“I thought it was Eli,” she said, “but it’s one of the guards. I know him, but he’s not due to come up here for a few more weeks. Do you think he’s looking for you?”
He shook his head. “They’d send guards from the castle.”
She turned back to the door, and squared her shoulders, put a big smile on her face, and opened the door. “Michael, I didn’t expect to see you today,” she said, holding the door open.
“Hi, Darby,” the older man said. “I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I’ve got a lot of places to visit today.”
“Won’t you come in for some coffee?” she asked when he didn’t come inside.
He shook his head. “Can’t today. I’m here on official business. Will you come outside with me?”
Colin didn’t like the way this was going, so he stepped up. “What kind of business?”
Darby shot him a dirty look, but he stood his ground. The man looked him up and down. “I didn’t know you had company,” he said to Darby, then turned back to Colin. “You look very familiar; have we met before?”
***Darby***
Darby wanted to shove Colin back into the bedroom and lock him inside; she wasn’t ready to give him up and if Michael recognized him, it would all be over. Although it might already be over, she thought, watching him transform into the royal he really was. But then to her shock, he relaxed his shoulders and slouched a little.
“I’m here visiting from out of town,” Colin said. “I lived here when I was a kid, so maybe we met way back then.”
Michael studied him for a few more seconds, then shrugged. “It’ll come to me eventually,” he said.
“How can I help you, Michael?” she asked, hoping to get the focus off of Colin since that what he seemed to want.
“Have you seen the damage from the storm?” he asked, indicating that she should come outside.
When she looked down at the harbor, she could only stare at what she saw, not sure she was looking at the same view she’d seen every day of her life. “Oh no, the pier is completely gone,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Probably miles out to sea with the rest of the docks,” Michael said, shaking his head. “There’s also a ship out there, the one carrying the entire food supply for the guards.”
Darby turned and looked at him, knowing what that meant, but worried about the store. “What happened to Main Street? My store?”
“It’s all fine,” Michael said. “The waves didn’t get up that far.”
She sighed with relief, again glad that she’d gotten a place higher up in town. But then Michael said, “Darby, I’m going to need your chickens. I know you have a bunch, and the king and queen have ordered that everyone contribute to feed the guards.”
“All my chickens?” she asked, not as shocked as she should have been. “Michael, we depend on them for a good part of our food supply.”
“I know, Darby, but I also know you have a lot of other animals in that barn. The chickens are a small part of what you’ve got, and the guards have to eat,” he said. “I have to take them.”
For a few minutes, she could only stare out at the harbor, the waves benignly crashing against what was left of the pier and wonder how one storm could ruin all her carefully laid plans for the summer. It would take weeks to repair the damage; that meant no tourist boats, no income, no new drying shed, and definitely no money to replace the chickens.
She turned to face Michael, unable to stop the tears that sprang to her eyes. “We had to put them in the barn during the storm. I’ll go get them for you,” she said.
Colin fell in step with her as she walked to the barn. “Are you just going to let him take them after we worked so hard to save them yesterday?” he asked, shocked that this fiery woman was giving in so easily.
“I don’t have a choice; he’ll get them one way or another,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “It’s just the way things are, and he is right: I’m better off than most people.”
When they got to the barn, Michael was already sitting there in his wagon waiting for them. “Ummm, Darby, if a few of your chickens got loose in the storm last night and you haven’t found them yet, I don’t have time to help you look,” he said.
It took the sting out of what she had to do, but it was still difficult to hand over most of her flock. “It doesn’t seem fair,” Colin said, a concerned look on his face as watched the wagon disappear into the trees. “Does this happen a lot?”
Darby shrugged. “This isn’t that common, but someone is always coming around with their hand out: taxes, protection money, donations to the guards, you name it, we pay it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore; it just makes me mad.”
She started around the barn, planning to see what she could do to fix it, so the few chickens that remained would have a place to roost, but Colin caught up to her. “Wait, I do want to talk about this,” he said. “I want to understand.”
This was not a conversation she wanted to have with him. It only reminded her that he’d be gone soon and taking a piece of her heart with him. “You aren’t going to want to hear what I have to say,” she said, then waited. “Okay, let’s start with taxes, which are about ten percent of our income, all to pay for you and your family to live in the castle, eat fancy food, and make rules for all the rest of us. Have any of you ever worked a day in your lives? Do you contribute anything to the town?”
Colin stepped back, clearly surprised by her words, but now that she’d gotten started, it was impossible to stop. “Then there are the guards who require money above and beyond what we already pay them to do their job, which consists mainly of looking good in their uniforms and directing tourists around town. You’ve been to the bad side of town. Did you see any guards down there?”
“Darby,” he said. “It can’t be that bad. My parents really do care about the town and the people: that’s one of the reasons they kicked me out.”
