by Kimbra Swain
“Of course, how could you know? It was Robin who killed him, but I’m sure you didn’t know your granddaughter had done that,” I said.
“Robin?” she smirked. “Robin is not capable of killing a Phoenix. She is crafty though. Much like her mother. I was surprised to see her with you today. You’ve brought two of my banished daughters with you.”
I turned my head to Tabitha who closed her eyes to avoid eye-contact with me. “They are here under my protection,” I said.
“No harm will come to them as long as they both leave with you. I will send word though to Robin to let her know that her mother is here,” she said.
I still watched Tabitha breathing heavily in the chair beside me. Opening my sight, I looked at her. I saw nothing that appeared to indicate that she was a royal Summer fairy. Nothing. She pulled a glowing green crystal out of her pocket. It gleamed with the aura of a royal fairy.
“Oh, dear me, you didn’t know,” Rhiannon laughed.
“She’s handy with crystals,” I said, waiting for my friend to open her eyes and look at me. She still refused.
“Tibby, open your eyes and own your deception,” Rhiannon ordered.
Tabitha opened her eyes to meet mine. She didn’t seem afraid. She had no reason to be. Hell, I’d been deceived by every person I had ever loved. I might as well add Tabitha to the list. However, I knew why she had done it. I wouldn’t want to claim Rhiannon as my mother either. After what I had dealt with concerning Stephanie and Riley, I think I would have hidden my identity, too. I gave her a slight smile and a nod, and she seemed to relax.
“Rowan came with us as a guide and protection. She has been very helpful,” I said.
“I’m sure she is here for other reasons as well,” Rhiannon said.
“I’m sure, but I accepted her help nonetheless. Tabitha may have deceived me, but I understand why she would. We will work it out when we return to Shady Grove,” I said. “Which we will do as soon as we retrieve my brother and the book.”
“You cannot have the book. It was a gift to me from Riley who was given the book by your bard. He should not have been so careless,” she said.
“Riley collared Levi without him knowing what it meant,” I said.
“Even more stupidity on his part. I’m surprised you don’t train your servants better. Between Tristan’s death and Levi’s abduction, I wonder if you even know how to have servants,” she said.
I stood in anger to move away from her. The last thing I wanted to do was to strike out at her after she offered me hospitality. “I do things differently than my father,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I would be happy to teach you how to properly treat your servants,” she said. “Joey fetch my boy please.”
“Yes, my Queen,” he said hurrying out of the room. He returned after a moment with the young man from the throne room. He crawled across the floor, then lowered himself before Rhiannon. He kissed her feet.
“Gilroy is one of my slaves. He services me as I see fit. It is his greatest pleasure in life to do as I command. Isn’t that right, Gilly?” she asked.
“Yes, my Queen,” he responded without looking up at her.
“He will do anything I ask him to do. I haven’t enthralled him. He does it by choice,” she said. “I give him what he needs, and he services me in return. He is one of many, but he is my favorite.”
Gilly purred at her feet like a lovesick cat. He kissed her feet again, then ran his tongue up the inside of her foot. She shuddered with pleasure.
“Easy there, pet,” she said.
He lowered himself once again waiting for her next command. I couldn’t imagine having someone crawl around and lick my feet. I’d see a lot of fetishes, but to be honest, I never understood the foot thing. Feet were in shoes most of the time festering with sweat and humidity. Then if you wore sandals for flip-flops, the feet were exposed to everything the shoe protected them from like dirt and bugs. No, I didn’t want a servant who would lick my feet. Although, I might make Levi do it after I whoop his ass for getting caught in the first place.
Levi.
“Levi,” I called out to him. I hadn’t thought that now that I was in this realm, I should be able to reach him no matter where he was.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he replied quickly.
“Come home,” I said.
“I can’t,” he said. “Grace, if he finds out you are here, he will send everything he has into Summer to conquer it. You cannot allow Rhiannon to fall without an heir. All of fairy will fall.”
“I know about the tree. Damn it, Levi. I need you. Please,” I begged.
