by J. C. Diem
“It’s worse than that,” she said in a low voice that he had to strain to hear over the relentless howl of the wind. “My father is the Goblin King.”
He blinked at her, but her sorrowful expression didn’t change. “You are King Lod’s daughter?” he asked incredulously and she nodded morosely. “You are fortunate that you don’t take after him and instead inherited your mother’s beauty.” She flicked him a look, but didn’t respond to his compliment. “If I’m not mistaken, having three different colors in your eyes marks you as dryad royalty, does it not?” he asked.
“So I’ve been told,” she said unhappily.
“Hmm,” he mused. “I doubt either of the fae realms has ever seen your like before. You hail from royalty on both sides. I wonder what your future holds?”
“Queen Wysterial had a vision that I would become the Unseelie Queen.”
Her answer shocked him, but he hid his unease. “Did she now?” he asked and ran a hand through his hair. “Did she happen to mention who would be your King?”
“No. She just told me that I would have to bring unity to the Unseelie lands before the chaos spreads to the other realms and tears this world apart.”
His mind raced as he tried to process this information. While Queen Wysterial wasn’t a Seer, the fae often caught glimpses of the future. Their visions always came true, so this half dryad, half goblin girl would indeed rule the dark realm. From what he knew about dryad royalty, she would become bonded for life with the first man she gave her body to. She looked young, but it was impossible to tell her true age. “Have you become bonded to a male yet?” he asked abruptly.
Asha’s face burned at the far too personal question. The hunter obviously knew the implications if she said no, but there was no point lying. She shook her head and looked down at her feet. “I haven’t met the man I’m supposed to marry yet,” she said, sounding so defeated that Hexam whined and leaned a head on her shoulder. She smiled slightly and reached up to scratch him beneath his chin.
The girl was innocent in more than just her body. She was beautiful and pure and she didn’t belong here. This land would twist her and corrupt her just like it did to everyone and everything that dwelled here. Dacrith found the idea of her becoming like the Unseelie fairies he knew strangely repellent, as if it would be wrong somehow. “What are your plans now that you’ve found yourself in this realm?” he asked.
“I have to travel to the Unseelie palace and present myself to the Court,” she replied, meeting his eyes. She was resigned to her fate, yet she was clearly unhappy.
“No one is forcing you to follow this path,” he told her.
“I don’t have a choice. No one can change their destiny.” She dropped her eyes and her stomach rumbled.
A fresh blush rose on her cheeks when he gave a low chuckle. “Where are my manners?” he said. “Allow me to offer you some food.”
He magically sliced off a hunk of meat that was nicely roasted by now and spitted it on a stick. She reached out to take it from him and delicately bit into it. He watched her in fascination, trying to see the goblin inside her and seeing only her dryad beauty. It occurred to him that they hadn’t met by chance. Destiny had thrown them together for a reason. He was the rightful ruler of this land and Asha was intended to be his queen. Yet something told him it wasn’t going to be easy for them to take their place in the dark palace.
Dryads were different from fairies, especially their royals. They chose their mates carefully and would never settle for just anyone. He’d seen firsthand that Lord Nicolaia and King Lod, both advisors to the throne, had been scheming together to oust his father. If they knew about Asha, they would have a plan to wed her to the man of their choice.
Asha watched Dalrin as his expression became introspective. His brow furrowed slightly, but it did nothing to detract from his handsomeness. It must have been a shock to one of his kind to realize she would be his ruler soon. Frankly, she’d expected a vastly different reaction to her presence from an Unseelie fae. As far as she knew, they were all evil, selfish and manipulative. “Are you an Unseelie fairy?” she asked just to be sure.
“I am, my lady,” he said. “All fairies in this realm are Unseelie. Why do you ask?”
“You’re not what I expected,” she replied awkwardly.
“Ah. Did you expect me to ravish you, perhaps?” he asked playfully.
Her tone was sorrowful when she replied. “You wouldn’t be the first man to try.”
