by ERIN BEDFORD
I waited for the energy in me to do something. Transport me somewhere. When nothing happened, I peeked my eyes open and saw I was still in the closed-off grove. I began to think it wasn’t going to do anything at all.
Then the images began.
A blonde-haired Fae, with a much kinder face then when I’d seen her in the ballroom, smirked at me as she teased. “You want to see him, don’t you?”
See who?
“I don’t care if you can’t stand him. You have a duty to your kingdom.” The White Queen’s voice growled through my head, her icy blue eyes breaking through Gab’s face.
“I’ll never leave you.”
My body enveloped with warmth at the words. A feeling of overwhelming love and devotion filled me as the UnSeelie Prince’s face swam into view. Before I could register where the feeling was coming from more images poured in. Places I’ve never been, thoughts and words I’ve never spoken, and a deep gut-wrenching feeling of betrayal.
It was too much at once. My head was overloaded, and I knew I was going down even as a pair of arms caught me. The warm body holding onto mine barely registered, but the dark blue eyes broke through, and one word slipped from my mouth.
“Dorian.”
22
Home Again
IT HAD BEEN raining that night. As cliché as it was, the Underground only had one rainy season. It lasted exactly one week and was there one minute and gone the next.
It was one of those days that I loved the most. I’d sit beneath one of the many fruit trees with Dorian as we talked about the future and what it held for us. Sometimes we’d feed each other from the fallen fruits. The best times were when we’d just sit and hold each other. I loved the way he’d wrap his arms around me and hold me tight. I’d breathe him in and forget everything else in the world. Even now my body yearned for his arms around me.
He’d been waiting for me in the orchard. We had a long standing date to meet on the second day of the rain fall. But I’d been running late that day, and when I got to our tree someone else was already in those arms. The blonde human girl who had been popping in and out of the Underground since she was a little girl was holding on to my Dorian.
I had never really met her. She had always chosen to hang around the UnSeelie Court for Reaper knows what reason, so I didn’t know her enough to give her a second thought.
But when I saw her there with Dorian, with her hands tangled in my dark prince’s midnight tresses, her petite form pressed against his as her mouth tasted what was once mine, I was overwhelmed with emotion.
Anger and hate filled me for the girl named Alice. In the same instance, I was filled with sadness and devastation for the man I thought loved me. And then pity and self-loathing overshadowed any other feeling. Why should I think I could be happy? To have love?
I was a fool.
No longer able to stand watching my life crumble before my eyes, I ran. My slipper-covered feet splashed in the puddles, soaking me to the bone. My hair matted to my face as the rain pelted down on me, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore, and I only had one thought on my mind.
I wanted to get away. I wanted it all to stop. The pain. The pressure that pushed down on me, threatening to rip me apart. I wanted to die, but taking one’s own life was hard when you were a Fae. Near impossible.
Iron was the only real sure way to kill us, and the Fae didn’t leave it lying around just anywhere. I’d have to go to the human world to get some. I was on my way to the door when it called to me. The same now familiar oaky voice that had plagued me for over a year.
When I happened upon the tree I didn’t question what it was, the betrayal and heartache overriding my sense. I was too mesmerized by its fruit as it cooed to me like a new mother, welcoming me into its bosom.
I remembered biting into the fruit and the sweet liquid pouring into my mouth as I thought of my pain and the need for it to stop. But after that, nothing. There was nothing up until my earliest memory of my childhood as Katherine.
But that wasn’t really my name was it?
Remembering wasn’t hard. It was all too easy to remember the life I had before. The person I was before. A person that had begun to creep out since the moment I was sucked into the rabbit hole.
I knew the human in me didn’t like the person I was. The cool and calculating Fae who never wanted to fall in love, and when she finally let her walls down, her heart was obliterated. The human in me much preferred the awkward English Lit major who couldn’t find a real job or a boyfriend. At least she was kind. At least she had choices.
Lynne.
That was my name. A name I hadn’t heard in over a century. A name I had hoped to never hear uttered again. Not that anyone, save my mother, would remember it.
Except Dorian.
He remembered. I knew because as my consciousness floated back up, that was all I could hear. A deep silky voice that urged me to wake up. The voice of the man who I’d loved as a Fae. The man, who even as a human, I still found myself drawn to.
I fought to keep my eyes closed, torn between wanting to see him, and dreading it. The last time I’d seen him as a Fae was with her. Alice. The feelings I expected to surface, the ones I had been running from, didn’t appear. They were still there, just beneath the rampant pounding of my heart, but it was like it had happened to someone else.
In a way it had.
I wasn’t the Seelie Princess. I was human. My body still felt the same. The aches and scrapes from my battles to get home still wracked my mortal form. If I could get through the Underground with all of its wonders and horrors as a mere mortal, I could certainly look my ex-fiancé in the eye.
The moment I shifted in place the hand holding mine tightened and Dorian’s voice became louder and more urgent.
“Lynne? Can you hear me? Are you all right?”