“No,” he said defying me. “Release me.”
“We’ve been through this,” I said.
“They can track you through me. Stop talking to me. They know, Grace. Release me!” he demanded.
“What’s wrong?” Tabitha finally spoke.
“Levi,” I said. “He’s demanding to be released.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because he is connected to her. They can find her through him. However, you are safe here. Should you leave this castle and my protections, they will take you. It is best you release him,” Rhiannon suggested.
“No, Grace. It will kill you,” Tabitha pleaded.
“Grace! Please!” Levi cried in my head. “They are killing me! Please don’t let me be the reason they get you!”
“Levi,” I cried. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I could feel his pain. Instinctively, I reached to my belly. Tabitha came over to me.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“They are torturing him. I feel it. Shit,” I muttered. “If I release him, they will kill him because they are only keeping him to get to me. I can’t.” As whatever Brock was doing to Levi registered in my body, the pain intensified in my stomach.
“They can kill you through him,” Rhiannon said. “I hadn’t realized the connection was so intense. You sealed him.”
“Go get Luther, Jenny, and Rowan,” Tabitha demanded looking at Joey. He looked over to Rhiannon who sat back in her chair watching me. She tapped her knee, and Gilroy raised up on his knees to lay his head on her knee. She stroked his hair as if he were a lap dog.
Another shot of pain seared through my stomach, and I doubled over in the floor.
“Go get them, Joseph,” Rhiannon said, as she stood. She walked out of the room by a door in the back. Her pet following her on his knees.
My stomach lurched, and I began to dry heave with the pain.
“Grace, I love you. I will always love you, but you’ve got to let me go. Let me go,” Levi pleaded.
“I love you too,” I said. “Levi Rearden, my bard, and servant, I release you from your servitude.” The pain in my stomach subsided, but I felt Levi’s oath to me being ripped out of my chest. “No!” I screamed. “No, no, no, no. Levi!” I couldn’t feel him anymore. I couldn’t hear him. Joey ran back in the room with Luther in tow.
“What happened?” Luther asked.
“Levi. She had to cut ties with Levi. They were torturing her through him, and it was affecting the baby,” Tabitha explained, as she laid her hands on my stomach. She chanted quiet words to ease my pain or perhaps to save the baby.
“Mr. Blankenship, please led us to our rooms,” Luther said, as he picked me up off the floor. I whimpered Levi’s name over and over. I had never felt so empty in my entire life. I finally understood servitude. It was a horrible way to learn that lesson. While my heart ached for Dylan, my whole body ached for Levi as if he were a part of me. A part of every cell in my body had been ripped out all at once, leaving me numb and disoriented.
LOOKING up at the ceiling of my room, I stared as the painting on it moved. Fairies, mostly small pixies, flitted across a lush floral forest. Their sparkling trails stretched from one side of the room to the other. Tabitha sat next to me, watching closely. The pain in my chest had subsided, but it felt like I was having a heart attack which I knew wasn’t possible. I’d called
out his name so many times in my head, that it was on replay waiting for him to respond, even though I knew he wouldn’t.
“Someone get Finley. I don’t care where he is,” Jenny fussed.
“I’ll go,” Rowan said. “Joey, will you go with me?”
“Yeah, sure. She gonna be okay?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Rowan replied. She grabbed him by the arm, dragging him out of the room. My awareness of their conversation teetered on the edge of oblivion. It didn’t feel like this when I cut ties with Jeremiah. I raised up in the bed, and everyone around me jumped to their feet.
“I’m fine. I have to keep going. How long have Joey and Rowan been gone?” I asked.
“About an hour, the best I can tell,” Tabitha responded. It hadn’t felt like an hour. Maybe a couple of minutes at the most. Stupid fairy time. “I know I should have told you.”
“It didn’t matter before, and it doesn’t matter now. But, yes, you should have,” I replied.
“Let’s go get my brother,” I said.
“I don’t know where he is,” Tabitha replied. Jenny and Luther listened but didn’t join our conversation. Tennyson’s men might as well have been statues for the lack of intrusion in our journey.
