Shadows and Stars

by Becca Fanning

  “Summon the clan leaders,” I told Treyce, “Tell them to arrive tomorrow morning for a meeting with me.”

  “Yes, My Queen,” Treyce said with a wide smile and I heard his steps as he left to do as I asked.

  “Wait, I thought you were coming back?” Padraic asked and stepped back from us.

  “I am,” I replied.

  “What are you planning?” Eoghan asked and kissed my face.

  “I will choose the next leader tomorrow,” I explained.

  “I will go find a room” Padraic told us. “I’ll be back before dark.”

  Eoghan picked me up and carried me as he walked to my bed. I wrapped my arms around his neck and lay my head on his shoulder.

  “I’m staying here tonight,” he whispered to me.

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “And we can go home tomorrow?” he asked. Eoghan looked down at me with a serious expression, one that was also filled with love, but did not say anything more. I realized he was waiting for me to answer.

  “We go home tomorrow,” I agreed.

  Sierra walked into my chambers without knocking and when she noticed that I was in Eoghan’s arms she smiled broadly. “You finally gave in to your feelings?” She asked.

  I frowned at her. “What?”

  She rolled her eyes. “It was obvious that he was the one that you are meant to be with. No one becomes Queen and hides in her room when men are lined up at her door to do as she wishes.”

  Eoghan growled and she smiled broadly before bowing. “Nice to see you again, King Eoghan.”

  “You still haven’t learned manners, have you?” he asked her and set me down on my feet to walk into my room.

  “I have manners where I need them. Alyssa requires me to be honest and sincere with her, not polite.”

  “Will you give us a moment alone?” Eoghan requested.

  Padraic bowed and practically pushed Sierra out of the room and then stood in front of it to guard the entrance and ensure that we were not disturbed.

  My butterflies were swirling around in my stomach so I walked to my desk and looked down at the papers as though I was actually reading them.

  Eoghan spun me around and kissed me with a hungry passion I echoed in my return. I slid my hands up underneath his shirt to touch his skin, skin I had dreamed about touching again. Skin I had thought I would never feel again. He took off his shirt and I stepped back from him with a shake of my head.

  “Too fast,” I whispered and then turned away since the sight of him without a shirt wasn’t helping my determination to slow down.

  He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my cheek. “We’ll take whatever pace you set,” he whispered.

  Stupid morals. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  “I love you, Alyssa. I love you more than anything else in this world.”

  “I love you too,” I whispered back and leaned back into him.

  He pulled me onto the bed and before I could open my mouth to remind him of what we’d just said, he lay on his back and pulled me so that I laid my head on his chest and listened to the rapid beat of his heart and snuggled against him.

  I slept better than I ever had before and felt refreshed and calm when I entered the room to the gathered clan leaders. Eoghan and Padraic walked in with me and people immediately began murmuring. I was incredibly glad that I would not have to deal with this any longer. I wondered if I would have to do things as a Queen for Eoghan.

  I took my seat and they silenced their murmurs. “Effective immediately your new ruler is Treyce,” I said, “And I will leave the Northern Realm.”

  “What!” several demanded.

  “Treyce is your new King,” I said again and motioned at him to approach. I stood up and smiled warmly. “This throne is now yours.”

  “Alyssa,” he whispered in shock.

  “You tried to stop Pella and you risked yourself to do what was right. You deserve this throne and its title more than I do.”

  He sat down and I took Eoghan’s hand in mine. Padraic sat his hand on Eoghan’s shoulder and I teleported us back to his castle. Hopefully Treyce could keep them in line because they were a handful and I knew that even though I had barely gotten to know them.

  “I’m sorry that I ruined your birthday,” he whispered as we lay in each other’s arms that night. “I did not decide when she came and I think she did it because she learned of the ball. I wish we could redo it and I could give you a birthday like you deserve.”

  “What’s done is done,” I whispered. I really wanted to get past the previous incidents and begin living in the present. Focusing too much on the past never lead to anything positive.

  “I got you a new present,” he whispered and stroked my face.

  “Oh?” I asked. “Is it a car?”

  “A, what?” he asked, bewildered.

  I laughed at his expression and said, “One of these days I’m going to find a way to show you everything that was in my world.”

  “I would enjoy that,” he said and kissed my temple. “Now, let me get your present.”

  I rolled onto my side and watched him walk to his dresser where he opened a drawer with a key and pulled out a small box. He walked over to me and held out a small black box with a red bow on it.

  It was suspiciously close to the same size as a ring box. Was he proposing! Oh. OH!

  I opened it and stared at the beautiful ring with a stone that glowed like fire. “Oh my,” I whispered.

  “It’s the heart of a volcano,” he told me. “They are very hard to get because you have to find a way to carve your way to the volcano’s heart without getting burned to a crisp by the lava.”

  “Is…” I couldn’t even ask him.

  “Alyssa, will you be my Queen, partner, and my life mate?” he asked.

