Reign or Shine

by Michelle Rowen

  His expression was strained. “Why did you have to sacrifice everything for me, Princess? You drank the potion. You’re going to forget.”

  “Michael, it will be fine,” Elizabeth said. “I won’t punish you for betraying me. You can help me in the future.”

  He glared at her. “I won’t help you.”

  Her lips thinned. “You don’t have any say in the matter. You’re a servant.”

  “I release him from his servitude,” my father said. “Michael is free to do as he pleases.”

  “Desmond,” Elizabeth gasped. “You can’t do that. He’s a Shadow.”

  “I’m still king here.” He looked up at her and there was no kindness in his already scary expression. “And I still make the decisions. It is unfortunate that your . . . Prince Kieran . . . isn’t here to help you now. I assume he’s behind all of this?”

  Her mouth tensed. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be gone soon and Michael will stay here with me. The servants will understand what’s happened and they’ll do as I say.”

  “Where is the antidote?” my father asked, his low voice barely audible.

  “It’s too late for that. There’s no going back now.” Elizabeth turned to me. “I need you to know something. What I said about your Darkling side killing you if you harnessed its power—it wasn’t true.”

  She had to feel guilty. That’s what this was, wasn’t it? A woman who had done horrible things was now trying to justify her actions. She was trying to come clean while she still had the chance. Maybe then she could live with herself.

  I wondered what she’d think if she ever found out the truth about Kieran. I mean, I didn’t know the whole truth, really. The only glimpse I’d had of him was a few minutes over the gazer, but I knew he didn’t love my aunt. He was using her. And she’d done horrible things to gain his supposed love.

  If I didn’t hate her so much for what she’d done to my father, for what she’d done to me and to Michael, then I’d feel sorry for her.

  She twisted her hands together. “The facts that I did research were true, but the results I told you weren’t. Darklings are very powerful creatures. They were once bred to be warriors who could easily move from the human realm to the darker worlds despite any barriers there might be. Their power is pure and vast, but they became too powerful, and that’s why demon/human relationships have been forbidden ever since. That’s why there have been no other Darklings until you.”

  Michael had come over to stand at my side during Elizabeth’s speech and he looked at me with concern. He was ready for me to slip into my potion-induced amnesia at any second. What was he planning to do? Pull me along like a child to the gateway? Leave me on my front porch all confused and wondering who the cute guy was who had walked me home from the dance?

  “I guess Dax didn’t tell you that I already knew turning Darkling wouldn’t kill me,” I said.

  Elizabeth frowned and turned to look at her thug before returning her attention to me. “What are you talking about?”

  “I appreciate the kind-and-well-intentioned-aunt act, but you’re not kind or well-intentioned.” I glared at her. “You can fool yourself but you can’t fool me. You’re horrible. You sent Dax to kill me. You don’t want to kill me here, where my father can sense it, but you’re fine with killing me at home. You failed. Dax failed, because I turned Darkling and kicked his butt.”

  Her expression tightened. “I would have liked to have known that earlier, but it doesn’t matter anymore. In a few short moments you’ll be—” She tilted her head to study me. “What is happening to your eyes?”

  “My eyes?” I raised a hand in front of my face and saw the red glow reflecting off it, then I looked back at her. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  She looked so confused then. “What is going on?”

  “I guess you could say that I have my father’s eyes.” I looked down at him. He, too, looked confused, but then the realization of what I had done must have dawned on him. He squeezed my hand.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t understand. You drank the potion. I saw you. Your Darkling should be destroyed by now. You should be forgetting everything.” She looked at her brother. “The potion. Did you give her a placebo? It wasn’t a real potion at all?”

  “No, it was very real,” he said.

  I breathed out and concentrated all of my energy on my dragon’s tear bracelet. My father had given it to me to help focus and control my powers. It had worked with breaking open the door to the dark room my aunt had locked me inside and it was helping me now.

  My canine teeth began to elongate and sharpen. “I told you I wasn’t going to drink the potion, but I didn’t tell you that I’d actually made that decision earlier. You’re the one who told me to trust my heart and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing all this time. Trusting my heart. And my heart told me to flush the potion down the toilet at my Winter Formal. I filled the vial with fruit punch and that’s what I just drank. When I saw it was the exact same color I decided it was fate. I’m believing in fate a lot lately.”

  She held a hand up to her mouth as she watched me painlessly shift to my Darkling form, an expression of disbelief and shock turning her beautiful face ugly.

  My black wings unfurled behind me and I felt my father’s weak gaze on me. I looked down at him. “I thought I’d hate you when I met you. But I didn’t know who you really were and what happened so long ago to make you leave us. I love you and I’d never destroy the part of me that makes me your daughter.”

  He smiled up at me. “You make a beautiful Darkling.”

  “Princess, watch out!” Michael yelled.

  I looked up to see Elizabeth lunging for me, her own talons extended and aimed directly for my throat.

  22

  Despite her initial attempts to stay calm and collected on the surface, my aunt had now brought forth her demon form to try to rip out my throat.

  She grabbed hold of me and we went flying over to the far side of the room.

