by Mindy Hayes
“You’re coming in awfully late tonight,” Dad’s voice came from the darkness in our living room.
I gasped. “Dad, why are you creeping in the dark?”
“I watched the sunset and never bothered to turn on the light,” he explained.
I moved toward the back of the couch and flipped on the light on the side table. “You really should warn a person before you just start talking from the darkness.”
“Why are you coming in so late tonight?” He leaned back in his recliner; his legs rested on the ottoman at his feet.
I peered at the clock on the wall. The hands indicated that it was nearly eight o’clock. “Kai and Declan were teaching me how to maneuver in the trees.” I kept Liam and Owen out of the equation. If Dad learned about them, he’d never let me set foot in the forest again. “I’m getting pretty good at it.”
“You’ve been out there for almost four hours, Calliope. I thought we had agreed you would be inside before sundown.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” It wouldn’t help my case if I told him during sundown that we were being chased by professional rogue fae hunters. “It won’t happen again.”
“You’re lucky Mom’s still not home.” Just as the words passed his lips, I heard the faint groan of the garage door opening. “I told her we hadn’t eaten yet. She’s bringing Chinese.”
“That sounds good.”
He motioned to my bedroom. “Go change. Put on some pajamas or something unless you want her asking why you have twigs in your hair and dirt on your face.” I had dirt on my face? I wiped my hand across my cheek and he smiled softly. “There’s no dirt on your face, but you really do have leaves in your hair.”
I raced from the room when I heard the side door creak open.
“Hello?” Mom’s voice echoed through the house.
“Hey, Melody,” Dad greeted as I closed my bedroom door.
• • •
I couldn’t sleep that night. My thoughts were swirling in a whirlwind and my room felt like it was a sweltering sauna. When I turned to check the time on my nightstand it blinked 2:37 am. I needed air. Heaving myself up from my bed, I went to the window and opened it. My wings fluttered, enjoying the breeze that rushed in almost as much as me. I took in a deep breath of the cool freshness.
The night was quiet with the exception of cricket chirps and leaf flutters. My eyes gazed down at the lining of the trees to the mystery of what could be lurking there now. The Keepers were probably out there scouting for whatever or whomever they were so worried about.
Once my body was satisfied I turned to go back to bed, but heard voices, hushed low voices.
“Lurking again?”
“You are one to talk.”
“We both know I wasn’t lurking. I’ve always been around.”
My eyes scanned the trees, but it was too dark to decipher their figures. I knew it was them. I didn’t need to see the bickering Keepers for confirmation.
“Well you can take a break for the night. Sit back, put up your feet up. You’ve been working so hard all day,” Kai’s tone was patronizing. Was it strange that I knew his voice?
“And why do you feel like you need to all of a sudden protect her around the clock?”
“It’s no secret to you who she is. She needs protecting.”
“Well for the last five years I think I’ve done a pretty good job.” Declan’s voice was frustrated.
The fact that they knew more about me than I knew about myself rattled me. Were there really still secrets that I was being shielded from? Did everyone think I was that fragile that I couldn’t handle the truth?
“Yeah, you have, but now Favner isn’t going to let her go. When he discovers and I mean when, that you didn’t get rid of her. . .” Kai trailed off, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what the end of his sentence was going to be.
“It doesn’t mean that you should be here.” I could barely hear Declan’s voice, but it was bitter.
“What is this really about, Declan?” There was a long pause. I almost thought Declan wasn’t going to answer. “What?” Kai repeated, more adamantly.
“You don’t get to swoop in here now,” Declan’s voice raised. “I’ve watched over her for years. Protected her. If anyone gets a chance to be with her it should be me, not you.”
I shivered, but not from the cold.
“If you wanted that chance you should have taken it. You’ve had how many years?”
“She didn’t have the Sight, Kai,” Declan contended. “If I’d shown myself to her she would have bolted away, screaming and crying. You remember how she reacted when she saw you for the first time. I didn’t want to frighten her.”
“And prowling in the shadows outside her bedroom window wasn’t supposed to frighten her?” I could hear the smirk in his voice. I could picture the look he would have, one eyebrow raised as he tilted his head patronizingly.
There was a thump and then a low curse under someone’s breath. It sounded an awful lot like a fist hitting a tree trunk.
“You don’t get to make the decisions around here,” Declan muttered.
There was a heavy sigh.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Kai said. “You are the favorite.”
“But you ignite something in her that I can’t,” Declan replied softly.
“Hatred?” Kai’s amusement was apparent in his tone.
“You and I both know it’s far from hatred.”
What did they know about what ignited inside of me?
They were silent for a few minutes, but I waited, too absorbed in the conversation to leave the window just yet. A gust of wind ripped through the trees. I wondered what they were doing. Had they always guarded my house so closely at night? Or were they on higher alert with the arrival of Liam and Owen? I sat down against the wall under my window, my head resting against the windowsill.
Declan broke the peace of the night. “It’s passion in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t.” Kai paused before he said, “You don’t really have to worry about me, you know.”
“It’s all up to Calliope in the end. She gets to decide what she wants. But we both know we may never get a chance. You know the law,” Declan said, subdued.