  Tears filled my eyes and I nodded before throwing my arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. “Yes.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me to him. “I will spend the rest of my life showering you and showing you how much you mean to me,” he promised me.

  “What is this?” a female voice demanded.

  We both turned to find his sister in the doorway with her hands on her very narrow hips. She looked better than she had when Pella had returned her, but there was a bit of a haunting darkness in the corners of her eyes. The same type of darkness that I saw in so many of my fellow orphans.

  Eoghan stood and pulled me up with him. He put the ring on my finger and then turned to his sister with a wide smile. “Drea, this is Alyssa. Alyssa and I are engaged to be wed,” he told her.

  She frowned. “I don’t even know her.”

  He shrugged. “Who I choose to marry and who I choose to make Queen is not up to you.”

  “Be nice,” I ordered him.

  She laughed and then held out her hand to me. I shook her hand and she smiled at me. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” I said with a smile in return.

  She looked at Eoghan and said, “Padraic is pacing up and down the halls waiting for you to come out and let him know what’s going on.”

  “Padraic!” I called.

  He walked into the room and I held out my hand to show him the ring on my finger. “You accepted?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He grabbed me in a hug and spun me around in a circle. “I shouldn’t be so happy about him getting married, but I’m incredibly happy that you will continue to live with us.”

  “Will you resume our lessons and continue to train me?” I asked him after he set me down on the ground and Eoghan took my hand in his.

  “I am at your service, milady,” he said and bowed low to me.

  “In that case I want a cheesecake, two steaks, and a milkshake,” I said with a smirk.

  “At once,” he said and turned to go.

  I grabbed his hand laughing. “Stop, I was teasing.”

  “What’s a cheesecake?” Drea asked.

  I gasped. “You didn’t introduce her to
my desserts?” I accused Padraic and Eoghan.

  “Eoghan wasn’t in the mood for desserts much while you were gone,” Padraic said.

  “Well, now that I am back we must teach you the wonderful side of my presence here,” I said and held out my arm for Drea. She slipped hers through mine and we walked to the dining hall. “Chef!” I called.

  He stuck his head through and then gasped. “You’re back!” He went back to the kitchen and I could hear them yelling to each other.

  Drea and I looked at each other and then Chef came back with his hat between his hands. “Sorry, I just had to let the others know because we were so worried about you while you were gone.”

  “That’s alright. I appreciate your worry,” I told him. “Do you happen to have any cheesecake?”

  He smiled. “Of course I do!”

  “We are celebrating,” Padraic told him.

  “Celebrating?” Chef asked.

  “She agreed to marry me,” Eoghan told him.

  Chef gasped again and then ran back to the kitchen and yelled again to the others there. The women ran out and bombarded me to look at my ring.

  Drea looked shocked and nervous. “Why are they treating her like one of them?” she asked.

  “Because I am one of them,” I said after the girls had stopped fawning over my ring. “I’m a commoner and I don’t see a reason to stop being that or viewing them as equals. We are all people.”

  “Well, not all of us,” Padraic said.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “In my dimension girls fantasized about being with an elf. They made movies about it and if you fell into my dimension you would be bombarded with women. Plus, your conscience is the same as ours.”

  Chef returned, I had not even realized that he had left, with a cart of desserts. “Tomorrow we will prepare a feast appropriate for celebrating such a wonderful occasion,” he said. “For now, please enjoy these.”

  I set a piece of cheesecake with cherries on it in front of Drea. “Here, this is cheesecake with cherry topping.”

  She picked up her fork and took a small bite. As soon as she chewed once, her eyes widened and she began shoveling it in her mouth as fast as she could. “This is so good,” she said through her full mouth.

  I laughed and Eoghan said, “You should slow down.”

  “Chef,” I called. “Tomorrow I will teach you how to make milkshakes.”

  “That sounds strange, but if it is anything as wonderful as this, I want ten!” Drea yelled.

  “I have a feeling that you and I will be the best of friends,” I told her with a smile.

  She smiled back, bits of cheesecake on her teeth. “I think so as well.”

  EPILOGUE

  EOGHAN POINTED to a rather large cloud as it floated by and said, “Hippo.”

  “Cow,” I argued.

  “Same thing,” Padraic argued.

  “One spends most of its time in water and one on land. Therefore, they are different,” I argued back.

  “Fine, whale,” Eoghan amended.

  “That’s just an ocean cow,” I said and laughed.

  “Looks like a blob of whipped cream,” Drea said.

  The four of us lay on our backs on the grass as we watched the clouds pass overhead. One month ago, we had sealed our marriage and our mating bond and now we were King and Queen and I knew this was where I was supposed to be.

  Eoghan found my hand and linked our fingers together. “This is where you are supposed to be,” he told me.

  “Huh?” Drea asked.

  “Mind communication,” Padraic told her. “You get used to them doing it after a little bit.”