  Her skin was now leathery, but not black as my father’s was—instead, hers was a dark red. Her ears were almost as sharp as her black, spiraling horns. She glared out at me through red slitted eyes. Her chest had sunken in and I could see her ribs, as if only a skeleton was covered by the red skin underneath her dress. Her black lips peeled back from her razor-sharp teeth and she hissed at me.

  While I looked half demon and half me in Darkling form, Elizabeth was definitely fully demonic—and scary as hell.

  “Shouldn’t have done that.” Her voice was dry and edged with violence. I tried to hold her back but I felt the edge of her talons scrape against my throat. “Should have done what I said. It didn’t have to end this way.”

  “You’re evil,” I managed to say through clenched teeth.

  “You’re only sixteen. You don’t know what evil truly is.”

  “You know what? I don’t think I ever would have been clued in if I hadn’t spoken to your boyfriend,” I hissed. “He’s so transparent. But even then it didn’t matter. I’d already flushed the potion. Where’s the antidote, Elizabeth?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re a fighter.”

  “If I have to be.”

  I managed to grab her arms and hold her back, stumbling away from the side of the bed. She was so strong. One of her talons moved to scratch my shoulder and the pain was intense, but I forced myself to ignore it. If I let my concentration slip, the next talon would go through my jugular.

  And then Michael was there, trying to drag Elizabeth off of me. “Leave Nikki alone!”

  His eyes flashed as green as his amulet and I could sense he was summoning power to blast her away from me, like he’d done with Dax yesterday in the park. But before he had the chance, Elizabeth whipped her head up to glare at him and with a shove she effortlessly threw him across the room. He was up on his feet in a flash and came right back at her.

  “No, Michael—be careful!”

  His expression was fierce as he attempted to
protect me, but he was still weak from losing form earlier. Elizabeth grabbed him by his T-shirt.

  “Love hurts, doesn’t it?” She threw him to the side even harder than before. He hit the wall and slid down to the floor in a heap. He wasn’t moving and his eyes were closed.

  “Michael!” I yelled, fear twisting inside me.

  I wasn’t sure if he was unconscious, or injured, or . . . dead.

  Elizabeth’s attention returned to me. “Your Shadow is weak, Nikki. He can’t protect you anymore.”

  My moment of distraction had given her the chance to curl her taloned, leathery hands around my throat. Her red eyes glittered.

  “Let go of her, Elizabeth,” my father growled. He’d forced himself up to a sitting position in his bed. “I’m warning you . . . if you harm her, you’ll be the one who dies today.”

  Her lip curled back from her sharp teeth. “You have no power anymore, Desmond. I can’t be stopped now.” She shook her head. “She won’t be queen. She’s not capable of it—it’s impossible. She’s too young. Too human.”

  I felt the life being squeezed out of me. She was choking me.

  “Please,” he said, and now his words were less fierce as his strength faded again. “Let her go. I beg you, Elizabeth. Don’t hurt her.”

  I didn’t want to die. But the air was being squeezed from my body. She was so strong. Stronger than me.

  I was scared.

  “Darklings don’t fear anyone or anything,” the king of the faery realm had told me in the forest. I’d seen the fear in his eyes.

  And in the field Dax had confided that Elizabeth was afraid of me, even before she knew I’d been able to turn Darkling.

  I gasped for breath, but I tried to concentrate. I tried to look past the fury and the rage I saw in Elizabeth’s red eyes. I looked past it and deep inside all I could see was fear.

  I clutched at her wrists and my hands glowed red. Her brow lowered. I focused a line of energy through my hands and she jumped back from me, much like I’d jumped back from Michael’s amulet.

  “You’re afraid of me,” I gasped, holding a hand to my nearly crushed throat.

  “I’m not.” The look in her eyes betrayed the truth. “You’re the only one standing in my way. Your father can’t help you. Your Shadow can’t help you. Nobody can help you now.”

  “You’re wrong.” I clenched my fists. “I can help me.”

  “Dax,” Elizabeth barked. “Please restrain her.”

  She looked over but Dax had left the room completely. I hadn’t even noticed when he ran away but I wasn’t all that surprised. He’d lied to Elizabeth about my turning Darkling—or at the very least, he’d withheld information from her—and he would have expected a serious punishment after that. Obviously he didn’t want to stick around to see how this all played out.

  Or maybe he was just sick of being told what to do.

  “Elizabeth,” my father said again. “Stop this now.”

  Michael began to stir from the floor where he lay and started to push himself up. I was so relieved to see he wasn’t seriously hurt.

  Elizabeth shook her head but looked a bit more uneasy than before. “I can’t.” Her hands began to glow with green light. “It’s time, Nikki. Time for me to be queen.”

  She raised her hand and launched a swirling ball of energy at me.

  However, I’d just launched one at exactly the same time.

  Mine was bigger.

  The two orbs of power, hers green and mine red, hit each other full-on, but because mine was larger it sent a shockwave to her side of the room that knocked her backward. She lost her footing and fell heavily to the floor.

  I glared down at her. “You were scared of me because you knew all this time that I could do that, didn’t you? That my power is greater than yours.”

  She lowered her head. “Please spare me.”

