Betrayal

by Cyndi Goodgame

  I didn’t mean for my back to arch and my shoulders to perk up to attention, but he knew exactly what he was doing so I gave him the reaction he wanted. I grinned wide and watched him nod to the guard at the door. Eric was his name. I remembered him. He took both boxes and handed something to Ian. It wasn’t large or small. And he didn’t let me open it either.

  Returning to my room to freshen up before lunch I found a small glittery wrapped cloth with a pink ribbon wrapped around it. Inside was a bag of gummy bears. It still had the little white tag that most gas stations stuck on the top waxy paper that sealed the plastic for freshness. Three dollars and seventy-five cents. Yep! It was from a gas station if it cost that much. Very sweet, Pike!

  I swooped them up and threw them back on the bed tucking them under my pillow. I ran to the bathroom and brushed my teeth again, adjusted my pinned up curls three times, and spritzed some lavender in all the right places by rubbing my wrists together and across my neck and trails down the length of me to be sure.

  I ran back through the court intending to head straight to lunch, but instead detoured to the trampoline in search of Kin. I wanted to give him the chance to see me on my birthday. Call it dumb and stupendously stupid, but I was all about the gift getting today.

  And maybe I was ready to find out about the other prophecy now. Another clue might step me closer to understanding how all this ends...or doesn’t end. End for good.

  I stepped into the afternoon air hoping for a little sunshine as an extra gift, but no such luck. The sky was dark and the smell of rain was near. Although I loved the smell of rain in the air, it sent danger signs of something bad to come in the name of King InSane himself all through his unwilling son. A little of Kin’s leather and spice still surfaced through the air though, but oddly, it felt far away.

  I inhaled deeply, exhaled, and closed my eyes to the sky feeling the wet damp air. Two arms wrapped around my waist and pulled harder than I’d want. I jumped upward and wiggled to escape. Too late did I realize that the arms weren’t any that I’d care to have near me. The hands were yanking and scraping against the skin under my arms as I struggled to free myself.

  I did the only thing that I knew could possible save me now. I screamed loud with my lungs and my brain, “KINNNNNNN!”

  Flying through the air in someone’s heavy arms with my mouth covered and limbs hitting my face weren’t my ideal birthday surprise. I ran a million things through my mind including an accurate description of where this huge brute critter was taking me. He hadn’t thought to cover my eyes. Stupid kidnapper! Ironic that I yelled for Kin to save me from a kidnapping, it made sense with who took me.

  I watched as I was taken the direction of Kin’s lair, doubt beginning to eat at me. Betrayal inched its way into my center of thought.

  Iannnn! Pikeeeee! I yelled on the inside the whole rest of the way.

  Once we were to the area just beside the bonfire edged off wood line, my heart raced as I relayed where I was to all three of them in case they were listening. I would give Kin the benefit of the doubt until I knew otherwise.

  The camp was empty. And when I mean empty, I mean deserted. Not a soul I knew was in sight. The huge troll sized creature sat me down on the ground and stood over me, my body trembling and making it hard to hide my fear. My captor was not just a human high school party goer and lackey to King Insane, he was an Unseelie court guard. I recognized the uniform immediately and his face. Switch. He saw me eyeing the distinct recognizable attributes of their colors and choice of weapons across his back and side. The massive knife/machete lay flat and pointed north above his head on the right of his backside.

  “Why am I here?” I asked annoyed. Though I was a basket case, I tried to appear kept together.

  “Shh!” was all he said. “Master Kinsler told me too.”

  I looked around again, “Then why isn’t he here?” I still had my doubts. He liked claim over his prizes. At least he did with me before.

  “He,” Switch paused as if he wasn’t sure what to say, “can’t be here...right...now.”

  Liar! “And where is he?”

  “Out there!” he pointed to the trees.

  “And he wanted you to stand in here, with me as your captive?”

  “Yes!” he managed to shake some when he finished getting out the word.