“Fear not, fair maiden,” he told her, brandishing his meat on a stick as if it was a sword. “I will protect you from any scum who would dare lay their hands upon our future Queen.” Hexam let out a woof of agreement, tongues lolling in amusement. “The beast will also ensure your welfare,” he added.
“His name is Hexam,” Asha told him.
Surprised by her knowledge, he lifted his brows. “How do you know his name?”
“My friend, Jake Everett, became friends with Hexam in the goblin dungeon. They managed to escape, but Jake didn’t know what happened to the Cerberus.”
“He ended up here, in my cave,” Dacrith told her, quietly amazed that they both knew Jake. Again, it couldn’t be a coincidence and it added to his hunch that they’d been brought together for a reason. “It was quite a surprise to see the hound,” he added. “He was badly wounded and looked like he’d been burned nearly to death.” That was a half-truth, but the dryad didn’t pick up on it. He was glad neither tree nymphs nor goblins could detect lies since she shared both of their blood.
“You took care of him?” she asked, stroking the dog’s furry side. Jake had told her he’d left the dog and his second in command behind after pretending to kill the warrior known as death. Clearly, the pair had split up after escaping from the dungeon if the hound had ended up in this cave with the hunter.
“I kept him safe from the storm and fed him,” he replied. He still wasn’t sure why he’d taken the beast with him when he’d escaped from the labyrinth. Perhaps it had been fate guiding his hands.
“Do you know how far it is to the Unseelie palace?” she asked.
“On foot, it would take several weeks to reach it.”
“Could you teleport me there?”
His expression became rueful. “I’m afraid my magic has gone awry,” he lied. “It seems I can no longer teleport since the realm became unbalanced.” Come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t a lie after all. Even performing simple magical tasks was becoming harder. He’d thought it was because he was so badly out of practice, but now he wondered if that was the reason at all.
“That’s okay,” she said with a sigh. “I guess I’ll walk then. Can you point me in the right direction?”
He’d already reached the decision that he wasn’t about to let his future wife out of his sight. “I shall escort you to the palace myself, my lady,” he offered with a bow.
“Why?” she asked suspiciously, proving she wasn’t as naïve as she seemed.
“Perhaps I seek redemption,” he mused, straightening up again. “I was banished from the Court long ago and have been alone for eons.” He’d actually been surrounded by Unseelie traitors and other monsters during his incarceration, but he’d felt alone anyway.
“Is that why you’re living in this cave?” she asked in sympathy.
“Yes,” he lied. “It is my hope that if I escort you to the palace unharmed, I might be forgiven and reinstated in my former position as a soldier.”
Looking up at the Cerberus, Asha saw couldn’t see any mistrust for the fairy in him. “If Hexam trusts you, I can trust you,” she decided.
Dacrith had to smother a triumphant grin that his plan was working. Winning the dryad’s trust was paramount to becoming her king. Now all he had to do was keep up the ruse that he wasn’t as evil as every other Unseelie fairy in their realm until they were wed. Once he’d bedded her, she would be his and so would the entire realm.
Chapter Four
WITH NO SIGN THAT THE storms were going to
cease anytime soon, Dacrith went hunting again. He killed a couple more boars and turned their hides into crude raincoats with deep hoods. They were waterproof, if highly unattractive garments. Handing one of the finished coats to Asha the next morning, he gave her a wry smile. “I am afraid I’ll never be a seamstress.”
“You did a better job than I would have,” she reassured him with a grin. His breath caught at her sheer beauty that she seemed unaware of. She tried the coat on and found it hung almost to her feet. “It’s great,” she told him as she pulled the hood forward. “Now I won’t drown as we walk through the rain.”
“Let us hope we don’t get struck by lightning,” he replied as he donned his own coat. He hadn’t bothered to make one for Hexam. Water wouldn’t hurt the hound.