The realization set in, bile rose in the back in my throat. The law. It had been staring me in the face since the beginning, but it never clicked when Declan had mentioned it in terms for me. I would only be allowed to marry within my colony. Even if I wanted a future with Declan or. . .Kai, it would never be possible.
“Cameron still owns her heart. I think he always will.”
“That won’t matter when all is said and done.”
“You weren’t there that day he came,” Kai contested. “She sparkles around him, Declan.”
Someone sighed again.
“Then you better fight like hell because it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to give up anytime soon,” Declan’s deeper voice cut through the night.
“Don’t worry about me. She’s all yours.” Hearing Kai’s words sent an ache through my chest. But why should I care? “We could never work.”
“You know it won’t matter in the long run anyway. It’s a nice thought, but we both know an actual life with her is impossible.”
I couldn’t listen anymore. It was all enough information to drown me in anxiety. Declan was supposed to get rid of me. Bonding arrangements put us in chains. I could never be with either of them even if I wanted to. And Favner wanted me dead. Why? How did he even know about me?
Chapter Eighteen
“How’s my favorite faery?” Cameron popped up next to me in the hallway on my way to Physics. After overhearing Declan and Kai’s conversation last night, I couldn’t fall back asleep for a couple of hours. The wheels in my head kept spinning. I couldn’t have gotten more than three hours of sleep.
“Can you not call me that in public?” I said, hushed.
“Oh, c’mon, Cal. It’ll only make people suspect something when you respo
nd like that. Just be cool.” He nudged my shoulder to try and loosen me up. I guess it didn’t work. “Hey, are you okay?”
I let out an overwhelmed breath of air and rubbed my tired eyes. “I don’t know. I learned a couple new things last night that I’m trying to come to terms with. And with all the changes, I just don’t feel like myself anymore. I’m not Calliope anymore. I’m freak faery girl. That’s what they would call me if they knew what I was, isn’t it?”
“I’d come up with something much more clever than that.” Cameron winked.
I let myself chuckle a little and it made me yawn.
“You’ve done really well at hiding your wings,” he whispered to me. “I thought they’d be a lot more noticeable, but with the combination of those flowy shirts and your backpack, you’d never know unless you were looking for it.”
“The backpack kind of hurts sometimes. It rubs them raw.”
“So don’t wear the backpack. I honestly can’t see them,” he said reassuringly.
I shifted the backpack, “Where’s Isla?”
He shrugged. “Turns out she wasn’t cheating, just mad at me. We worked it out.”
I figured they’d made up when I saw them kissing in the hallway yesterday morning. I thought it would start hurting less with time to see them kiss, but as it turns out I was wrong. I really needed to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to be the one in his arms. I knew I needed to accept it. It was apparent I’d never be his, as I wanted him to be mine. But deep down I just couldn’t make myself.
“But then she got mad at me again this morning because she thought I should know the difference between what her hair looks like today and what it looked like yesterday.”
I laughed. “She went and got it highlighted yesterday, Cameron. And they took off a couple inches of her hair.”
“Is it really that big of a difference?” he asked incredulously. Boys.
I laughed again. “Only to the females. We notice things like that. I mean, with how much you stare at her, I would have thought you’d notice too, but boys will be boys.”
“Great.” He chuckled softly. “How do I get myself out of this one?”
“She’ll get over it,” I said encouragingly, swimming through the sea of people in the swarming hallway. Cameron latched onto my belt loop, trying to keep from losing me in the masses. He let go when he was at my side again.
“She seems to think I’ve been missing a lot of stuff lately,” he continued our conversation.
“Like what?”
“Well the reason she was mad at me last week may or may not have been because I forgot it was our three month anniversary,” he said sheepishly.
I chuckled. “I’ve never understood why dating couples make anniversaries out of everything. It’s been two month since our first kiss,” I said dreamily. “It’s been five months since you told me you loved me.” I smirked at him and saw that he was laughing too. “Is it because it’s a triumph that it’s lasted for so long or. . .?”
“You tell me.” When I didn’t reply he said, “No, seriously, please, tell me. I need to get out of the dog house.”
“Flowers. Chocolates. Mixed tape. Jewelry. Love notes. Stuffed animals,” I prattled off all the typical romantic gestures I could think of.
“You’d want all that stuff?” he sincerely asked me.
“Me?” I thought about it for a moment. I’d never had a guy get me any of those things before. “Honestly, no. Those gifts are a cop out. All I’d want is just the affirmation that I meant something to you, that I mattered. A heartfelt apology. It’s easy to merely say things or make gestures. It’s another to actually mean them. Maybe tack on a bouquet of wild flowers or something. Not a dozen roses. Too cliché.”
When I looked up at him, an unreadable mask covered his familiar face. His momentary gaze unsettled my insides, releasing the butterflies from their cages to fly wildly. I broke the staring contest first, unable to confidently look him in the eye when he watched me like that.
He cleared his throat. “Thanks, Callie.” The warning bell rang as I reached the door of my physics class. “Ah crap. . .I’m going to be late!” he said and lifted his hand, booking it down the hallway. I chortled and found my seat.