  Switch was lying, but I didn’t know why or for who.

  “When will he get back?” I asked.

  “Any second now.”

  If it wasn’t Kin who would walk through those woods, who?

  Just then all the scents hit me at once, like a fire starting small and growing aggressively. All three were close. I saw something move the brush aside in a silent, but forceful stride to the end of the stacked wood three feet from me. Two black boots surfaced and walked hurriedly. A large hand pushed out in front of me to hale me up leaning against him.

  “Switch, you thought you were doing the right thing listening to what my father wants. I know you were only being loyal to him, but I made it clear to you that you are not to harm this girl,” his angry deep voice boomed out into the surrounding woods.

  The guard named Switch, once a high school girl’s eye candy, darted his eyes side to side looking a little less sure of himself.

  “Yes, Switch. He is here. I have no choice but to play along with this or my own head will be on the platter. I will take care of you at a later date.”

  Kin bent down and asked how I was? His voice was significantly softer speaking to me. I nodded a yes in his direction, but looked at mister big bad and handsome kidnapper dude who seemed full of shame. Heck yeah!

  “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Kin met my steady gaze. "Pike and Ian are near."

  I smiled in spite of the situation, “I believe you.” And I did. Though sometimes the pain he caused made me want an on-off switch Kin meter. Turning Kin off for a while would make life easier.

  That small phrase seemed to have caused his eyes to release some small fear, but then other fears took its place. “Stay still. Block. My father will be here in seconds. He will have to believe I found out about it and helped. He will use it as a test of my loyalty.”

  Which only signifies that he doubts his loyalty. Happy thought! Scary man!

  Sure enough, here came the king as Kin pulled me the rest of the way to standing. He stepped into the clearing wearing his usual robes of gold and blue to give off his high and mightiness.

  “Son, you are here?”

  It was asked like a question, not a statement. Huh! I dusted off my rear from the wet dirt that I’d nested in for all of two minutes. The captor stood to the side now in constant bow. How very different our two courts were.

  “She is willing to go with me.” King Sane didn’t look at me when Kin said this. He had that same way about him as if he’d invented the air we breathe and was dang proud of it.

  I stayed expressionless and completely void of thought. No one grabbed and tugged me, which made me calmer, but not overjoyed. Kin nodded for me to follow the king who was leaving now. I did as told and stayed sandwiched between the two Unseelie court Fey men who could quite possibly hurt me, kill me, or worse, steal my memories. I followed in silence. Ian and Pike were close by, yet not coming to my rescue.

  I walked for an hour before Kin decided I needed to be carried. I started to protest, but the fearful look in his darker than ever blue eyes begged me to stay quiet. So I did!

  We arrived at his court without a single follower or eyeful of bowing from anyone. In fact, not one eye turned in my direction. Either they were told I was coming and to ignore me, or they couldn’t see me—I couldn’t tell. I kind of wished for the first scenario. After one is kidnapped once, instinct kicks in. Unfortunately, the experience makes you wiser for the next time.

  My own rescue wasn’t panning out the way I kept playing over and over in my mind, but I was trying to guard and have wishful thinking at the same time. Since I wasn’t fully aware of what powers Kin’s father might also h
ave, I tended to try safety by doing nothing. Nil! The look before you leap theory came in handy only when one actually does it before the tragic event happens. Since I was already in the middle of the tragic event, that theory negates the possibilities.

  “Take her to your chambers and prepare her,” King Sane said to Kin.

  Prepare me for what? I looked at Kin, but he just took my hand and walked me to the room in question. I remained silent since we were followed by two escorts including the brutish guard that captured me in the first place. I gave him dirty looks every chance I had to look back in his direction.

  Once we were behind closed doors he walked me straight to the bathroom. I protested with my feet and hands, but he just put one finger over his mouth and held his hand out to go in. I might be the stupidest Fey queen that ever existed, but I complied.

