by Unknown
Surprisingly, they weren't all black. Though there were some small black birds and sleek black creatures stalking through the trees, there were also bright blue birds with trailing feathers and golden furred animals. Green scales covered one large, lizard-like creature, blending into the undergrowth, but my dragon eyes spotted him easily, along with the dark purple hides of more unusual things flashing through the tall grass. They'd been created from the Darkness itself, just as the dark fey had been, and though I didn't remember their creation(Faerie was more in charge of that than I) I knew their element had been represented properly. Darkness did not necessarily mean blackness.
A flock of tiny black birds swarmed around me, chittering happily before flying away in a cloud. After they'd passed, something on the mountain below caught my eye. It was a dark fey man and he was waving me down. I circled lower and saw that it was Rowan, the King of Darkness. I knew Arach was coming up behind me but he was still a ways off. He was going to be so pissed about this but I couldn't just ignore fellow royalty.
I landed on the mountainside near Rowan and the Dark King came up to me beaming. He looked fantastic, much more relaxed and casual than the last two times I'd seen him. Since one of those times had been the day I'd help create him, that wasn't exactly surprising. Still, he looked good, his long black hair was held back with a leather tie, his sleeveless tunic showed off the thick muscles in his arms, and his blue eyes seemed to glow against the onyx of his skin.
“Queen Vervain, well met!” He said as he approached me.
“King Rowan, how are you?” I curved my long neck down to bring my face closer to his.
“I'm very well indeed,” he nodded. “Out flying for pleasure?”
“I'm letting my husband chase me across the realm,” I laughed. “Can't have him getting too comfortable. But yes, there will be pleasure involved in the near future.”
“We all need a good chase every now and then,” he gave me a naughty smile.
“King Rowan,” Arach's deep dragon voice rolled over us as he landed. There was just a touch of warning in his tone.
“King Arach,” Rowan winked at me before turning towards my husband. “We were just talking about you.”
“Were you?” Arach angled himself so that he was between me and Rowan.
“Your wife was telling me how she likes to be chased,” Rowan slid his deep blue eyes over me.
It was ridiculous. I was in dragon form ferchrisakes, only another dragon would find that sexy, but Arach fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He growled low in his throat and took a step towards Rowan. I had to jump between them, angling my head beneath Arach's and pushing him back as I simultaneously lifted his head so he couldn't roast the Dark King. Rowan didn't so much as flinch and he certainly didn't back down.
“Why don't you two join me for lunch,” Rowan offered like Arach hadn't almost turned him into crispy fried fey and made a meal out of him. “I could show you around the castle.”
“We didn't bring any clothes with us,” I said before Arach could say something nasty. “Though I would love to see your castle sometime.”
“I'm sure we can find something for you to wear,” Rowan cajoled. “Castle Tempest is just there,” he pointed to a mountain further within the kingdom.
“Castle Tempest?” I grinned. “I like it.”
“Well, what with everyone's magic surfacing,” Rowan shrugged. “It's been pretty tempestuous there.”
“Magic surfacing?” Arach had finally calmed down enough to speak.
“Our element has been manifesting itself within us each in different ways.” Rowan nodded. “As you and your lovely wife have the power to control fire, we have the power to control the Darkness but just like each fire fey is different, so are we.”
“The Darkness was essentially a collection of emotions,” I looked Rowan over critically. He looked happy enough. “You're not being affected adversely are you?”
“No, no...” he frowned. “Each of us seems to have some ability with one of the darker emotions and as we're new to these forms and these powers, it sometimes seeps from us without our knowledge or intent. It's caused some difficulties around the castle.”
“Do you know what emotion you've each ended up with?” I narrowed my eyes on him, suddenly suspicious.
“Well yes, of course I do.”
“And yours is jealousy?” I pressed.
“Ah, you've found me out,” he chuckled, a glimmer of relief in his brilliant blue eyes.