• • •
When I got home from school I had one destination in mind. I wanted answers.
“Princess,” Kai crooned infuriatingly when I stepped into the forest. I had barely even passed the borderline when Kai stopped me.
“Where’s Declan?” I cut to the chase.
“Hello to you too.”
I didn’t respond to his sarcasm. I simply stared at him, waiting for an answer. Today he actually wore a light beige shirt, one of their billowy hand sewn tunics, the collar left untied. Sometimes I wondered if they didn’t wear shirts simply to see my face every time I saw them without one. Though I had gotten a little more used to it, it didn’t change the fact that they were still half naked and flawlessly built. I was able to keep my composure better when they were fully clothed.
“Probably moping up in some tree.” He shrugged. “And I thought we told you not to come searching for us on your own anymore.”
I ignored that last comment. I had actually kind of forgotten. “Isn’t that normally your post?”
“Didn’t you hear?” He cocked his head to the side. “Declan and I are trading places today. He mopes. I gallivant off into the sunset.” Kai circled around me, causing my head to spin by following his movements so I stopped. I stared straight ahead, crossing my arms in front of me, trying to suppress a smile at his joke.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a prick to him all the time he wouldn’t have to mope up in a tree.”
“A prick?” His indigo eyes nearly crossed in confusion as he twisted his face in front of mine, forcing me to look at him. “Like a rosebush thorn?”
“Forget it.”
He turned back to his task of balancing on some vine-covered rock and gracefully hopped to the next. A bow and a tube filled with arrows were strapped to his back.
“I heard what you said last night.”
Kai shifted his gaze back to me without losing his balance. “Eavesdropping, were you?”
“If the two of you were having such a private conversation maybe you should have taken it further into the forest,” I chided. “My hearing has sort of improved over the last couple months. You know, one of those fae abilities you two informed me about.”
“How much did you hear?” He sounded bored with our conversation already, but I knew he was uncomfortable with everything that I could have heard. He pulled the bow and an arrow from his back.
“Enough to know that Favner doesn’t exactly want me alive.”
Kai spun slowly around, his expression unchanging. He stared at me blankly.
“Would you like to expand upon that?” I prompted.
“You want every little frilly detail about how a faery king wants you dead?” he said brusquely. I shuddered. Did he have to put it so bluntly? He didn’t even try to soften the blow. “What would be the point in trying to hide the obvious? You should be scared. You deserve the warning. You shouldn’t take that threat lightly. Favner isn’t the faery to mess with. Even I know to stay out of his way.”
“Why didn’t you two ever mention it to me before if he is such a threat? Shouldn’t I have been on my guard all this time?” I said accusingly.
“Declan didn’t want to frighten you,” Kai said and turned to shoot his arrow. “There’s nothing you can do. So we’ve done our part out here and kept you safe.” It landed in the center of a trunk twenty feet away.
That sparked a thought. “What did you mean by Favner finding out that Declan didn’t get rid of me? Why would Declan need to get rid of me?”
“So you heard that part too, huh?” Kai seemed a little uneasy, but tried passing it off as indifference. He kept his back to me.
“You two don’t exactly quarrel quietly.”
“What would be the fun i
n that?” He spun his head back and flashed a crooked smile my way, fluttering my heartbeats. He wasn’t allowed to get me flustered right now. I didn’t need a distraction from the conversation. Couldn’t he be serious for one minute?
“Why was Declan supposed to get rid of me?” I repeated, determined to get a straight answer.
“As much as I love being the bearer of all bad news, I think Declan should get to explain that one to you.” Kai turned back to his target practice.
“Well, where is he?” I inquired. “You never answered my question.”
“Beats me.” He threw up a shrug of indifference, his back to me. His next arrow landed in the same tree, right next to the first. “I’m not his Keeper. Just yours.”
“You don’t have to be my Keeper. I never asked you to stay.”
Kai paused before answering. “You didn’t have to.” He dropped his stance and turned back to me. His liquid iris eyes peered at me. They really looked at me. Not with sarcasm or malice. Not playful or mischievous. His eyes appeared solemn, gentle. . .meaningful.
I swallowed and cleared my throat, breaking away from his gaze. “What am I supposed to do?”
He sighed, breaking his trance. “Nothing.”
“I need to do something. I can’t just sit back and relax now. What do I need to know?” I persisted.
Kai sighed and gestured for me to take a seat. I situated myself beside the nearest tree. “Faeries tend to be particularly fond of the chase,” he said.
I swallowed back any fears. “And Favner is fond of chasing me.”
Kai nodded. “Most of us are, apparently,” he said under his breath, but I don’t think he expected me to comment.
My eyes shied away from him, looking to the fallen leaves scattered along the ground. I couldn’t find the confidence to look him in the eye. “Kai, I don’t want any part of your world. If Favner knew that, would he leave me alone?”
“Not if he knows that you didn’t die. I’m not sure how well Declan covered his tracks.”
I swallowed. “Declan was really supposed to kill me?”
He set his jaw. “Yes.”