The Cerberus was eager to leave the cave they’d been hiding in during the past few days. After being cooped up in the goblin dungeon for so many eons, he wanted to roam and explore the realm.
The hunter dispelled the enchantment that had kept the cave safe. Wind immediately swept a torrent of rain inside. Asha put her head down against it and the hood sheltered her from the deluge. She could see her companions’ feet and followed them outside.
While Dalrin seemed affable on the surface, she sensed a darker side to him. So far, he’d behaved himself and had been a gentleman, but she’d caught flashes of his speculation when he wasn’t aware of it. If he tried to touch her against her will, he would pay a terrible price. Killing him was out of the question. The realm was already too unstable to risk it, but she could make him wish he’d never taken liberties if she wanted to.
Asha looked up just enough for Dacrith to be able to see her mouth. It was curled upwards in a chilling smile that almost gave him pause. While his future wife was young and innocent, he had to remind himself that she was also half-goblin. King Lod was her father and that horrible little creature was evil to the core. Since the girl had been raised on Earth, she probably didn’t know much about her heritage. It was hard to say how many goblin traits she’d inherited. It would be just his luck if she harbored powerful magic that she wasn’t even aware of.
Walking through the forest, they reached the edge of it just before nightfall. A vast meadow greeted them, offering no shelter at all. “We should rest here for the night,” Dacrith decided. “It wouldn’t be a good idea to make camp out in the open.”
The trees would at least break some of the wind that had been hammering them all day. Asha was cold, tired and her feet hurt. If she’d been human, she wouldn’t have been able to keep up her trek for this long. Hexam was showing no signs of discomfort. The hound always seemed to be in good spirits.
They retreated a hundred yards or so into the forest, then her companion lifted his hands to try a spell. Dalrin frowned when nothing happened and tried again. Asha wasn’t sure what he was trying to do, but it didn’t seem to be working. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“My magic isn’t responding,” Dacrith replied truthfully. He’d just tried to erect a shield over them to keep the rain off, but it had failed. Like teleporting, creating shields came to him naturally. They were the easiest enchantments to perform even after his long eons without practice. “I fear the instability in the realm is worsening,” he said as he took a seat on the wet ground. It looked like they were in for a miserable night of sitting in the storm.
Asha sank down across from him and glanced around. The trees were clustered fairly thickly together and their foliage was dense. Reaching out to them telepathically, she tentatively asked for their help to shelter her and her companions. Startled by her request, the trees grumbled, then reluctantly complied.
Tilting his head back when the branches all around them began to move, Dacrith reached for the sword he’d left behind in the dungeon. At first, he thought the trees were about to attack them. Then it became clear they were forming a shelter. They stretched out to each other to form a dense canopy above and around them, cocooning them from the storm.
“Thank you,” Asha said in delight that the trees no longer hated her. One of them sourly replied that she shouldn’t expect this sort of service all the time. Beneath their surly exterior, she sensed their wonder that a being in this evil land had requested their help and that she’d appreciated what they’d done for her. It had been so long since they’d had a dryad living here that they’d forgotten their kinship with her kind. For a moment, there was a lull in the storm, then it resumed again with its former ferocity.
Dacrith glanced up at the momentary quiet, then focused on getting a fire started. It took several tries for him to create a magical flame that burned without the aid of fuel.
“It’s getting harder for you to use magic, isn’t it?” Asha asked. She pushed her hood back and the flames cast a cheerful orange glow over her.
“Yes,” he replied in a disturbed tone as Hexam sank down to lie between them with his heads facing the fire. “I fear all magic shall fade eventually if the balance isn’t restored.”
“Emelia told us the chaos will spread to the Seelie lands and both realms will eventually be in jeopardy,” Asha said.
Recognizing the name, he pretended ignorance and his expression became quizzical. “Whom might Emelia be?”
“She’s a Seelie warrior. She joined our team after she was rescued from the goblin dungeon and helped my friends rescue me from an asylum.”