“I can find my servants,” I said. Instead of calling out to him in my head, I searched for that pull like I had with Levi. The subtle pull to my brother pointed me in the right direction. I stepped out of the room we were staying in to find faun guards at the end of the hallways. I turned right walking straight for the one standing at attention. As I approached, he addressed me.
“Queen of the Exiles, you may not roam in the castle without an escort,” he said.
“I’m not roaming. I know exactly where I am going,” I said.
“Pardon me. I mean…”
“Follow if you wish,” I said passing him then turning left down another corridor. The orgy seemed to have fizzled out. The hallways weren’t laced with fairies having sex. Luther and Tabitha followed close behind me with the faun following. We passed several other guards along the way.
Rounding a corner, we came upon an obstacle that I should have anticipated. The hallway was completely blocked with the women writhing in sexual acts. The unusual part of it was that the woman seemed to be half-shifted cats.
“What the hell?” Jenny murmured.
“Cat Sith,” I said. “They are like witches that live in cat form most of the time.”
“And not a dick in the bunch,” she said.
“Not a single one,” I said.
“How do we get past this?” she asked.
Luther stepped toward them. The one closest to him turned and hissed. Spittle from her human lips, but cat teeth landed on all of us.
“Yuck!” Jenny said.
“Hmm,” I said pulling out the vials of magic liquid. “Pussy killer?” The vial glowed an eerie green color. Almost like absinthe.
“Surely it won’t kill them,” she said.
“I think it will do what I want it to do,” I said. “That’s the way the fog spell felt before Tabitha ruined it.”
“Not my fault,” Tabitha said.
“Whatever, Tibby,” I responded. Her face turned red.
“I hate that name,” she said. Jenny and I laughed knowing that we intended to overuse it.
I threw the vial at the ground. Its contents splattered on the ground. Pulling a little power from the fire stone, I flashed it at the liquid forming it into vapor. The smell of anise, wormwood and fennel wafted around the room. I moved my hand like I was stirring a pot. The cat women began to scatter hissing and mewling. I thought about poor Rufus. I hadn’t given up on him either. In a room full of cats, he would likely have a heart attack right after a barking fit. He hated cats. I agreed with him.
“There is more than one way to skin a cat,” I said.
Jenny groaned, “Really?”
“Keep moving,” Tabitha said. Latching onto my brother’s connection, I led us around the maze of the Summer castle. Thankfully we had no more orgy walls to stop us.
When I reached the door where the connection to my brother reached its peak, I didn’t bother to knock. I walked in to find Rowan and Joey waiting. They stood as I entered.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He’s inside with his wife,” Rowan indicated to the door.
“Did you tell him I was here?” I asked.
“No, we spoke to his servant who asked us to stay here,” she said.
“My brother has servants in Summer?” I asked.
Rowan shrugged. Turning to the door, I realized a ward held it closed.
“That’s why we didn’t go in,” she said.
“Too bad it won’t keep me out,” I said, pulling power from my tattoo. I slammed my palms on the door, forcing it open. I didn’t blow it off the hinges, but it would need a craftsman to repair it. Then I stepped into the room, my body pulsed with power. My friends and the red shirts stayed behind as I entered the damp dark room, except Jenny who followed me closely. Lifting my eyebrow to her, she simply nodded falling in behind me. I didn’t know if it was the child inside of me that fired my instincts or the lack of Levi’s influence on me that fueled the cold that grew inside my heart. The room looked like one of the dark caverns of Winter. I followed the pathway lined with torches to a reflecting pool. In the center of it, my brother stood with his back to me. He was completely naked, but the water covered him from the hips down. The tips of his hair brushed the edges of the water. His head tilted back as he breathed heavily. As I circled the edge of the pool, I saw a head under the water. I heard Jenny grunt behind me.
“Finley!” I said startling him. What was going on needed to stop that instant. If it weren’t for everything that had happened since he left Shady Grove, I would have walked away. I needed him, but I didn’t need to see this.
