Chapter 19
Kallen covers the distance between us in two steps. He cups my cheeks in his hands and he leans down to give me a light kiss and then he leans his forehead against mine. “This is going to work,” he says confidently but I’m not sure if he’s trying to convince me or himself. Probably both.
I nod and wrap my arms around his waist and he folds me into his and we stand like that for a long time without saying anything. It’s not even noon yet and it already feels like the longest day of my life. Or the last day. The thought hits me that if I said that out loud Kallen would probably tell me to stop being so dramatic as he had last night. I can’t help but smile as I remember how sweet he was then compared to many of our other conversations. As he’s opened up more, I understand his behavior better but the thought still hasn’t left my mind that I am his only option of keeping a connection to the Fae. How did I go from never having had a date as of last week to now being involved in one of the world’s most complicated relationships? When life makes you a dichotomy wrapped up into an enigma you gotta embrace the drama, I guess.
With that thought in mind, I move my arms from his waist to his shoulders and stand on my tippy toes as I pull him towards me so I can kiss him. He meets my lips hungrily and we both put all of our unspoken fears and hopes into this kiss. The world seems to have collapsed around us and we are the only two in the universe as we explore each other’s mouths. With a swoop, Kallen picks me up and carries me to the cot without ever taking his lips from mine. He lays me down and he pulls back just long enough to study my face looking for any sign of hesitancy. He finds none.
Covering my body with his, he brings his lips back to mine. I tug on his shirt and he makes it disappear and I savor the feel of his taut muscles under my hands. “Mine, too,” I whisper in his ear and a groan starting deep in his throat escapes him as he magically makes my shirt disappear.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispers against my mouth as his hands explore my body. “I hate the thought of never seeing you again after today. It’s driving me mad.”
“I never said I don’t want to see you again,” I gasp as his mouth finds the sensitive spot behind my ear.
“Maybe not in those words but it comes through loud and clear in everything else you say,” he says throwing my own words back at me.
Tearing my hands from his gorgeous body, it’s my turn to cup his face in my hands. His eyes are dark green with desire when he looks down at me. “I know I’ve been kind of wishy-washy on this whole topic, but I can’t imagine any more not having you in my life. You’ve become too important to me, even if you are the world’s biggest jerk sometimes.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know they’re true. I don’t know that we’ll get married some day and live happily ever after, but I do know that I am beginning to care for him very much. His lips are on mine again and he lets me know how my words affected him. Apparently in a really good way.
I don’t know how far we would have gone as we lost ourselves in each other. Some clothes are still on, others aren’t. But everything comes to an abrupt halt when Kallen becomes stock still and lifts his mouth from mine. His eyes are suddenly glowing with a combination of passion, anger and something that almost resembles fear. “They’re coming,” he says and once again I feel like a cold shower of sleet has been dumped on me.
Rising from the cot, Kallen uses his magic and is completely dressed instantly. It’s a little slower going for me as I pull the turtle neck I was wearing over my head. I probably could have asked Kallen to magic me new clothes, but even after what we were doing that seems too personal.
Pulling on my coat and boots with fingers that are going numb with stress, I have about a million thoughts running through my mind at once of the past, the present, and of the future. I wonder if this is what people who have near death experiences feel right before they die? Looking up at Kallen, I ask, “How long?”
“If they keep on the path they are on, it should only be a few minutes. They must have been following our trail already when I called to them.” His face is grim but his eyes are flashing with confidence and anger.
Standing up, I walk into his arms. Who knew I’d be this touchy feely when I finally got a boyfriend? That is, if Kallen is my boyfriend. I guess we haven’t really discussed the details. Dragging my mind back to the more pressing matter of the Pooka warriors who want my dying blood, I ask against his chest, “Are you sure I can do this?”
His answer is strong and immediate. “Positive.”
I smile at his conviction. “You have been known to be wrong before, you know.”
“Very rarely and never more than once a year so I’ve filled my quota already,” he says teasingly and I appreciate that we are both trying to ease each other’s fears.
Dropping his arms from around me, he steps back with his hands on my shoulders. “Are you ready?”
No. Nope. Never. Not in this lifetime. Not going to do it. “Yes.”
He holds his hand out to me and I place mine in it. He squeezes gently and then leads me outside. I don’t even notice the cold as I stare at the trees where Kallen is staring and wait what feels like a thousand lifetimes for Maurelle and Olwyn to come walking through them towards us.
A big part of me is relieved that they are actually in clothes this time as they approach us. Their nakedness has always been a bit disconcerting for my prudish sensibilities. When they are close enough for us to hear them, Maurelle looks pointedly at our hands that are still clasped together and then up at me with her trademark sneer. “I see you prefer being the lion’s toy rather than seeking safety with the lambs.”
I can’t help but snort. “Yeah, because you’re so harmless.”
“Your hair is quite mussed. I wonder what you two have been up to?” she says with a wicked grin. “Are you going to hide behind your Fairy lover like you did last time?”