“Jealousy?” Arach looked from Rowan to me.
“Yes, darling,” I nudged his cheek with my nose. “You've been played. A couple times, if I'm not mistaken.”
“I apologize,” Rowan said with a very unapologetic grin. “I'm still learning to control it and it really wants to be used.”
“You were trying to make me jealous?” Arach roared at him. “It's not wise to play with dragons.”
“Because you're crunchy and taste good with ketchup,” I nodded sagely.
“Well, it's not quite like that,” Rowan stood firm under Arach's rage, even sparing me a quick smile for my joke, very impressive indeed. “It's magic, I simply release it and it does its own thing.”
“Did it make you say enraging things to my husband?” I asked sweetly.
“So perceptive,” Rowan laughed. “Alright, I may have enjoyed the high of using my element but honestly, I didn't mean any harm.”
“Thank you for the invitation,” Arach said coldly, “but we have a previous engagement.”
“I'd still like to see the castle, Arach.”
“You built the damn castle, Vervain.”
“But I'd like to see what they've done with it,” I pouted, probably pretty silly looking on my dragon face.
“Lunch, that's it,” Arach growled. “And if they don't have something bloody, we're leaving.”
Chapter Thirteen
Castle Tempest wasn't as magical as the other castles of Faerie. It wasn't floating in the air or made out of giant trees. There wasn't a river flowing through it or lava running down the sides of it, but it was breathtaking nonetheless.
Set atop one of the highest mountains in the Dark Kingdom, it dominated the landscape with a regal beauty. Slick black stone soared into the sky in the shape of slender towers topped with delicate swirled points, each tower roof a different artful shape outlined against the bright winter sky. It looked like a collection of statues on exhibit.
The keep, the central portion of the castle, appeared to be made simply to hold the tower-display together. They sprouted from the thick base like flowers from a vase, with a central peaked roof hidden amongst the delicate arrangement. Around all this was a castle wall of the same smooth stone, with unmanned battlements. Front and center in the wall was a wrought iron gate with a drawbridge lowered across a moat filled with dark mist.
The mist troubled me a bit, especially when I walked over the drawbridge and it creaked beneath my weight. You think you have weight issues but you really have no idea until you make a drawbridge creak. I had to keep telling myself that I was a dragon and to stop being so idiotic. Can you imagine a dragon on a diet? Ridiculous. The mist actually helped by distracting me away from my issues with fear.
I didn't recall making that moat but that wasn't exactly damning. There were quite a few things I didn't recall creating in the Dark Kingdom. There are whole sections of that night that are pretty hazy in my memory actually.
I just kept wondering where it came from. The dark mist in the moat, not the moat itself. We'd made the landscape and the creatures but if that mist was what I thought it was, a piece of the darkness, then it had to have come from the seed of Darkness that Faerie still held. Either that or the dark fey had somehow figured out how to pull the Darkness from themselves and transmute it into something else. No, not possible. Only Faerie could tap into the Nine Great Magics. I had only been able to do it because I was hosting Faerie inside my body at the time.
“What's wrong?” Arach was be
hind me, causing the drawbridge to creak even more.
“Nothing,” I hurried off before we fell through.
“Welcome to Castle Tempest,” Rowan declared as some of the other dark fey came out to greet us.
Rowan introduced us and all of them seemed very happy to see us. They'd all chosen names from nature, as Rowan had, and I found the solidarity of it appealing. There was an Ash, a Laurel, a Rue, and a Dahlia. I lifted my brows at that one, keeping to myself the morbid joke about her literally being the Black Dahlia. She was quite beautiful, whatever her name, and she was thoughtful enough to offer me her cloak so I could change into my human form. Ash lent Arach his as well and we both shifted, I behind the curve of the castle keep and Arach in full view as usual. The man had no shame.
