My Warrior Fae (22 page)

Walking to the large field behind the trees that Lord Draco had knocked down, he brought Nathaniel up. She didn’t want to talk about him, but she didn’t want to piss anyone else off today either.

“Nathaniel came to see me. Your mate, he came to see me. I believe he looked for you. Did he? Did he find you, Lady Knight?”

“I didn’t want to be found, Lord Draco, as you well know. You have something to say, so say it. I’ve better things to do with my time than play games with you. We’ve been friends for far too long to beat around the bushes.” Tess stopped and stared up at the sky. “I can’t. I can’t imagine what he said to you, so out with it.”

Tess could feel his gaze. Draco could see so much, she knew. But she also knew that he did things in his own time and not in hers.

“Lord Nathaniel doesn’t know of your punishment, does he?”

“He doesn’t know, or he didn’t know? Not that it matters, but no, he didn’t. He’s

decided…he’ll be gone before it matters, if it ever did.” Tess hurt again. And having someone know of her failure hurt more. “I’m too tired, I think, after all. Some other time, perhaps? I have things I need to do before—”

“Come, Tess, please? Fly with me. It won’t be long now before I’m no longer a part of this world or any other. I would love another chance to soar with you, my dear.”

“Don’t, Lord Draco. Please, let’s not talk about death today. I beg of you. When my life is finished, I too will be the last of my kind. So for today, let’s not talk about such things,” Tess begged him.

Neither said another word as they came to the open field, each of them so deep in thought that they barely noticed the beauty of the forest and the trees and flowers. They hardly noticed the lake and its sliver eddies along its otherwise smooth service. When they shifted, both of them a huge dragon, Draco took to the skies first, his beauty and style lost on the warrior fae still on the ground. When Tess took to the skies minutes later it was with a heavy heart and broken dreams.

They played for over two hours. Draco had been soaring around to bat the large boulder back to Tess when she saw the guard coming onto the field. The time had come. Signaling to Draco, she dropped gently to the ground and shifted even as Draco moved away.

“Lady Tessa Knight, by order of the Queen of Magic, I…I…please, my lady, don’t do this.

You’ve saved us all. I don’t want to—”

“Buck up, man. Right now! What do you think you’re doing? This is the right of the law.

Should I hold myself above them because of the way the day turned out? No, I cannot. I broke the law that governs us all. I alone took a demon lord into the queen’s chambers. Had you done the same thing, do you think I would have cut you any slack?”

“No, my lady. But you—”

“Enough, George. She’s made her decision and so has the queen.” Shamus appeared

suddenly and cuffed Tess’s hand. “You sure about this?” he asked quietly.

“You know that I am.” Tess looked at George again. “Stand down. And for going against me in front of your men I want you to spend the remainder of the week in your home. If I catch you about, I’ll have you mucking stalls for six months. Do I make myself clear?”

George looked ready to protest, but a raised brow from her and his mouth snapped shut. She knew that he’d rather die than to disobey her, and keeping him away from her sentencing would keep him from doing something really stupid.

“Yes, my lady. I shall go now. Lord Shamus.”

After he left the field Shamus finished putting the cuffs at her ankles. When he stood he looked her in the eye. “He would have broken, I believe. He would have never been the same had he seen you whipped. I believe the young guard is quite smitten with you. You were smart to send him back. We would have lost a good man if you hadn’t.”

Tess looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s get going.”

They were walking to the stream when Shamus spoke again. She thought she’d be able to

stand twice the lashings if he wouldn’t tell her again how stupid she was for doing this. But he surprised her.

“I would ask, Lady Tessa, for you to witness something for me. I’ve decided to claim the queen as my right.”

Tess stopped so suddenly he walked into her. She stared at him with her mouth opened for several seconds. “If you want me to watch you actually claim the queen, then fuck no! You don’t even…yuck! However, if you’d like me to be there when you declare her, then that’s fine. It would be an honor.”

“Good.” That was all the warning she got. As soon as he uttered the word they were

standing in the antechamber of the queen’s personal suite. Mel was sitting in a large chair, apparently listening to her mother. Shamus bowed before them both.