“I did nothing to you the last we met,” Kallen says in a voice of steel.
Now it’s Maurelle’s turn to snort. “As if a half-breed Fairy so young could hold that much magic.”
Kallen shrugs. “I made the mistake of assuming that myself and it almost got me killed. I forgot that she is a Witch Fairy, not a weak Cowan Fairy such as yourself. Just how much do you know about the power of a Witch Fairy, Maurelle?”
Her confidence seems to falter for a moment but she recovers quickly. “Intimidation with lies isn’t going to work, Kallen.”
He shrugs again. “Suit yourself but I have warned you.”
I have no idea what I should be doing. Kallen and I didn’t discuss when I should, for lack of a better word, attack them. I try to inconspicuously look up at him to see if I can get some sort of hint from his face but it doesn’t go unnoticed by Maurelle. “Oh, the little Witch Fairy is scared, how cute is that,” she laughs. “Do not worry, little one, we only want to bring you home to Daddy.”
My grip on Kallen’s hand grows tighter as I listen to her lies. “So Daddy can kill me and use my dying blood to open the gateway.”
“Oh my, the cat is out of the bag now, is it?” Maurelle purrs. “Very naughty of you, Kallen, sharing all of our little secrets with the Princess. You will have a lot to atone for when King Dagda returns to this realm and finds you.”
“Atonement can only occur when one is repentant,” Kallen says apparently unconcerned about the reaction of the king. For a second, Maurelle’s eyes flash with anger at his lackluster response to her threat but again, she recovers quickly.
Maurelle shakes her head from side to side as if in pity. “Kallen, Kallen, Kallen, you are too proud for your own good. I wonder how your grandmother will feel about your lack of atonement when she is made to pay for your sins as well.”
Kallen’s hand tightens around mine a fraction, but that’s the only outward sign that he’s affected by her words. Evenly, he says, “My grandmother is the strongest Sheehogue Fairy alive; she cannot be brought down by a Pooka.”
Maurelle makes a face at him. “You ar
e just no fun to play with,” she says acerbically. She turns to me. “I bet you are much more fun to play with. Do you know where we were before we came looking for you?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Shopping?”
She smiles in what she probably thinks is an attempt at condescension. She misses the mark by a long shot compared to Kallen’s mastery of it. “We paid a little visit to that awful family of yours. I must say, you should be grateful that your features are those of the Fae because their mousy hair and blue eyes are just not attractive at all.”
“My mom had protection spells around the house; you couldn’t have gotten to them.” Please, please let that be true. Kallen must have sensed my growing panic because he gives my hand a quick squeeze in support.
“Tsk, tsk, did Kallen not explain to you how easy it is to absorb a Witch’s magic? Your mother tried to repel us but without Kallen there to provide assistance, she was not able to muster up enough power in her spirit form. It was a simple matter to relieve her of her Cowan Witch child.”
I feel my face pale. “What did you do to Zac?”
“Do? Why nothing yet. We simply lured him away from the house with a song, much like the fable of the pied piper.” She simpers towards Kallen. “A Pooka magic you did not know we possessed.”
Through a clenched jaw, Kallen says, “You do not possess that power; a spell must have been created for you.”
Maurelle laughs. “Oh, you are always the clever one. Alright, I admit that we did have assistance with the spell but that really does not change the outcome, now does it?”
I feel my blood start to boil as anger builds inside of me. “Where is my brother?” I demand.
Maurelle raises her eyebrows as she looks at me. “Losing your temper, are you? Now that’s not going to get your brother home safe and sound is it?”
It’s happening just like Kallen said it would before. This is a stupid, stupid plan that’s going to get me and probably my entire family killed. “Did you hurt him?” I ask and even I can hear the desperation in my voice.
What could pass for a smile on a snake touches her lips. “Not yet. You get to decide if we hurt him or not. But if anything happens to us, you won’t ever be able to find him.”
There it goes. Our entire plan derailed by one sentence. It would be like trying to find a dust mote in a hay stack if they hid him in the mountains. If he is even still alive. But I can’t take the risk that he’s not. I have to believe that they left him alive. Please let them have kept him alive. “What do you want me to do?” I say defeated.
Kallen looks at me in shock. “Xandra, you cannot give up. It is more likely than not that she is telling you lies!”
I shake my head. “I can’t take that chance.”
His eyes are pleading with me. “By saving your brother’s life, you will be dooming the lives of this entire realm.”
I look up at him sadly. “He’s my brother, Kallen. I can’t let him pay with his life when I can do it with mine. Your grandmother was right; I am going to willingly open the realms.”
Maurelle’s face is the picture of sadistic pleasure. “I knew you would see it my way. All you have to do is come with us and your brother’s life will be spared above all others.”
Kallen turns me to face him with his hands on my shoulders and he shakes me. “Xandra, listen to me. It does not have to happen this way. Every little decision affects the future and can change its outcome. Give us the opportunity to make this turn out a different way.”