Rowan led us into the keep through a soaring archway. Inside, the castle went from pure black to stark white, a startling contrast that had me blinking. The inner walls were just as smooth and polished as the outer ones, bare and almost bereft without any kind of adornment. I guess paintings and such would come later. I made a mental note to paint something for them when I found some free time.
We were taken down a few more empty corridors and then Dahlia took me in one direction and Rowan took Arach in another, saying that we had to go to separate rooms for the clothing. I laughed a little under my breath at the look of irritation on Arach's face.
“Here we are, Queen Vervain,” Dahlia took me through a door and into a spacious room.
Everything was white; the walls, the marble floor, the rugs on the floor, the furniture, the linens, everything. The only pops of color came from a few items laid on one of the tables; a golden comb, a blue bottle, and a deep red flower, freshly picked. There was an arched doorway next to the canopied bed, that led out into a garden where I glimpsed some of the red flowers blossoming.
“Winter hasn't arrived yet?” I asked, even though the answer was obvious.
“It looks like it hasn't quite figured out that we're here,” Dahlia laughed and headed for a white armoire in the corner.
“How wonderful,” I nodded. “I'm glad you have some time to prepare for it.”
“Yes, the other kingdoms have been so generous,” she gestured to her full wardrobe. “They've sent us clothing, food, furniture, and even some fey to help us settle in.”
“They did?” I gaped, feeling awful to have neglected them.
“You did as well, Fire Queen,” she laughed.
“I did?”
“I guess King Arach forgot to mention it.”
“More like Isleen forgot to mention it,” I sighed. “She's our chatelaine, she runs the castle and always remembers things that I should.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Dahlia waved her hand to the dresses. “Take your pick.”
“Oh, thank you,” I stepped forward and pulled a blue velvet dress from the collection. Dahlia started laughing again. She had a lovely laugh, gentle and sweet. “What did I do?”
“You chose a dress that you sent me,” she gestured to it and helped me put it on.
“Of course I did,” I said airily as I poked my head through. “I recognized my own good taste.” We laughed together then and her hand fell to my shoulder, the way you touch someone when you feel a friendly connection. Except there was more to her touch than friendship. I jerked back. “What was that?”
“Oh, forgive me,” she pulled her hand to her chest as if I'd burned her. “I've been trying hard to control my magic but I lose control sometimes when I touch someone.”
“Control of the Darkness?”
“Yes,” she bit her full lip. “I'm so sorry.”
“No, it's fine,” I motioned to her hand. “Let's try this again.”
“Like practice?”
“Sure, give me your hand but this time, focus on there being a wall around your magic.”
“A wall?”
“Yes, like the one around the castle.”
“Okay,” she reached out slowly and I took her hand. Nothing happened. “That was so easy!”
“I think it helps to have something to visualize,” I nodded.
“You two look like you're getting along.”
We both jumped and turned to see Rowan standing in the doorway. He sauntered in, shutting the door behind him and keeping his eyes on me the whole way. Something ignited in my belly, spreading slowly down to parts it shouldn't go, not with Rowan. I gasped as I felt my lust magic respond to it, heating red and rising beneath my skin.
“Could I be so rude as to ask to use your room for a bit?” He asked Dahlia.
“What?” I yelped as Dahlia automatically agreed and started heading for the door. “No, Dahlia, don't go.”
“I just want to talk to you,” Rowan shrugged and then nodded to Dahlia, who had paused to look at him. She continued out, sending me a secret smile, and closed the door with a quiet snick.
“What about?” I frowned at him. Was that magic? Could the power of jealousy make me desire him? This didn't make sense. “Where's Arach?”
“Still getting dressed,” he cocked his head at me. “Are you scared of me?” He wandered closer, passing by so close that the fabric of his tunic brushed my arm. “Concerned that I've done something with your king?” His breath was hot on my cheek and I jerked back. He laughed and went to sit on the bed. “Relax, Vervain. The last thing I'd want to do is hurt you. You gave me all of this, I love you.”
“What?!” I shrieked.
