Fae Mistaken (Fae 0f Ballantine Book 4)

by Serena Meadows

  Pushing away that thought, she got out of bed and slid her feet into the slippers Abagail had given her the night before. She briefly considered getting dressed, but headed out the door instead, too anxious to bother. Abagail was in the kitchen as she knew she would be, a pot of something simmering on the stove again, the smell of freshly baked bread filling the room.

  “It looks like you’ve been up for hours,” Miranda said, taking a deep breath of the fragrant air and feeling her stomach beginning to rumble.

  Abagail smiled at her. “I don’t need much sleep, and there’s always so much to do around here,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

  Miranda stretched and yawned. “Better than I have in days, thank you,” she said.

  “Coffee’s on the stove, and the cups are in the cabinet; make yourself at home,” Abagail said, pulling a towel off a bowl, exposing a mound of risen dough. “I need to knead this and get in the oven before we go out to do chores.”

  “It already smells wonderful,” she said, taking another sniff as she passed by.

  “We’ll have it for dinner tonight, and maybe a chicken,” Abagail said thoughtfully as she plunged her hands into the dough.

  Miranda got a cup of coffee and took it over to the table, which was laden with food. Muffins and fresh fruit, along with a pan of sausage, added their aroma to the kitchen, and she didn’t hesitate to load up a plate. Abagail looked over at her just as she shoved a huge bit of freshly buttered blueberry muffin into her mouth, and she felt her cheeks turning pink.

  When she’d finally managed to swallow, she said, “I’m sorry, that was rude, but I couldn’t help myself. They smelled so good, and this is real butter.”

  Abagail laughed. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” she said, turning the dough over once again, then cutting it into pieces.

  “Do you eat like this all the time?” Miranda asked before taking another bite.

  “Most everything you see, I’ve either grown or raised, and I enjoy cooking, so I guess the answer is yes,” Abagail said, putting the bread into pans and covering it again.

  “I never learned to cook; we always had someone who did it for us,” Miranda said, watching her. “Is it hard?”

  “Not any harder than some of the spells you’ve probably done,” Abagail said, going to the sink to wash her hands.

  At the mention of spells, Miranda’s stomach clenched painfully, and she remembered her promise. “I don’t use my magic anymore,” she said, pushing her plate away, suddenly no longer hungry.

  Abagail turned off the water and grabbed a towel to dry her hands, letting the silence stretch out. When she finally looked over at Miranda, her face was full of sympathy. “I felt just like you do once,” she said, “I changed my mind, and you might too, but for now, I think it’s time we did some chores. You go get dressed and I’ll clean up in here.”

  When she came back, the kitchen was sparkling clean and Abagail was sliding the loaves of bread into the oven. “These should be ready in about an hour; that should give us time to get the barn done.”

  Miranda followed Abagail out the door and around the house, suddenly realizing that Jamison was missing. “Where is Jamison?” she asked, stopping to stare when she saw the little barn, then running to catch up with Abagail.

  “He decided to sleep in the barn after he accused me of working with the Unseelie,” Abagail said. “If we’re lucky, he decided to leave.”

  “Oh, I hope not,” Miranda said, making Abagail whip her head around. “I mean, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to him.”

  Miranda knew that her cheeks had turned pink and waited for Abagail to question her further, but to her relief, she turned back around and started walking again. When they got to the barn, they found Jamison mucking out the horse’s stalls. He was sweating in the early morning heat and had discarded his shirt, leaving his muscular chest exposed and glistening.

  The sight of him made her body contract with a thrill deep inside her that radiated through her body, making her heart race and her palms begin to sweat. When he looked up and his eyes met hers, she sucked in a deep breath and held it as her body went crazy, one delight after another shooting through her. She knew that she should look away, but couldn’t make herself, until she realized that Abagail was staring at her, a slight look of horror on her face.

  The look disappeared quickly, but Miranda had seen it and hated her body for responding to Jamison the way it did. Abagail finally looked away. “We have animals to feed,” she said, “and then I think we’d better talk.”

  Miranda felt like she’d done something wrong, but what Abagail couldn’t understand was that she had no control over what her body did when Jamison was around. If she had, she would have stopped it long ago, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t tried either; she’d been reminding herself that he was the enemy for days. But that hadn’t worked and now she was stuck with him, her body demanding one thing, her mind telling her another.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jamison

  Jamison wasn’t prepared for the sight of Miranda when she walked into the barn, pink-cheeked and adorable in a tight pair of jeans and a tee-shirt, a pair of rubber boots on her feet. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight braid that fell down her back and made her eyes all that more striking as they bore into him. Almost instantly, his body stirred to life, his blood began to pound through his veins, and his already overheated body warmed even further.

  Abagail must have sensed the electricity between them, must have felt the attraction in the air, and he could see the alarm that flashed across her face. But she hid it quickly and ushered Miranda past him and into the back of the barn. Just before they disappeared into the tack room, she called, “There’s breakfast on the table, and I didn’t use any witchcraft to make it.”

