I am all for the Cowan realm idea.”

“You two need to suck it up,” I laugh.
 
“You’re not going to the guillotine, for god’s sake.”

Alita sighs.
 
“That might be less stressful.”

“Except for the whole losing your head thing,” I counter.

“There is that, I suppose,” she says with a weak smile.

“Alita, honey,” her mother says as she approaches.
 
“We need to get you upstairs so you can get ready.”

“I will be right there,” Alita promises.
 
Satisfied, her mother turns and disappears into the house.
 
“I do not know if I can do this with everyone staring.”

“Come on,” I say, “You will survive this.
 
I did.”

“
Yes,
and your hand-fasting was smooth as a boar’s butt.
 
What a fine example to offer,” a snarky voice says from my knees.

I look down at Taz.
 
“Shut up, you weren’t even there.”
 

“News of such disasters is not difficult to come by,” Taz says.
 
“Fairies love gossiping about you.”

“Please, they’ve been doing that since I got here.
 
It’s nothing new.”

“It is still somewhat disconcerting when you carry on a conversation with a Tasmanian devil,” Alita teases.

“I try to ignore him, but that’s like trying to ignore praying mantises mating under your pillow.”

“That was graphic,” she laughs.

“Must you always insult me?” Taz whines.

“Me?
 
Insult you?
 
I haven’t even come close to the number of times you have insulted me.”

“You do realize you are arguing with a forest creature, right?” Kegan asks.
 
He and Kallen are following us into the house.
 
“And it sounds like you are losing.”

I stick my tongue out at him.
 
“He started it.”
 
That wasn’t childish.
 
Nope, not at all.
 
“Taz, go find someone else to bug,” I tell him sharply.
 
Mumbling something I am positive would make me want to throw something at him, he ambles off towards the kitchen.