  Once the door closed, he turned on the faucet and shower and bath. He walked up close enough I could smell the musky smell of something other than his usual leathery manly scent. He bent his head to my ear and held his hands around my waist. I allowed more trust than I probably should, but I just had this feeling that he would get me out of all this.

  “You are preparing to marry me before the night ends and bed me so that my father can take your court,” his mouth was touching my ear. He didn’t move at all.

  I tried to jerk back at his words, but he held me there against him with an iron grip. It was fated to be. I was doomed.

  “We are being watched even now. Follow my lead, Grace. I would never force you to do anything, but if they doubt me right now, they will take your memory in a matter of seconds.”

  I put my mouth to his ear as if to appear behaviorally acceptable to the play we were acting out. “How are they watching?”

  “Don’t ask?”

  Meaning I didn’t want to know. “Can they hear me?”

  “No, as long as you only whisper in my ear and no thoughts.”

  Got it! No thinking about Kin, the Unseelie hot as hell prince, licking my ear.

  “What will you do?” I leaned up as if the answers would come faster. My mouth went to his ear and my lip bumped the bottom of his earlobe. He stiffened to a familiar stance I recognized with Ian and I forcefully moved back from him. His eyes were dark black glittery bands of danger pulling me back into him. “Grace, don’t do that again.”

  Whoa! Total accident, but astronomical reaction. “Sorry!”

  “Yeah, I’m not,” his voice was husky like sandpaper. He coughed to hide the moment. When he finished the fake fit and moved back to me, he whispered, “We have roughly five minutes. If you can tell that Pike or Ian are close at any time, you can call out to them, but know that you will have seconds before you are dragged away.” The truth of the situation loomed over us.

  Brilliant! Chance of survival, none! “I already feel them. They are close.”

  He seemed to be thinking, because his head stayed against my neck. I did feel his hands move up and down the length of me. “Do you have to do that?” I asked.

  “Sorry! Didn’t realize.”

  He didn’t even know he was touching me all over?

  “When I turn the water off, stay wrapped around me till we get to the door of the room. When I get the door open, reach your legs up and wrap them around my waist.”

  I cast a downward look at his face as I was less than an inch from it now so I could show him that this was not what I deemed appropriate.

  “Grace, we can’t fool them without it.”

  “Fine!” I said this but something else softened the last part of the word. He was betraying the father who was betraying him. He wasn’t anything like his father and yet he was everything like him. I was so confused.

  “Now, step into the shower and I am going to get in with you.”

  “What?” I said too loudly way far from any thoughts now. I heard a faraway laugh. Eww! They were watching.

  “We will stay fully clothed. They can only see us moving about and will know we stepped in. They can’t see us clearly.”

  Thank the heavens! I stepped in. He followed.

  “You know, I really could show you what it would be like?” he smiled. Things were different, but not better. Insufferably wrong and dangerous.

  “Kin, I’m not in the mood to be taken advantage of. I thought that’s what you were saving me from?” I didn’t have to try to sound annoyed. I was plain scared.

  “I meant a kiss, Grace. A kiss.”

  “Oh! Sorry!” But still. Before I could protest it also, he kissed me. Soft at first. Then...then...I bit him.

  “Kin!”

  He licked his own bruised lip. “Wish I was sorry for that. Worth it.”

  I huffed even with water running all over my face. My makeup had washed completely off by now, even my mascara. I analyzed that kiss a little. It was like he was giving me something, a gift in his eyes. He really liked himself too much.

  “It needed to happen, I just wanted you warned. I said I’d ask for consent, but time is essential at the present. He needed to smell me on you to believe it.”

  Chapter Thirty One

  marked- adj. having a visible (or non visible) mark

  Smell me? Fear outweighed the danger I was already in. “I-I thought being marked was different.”

  He laughed low. “It is, oh lovely Grace. It is. This is just a power only my father holds.”

  Oh! I sighed with relief.

  “No, you said permission.”