  I felt fury spiral inside of me and willed myself to calm down. Being Darkling brought with it a nearly uncontrollable need to destroy, and at the moment Elizabeth seemed like an excellent target. But I knew I had to calm myself down. Michael came to my side and touched my arm, and looking at him made the rage inside of me still a little.

  “What should we do with her?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Elizabeth,” my father said. “Come here.”

  She didn’t stand up, but instead crawled to the side of his bed, refusing to meet his eyes. I could tell she felt defeated and she was acting like it. My hands continued to glow with power just in case she tried something funny.

  “Where is the antidote?” he asked.

  She gasped sharply. “Please, Desmond—”

  “Elizabeth, I understand how easy it must have been for you to fall in love with Prince Kieran.” He paused to breathe raggedly. “I, too, fell in love with someone who was forbidden to me. It didn’t make the love any less important. Listen to me. Give me the antidote. If you do this, all will be forgiven. I will let you continue to live here in the castle with me and there will be no punishment.”

  I touched Michael’s arm. Was he serious? After everything she’d done he was willing to forgive her?

  Elizabeth’s demon eyes widened. “Do you speak the truth, brother?”

  “I do.”

  She slowly got to her feet. “I didn’t know that the poison would cause you such pain. I thought it would act quicker. I’m sorry for that.”

  His gaze was fixed on her. “It’s fine. It’s over now.”

  She took in a shaky breath and let it out, and I watched as her demon form faded away and she became human again. It was easier to see her expression now. She was crying. She reached into her left pocket and pulled out a small clear bottle.

  “Is that it?” my father asked.

  She nodded.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t destroy it,” he said. “Obviously some part of you knew what you were doing was wrong, and you wanted the chance to fix this. Please, give it to me.”

  She uncorked the bottle and held it to his lips. “It might be too late.”

  “We shall see.” My father drank the antidote and closed his eyes.

  I concentrated on staying in Darkling form and stood at the end of the bed, vigilant to whatever happened next. I didn’t want to hope for a miracle, but that’s what I was praying for anyway. Elizabeth’s hands were shaking as she placed the now-empty bottle on the bedside table.

  For all I knew she could have just given him a full dose of poison. If that was the case then I was afraid of what I would do to her. I wasn’t ready to forgive. Not yet. Probably not ever.

  It took ten full minutes before we could see any change in my father, and even then it was slow and subtle. My father’s form began to change in the bed and become smaller, shifting slowly back to human. I went to his side to hold his hand, and after another five minutes he opened his eyes and looked up at me.

  “I’m so proud of you, Nikki,” he said.

  “Are you . . .” I swallowed. “Are you going to be okay now?”

  “The magic of the potion makers works very quickly,” he said. “But the poison did a great deal of damage to me. It will take some time for me to fully recover. But I think I’ll eventually be okay.”

  “I’m very glad to hear that,” I said and smiled. “Because I really didn’t want to be queen. Like, at all.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  My concentration had lapsed and I felt my Darkling slip away with the oh-so-pleasant sensation of a hundred Band-Aids being ripped off my brain simultaneously. I staggered, but Michael was there to catch me. I looked at him gratefully as I leaned against his solid form.

  “I trusted you,” my father said, and I realized he was speaking to Elizabeth. “And you betrayed me.”

  She didn’t look at him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Your love for Kieran must be very great.”

  “I thought it was.” She swallowed. “But perhaps Nikki is right. It’s possible that he may have been
using me.”

  “Do you really think so?” my father asked calmly, but the edge of sarcasm in his voice made me realize that he was anything but calm. I noticed then that despite his human appearance his eyes were red again. “Let me ask you this, Elizabeth. Our father—did you kill him as well?”

  She didn’t answer for a very long time. “During my first visit to the Underworld I fell in love with Kieran, even though we were very young. Our father refused to let me go back to see him again. He was a horrible, cruel man. Kieran suggested that something could be done about it. He sent me the potion.”

  “You mean, the poison,” my father corrected. “Nikki, Michael, please help me get out of this bed.” We supported him so he was able to swing his legs out and get to his feet. His chest was bare but he wore loose-fitting black pants.

  Elizabeth shied away from him as he approached. “You said that you’d forgive me and I could continue to live here.”

  “I did say that. But I’ve been rethinking my decision. What you’ve done is unforgivable, Elizabeth.”

  Her expression grew worried. “Maybe in time—”

  He held up a hand that glowed red. “You’ve said enough. You killed our father, you tried to kill me, and you tried to kill my daughter.”

  “Darklings are unpredictable,” she said. “They’re dangerous.”

  “So, apparently, are sisters.”

  She breathed shakily. “What will you do with me? Imprison me? Kill me?”

  “I’ve considered those options.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Kieran will be very angry if anything happens to me. He will avenge me if you lock me away somewhere alone.”

  “Yes, well.” His jaw tightened. “I wanted to spend these past years with the woman I loved instead of a solitary existence in this castle. But I would never wish the same fate on you.” His eyes narrowed. “Let your prince deal with you. See if he still loves you when you offer him nothing but your constant presence.”

  “Desmond, please!”

  “I’m banishing you to the far reaches of the Underworld. You will never return to the Shadowlands.”