“Grace! Oh shit!” he said trying to cover himself. The woman with him raised up out of the water. Her green eyes flashed with anger.
“Nelly!” Jenny said.
“Nelly?” I said.
Finley waded out of the water. With a wave of his hand, pants appeared coving his manly parts. “You are pregnant! Congratulations! Where is Dylan?” he asked while hugging me.
“He’s dead,” I replied.
“What? Levi went back after Caiaphas sent for him. He was supposed to let me know if I needed to come home,” he said.
“Brock took Levi. I had to cut servitude because they were hurting my child by torturing him,” I said forcing myself not to cry. “The trailer park is at the bottom of a swamp, the state took Winnie, and I need you to come home. That is if you have received enough head from your wife!”
“Glory, I didn’t know,” he said quietly. “You shouldn't be here.”
“You should have been with me! Where is the book?” I said.
“Rhiannon won’t give it up without a promise to treaty the kingdoms through marriage,” Finley said. “Either you or I would have to marry one of her children. I'm already married.”
“That didn’t stop you in Shady Grove,” I said.
“Finley!” Nelly gasped, floating in the pool.
“Oh, please. Whore!” Jenny interjected.
“Speak for yourself!” Nelly replied. She trudged out of the water shifting the tentacles that swirled below the surface to long arms and legs. She barreled toward Jenny who braced herself for a fight.
“Bring it, bitch!” Jenny said.
Finley snorted, “What do you call two octopuses fighting?”
I glared at him as Nelly wrapped a long tentacle around Jenny’s neck. Jenny responded by back-slapping her with her own appendage.
“Well armed,” he giggled.
Without holding back, cold power shot down my arm as I struck his cheek hard enough to split the skin. Jenny and Nelly froze with the crack of force.
“How dare you make jokes after I told you that Dylan was dead. That Levi is gone. That they took my daughter! Is this funny to you, Finley?
” I yelled at him.
“No, my Queen,” he said holding his bloody cheek still kneeling on the floor from the force of my strike.
I heard Luther running through the corridor. He seethed with red embers as he entered the room. At least one person in my entourage was doing as they were expected. I turned my back on all of them, speaking only to Luther. “We are going home,” I said.
He followed me back up into the main room where Joey and Tabitha waited.
“What was that?” Tabitha asked.
“She slapped Finley,” Luther replied. Tabitha looked horrified. Perhaps being pregnant made me more than just sarcastic. I was a bundle of imbalanced hormones.
“Joey, please request an audience with Rhiannon. We are leaving,” I said.
“I had hoped to talk to you before you left. Alone,” he replied.
“Now. Talk now,” I said. He looked at Tabitha and Luther. I heard Jenny and the others coming up the steps behind me.
“I request that Devin and I return to Shady Grove with your permission and under your protection. I will even swear my servitude to you,” Joey said.
“I’m not here to pick up strays,” I said callously.
“I understand, but my son shouldn’t grow up here. I would still have to ask her permission to leave. I am in her debt,” he said.
“Because she made you a faun, which by the way is impossible,” I said.
“It’s not impossible. Every human has some fairy blood inside of them. She just activated that blood, triggering the fairy in me to come forth,” he said.
“No!” I replied. “It’s not possible.”
“It requires a blood debt. I was going to die from the spell that Stephanie placed on me. Jeremiah couldn’t control the damage that she had done, because I allowed her to do it. However, he brought me here, and I agreed to Rhiannon’s terms. I would give anything to get out from under her heel,” he said, pulling the neck of his shirt down past his breastplate of armor. Beneath the shirt, a gleaming black collar surrounded his neck. I groaned seeing the implement that seemed to be the choice of the fairy queens of Summer.
My heart warmed just a little from my cold tirade. I placed my hand on his cheek. He did remind me of Dylan with his sandy hair and blue eyes. Dylan would want me to try and help him. “I will try. No promises,” I said, remembering the day I took the collar off of Levi. I hoped I could take this one off of Joey.