  “What?” he looked confused.

  “You used the word permission when you would kiss me again. Not consent.” Skeevy man!

  “Are you ready?” His bewilderment was ongoing whenever I said out of the blue stuff like that. He turned off the water before I answered welcoming the warm towel he handed me. I did as he told me all the way out the bathroom door and bedroom door. He hinted with his eyes only that it was now or never. When we were outside the door and the guards began to whoop and holler I knew what to do next. Kin wanted me to run. Like the best villain voice ever practiced, a guard said something behind my back about me glowing and that sent my panic attack into survival mode.

  I looked back like Lot’s wife and worried for one brief second about the consequences I would be giving Kin, but his face said all manner of “get the hell out of here”.

  I took off down the absurdly long corridor in escape, turning left, then right, and out into the woods where we’d entered. I ran so fast and cried the whole way. I was a sopping, soggy, pathetic mess of a girl. I yelled for my rescuers.

  Screaming erupted in every direction.

  Catrin was there. Standing with a knife. I hadn’t once pictured her in any demented twisted way like I did just then. She wasn’t a happy little camper. It was disturbing to think she was that much like Kin, Unseelie all the way.

  Kin shouted from behind to her. She reluctantly dropped the knife to her side and let me pass not having time to freak out.

  I heard the guards yelling my names, or various versions of it, behind me as I vacated the winter court feeling the warm air hit my skin. It shouldn’t be this hot, maybe it’s just me. I was sweating like a track runner after a fifty yard dash with blurred vision. I didn’t have much time and the twenty feet it took to emerge out of the court felt like a mile. I shrieked in my head for Pike and Ian alternating between them. A giant insect landed on my arm—I didn’t care and barely noticed when it flew off. I tried hard not to slow down, but my heart pumped me into a slow motion run. When I hit something hard and felt the prick of limbs scratching my arms, I threw my wet mopped hair back and forth out of desperation to free myself reminding the idea that I was ever battle material. If I survived this, I’d confess to Ian at the first chance that I was a stay at court kind of queen and he could defend me in any way he deemed necessary. I didn’t want to lose my memory of him. I begged him to rescue me.

  The claws grabbed me still. I writhed and clawed back at my attacker. It wasn’t a tree. I heard a voice screaming at me like glass bre
aking around me.

  “Grace. Grace. Stop fighting me.”

  I froze. Pike? I wanted to look up, but something told me to keep fighting. I jerked again and started to scratch whoever had me, but my arms were locked down my waist and I was held still. My hair covered the front of my face like I’d just stepped out of the shower after dancing like a maniac, for which I hadn’t. I sobbed so loud I was a shrill beacon for all to hear. I heard the holder tell me to open my mind. I did what I was told despite what I’d been taught.

  Grace. It’s me. Pike. Stop struggling.

  All at once, I passed out.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  preparation-n. something done to get ready for an event or undertaking

  “Grace was in that court Ian, let’s stop wasting time and go shove it up their a—” Pike half yelled, half stammered out but was cut off by Ian’s loud bark with an equally choice word. The storm cloud above was about to break loose by the thunder I heard. Neither of them had seen a storm like that since living in the human world and I know who caused them. Somehow still being outside I couldn’t help but predict the worst. I wasn’t awake yet, but I knew.

  Ian stood over me. I could feel his breath above my nose. I knew his taste and could even sense it now.

  Pike continued though Ian never answered him the first time, “I see your point Ian, but if we are to go in there expecting a fight yet walk away as the pyrrhic victors of less than only ourselves remaining standing, or worse. What is the point?”

  Ian didn’t disagree on any part of it, but such was the notions of the courts and their ways. I was alert enough to see they argued over going back to made amends for taking me. Pike was out for blood, while Ian was the one thinking straight and looking out for me and the courts alike. We’d come too far to,screw it all up now.. “I think we should wait. When Grace is revived we will continue this discussion.”