by Gwen Rivers
“That’s it.” Aiden strokes my hair. “Come back to me.”
And just as the last drop of sensation falls, I sense the runes. They throb like a heartbeat inside my head. Underhill’s knowledge of them has been transferred to me along with her power. Addy had said I would know how to use them when I needed to. “I think…I’m okay now.”
“Nic.” Aiden points to my ankle where a thin silver chain twines around my skin. “It’s Gleipnir.”
I look over at Pharaildis' body. The chain which had perpetually bound her ankles is gone.
“You’ve taken her place,” Aiden breathes. “You’re the new Underhill. You’re a prisoner.”
“It was the only way.” I shove hair back from my eyes. “Aiden—”
His expression morphs from concern to determination. His hand ignites and fire burns into the shape of a sword. “Duck.”
I dive onto the cavern floor. He swings the sword in a powerful arc and beheads the Draugar approaching from behind. Its body smolders as it hits the ground beside me.
“Why aren’t they stopping?” Aiden asks.
Because they haven’t been commanded to. The dead are mindless servants and will carry out their last order until given a new one.
“Get behind me,” Aiden barks. The Draugar stalk closer.
“I need something sharp,” I say to Aiden.
He extends a hand that shifts to a wolf’s paw. I don’t hesitate as I swipe it across my arm. Then I take the blood on two fingers and trace the rune in the sky.
Rest.
As the last marking is made, the rune sparks gold. The Draugar crumple to the ground.
Aiden’s sword disappears. I glance over to where Pharaildis lays among the corpses. The sight of her there, my latest victim, disturbs me more than it ever has before.
Aiden pulls me into his arms. “Do you want me to burn her?”
I can’t speak so I nod.
He extends the sword again and touches it to the hem of her dress, then pulls me away.
The fire burns hot and because Aiden controls it, it burns straight up in a jet that touches none of the dead fey.
Her pyre alone.
The tears fall freely for the young woman who’d danced so beautifully, who’d once had a passion for life and who in the end, chose death. She may not have been my mother, but the two of us had been linked.
We watch until nothing remains but a pile of ash. I can’t stand the sight of it lying in this dark space. There should be air and light here.
“Hold on to something,” I tell him.
He asks no questions, just grips my waist in one hand and then a nearby outcropping of rock with the other.
I pull in a deep breath and nudge the faucet to a slow drip. Then I lift my hands.
A great roaring fills the catacombs. The ground beneath our feet shakes as the world reforms to my will. The peak above descends while the Underground palace is lifted higher. The solid wall of rock parts, making way for the palace to emerge.
It soars up until it sits for the first time under the night sky.
As if it had been waiting, the North Wind blows in through the open doorway. The ashes swirl up and are taken out through the other chamber.
“She’s free at last,” I breathe.
“You traded your freedom for hers.” Aiden’s gaze holds mine.
I can’t read his expression. Anxiety bubbles up. Is he upset by my choice? My lips part but I don’t know what to say.
“Hi.” His thumb strokes along my cheekbone in a tender caress.
A smile breaks, but I need to know. “Are you bothered because I have to stay here?”
“You postponed the end of the worlds.” He presses his forehead to mine. “As long as you are content to be where you are and I get to stay with you, I’m happy.”
I throw my arms around him. “Missed you. You’ll never know how much.”
We hold each other. Just breathe one another in. It’s over. It’s finally over.
“How long?” he rasps. “How much time did I miss?”
“How do you know you missed any?”
“Your scent.” He puts his hand on my stomach, covering my womb. “It was different when you were pregnant. So, how long has it been?”
“Too long.” So many lonely nights, the constant pressure of knowing he was in danger. “It was torture.”
“Our daughter?” The tone is laced with worry.
I grin up at him. “Safe in Midgard. She’s sixteen.”
His eyes round in horror. “Sixteen?”
“Don’t worry, she hasn’t killed anyone yet.” I cup his whiskered cheek in my hand. “She repaired the Veil, Aiden. She’s the One True Queen.”
The sound of running feet and then Harmony bursts into the room. “Váli?”
I step back, knowing Harmony has longed for this moment almost as much as I have. Aiden grins. He scoops the seer up and spins her around. Freda follows close behind, Nahini at her side.
“Gods, Nic. I thought you were done for,” Freda shudders.
“I was.”
Nahini doesn’t speak, just moves close and extends a hand. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for sending Nightweaver. For a while she was all that kept me sane.”
“She volunteered,” Nahini admits. “I think she was tied more tightly to you than we ever knew.”
I blink. “She hates my guts.”
“There’s a thin line between love and hate,” Nahini murmurs.
I think of Pharaildis and John. “You’re right. Is everyone all right?”
“The others are up in the throne room.” Freda moves as if to go collect them. “The ghosts protected us until you did….whatever it is you did.”
“I need to speak to them.”
“In a bit,” Aiden says and then pulls me tight against him. “Give everyone some time to clean up and catch their breaths.”
He’s right, of course. “Meet in the throne room in two hours?” I look to Aiden with my brows raised.
His hands sift through my hair. “Better make it three. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
With that, we dissolve in a shower of sparks.