  Jamison braced himself for the anger he expected to come at her snide remark, but found nothing but amusement. “Is the coffee safe?” he called back to her.

  He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard her laugh and found himself smiling as he finished the stall and spread out fresh hay. As soon as he was finished with the other stall, he headed for the cabin, his stomach rumbling and growling like he hadn’t eaten in a week. When he’d woken with the sun that morning, well-rested for the first time in days thanks to the bed he’d found tucked into the corner of the tack room, he’d felt different.

  With the light of day, his fears and suspicions of the night before seemed unfounded, and a bit paranoid. He’d seen nothing that indicated the Unseelie were in any way involved with Abagail; in fact, the wholesome goodness he felt around her had begun to wear down most of his reservations about being stuck in the middle of nowhere with two witches. He thought back to Miranda’s words as they’d ridden up the trail from the haunted forest, and realized that he’d been given a rare opportunity to observe a real witch.

  Now walking to the cabin, a smile still on his face, he realized that he hadn’t felt this good in a long time. It occurred to him briefly that he could be under a spell, but he dismissed it as impossible, sure that he’d know. Shaking his head at his paranoia, he opened the front door and made his way to the kitchen, the smell of baking bread filling the room and making his mouth water.

  He was only momentarily disappointed when he realized that the bread was still in the oven, the sight of the muffins on the table making him quickly forget. After a quick wash at the kitchen sink, he dug into the food on the table and ate his fill, surprised at how good everything tasted. When he was finished, he got up to leave, then remembered Abagail’s words from the night before and began clearing the table.

  The kitchen didn’t look much better when Abagail and Miranda came back into the cabin, but he had managed to clean off the table and fill the sink with hot soapy water. They both looked surprised to see him with a dishrag in his hand, and he found himself smiling again, which only added to their surprise.

  “I just thought I help clean up, but I don’t think I’m doing it right,” h
e said.

  “Well, you made a good start,” Abagail said, her voice full of warmth for the first time. “I’ll take over from here; why don’t you go sit down at the table with Miranda.”

  When she pulled the freshly baked bread from the oven, the kitchen filled with the delicious smell, and Jamison found himself closing his eyes and taking deep breaths of the fragrant air. Feeling silly, he opened them to find Miranda watching him warily, but he just smiled at her and closed his eyes again, willing to let Abagail take control of the situation.

  He was beginning to trust her but also realized that he had little choice; this was her house, her land, and he was way out of his element. It was also very clear that if the Unseelie were out there looking for them, it wouldn’t be easy to find them here; they might be hiding, but right now, that seemed like as good a plan as any. If Abagail was as powerful as he thought she was, they’d be safe here for a long time, something he felt okay with right then.

  Ballantine and its problems seemed far away to him right then, and he hoped that everyone had escaped the Unseelie attack on the road. At some point, he’d have to try to get a message back to the castle, but right now, there seemed no rush, and he once again wondered if he’d fallen under a spell. If he was under a spell, it was a pleasant one, he thought as the smell of something else began to fill the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, Abagail came over carrying a tray with three mugs and a plate of cookies on it. After she unloaded it, she returned it to the kitchen, then sat down with them. “I know it’s a bit warm for hot chocolate, but I always find it soothing,” she said. “I think it’s time we talked. Darby filled me in on what’s been going on in Ballantine and the Land of the Fae, but I’d like to hear what Miranda has to say.”

  “But I thought you were going to tell me about my father,” Miranda protested at the suggestion. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I choose the Fae over my mother, and it got her killed.”

  Jamison’s heart ached when he heard the pain in her voice, and the urge to do something to comfort her became overwhelming so he took her hand in his under the table and squeezed. She glanced over at him, her eyes full of tears, but managed a little smile and squeezed his hand back, making his heart leap and pleasure wash over him. Surprised at the unique feeling it gave him to reassure Miranda, he sat quietly, waiting for Abagail to speak.

  ***Miranda***

  Miranda’s heart did a flip flop when she felt Jamison’s hand envelop hers, and warmth spread through her when he squeezed. She couldn’t stop herself from looking over at him, but wished she hadn’t when she saw his eyes filled with both sympathy and quiet reassurance. No one had ever looked at her that way, and it made her feel jittery and a little weird all at the same time.

  Jamison had been acting strangely since they’d found him in the barn, doing chores like he was a common Fae, and smiling, something she’d never seen until this morning. But whatever was passing between them was interrupted by Abagail’s next words.

  “I don’t need to know what happened,” she said. “I need to know why it happened.”

  Miranda turned back to face Abagail, searching for an answer. “I was tired of my mother using my magic for her evil plans, tired of being drained all the time, and then she wanted me to kill Sarah,” she said, pausing to get control of her emotions. “I couldn’t do it, so I did the only thing I could and walked away. Don’t you see? It made me sick to see the things my mother did, and we’d been living in the castle for weeks. I was posing as a serving girl, and I saw that Sarah wasn’t a monster or an animal to be bred.”