“I think you might have taken a wrong—”

Shamus pulled Mel up from the chair with a hand behind her head. As she reached out and put her hand on his chest he growled deep and kissed her.

Tess felt the connection immediately. Her bond with them both was so powerful that she could feel the queen’s need and Shamus’ blood thicken in his veins. Need roared though Tess from them. Tess wanted to be anywhere but here. When they broke off the kiss he said the words to bond them.

“I claim you, Queen Melody, Mistress of Light, Keeper of Magic. I claim you as my mate, my life, my queen as my right of law. I am your king, your half, the shadow to your needs. I claim you, Melody. How say you?”

Tess standing there in cuff and shackle had just witnessed the most powerful union of all the worlds and burst out laughing at the queen’s answer.

“What the fuck took you so long?”

~~~

Nathaniel felt the ground rumble beneath his feet. Something huge had shifted. When he reached for his gun he was both surprised and terrified at the same time that he came up empty handed. He looked around for cover just as the first change occurred.

The trees, lush before, now seemed to be greener. Their branches were fuller and they

seemed to reach more toward the sky. Had he not thought he’d sound so stupid he would have said they seemed to be standing taller. Then the grounds all around him began to bloom. Deep colors of red and yellow erupted from the ground in the form of flowers. Fairies, colors as vast as the meadow began to appear. They seemed to be…to be kissing the flowers as they appeared.

Birds began to sing. Nathaniel would swear that they had been doing so all along, but had only just noticed them. He knew, though, that it wasn’t true. Something had happened, something huge and wonderful.

As he stood there watching the forest come alive, he felt someone come up behind him just seconds before he was aware. He turned quickly and was startled by a centaur.

“My lord,” he said as he bowed before Nathaniel. And just like that, he knew who it was, his name. “I am to escort you to your residence, please?”

“Jacob? Your name is Jacob, isn’t it? You’re an ambassador to the queen. How do I know that?” He hadn’t meant to sound panicky, but he heard it in his voice.

“It is your connection to the Lady Knight, my lord. She is part of this realm and has been for centuries. If you would follow me, I would see you to your residence.”

Nathaniel took two steps then stopped. He looked around and then back at Jacob. Something had happened and he wasn’t sure that all of it was as good as he had thought earlier.

“My lord?”

“Where’s Tess? Lady Knight. Where is she right now? Something has…tell me where she

is.”

Jacob shifted on his hooves. He bowed his head low and didn’t raise it again as he spoke.

“Lady Knight, she has been taken, my lord. Her punishment will begin on the morrow. They have taken her to the dungeon in preparation.”

“And where am I going? I know you said my residence, but where would that be?”

Nathaniel knew when Jacob shifted again that he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“I believe Lord Aaron will be able to answer your questions. It is to his residence that I am to take you. Lady Knight has requested that you be gone from Avalone tonight, sire. She wishes you to not witness the payment tomorrow.”

Tess was so ready to toss him away. Nathaniel’s heart ached suddenly. He realized that Jacob was still waiting. Then Nathaniel looked down at his arms. “They’re fading. Why are the marks…it’s happening, isn’t it? The more she pulls away—no, the more I pull away from her, the more of her will disappear from me. Soon, she won’t even be a memory, will she?” he said to Jacob.

“I do not know, my lord. No one has ever rejected the love of a fae before. But the queen assures me that once you step into the human world again another will be chosen for you. She would not have you go through your days without a mate.”

For reasons he could not imagine that pissed Nathaniel off. What right did she have to choose another for him? What right…because he had given it to her. By rejecting Tess he had given the queen every right to whatever she wanted. Nathaniel looked to Jacob. “I want to go to Tess. Can you tell me how to get to her? Right now?”

“The dungeon, sire. Lady Knight resides in the castle dungeon until her lashing on the morrow at noon,” Jacob told him.

“Not if I have anything to say about it. Take me to see Shamus. Now, please.”

“The king? You wish an audience with the king?”

“Yes. With the king. I’m not sure what happened there, but I’m sure he’ll be more than willing to tell me.”

~Chapter 22~

Tess sat on the floor to her cell. The room wasn’t all that bad, just slightly more damp than before when she’d been brought here long ago. The window was new, though the view left a lot to be desired. There were no bars on the wall, not even a door. Tess and prisoners like her were held with magic. Not that Tess had tried, but she knew that if she were to try and step through the opening, she would be bound within it with magic. At least until someone released her, and it would have to be the queen.

Looking at the purple stone on her food tray Tess wondered why she’d been sent a fairy stone. She preferred her solitude and knew whatever the fairy was supposed to tell her, she more than likely didn’t want to hear. She turned to the window again.

When the voice began, Tess wasn’t sure she was hearing it. Then after a minute, she realized she knew that voice. And the tone.

“Grandmother?”

As soon as Tess acknowledged her, her grandmother’s image shimmered in the cell. It had been so long since Tess had seen her that her throat clogged tight with emotion.

“What the harrellish nipple do you think you’re doing? Don’t you think enough blood has been shed in this family? Think we need another martyr to give more? And sit up straight when I speak to you, young lady.”

Tess straightened so quickly she bumped her head on the wall. She was nearly eleven

thousand years old and her grandmother could make her feel ten again in no time.

“I broke the queen’s law. It is the right—”

“Don’t speak to me about rights. I know what they are. I helped write the damned things.

And that’s not what I asked you. Where is your mate? Why isn’t he here with you in your hour of need?”

Tess bowed her head. She didn’t want her grandmother to see the hurt and tears in her eyes.

Tess thought she could take several beatings over the pain of her heart right now.

“He’s gone back to the human race where he belongs. He doesn’t want…he wants to remain vampire, not fae. Mel is to release him from our bond.”

Tess could feel her grandmother trample through her mind. She didn’t try and stop her. It would have hurt more and her grandmother would get what she wanted regardless.

“So he knows nothing of what he’d be. What he’d be able to do as a Fae.” Tess didn’t

answer. “Tessa, does he know what happens to you without a mate, without him? More

importantly, does he know that you love him?”

“Yes. He knows I love him. It didn’t matter. He didn’t want to know about fae. What does it matter anyway? He is what he wanted to be. Leave it go, Grandmother. I beg of you to let it go.”