“They sit up there on their little mountain, surrounded by other royals, and think that they’re taking care of us, Colin. But let me ask you this: how much better would our lives be if we didn’t have to take care of them? What is it that makes you so much better than me that I should have to slave away part of my life so you can live in luxury?” she asked, then turned and started back to the farmhouse.
Chapter Fifteen
***Colin***
Colin watched Darby walk away, her words echoing in his head, then hurried to catch up to her. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going to change my clothes and go into town,” she said. “I need to check on the store.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said. “I’d like to see what’s going on in town.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, stomping back to her bedroom.
When she came out a few minutes later dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, he could tell that she was still upset, so he pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry, Darby,” he said. “I’m sorry the chickens are gone, I’m sorry things are so unfair, but I promise you I’m going to try to change that.”
She looked up at him. “Really?”
He grinned at her. “I think my parents got more than they bargained for when they sent me away. I don’t think they realized that I’d meet a hard-as-nails Fae who would finally open my eyes and make me see the reality of my world.”
The smile on her face and the way her eyes lit up made his body begin to throb with desire, but then it disappeared, and sadness took its place. Darby pulled away from him and said, “We’d better get to town.”
She started for the door but he grabbed her and stopped her. “Wait, what just happened?” he asked. “You were so happy just a minute ago.”
A huge sigh made Darby’s chest rise and fall, then she reached up and stroked his cheek. “It’s time for you to go home, Colin; you’ve learned what you needed to, and Ballentine needs you where you belong,” she said.
“What if I’m not ready to go home?” he asked. “What if I think
I still have things to learn?”
“Then I’d think that you were still hiding, Colin,” she said. “You’ve spent too much time hiding already; you were born to lead, and it’s time you started doing that.”
He pulled her into his arms, the truth of her words too obvious to ignore. “I don’t want to leave you,” he said, looking down at her. “I want us to be together.”
“I want that too, Colin, but you and I both know that’s impossible,” she said, tears in her eyes. “We’re from two different worlds, and the two never mix.”
He was tempted to ask for one more night but knew it would only be prolonging the pain. “I wish it could be different,” he said instead, then held her tightly in his arms for a long time.
When they pulled apart, she brushed the tears off her cheek and said, “I’ll never be sorry you showed up in my drying shed.”
He smiled at her. “Neither will I.”
They walked to town in silence, their hands joined, neither ready to let the other go. But as they stared down the first street, it was clear that the town had sustained a lot more damage than the farm had, and their heartache was quickly forgotten. As they picked their way toward the center of town, they stopped and helped where they could, clearing branches and limbs, sweeping up broken glass, and carting away debris. But it barely made a dent, and Colin knew that it was going to take a long time to recover from the storm.
They were nearly to Main Street when they came around a corner and saw a group of guards standing in front of a damaged house and a woman crying in the front yard. Darby guided him across the street, but he stopped to watch as three of the guards pushed past the woman and went inside the house, returning a few minutes later their hands full of food.
“That’s all the food I have,” the woman cried. “How will I feed my children?”
“That’s not our problem, ma’am,” the lead guard said. “The guard has to eat first.”
Colin started for the house, but Darby grabbed his arm. “Leave it be,” she said. “You aren’t the prince right now.”
He looked down at his clothes, then over at the guards, and reluctantly followed her. As much as he didn’t want to admit that Darby was right, it was time for him to go home. One thing his time away from the castle had taught him was that things in Ballentine were not as wonderful as his parents thought; the town was full of corruption and evil.
When they came out on Main Street, he was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t see Darby when she stopped, and they both nearly toppled to the ground. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” he said.
Darby was staring off into the harbor, a look of horror on her face. “It’s all gone,” she said. “All of it.”
“But look,” he said. “Main Street is fine. Why don’t you show me your store?”
Darby smiled up at him. “Okay, I’d like you to see it.”
As they walked along the deserted street, Colin took Darby’s hand in his and squeezed, enjoying the moment since it would be one of the last. When they reached the front door of her shop, she stopped and dug around for the key in her pocket, then threw open the door. He stepped inside and took a deep breath, then looked around, charmed by what he saw.
“It smells good in here,” he said. “It smells just like you.”
Darby blushed, and desire raced through him, so he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She melted in his arms, and soon the world around them faded into nothingness, and all that mattered was the two of them.
***Darby***
Darby would have ended up doing something in the back of her store she never thought she’d do if Fiona hadn’t come in just a few minutes later. She stumbled on them in the back room, Darby sitting on her desk with her legs locked around Colin, but luckily, they were still dressed. The little scream she let out when she saw them made Colin jump and step away from Darby, who turned bright red and quickly jumped down from the desk.
Fiona took one look at Colin, grabbed Darby’s arm, and pulled her into the front of the store. “Who is that? And what were you doing with him?” she demanded when they were by the front door.