My eyes peeked open to meet the concerned dark blue of the UnSeelie Prince’s eyes. The markings on his face were still there, but unusually inactive. My mother didn’t forgive easily and only the reappearance of her only child would make her willing to remove a curse once cast, which meant my mother must have been notified of my return.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
I eased up in the bed I was lying in, pulling my hand away from his to cradle my head. My world had become tilted and my stomach lurched at the aching in my head. Apparently shoving a lifetime’s worth of memories back into your head was not something to be taken lightly.
“Lynne? Talk to me, please. Are you all right? How did this happen? Why do you still look like the human?”
I avoided looking at him, instead taking in my surroundings. I was in the room from the mirror, well my room. My breakfast table was still there, but the tea set and writing pad were gone. My vanity still stood next to a full-length mirror, but this time instead of looking out to Mop’s and Trip’s concerned faces only my own looked back. My eyes lingered over the image of Dorian sitting next to me on the bed. His lips were still moving as he plied me with questions that only made my head pound harder.
Was I okay? No. How’d it happen? Magic, duh. Could I explain it more than that? No fucking way.
The last question, though, I could kind of answer. Why did I still look like Kat? Well, because I was still her, or well me. And while my human body was limited, it was a far cry better than my Fae form. It was a dead and useless carcass that could easily be discarded. The stupid tree had at least done that right. When I had wished to die, I didn’t know I needed specific instructions on what to do with my soul afterward. Who knew how long that tree held onto it before it shoved me into a human body?
“Lynne!” Dorian grabbed my shoulders turning me to him, yelling out to a waiting servant when I didn’t show any plans of responding. “Somebody call a healer!”
“Stop yelling. Geez. I’m fine.” I smacked his hands away from me and stumbled from the bed.
“You are certainly not fine.” He came up beside me, catching me before I face planted into the dresser. �
�You cannot even keep your feet under you.”
“Yes, I can. It’s just these damn–” I trailed off as I noticed I wasn’t wearing boots. In fact, I wasn’t wearing any of the clothes Chess gave me. Not that I was complaining, they were risqué for my tastes, Fae or human, but the silky white night gown I was wearing wasn’t any better.
“One of the servants changed you,” Dorian provided, leading me to sit back on the bed. “That human girl made a wreck of your clothes.”
“I’m still that human girl, you know.” I jerked my arm out of his and scooched away from him on the bed. “There’s just more to me now.”
I turned my face away from him and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes had turned completely blue and there wasn’t a speck of red on my head. So much for going back to the way things were.
Dorian sat down next to me on the bed. As usual, his presence caused a tingle to buzz along my skin. “But how is this possible?”
He really wasn’t going to give up, was he?
“Hell if I know.” I sighed, throwing my hands up in the air.
The prince tried to inch closer to me to take my hands again, but when I tensed, he stood and turned away from me to the window. Dorian didn’t say anything for a while, his eyes staring out the window, giving me a chance to scan his profile from behind.
Seeing with Fae eyes was different from seeing with human eyes. I didn’t just see him as a whole delicious package. Sure my eyes were drawn to the way his pants fit his backside, but whose wouldn’t be? We never had an issue with being attracted to each other. The taut muscles in his shoulders, though, told another story.
“I tried to find you afterward.” His voice was tight as if he were trying to control his emotions.
I kept silent as he spoke. I knew we would have this conversation eventually; I just didn’t think it would be right away. Right now. I wasn’t even sure what was going to happen in the next five minutes let alone what to do about what happened in the past.
“The moment I figured out it was a trick. That Alice had…” he paused, caught up in his anger. He turned to me his jaw tight. “But you had already done it.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes as they bore into me. I tried to wrap my arms around myself to shield me from his accusatory glare. He knelt down before me, grabbing ahold of my hands. My eyes jerked to his as his voice melted from angry to desperate.
“Why, Lynne? Why did you not let me explain?” He dropped my hands and grabbed my shoulders, his emotions becoming more intense as I sat in silence. “I would have never cheated on you with another, especially not a human. I thought you knew that.”
His hands tightened on my shoulders. My eyes hardened as he spat out human as if the mere word were repulsive. He kept forgetting, I was still human.
My eyes hardened and I scowled at him. “In the Seelie Court emotions are only weapons that can be used against us. You know this, and still you ask why.”
My voice became quiet as I tried to retain my anger. “If you’d asked me back then why I did it, I wouldn’t be able to tell you because I honestly didn’t know what I was feeling. Seeing you with her caused all reasoning to go out the window. I couldn’t see the bigger picture. I couldn’t think this isn’t something my Dorian would do. All I could see was her hands on you and you…you kissing her.”
His face and hands softened at my admission. “And now?”
My eyes burned at the hope in his eyes. He thought we could go back to the way we were before. Like we could just pick up where we left off. That everything would be all right again.
“I–” I sighed. This was hard. Harder than I thought it would be, yet easier in so many ways.
“Dorian,” I started again. It felt weird to say his name out loud. I didn’t know this person. Not really. “You have to understand. The Lynne that you knew. The one you loved. Isn’t me.”
“What do you mean? Of course you are.” He tried to grab my hands again, but I moved them before he could. Touching would not make this any easier on either of us.