“What were you doing in the asylum?”
“I was held captive by a human doctor who thought he was a scientist,” she said, then shivered. “He was performing experiments on supernatural creatures like me. He wanted to be able to cast magic and to become immortal.”
“I assume this human is now dead?” he asked and didn’t have to feign concern. The idea of humans using fae beings to alter themselves so drastically was worrying.
“A leprechaun killed him,” Asha said distantly.
“I have the distinct impression that you have lived an extraordinary life,” he said drolly. “How are you still alive if a leprechaun went rogue?”
“It’s a long story,” she said with a weary smile.
“I would like to hear it,” he invited. He set about handing out some preserved meat to her and the hound, then settled down to hear her tale. Although she looked as if she was barely out of her teens, it turned out his future wife was six decades old. That was barely out of infancy in dryad terms, which was why she seemed so young and innocent. “You were lucky to have had such good friends,” he noted when she was done.
“I already miss them,” she said wistfully and tucked her hair behind her ear. From the longing on her face, she missed one of them more than the rest. He was fairly certain she didn’t yearn for Jake. That meant the young hunter, Harley, must have held her interest. If the dryad was in love with the human, that would complicate things. She could never fully give her heart to another if it already belonged to someone else. The bonding wouldn’t be complete and there would always be a rift between her and the man who first bedded her.
“We should get some sleep,” Dacrith suggested. “We have a long walk ahead of us tomorrow and there won’t be much shelter from the storm.”
Asha ate her meal, then lay down with her head resting on Hexam’s side. The trees were so dense that they muffled the sound of the torrent and she sank into a deep slumber.
Dacrith watched the dryad as her face smoothed out from her perpetual frown. He’d bedded his share of women, but he’d never wanted a wife. Sindarian had been the same, as were most Unseelie fae. Dacrith was the only offspring the Dark Prince had produced, but it wasn’t from lack of trying.
Being tied to one woman for the rest of his lengthy existence had never appealed to Dacrith before. If he bonded with the dryad, he wouldn’t have a choice. She would become the only person who would ever warm his bed again. Their bonds wouldn’t allow either of them to stray from each other.
Dropping his gaze to peruse the girl’s slight form, a smile tilted his lips up without him knowing about it.
It was thrilling to know that his queen had never been with another man. When he claimed her, she would be his and his alone.
Chapter Five
AFTER SEVERAL DAYS of traveling, they were weary, dirty and in desperate need of a warm, dry place to rest. Camping out on the open fields had been a nightmare. Dacrith’s magic only worked sometimes. On the nights it failed to create a shield from the weather, they huddled next to Hexam, who grew large enough to at least act as a windbreak. Asha had been delighted the first time the Cerberus had grown to the size of an elephant. Even after seeing him grow and shrink at will a few times, she was still fascinated by his abilities.
They’d tried to cut down on the length of their journey by travelling in a straight line towards the palace. It was becoming increasingly difficult to slog across the muddy ground through the relentless rain. Dacrith angled them towards one of the roads that had been built when the realm had been young. Not all creatures and beings could teleport, so the roads had been created by the dark goblins. They’d chosen to use black volcanic rocks, so the paths looked like inky veins spread out across the land.
They made better time when they reached the road, but they weren’t the only ones utilizing the pathways. Fae creatures and other fairies were also on foot, muttering darkly about their inability to teleport. Dacrith was relieved that it wasn’t just his magic that was being affected. He hadn’t tried to teleport since meeting Asha and he now wondered if it was even still possible.
Keeping their hoods over their faces, they instinctively avoided the other travelers. Asha had always been shy and introverted. She had no wish to mingle or attempt to make friends with these beings. They were Unseelie fairies and they couldn’t be trusted. Dalrin had warned her not to advertise who and what she was to anyone else. There were apparently factions within the realm who wanted to take control of the realm. If they learned what her fate was meant to be, they might take it upon themselves to snatch her and form a new Court.