“His room is that way,” Kegan says, nodding his head in the right direction.
“No,” Isla says from just above the landing on the second floor. “Put him in Xandra’s room, it’s closer.”
I know my mouth drops open in shock. Kegan’s, too. But, Isla’s looking at Dagda, daring him to say otherwise. After a moment, he nods and Kegan shows him which way to go. I wait for Isla to make it up the stairs. I’m worried she might fall.
“Will you let me heal your leg?” I ask.
She smiles wanly. “I believe your magic has done enough today.”
My mouth straightens into a thin line. Great, she’s afraid to have me touch her, too. Moving on, I say, “Why in my room?”
“Because he will heal faster in your presence.”
I think there might be more to it than that, but I don’t push it. I want him in my room. “Okay.” I turn around, wanting to get to Kallen before she changes her mind.
Kegan and Dagda are arranging Kallen on the bed. He’s still pale, and he’s still unconscious. My heart sinks. I was hoping all the jostling while bringing him up the stairs would have brought him around.
Dagda turns to me when I come in. “You are the most beautiful monster I have ever beheld.”
Yeah, he’s just begging for forgiveness. “I am not a monster. I’m an enigma.” Maybe that’s just semantics, but I don’t care.
“I had no idea what I was unleashing into the world. I thought it would not make a difference if a child I never met lived or died. I have witnessed today how wrong I was.” He walks past me, out of the room.
“What did that mean?” Kegan asks from where he’s standing next to the head of my bed.
I shrug. “I have no idea. And honestly? I don’t care.” I walk to the other side of the bed and scoot over to where Kallen is. I take his hand in mine and push his hair back from his forehead.
“I had no idea how powerful you are.”
I look up at him. “I don’t even know how powerful I am.”
“Kallen had already channeled a lot of your magic, and Isla and Dagda absorbed most of the rest. But when I touched Isla’s hand, it was as if my heart would stop beating and the pain was indescribable. How does it not kill you?”
I shrug again. “I really don’t know. It’s not like there’s an instruction book.”
He sits down on the end of the bed. “You need to be with someone as strong as my cousin.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“I’m not with Kallen because he doesn’t die when my magic goes out of control.”
“That is good to know. Why are you with him?”
I study him for a moment. I think it’s an honest question; he really wants to know. “Because he’s kind and generous. And he’d do anything for me, including risking his own life to save mine. Which he has. And he’s even funny on occasion.”
“My cousin? I do not believe he has ever been generous or funny.”
I roll my eyes, but I smile. “I love him. I’ve never been in love before, but I know I love him.”
Kegan smiles. “He is very lucky. It makes me wish Isla had asked me to go to your realm instead of him.”
“You never would have survived her first hissy-fit,” Kallen rasps quietly.
I turn my attention back to him. “You know, you’re lucky I’ve already tried to kill you once today, so I’ve filled my quota. Otherwise, I’d be tempted right now.”
He chuckles softly. “Your attempts are getting stronger.”
“Maybe you’re just annoying me more.”
“You must be confusing me with someone else.”
I purse my lips. “That’s right, I keep confusing you with that other Fairy I’m dating.”
With a speed I wouldn’t have expected in his current condition, he flips me onto the bed and is kneeling over me. “I thought you were injured.”
“I heal quickly. Now, about this other Fairy?”
“Oh, you’d love him. He’s always nice and never tosses me in the ocean or anything.”
He grins. “Then he does not know you as well as I do.”
I grab his t-shirt and pull him off balance. He falls to the bed next to me. He’s laughing but he puts his hand to his head and tries not to grimace.
“Not yet recovered, cousin?” Kegan asks with a smirk.
“I find I recover faster when you are not in the room.”
Kegan has a retort on his lips when the door opens. Alita pokes her head into the room shyly. “Come on in,” I say as I sit up.
“I would hate to intrude.”
Again, I roll my eyes. “Alita, will you please stop doing that? You are not intruding.” I get up off the bed and take her hand to pull her farther in the room.
“Yes, Alita, you should stay. I do not believe I can stand being alone with the two of them for another moment without retching.” Kegan gets off the bed and flops down in one of the chairs. Alita smiles shyly and sits in the other one.
“How are you, Kallen?” she asks.
He sits up but he looks like he may have a little vertigo going on. “As well as you would expect after having all of my insides charred.”
Alita looks down at her hands. “I am sorry I was no help to you.”
“Good lord, if you don’t stop apologizing for things that don’t matter, I’m going to feed you to the spiders.”
The horrified look on her face makes all three of us laugh. “Then you will never hear another apology from my lips.”
I grin. “Good.”
“Those spiders were dreadful. You were not awake for much of the time they were here. Every moment, I expected a couple hundred of them to stop what they were doing and come to see how tasty we were.”
“Yeah, I’m glad I was passed out through most of that.”
As if mirroring my thoughts from earlier, Kallen says, “It is odd that your wings did not come to you when your magic went out of control. I wonder why that is.”
I shrug. “The only thing I can figure is that they believed that I could get control myself. Which I eventually did.”
“I am afraid I was not awake for that.”
I make a face at him just as Tabatha comes through the door. No wonder Isla didn’t mind Kallen being brought to my room; it’s not like we’re going to have any privacy to do anything. Not that I mind the company, but I would like to be able to show him how glad I am that he pulled through my attempts to murder him again.