“I’m not Lynne. I’m Kat.” I scratched the back of my head looking up at the ceiling. “I mean. I have all of Lynne’s memories. All of her feelings for you.” I peeked up at him. My heart ached at the forlorn expression in his eyes. “But it’s like its secondhand knowledge, like it didn’t even happen to me. So you see.” I gave an awkward chuckle. “You’re virtually a stranger to me. I think it would be awkward, if not inappropriate, for us to go back to the way it was before.”
“I see.” Dorian stood up. The face that had been so open and full of hope had locked down into an expressionless mask. “If that is how you feel then there is nothing that can be done.”
The part in my heart that was Lynne wanted to run after him. But it was like she was submerged in water and could only just barely be heard above my own feelings. Those feelings were telling me to keep my distance. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t know what they would do when they found out I couldn’t be the Fae Princess they wanted me to be. So I sat there and watched as he moved toward the bedroom door, his shoulders stiff as he opened it.
“I will leave you to get settled. Your mother should be here any moment. Please feel free to call if you need anything.” He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes hard and cold. “I am sure you can at least manage that.”
The door slammed behind him, the sound resonating through the room. Had I been too blunt? Should I have lied and pretended everything was okay?
I shook my head to clear my doubtful thoughts. No. I did the right thing. It wouldn’t have been right to lie.
“Well, that didn’t go very well.”
“Chess!” My head jerked to the mirror where the pink-haired feline was poking his head out.
Chess gave me a fanged grin as he stepped out of the mirror, the heels of his plum-colored boots sinking into the plush carpet. Gone was the golden outfit and back was his violet- and pink-colored ensemble. Only this time, I wasn’t so distracted by the extravagant belts at his waist.
“So this is the palace? It looks so ordinary. Hmm.” His tail picked up a bobble from the vanity and passed it to his hands as he chuckled. “Goes to show you, you can’t judge a fish by the hook in its mouth. Look at you for instance.”
He moved away from the vanity and approached my scantily clad form still standing by the bed. I itched to move my arms over myself, but I knew from previous experience that would just encourage him. He leaned in until our faces were inches apart, his tail wrapping itself around my waist.
Chess picked up a piece of my blonde hair and brought it to his face. I could feel his breath against my cheek as he watched me. Unable to stop it, my face filled with heat at the intensity of the emotion in his eyes.
“If I’d known you were royalty I wouldn’t have teased you so much.” He pressed my hair to his mouth. His voice became low and husky. “You’ll forgive me won’t you, your highness.”
I tugged my hair from his claws, blushing harder as I muttered. “Yeah right, like being royalty would have stopped you.”
Chess shrugged, placing his hands on my waist to pull me closer. “Probably not, but I’d have been more diplomatic about it.”
“At least you haven’t changed.” I chuckled and then frowned remembering Dorian’s retreating back.
“They are going to expect things from you. Things you might not be prepared for.” He placed a claw under my chin, tipping my face up to his to search my face before letting me go with a shrug. “Well, what’s a princess to do?”
“Do?” I took a step back from him when his tail released me to trail along my arms. “About what?”
“Your marriage of course!” His words and voice proclaimed his excitement, but I’d come to know the telltale signs of agitation by the way his tail and ears twitched in jerky movements. He wasn’t all that happy with my parentage or my prospect of getting married. Not that I was either, but it was nice to know someone else was still on my side.
“I hardly dou
bt they’ll want me to marry him after they figure out I’m not all Fae.” I shook my head, not needing to explain who he was to Chess. “Besides, I like being human. I remember what it was like being the princess, and I don’t think I could go back to being her. At least not be the princess again and stay sane.”
“A rose is still a rose even hidden under different petals. I doubt they’ll care if you want to be a dandelion. They’ll still try and make you a rose.” A far-off look filled his eyes. “Take it from someone who knows. You’re a tool for their use. Nothing more.”
A tool? Was that all I was? I knew my mother wanted to stop the shadows. It was the whole reason behind the whole marriage, well part of the reason. My heart ached thinking back to Dorian’s expression as he slammed the door. But even without Dorian, I’d known what my mother had wanted, and I agreed to do it like a good dutiful daughter. But not this time.
Chess was right. If I stayed they’d want me to change. To be more Fae than human. To spend the rest of my life, as short as a mortal’s life was, hiding my emotions. Then there was all the bowing and the etiquette, the never having a moment to myself, always having to be on guard. Even when I was with Dorian. Especially when I was with Dorian.
I could never really let myself go, even in the rare moments of passion we’d shared. If I chose to marry Dorian, it would mean I would have to give up my human life. I would have to stay in the Underground and be their princess and some day, when my mother retired, their queen.
I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. The very thought of eternity caused a rising panic to fill my chest. I couldn’t marry Dorian. I was only 22 for Christ’s sake. I had my whole life ahead of me. I wanted to be reckless and flounder for a few more years. Then, when I was pushing thirty, I’d buckle down and make a definite life decision.
There was also the question of my family. What to do about them? Should I at least stay and meet with my mother after all these years? I’m sure she had missed me even if her face would never say so. She had a permanent look of cool indifference whenever she was in front of the Seelie Court.