Aiden reforms us in my old bedroom. The view out the windows is incredible and stark all at once. Stars shine brightly in the cloudless night sky, but the land itself is barren and pitted like the surface of the moon.
“Some view,” I murmur.
“I like what I’m looking at.”
I turn in Aiden’s arms and see he is staring down at me. “I have to stay here. I can’t ever go back.”
“I know.”
“But you can.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Aiden. Think about it for a second. Harmony, Liam and the pack, our daughter. They are all in Midgard. I’m trying to be fair to you.”
He curls one finger beneath my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “No, Nic. I’m done being apart from you. You must stay here? Fine, I’ll stay with you. Together we’ll rebuild this place. Bring the fey who are left out of the dark ages. We have friends that can go back and forth. But I will not cross that Veil again without you. Understand?”
My lips tremble. “Okay.”
“It’s a bargain well struck.” His head dips and I catch a glimpse of his wicked intent a moment before his lips brush gently over mine. Sealing our agreement with a kiss.
A kiss that heats into need.
I pull away, shocked.
“What is it?” He asks.
I lick my lips, savoring the tingle there. “I thought…part of the sentence for becoming Underhill was that I didn’t have any physical urges. But I want you.”
He pulls my shirt from my head and then crouches down to work the buttons of my jeans open. “Maybe your sentence is different because you chose it.”
I steady myself on his broad shoulders as he drags my pants and panties down my legs. I step out of the fabric. Nervous, because it’s been so long and we’d only done it once. I l
ick my lips and am about to tell him when he grips my hips and buries his face between my thighs.
Nerves don’t stand a chance.
An hour later, I sigh and lean against him in the bath. His hands rove over my body in steady caresses.
He tells me of Rodrick and his parents. His mother finally stepping up to help him in his time of need. I tell him about Angrboda and about Addy. I describe all my dreams of Pharaildis and her life.
“She wasn’t all bad.” I fold my fingers through his.
He shakes his head. “No one is. That’s the whole problem.”
We are quiet for a time, both of us lost in our own thoughts.
“Would you really have let her live? Knowing what she’d done?” he asks.
“Everyone deserves a second chance, Aiden. You gave that to me. I offered her the same gift.” I swallow hard. “Even after everything she’d done. To the fey, to you and me. She saved me from the Fire Throne. I would have died there if she hadn’t ripped me free from the explosion.”
“She was going to kill you herself,” Aiden points out.
“Yeah.” I thought about what I’d seen in her eyes. The terror there, the fear that overrode the hope. “And then you saved the day. Like I knew you would.”
“You scared the hell out of me when I saw you on the throne. If I hadn’t caught your scent…” He pulls me tighter. “Sixteen years is a long time.”
“What is it?” Curious at his mood swing, I tilt my head to see a muscle jumping in his jaw.
“You said Liam stayed with you. Did you and he ever…?” The thread of possessive jealousy in his voice makes me shiver.
I can’t help but tease him. “What would you do if I said yes?”
“Kill him.” The answer is immediate. His hands clamp on the side of the tub so hard the cast iron bends. He releases a breath. “First, I would thank him for watching out for you and Addison. Then I would rip his head from his body.”
“Even though you managed to share Nicneven with her fey nobles?”
His gaze burns into me. “You’re not Nicneven. You’re my Nic. Now answer the damned question.”
“Nothing happened, you maniac.” I shake my head against his chest, unable to suppress a smile. “Liam is a bit of a manwhore, but he never came on to me. He is honorable and decent. And I’m pretty sure he views me like a sister.”
“Really?” The hands on the side of the mangled tub relax, the claws receding.
“I would have waited twice as long,” I turn to face him fully. “I would wait for you forever.”
His expression softens, green eyes glowing in the low light. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this. To deserve you.”
“You are.” I lift my hips to take him inside me again. He gasps and I smile as I begin to move in a liquid rhythm. “That’s more than enough.”
The One True Queen
We stride to the throne room together. Aiden holds my hand in his. Nahini and the ghosts are already there. Nahini’s cheekbones jut out at even sharper angles but her hair is clean.
“You need some food,” I tell her.
She makes a face. “I’m too tired to find the kitchen.”
I whisper something to Aiden and he nods once, then vanishes in a shower of sparks.
“Where’s he going?” Freda asks as she strides into the room alongside Jasmine. Both look clean, but tired.
“We have some new thralls to break in,” I say. “Former FBI, total wackos. Let’s hope some of them can cook.”
Nahini laughs. “Let the punishment fit the crime? They kept you now you’re keeping them for a year and a day?”
“It should take us about that long to figure out what to do.”
“What to do about what?” Taj asks as he and Soladin enter. By the flush of love that covers the two of them, I can tell they spent the last few hours reconnecting the same way Aiden and I did.
“About Underhill.”
Aiden reappears, followed by Agent Hanson and company. Her eyes are glazed, her hair sticking up every which way and she is carrying a tray piled high with fresh bread, fruit and cheese.
“No meat?” I ask Aiden.
He raises a brow. “Since when do you eat meat?”