  “Have you even begun to go through your gifts?” Drea asked me.

  We had received a room full of wedding presents and Eoghan had assured me that it was normal. I hadn’t even begun to make a dent in them. “I started,” I said, which was true.

  “She has not even gone through a dozen,” Eoghan told her.

  “Traitor,” I whispered.

  “Alyssa,” Drea said with a sigh. “You have to go through them.”

  The ones that I cared about opening, I already had. Those were the ones from Eoghan’s staff and from Treyce. Treyce had gotten us a statue of a girl with a lynx. I kept it on our mantle in our room and treasured it.

  Eoghan shifted forms and purred against me. I pet his head and then buried my face in his fur.

  “I wish I could do that,” Drea sighed. “Dad could shift and Eoghan can, but I can’t. It’s frustrating.”

  “You have other abilities,” Eoghan reminded her after shifting back again.

  She was one of the strongest telepaths I had seen. She had picked up the entire barn one day and moved it.

  “How long do you think this peace will last?” Padraic asked. “How long do you think Treyce will be able to keep them in line?”

  “Hopefully the rest of our lives. Realistically though, I’m not sure,” Eoghan admitted.

  “Well, we better enjoy the time we have together now,” I said and looked back up at the sky.

  “Bat,” Drea said.

  I pointed to another one. “Dragon.”

  “That’s obviously a centaur,” Padraic argued.

  “You need to get your eyes checked,” I told him.

  “My eyes are better than yours,” he said.

  “Yeah, well you’re a brat,” I said since I could not think of anything else.

  Everyone laughed and we relaxed again as we called out other shapes.

  The End

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Catherine Banks is a USA Today Bestselling fantasy author who writes in several fantasy subgenres under two pseudonyms. She began writing fiction at only four years old and finished her first full-length novel at the age of fifteen. She is married to her soulmate and best friend, Avery, who she has two amazing children with. After her full-time job, she reads books, plays video games, and watches anime shows and movies with her family to relax. Although she has lived in Northern California her entire life, she dreams of traveling around the world. Catherine is also C.E.O. of Turbo Kitten Industries™, a company with many hats including being a book publisher and Etsy store full of nerdy fun.

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  TWO BY TWO

  GINA WYNN

  Two by Two © 2017 Gina Wynn

  * * *

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  TWO BY TWO

  On board The Salvation, two by two won’t be quite what Noah had in mind.

  A match made in… outer space.

  When things on board The Salvation take a turn for the strange, witch Penny is thrust into the wacky world of matchmaking. Without the meddling of the space station’s owner, it should have all been so easy.

  But it all goes wrong when Penny is ordered to pair The Salvation’s passengers by species. Weres with weres, vamps with vamps, witches with wizards… it’s never going to be received well. Particularly with Penny’s long-time friendship with a vampire.

  Is she willing to compromise all of her morals in return for her safety, and what should she do with her best friend—the kind of fanged best friend who makes her feel safe and loved…and jealous?

  ONE

  “DAMN AND BLAST it all back down to Earth.” Penelope Hardacre slammed her bag onto the table in the Absolution bar and slumped onto the seat, dropping her forehead into the soft leather of her tote.

  “What’s the matter, dol
l?”

  She glanced over to see Vincent slide his tongue up the length of a long stalk of celery before casually dropping it to litter the bar’s floor. Then he turned his attention to swirling his bright red drink around his tumbler.

  “It’s just that some days…some days…” She paused and shimmied her boobs back into position in her low-cut dress. “I feel more like a goddamn shrink instead of a sex therapist.”

  Vincent threw back his head and laughed, his fangs catching the light bouncing from the glitter ball. “A sex therapist? Good God in heaven, woman. When was the last time you even got any, never mind gave any?”

  She squeezed her eyes into thin slits and set her mouth in a firm line—the scathing glance she’d spent years perfecting on the many men with stupid requests for her time. When he shrugged a casual shoulder, she dropped pretence of anger at her best friend. There was no point being irritated with Vincent—it just made him worse. “You want that in minutes or months?” Her head slammed against her bag again before she peeped up at him to check if he was paying attention to her theatrics.

  “Aww, never mind, snookums. You’re still drawing a pretty decent hourly rate, right? Money for nothing, in fact. Coffee and a chat with lonely people. Aboard The Salvation, you’re actually onto a pretty good deal. A veritable lady of leisure, almost. Still, your customer pool is bound to…dry up…at some point, right?” He dipped his finger in his drink and watched as a red bead dripped from his nail and back into the glass. Then he narrowed his eyes and offered her a sly glance. “You know, you could just call a spade a spade and advertise as a hooker, instead? Sex therapist is way too highbrow. A name-change might bring all sorts of business your way.” He finished with an innocent shrug and a not so innocent eyebrow wiggle.

  Annoyance issued the crackle of an electric tingle into her fingers, and she sneezed.