~~~

Neither said anything for some time. Tess was so lost in her heartache and misery that she didn’t notice that she’d been put to sleep—the deep and magical sleep only a fae could survive.

As soon as Tess was lifted and put to bed by her powerful grandmother, Tessa June, she picked up the purple stone and blew across it, bringing the small fairy to life.

When the heather fairy appeared in the deep purple hues of her kind Tessa June listened to Gardiana’s message from Tessa May’s mate, Nathaniel. Tessa June, for the first time in decades, the most powerful fae born second only to her granddaughter, smiled.

“Send for his Lordship Shamus. I wish an audience with him. And find Nathaniel. He may have already left this realm. I need to speak with him immediately.”

“No, my lady, he has not. Master Knight Nathaniel seeks a meeting with our king as well.

They meet—” Gardiana started.

“King,” Tessa June exclaimed. “So he finally did it, did he? Good for him. Tell his Lordship the King that I wish an audience with him, hopefully with Nathaniel there as well. Tell the king that I will come to collect. Tell him that I will accept nothing but his complete cooperation. Tell him to meet me…”

“Shall I have him meet you at the Tree of Life, my lady? I know that others go there to see Lady Knight’s release.”

Tessa June looked at her only granddaughter. Her heart broke for her. The child had endured so much and now this.

“Yes. Tell him to meet me there. I’ve a few words to say to his lordship.”

~~~

Tess woke to sunlight streaming through the window. At first she was confused, but

suddenly she remembered where she was. Standing, she stretched long and hard and felt

marginally better for it.

Tess wasn’t worried about the lashes. She would heal. They would leave no scars and she would only have the memory of them too soon. No, that didn’t bother her at all.

Looking down at her markings she was surprised that the band marking her as mated and

bonded was still there. She would have thought that it would have faded by now. By her calculations Nathaniel had been gone from Avalone for more than twelve hours. More than enough time for them to begin their change of status. She traced her fingers over the small band that said both their names in her language and the date that they had mated.