“On and off since I was pregnant with Addison. I blame you and your wolf for that. And Angrboda for insisting I try bacon. I am now a bacon vegetarian.”
He grips me around the waist. “Woman, you have never been sexier.”
“Get a room,” Harmony says, but she is smiling.
There is a large charred oak banquet table at the far end of the throne room. The thralls lay the feast down on it and we wait for the others to arrive.
“So, what is this about?” Bard asks.
I take a breath and look at them all. The beings I had once believed to be my court. My friends.
“The One True Queen.”
Taj’s jaw drops. “You mean the prophecy?”
Harmony sits on Aiden’s other side and addresses the Seelie king. “She’s not a prophecy. She’s real.”
“Where is she?” Fern tilts her head.
“In Midgard. With Laufey and Chloe and some other friends.” I take a deep breath. “I want her to rule from there.”
Silence. Taj takes a deep breath. “Our people are scattered to the winds. The gods have granted us a temporary stay in Vanheim, but we need somewhere else to reunite. Midgard might be the best plan.”
“Why can’t they come back here?” Soladin turns to face me. “You’re in charge now. Surely you will let them come home.”
“The land here is toxic.” I can feel it every time I turn the spigot to Underhill’s power. “It won’t sustain life for a long time. And I plan to release the souls that provide magic to the noble fey. They deserve peace.”
“That will mean no more magic.” Jasmine’s eyes are wide.
I smile at her. “Not exactly. It will mean wild magic. Harder to contain or control. Everyone will have to master other skills.”
“The nobles won’t like that,” Freda mutters.
“The nobles can fuck directly off.” Harmony tosses her midnight hair. “They like the imbalance of power and the inequality it creates.”
“It sounds as if your mind is made up. What do you need from us?” Soladin’s tone is quiet.
I hold his dark gaze. “The fey need to come out from behind the Veil. No more hiding, no more thieving, no more poverty. They will need strong leaders to guide them.”
Bard’s lidless eyes fix on me. “You’re talking about revealing ourselves to the humans?”
Aiden’s fingers lace through mine. “Even though he was a total and complete bastard, Wardon had the right idea. An educated population of fey will mean a better world for all. We want to keep his dream alive. His son, Jedda, has already agreed to help in whatever way he can.”
“This won’t be an easy transition,” I tell the room. “I will hold down the fort here. I won’t force any to go. But I can’t guarantee their survival once the souls are released from the elements.”
“It’s the right thing to do.” Nahini had been quiet up until that point. “Not just for the fey. But the giants and trolls as well.”
“Gods, can you imagine a pack of trolls roving downtown Manhattan?” Freda asks.
“No, and that’s why we’re going to ask the giants for help creating pocket realms.”
Jasmine’s eyes light up. “Like a sort of halfway house.”
“Right. Teach them the rules of Midgard before exposing them to the humans.”
“Like that they can’t eat humans,” Harmony mutters.
“I know it’s not a perfect plan. Which is why we’re going to have a vote.”
“A vote?” Taj blinks. “What is a vote?”
“A show of hands. Who thinks we should move forward with integration into Midgard?”
Aiden’s hand is the first to rise, followed a second later by Nahini and Jasmine, Harmony and Bard.
Freda holds my gaze. “What
of the Hunt?”
I shift in my seat. “That is up to your Unseelie Queen. But the Hunt is always welcome to stay with me.”
She nods once and then her hand goes up as well.
“Gentlefey?” I ask Soladin and Taj. “What say you?”
The males exchange a look. “I have…reservations,” Taj says.
“As do I.” Soladin nods. “We want what is best for our people and ripping away the one thing they’ve always been able to count on, their magic, might be too much.”
I lean back in my chair. He’s right. It might be too much, especially for some of the ancient fey. But the younger ones…. “What if we set up a school?”
“A school?” Taj repeats with a frown.
“A place where mortals learn to read and write and do math,” Jasmine explains.
“Only in this case, they will learn to harness the elemental magic,” I explain. “I have used magic on the far side of the Veil. It does exist but it works differently. We can teach the fey who want to learn how to wield it. And they can teach others.”
“Progress,” Soladin nods. “Steady forward progress. It’s something the fey haven’t had in my lifetime.”
“You like this idea?” Taj asks his lover.
“I do. But I will go along with it only if you want to. You are the Seelie king after all.”
Taj looks around the table. “You have all helped us. Helped our people. I haven’t been king long and it’s easy enough for me to say I am willing to give it up. Especially if by doing so we get to live in peace. I trust you, Nicneven.” He raises his hand and Soladin does the same.
I let out a breath. “Then it’s agreed. The fey will cross the Veil.”
Through the Man’s Eyes
“Stop fidgeting,” Nic pinches him lightly on the arm. “You look great.”
Aiden stares down at the outfit Nic had Jasmine retrieve for him from the farm. Dark jeans and a black tank top, black boots on his feet. He’s grateful that she thought to have the girl run the errand but he wished she had brought something more impressive. Like what he wore on his first date with Nic. “It’s so casual.”
“She’s a casual girl. Grew up running through the trees with a pack of werewolves and healing injured rabbits and birds. Trust me.” She threads her fingers through his as they wait.