“Not like that,” he laughed again. “Come now, we're adults, some of us more adult than others,” he grinned, subtly reminding me that he was older than dirt, maybe even literally. “You're the Goddess of Love, you know that love takes many forms. I speak of the love between friends, love born of gratitude and understanding. You know me, you know all of us, better than anyone else in Faerie, except for maybe Faerie herself. There's love in that and I hold a deep respect and admiration for you. I would never harm you or give you reason to hate me.”
“Oh,” I said lamely. “Okay then.”
“Okay then,” he laughed and pulled a leg up casually on the bed so he could lean an arm on it.
It looked like a deliberate pose and it was making my body respond in ways I didn't appreciate. The light on his hair made it look like polished stone, his skin practically glistening beside it, and those damn eyes were so blue. I'd made them that way on purpose, to show the depths of loneliness that the dark fey would never have to feel again but now they were representing other things for me. Other more sensuous things.
“What did you want to talk about?” I cleared my throat, a little angry with myself for feeling such things for him. I'd never felt attracted to Rowan before, this was getting too weird for me. Maybe I should have listened to Arach and gone home.
“I just wanted to ask you,” he stood abruptly and walked over to me with a determined look. “When you made twenty-one of us, ten women and eleven men, did you do it on purpose?”
“What do you mean?” I stared at him, almost hypnotized by his eyes. They were so close now, a palm's distance away from me.
“Did you make one extra man for yourself?” He pulled me against him abruptly and his mouth lowered to mine but before he could connect, I kneed him in the crotch and he fell to the floor, gasping.
“No, I didn't,” I ground out, fighting against the overwhelming need I had to drop down beside him and start kissing him silly. “I have no idea why there were twenty-one of you made, I simply directed the process. And what happened to that whole speech about not loving me that way?”
He startle to chuckle, picking himself up slowly so he could face me once more. The fey did have such quick recovery times.
“I never said I didn't find you attractive,” he shrugged. “Just that I didn't love you like that, and as far as the number thing, I had to ask. It seemed like an odd decision,” he smiled softly. “You know we remember you. From before, when we touched you and took a little of you for our own.”
“Technically you shouldn
't remember that,” I frowned. “It happened in the God Realm, after you had taken all of the elements. I came back to an earlier time and defeated you, thus making that future null and void.”
“Yet you remember it.”
“Because I was the traveler,” I held up the hand with my Ring of Remembrance on it.
“And I was the Darkness,” his eyes went serious, black mist shifting over the brilliant blue for a second. “An element of Faerie. We remember you, Vervain.”
“Queen Vervain, King Rowan,” I whispered.
“Queen, King,” he shrugged. “You and I both know that titles are meaningless unless the person speaking them means it.”
“And you don't mean to call me Queen?”
“I don't mean to put such distance between us,” he was an inch away again, a pulsing energy radiating off of him in waves. “I know you, all of us do. Your deepest fears and desires. I could help you if you let me,” his hand brushed my face and the desire I'd felt for him transferred back to where it should have been, in a spot dedicated to Arach.
I sighed as my passion for my husband seemed to be renewed. A flood of images fell upon me, the curve of Arach's shoulder, his bicep, the way his muscles moved when he was above me. His smile, the scales shimmering down his tight abdomen, his firm hands on my skin. I sucked in a labored breath as I recalled the way he felt pressed against me, the hard plains of his stomach, the edges of his hips hitting my thighs. I pulled back and gaped at Rowan. What was he playing at?
“Let's go have lunch, shall we?” He asked innocently.
Chapter Fourteen
Arach was waiting at the single table in the massive dining hall, surrounded by dark fey, when Rowan escorted me into the room. He glared at Rowan and I sighed, even that was sexy now. My poor body was so overheated and confused by the paces it had just been put through, I could have jumped on Arach right then and there. Instead, I sat down quietly in the seat to Arach's right, Rowan taking the seat to my right.