  Shocked at her own words, she shut her mouth, but then realized that she wasn’t done. “Sarah was nice to me, everyone was nice to me, and I realized that all the stories my mother had been telling me about Fae and Pixies were just that: stories. Even worse, as I stood there with the knife in my hand, I realized that they weren’t the monsters: we were.”

  A sob escaped, and she had to take a deep breath to regain control. “It felt like something came loose in that moment and I knew that I was free from my mother. I dropped the knife and walked away, but a second later, my mother began to scream and then there was a crushing pain in my head. I guess I passed out after that,” she finished.

  Abagail nodded. “The spell wasn’t completely broken,” she said.

  “That happened later,” Miranda whispered, remembering her time in the black void.

  “You’ve been to the spirit world,” Abagail said. “Your mother tried to take you with her, didn’t she?”

  “That’s what Darby thinks; all I remember is her calling to me and knowing that I didn’t have to go,” Miranda said, a shiver racking her body.

  “Drink some of your cocoa,” Abagail ordered, studying Miranda as she drank. “Okay, this is where it’s going to get hard. Are you ready to hear about your father?”

  Now that the moment had come, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the truth but knew that it was important, that what she was about to hear would somehow frame the rest of her life. “I’m scared I’m going to find out something I don’t like,” she said, “but I’m tired of waiting to hear the truth.”

  Abagail studied Miranda for a second longer, then got up from the table and refilled their cups. When she sat back down, she took a sip from her cup, set it down, and looked at Miranda once more. Finally, she sat back in her chair and took a deep breath, clearly trying to decide how to start.

  “I met your mother before I met your father; we were both just girls at the time, really. I’d just turned eighteen when your mother turned up at a coven meeting, telling a sad story about being alone and without a coven,” she said. “I can still remember the night she walked into our meeting, her blonde hair cascading down the back of her black cape, her blue eyes sparkling in the candlelight.”

  Abagail fell silent, a faraway look in her eyes, then started talking again. “I was in love with her a little,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “At first, she charmed everyone, tricked them into believing that she was a white witch, but as time wore on, the rest of the coven began to see her for what she really was. But not me, of course; no one could say a bad word against her if I was around, and it was that adoration that was my downfall.”

  Miranda was getting impatient; she knew all too well what her mother was like, and it was no surprise that she’d always been evil. “Where does my father come into this?” she asked, then was sorry when she saw the look on Abagail’s face.

  “One night, Portentia came to tell me that she was leaving the coven, she said she knew that she wasn’t wanted and then she asked me to come with her,” Abagail said, shaking her head. “I was just a dumb kid who wanted a little excitement, so I packed a bag and snuck out of the house. It wasn’t until we stopped the next morning that I discovered that your mother had robbed the coven and most of the members of everything she could get her hands on.”

  “You couldn’t go back even if you wanted to,” Miranda said, suddenly understanding.

  Abagail nodded. “Your mother saw to it that I couldn’t, that I would always follow her, and I did, until the day I met your father, and everything changed.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jamison

  Jamison and Miranda both stared at Abagail, waiting for her to finish her story, but she got up from the table and picked up their mugs. “I think I might be talked out for the moment,” she said. “Let’s go outside and work in the garden for a little while and then we can have lunch.”

  “Oh, Abagail, can’t you go on for just a little longer?” Miranda asked, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I know that it can’t be easy to talk about.”

  Abagail sighed. “You’re right, I’ve started. I might as well finish. It’s just that we’ve been having so much fun, and I hate to see it end.”

  Jamison wondered what she meant, but she started talking again before he could think about it much. “I met your father at a little diner where I was working to pay the r
ent on the tiny apartment Portentia found us in the city. It was a horrible job in a terrible part of town, but there were a few regular customers that made it bearable, and your dad was one of them. I think I loved him from the moment I met him; it was his smile, I think, the same one you have, that did it,” she said, smiling fondly at Miranda.

  Abagail paused, staring into space, and Miranda had to prompt her. “What happened? How did he end up with my mother?” she asked.

  It took her a moment to answer, and she could see the pain in her eyes as she spoke. “I made the mistake of introducing him to your mother, and when she discovered the strength of his magic, she decided that she wanted him, or at least a child from him; of course, I didn’t know that at the time. I’ll never know how she did it, but only a few days later, I came home and found them in bed together,” she said, pausing again, her hands gripping the table until her knuckles were white.

  “It’s okay, Abagail, you don’t have to tell me anymore. I think I understand,” Miranda said, reaching out to pat her arm.

  But Abagail shook her head. “I haven’t told you the worst part yet,” she said, taking another shuttering breath before blurting out. “I’m the one who killed your father. I didn’t mean to, but I woke up one night and he was in the apartment, but he didn’t look like himself. I was so sure that someone had broken into the house, and your mother was screaming in terror at the sight of him, so I used my magic, and when it was all over and he was lying dead on the floor, I realized it was him. Your mother did something to him, put him under a spell, I’m not sure...”

  Miranda sat back in her chair, her face a mask of shock, then got shakily to her feet. “I think I need to get some air,” she said, stumbling out of the kitchen.