I shake my head and I feel the first of what will probably be many tears on my cheek. “I can’t.” Turning to Maurelle, I say, “I will go with you but you have to free my brother first.”
She looks at me as if I’m crazy. “Why would we release our only leverage before you have completed your task? Would you have us believe that Kallen would not try to jump in and rescue his little half-breed lover?”
I look at Kallen pleadingly. “Tell her you won’t. Promise you won’t.”
His face looks carved in stone as he looks down at me with fear and what just might be hatred in his eyes. I understand if that’s what it is, he has every right to hate me. His voice has a hard edge to it when he speaks. “You may choose not to fight, but I will not.”
“I’m not choosing not to fight, I’m choosing to save my brother’s life,” I reason.
“Dig deep down into your heart, do you really believe that these two,” he says as he points to Maurelle an Olwyn, “will do anything they promise? They are mercenaries, Xandra. If your brother is still alive he will be the first one they kill just because they won’t want to have to deal with bringing him home!” He’s practically shouting at me now.
Maybe if Kallen hadn’t been focusing all of his attention on me, just maybe he would have felt the Fairy darts coming from the woods and been able to avoid them. As Kallen’s face contorts in pain, he drops to his knees. I drop down next to him. “Kallen, are you okay?”
His breath is strangled as he attempts to talk. “Don’t let them make you do it,” he says and he drops his head as his hands fall onto the snow. He is barely able to keep himself off the ground.
With a shell shocked look I turn to Maurelle. “How?” I ask and she knows what I mean. There are only two of them, could only be two of them, so who threw the Fairy darts?
“Kallen should have been a much better instructor because he knows that I can perform the spell of glamour. If his emotions and senses were not all wrapped up in you, he may have remembered that.” She couldn’t look more pleased with herself, as if she had just stolen the first prize trophy at the science fair from the smartest kid in school. But this isn’t school and the prizes at stake are lives, not trophies.
I feel my magic building as I watch Kallen struggling to breath. Without even turning my head, I ask, “What’s glamour.”
Maurelle laughs wickedly. “Not that you need the information for later, but I can make things appear to be here when they are not. Even other Fairies.” She says a word I don’t understand and when I look over at her, the figure of Olwyn is gone. I wondered why he was so quiet and let her do all the talking. It was because he wasn’t really there. He was in the woods waiting for the opportunity to catch Kallen off guard. Which he did because of me.
“Now, I am afraid it will be just too risky to attempt to bring you home if you are in any condition to fight. I do not believe Kallen that it was not his magic that affected us so yesterday but no sense in taking any chances when we are this close to getting what we want.” As soon as those words leave her mouth, I feel something hit my chest and half a second later, something hits my arm. I look down to find two Fairy darts have sliced through my coat and are embedded in my skin. Now that just wasn’t nice.
Chapter 20
I wait for a long moment expecting to be incapacitated as Kallen is. His arms and legs are getting weaker and I don’t think that he’ll stay conscious much longer by how pale he is. “Why did you shoot him with two if one would have incapacitated him?” I ask Maurelle as I continue to stare at Kallen. I really need to help him because he’s dying. I wonder why I’m so calm about this. Maybe I’m in shock or maybe I’m just dreaming now because I’m a Fairy so I must be sensitive to Fairy darts and am probably unconscious.
It seems to take Maurelle a moment to find her voice. She looks so discombobulated when I turn to look at her. Discombobulated. I always wanted to use that word in a sentence just because it sounds so funny.
“Because two darts will bring a Fairy so close to death it can be difficult to tell they are really alive,” Maurelle says in a voice that sounds so much less confident than it did before. I wonder what happened to make her sound like that.
“So, now you can transport us to my father without us being able to fight you off. And then he’s going to kill me, right?”
“Yes,” Maurelle says and I think she’s trying to sound confident again. Good for her, she should stick to her guns.
I see Olwyn coming towards us from
the woods. He has the strangest expression on his face. I wonder if he’s going to carry me away or if Maurelle is. He looks stronger, he’ll probably have to carry Kallen because I don’t think that Maurelle could lift him. She’s so short that if she slung him over her shoulders, his head and feet would probably scrape against the ground. I get that mental image in my mind and it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen and I start laughing. It would definitely be better if Olwyn carried Kallen.
“What’s going on?” I hear Olwyn ask Maurelle. Okay, I never thought he was the brightest bulb in the box but even he should be able to see that they’ve won and they can just drag us out of here and do what they want with us. Moron.
“Hit her with another one,” Maurelle says in a harsh whisper. I wonder what she means. A second later, something puts another hole in my jacket in the area of my chest. Okay, this is just getting downright rude now. I really loved this jacket. It’s been like my second skin for days now. I imagine myself as a snake shedding my skin because someone has rudely put a hole in. I’d make a pretty snake I think with black skin like my hair and pretty green eyes like mine. Oh, is that too vain of me? Kallen did say I have beautiful eyes, though, so it must be okay for me to say it.
True of Blood (Witch Fairy Series) Page 21