“That’s Colin, and well...things just got out of control. We wouldn’t have...” her words trailed off because she knew they would have.
Fiona’s eyes got big. “You were too,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’ve been hiding him from me.”
“No, I haven’t,” Darby protested. “I’ve only known him for three days.”
“That’s why you stayed home from work,” Fiona said. “Darby, who is this guy? Where did you meet him? This isn’t like you.”
She sighed. “I know, and I promise I’ll explain later, but he has to go home today, and we only have a few more hours together.”
Fiona’s eyes softened. “Okay, but I want to hear all about it when he’s gone,” she said, kissed Darby on the cheek and slipped out the door.
When she got back to the stockroom, Colin was still grinning. “That must have been Fiona,” he said.
Darby nodded. “She’s gone.”
“I don’t suppose you want to continue from where we were so rudely interrupted,” he said, a silly grin on his face.
“Let’s go for a walk. I want to see the harbor,” she said, the passion of the moment gone.
As they walked down the street, it struck her just how different the harbor looked without the pier and shops. “It looks so sad and deserted,” she said, shivering.
They walked as far as they could down the dock, then stopped and looked at the damage the storm had done, and she shivered again. He looked down at her. “Are you cold?”
She shook her head, but then goosebumps broke out on her skin, and she shivered several more times, feeling something heavy beginning to descend on her. Grabbing on to Colin’s arm to steady herself as a blanket of evil covered her, she let out a cry of despair and would have fallen to her knees if he hadn’t held her up.
He swept her up in his arms, and the evil was gone, leaving her stunned and breathless. When they reached a bench tucked up into the side of a cliff back in the trees, he set her down gently, then took her hands in his and began to rub them. She looked up at him, then began to shake uncontrollably, so he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly.
When she could finally talk, she looked up at him and said, “Colin, that storm wasn’t natural; it was a demon or something.”
“What do you mean? What did you see?” he asked, pulling her up against him again.
“I felt an overwhelming sense of evil,” she said, a shiver racking her body again. “Someone sent a storm demon to destroy Ballentine.”
“But that’s not possible,” Colin said. “There are rules and stuff in place to keep that from happening.”
She looked up at him. “I know what I felt, Colin, and it’s going to come back again and again until there’s nothing left.”
He jumped up. “We have to tell my parents,” he said.
She pulled him back down on the bench. “We can’t do that, Colin. They won’t believe me, and if they do, then what? They’ll think I’m a witch.”
“But you’re not a bad witch; you’re a good witch,” he said. “They’ll listen to you. I know they will.”
“We need proof,” Darby said. “We need to find out who’s behind this and why.”
Colin leaned back against the bench, then looked over at her and grinned. “I guess this means I don’t have to go home today after all.”
Darby slapped him, but her heart was soaring; broken heart or not, she had one more night with him. When he gathered her in his arms, she knew what was coming and leaned up into the kiss, letting the passion between them spark to life. But it was only a few minutes before they were interrupted by the sound of voices.
“I think we should go home,” she said, but Colin put a finger to her lips.
“I think I recognize one of those voices,” he whispered, pulling her back against the bench.
It wasn’t l
ong before two men came into view. Colin tensed up next to her, and pointed to the one on the left. “That’s my father's chief advisor, Samuel, but I don’t know who the other man is,” he whispered.
“It looks like the first strike did as much damage as you promised. I’m pleased,” Samuel said, rubbing his hands together as he looked over the harbor.
“I told you the demon would be worth the price,” the other man said. “When you’re ready for the next strike just let me know; the price hasn’t changed.”
“I think we’ll give the town a little while to recover and then hit them again,” Samuel said. “It will be perfect; just as they begin to think things are getting better, boom, another freak storm. Then we’ll raid their food supplies again, that should weaken them to the point that they’ll be happy to see the Unseelie when they arrive.”
It was all she could do to keep Colin on the bench, but he let her hold him there, his muscles clenching and unclenching. She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight until the men turned and walked away, the man Colin had called Samuel radiating evil as he walked by.
Chapter Sixteen
***Colin***
Colin was pacing around the kitchen while Darby cooked dinner, his mind full of so much anger, he couldn’t think clearly. Samuel had been with his father for as long as he could remember and had always appeared to be the most loyal and trusted of his advisors. But what he’d seen today had destroyed that myth and shown him to be what he truly was: a traitor to not only the royal family but to everyone in Ballentine.
Seelie rule might not have been perfect, as he’d so recently learned, but the Unseelie were brutal Fae who would destroy Ballentine as they destroyed everything they touched. To think that Samuel had joined them made him sick to his stomach, and he wanted to march up to the castle and confront him, but he knew that his father would never listen.
The Fae Prince: (Fae of Ballantine) Page 9