“How is the patient?” Tabatha asks as she walks to the bed. She lays a hand on Kallen’s forehead. “You look well enough.”
“I am accustomed to being tortured by Xandra’s magic. I will heal in time.”
“I would watch my mouth if I was you. This young lady has proven that she could take you out if she wanted to do so.”
Kallen grins. “A charmer like me? Never.”
It’s Tabatha’s turn to roll her eyes. “You are every bit as modest as you were before travelling to the human realm. But you need some rest now. Isla has a busy day planned for all of you. Kegan, Alita, you need to go on down to the training room. Xandra, you need to…”
“I want to stay here until I know Kallen is okay.”
She purses her lips as she considers what I said. “Half an hour, then you need to be in the training room as well.”
I smile. “Thanks, Tabitha.”
She nods and then scoots Kegan and Alita out the door. And to my surprise, the lock on the door swings closed. I look at Kallen’s smug grin and I know how it got closed.
I move close to him. “And why, exactly, did you do that?”
He scoops me up and settles me in his lap. “Because I want to do this without interruption.” His lips settle on mine in a kiss that is deep enough not to be sweet, yet not hard enough to be risqué.
But I want more. I reposition myself so I’m straddling his lap without taking my lips from his. A groan escapes from deep in his throat when I wrap my legs around his back and deepen the kiss.
I still
need more. “Take this off,” I murmur against his lips as I tug at his t-shirt. I want to feel the taut skin over his muscles as I let my hands roam. In an instant, his shirt is gone.
“It’s not fair that I am the only one without a shirt,” he whispers. With a shy grin, I lean back away from him and lift my t-shirt over my head.
“My god, you are beautiful,” he says as his eyes stroke my body almost as passionately as his hands are. His fingers dip into my bra and I gasp as his thumb strokes my most sensitive spot. I capture his lips again and let him know how much I don’t want him to stop.
Rolling me gently on the bed so I’m on my back, his lips kiss a trail down my chin to find the spot on my neck that he knows will drive me crazy. My legs are still wrapped around him and I pull him closer, willing this moment never to end.
But, it does. “Damn, damn, damn,” Kallen says harshly as he tears his lips from mine. In an instant, we are both dressed again. Without explanation, Kallen gets off the bed, offers me his hand so he can pull me up as well, plants a quick kiss on my lips, and storms over to the door. He swings it open just as Rhiannon is about to pound on it, so she ends up stumbling into my room, barely keeping herself from falling on the floor. “What do you want?” he demands in a tone that could easily slice the spider web to shreds.
Rhiannon looks as angry as he is. Her face is contorted into a really unattractive sneer. “I want out of this house!” she practically screams.
I smile sweetly at her. “Thanks for sharing. Not going to happen until that web comes down.”
She rounds on me. “Then take it down. You cannot hold me hostage like this.”
“If you hadn’t agreed to bring that ridiculous message from your sister, you wouldn’t be stuck in here.”
“You are vile! You reek of Cowan. You are an aberration and watching my sister kill you will be the best day of my life.”
“You know, if you want to go to the other realms so badly, I can rip open a doorway and shove you through it. Then you can go all on your own to rid the universe of those pesky Cowans.”
The anger in her eyes is quickly being pushed aside by fear. “You would not dare.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I called millions of spiders, which I hate by the way, to come and do my bidding. Why would I be afraid of pushing you into another realm.”
“My sister will make your death slow and painful.”
I incline my head and frown. “You know, you keep talking about what your sister will do. What about you? Aren’t you from a strong, full-blooded family? You should at least try to do it yourself if you have any sort of pride.”
Kallen snickers. Turning to me, he says, “It is believed that if a supposed full-blooded Fairy has the animal form of a sea creature, the blood line has been tainted at some point by Cowan blood.” Oh, that’s what Alita meant by genetic defect.
“I assume that means that her magic is not as strong as her sister’s?” I think her head is going to explode. I actually want to take a step back in case it does.
Kallen tilts his head and nods. “Rhiannon has always struggled to keep up with her sister.” I’m glad he doesn’t seem mad anymore about Rhiannon interrupting us. I don’t even mind that he’s laughing at her humiliation. Does that make me a bad Witch Fairy?
I eventually take pity on her. “Look, you’re stuck here. It’s as simple as that. You can be stuck and still able to move about, or you can be stuck here glued to a chair with only three bathroom breaks a day. Which do you prefer?”
With a frustrated screech, she stomps her foot. “I demand you let me go!”
“A traitor such as yourself be set free? What a ridiculous notion.”
Rhiannon whirls around and finds herself face to face with Dagda. He must have heard her yelling and came to see what’s up. His arms are crossed over his chest as he looks down his nose at her. “My lovely daughter has given you a generous offer. For some reason, she can find it in her heart to take pity on someone who has betrayed her. I, on the other hand, am not that forgiving. Your days of freedom are numbered, as are your sister’s. At the end of this, my daughter may come and go from this realm as she pleases, without fear that attempts will be made on her life.”
I have to literally bite my bottom lip to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor. What’s up with this sudden change of heart? Or is he lying to scare Rhiannon. He’s also doing that ‘my daughter’ crap and it’s annoying me to no end.
“But…but you wanted her dead!” Rhiannon exclaims. Whether he’s simply trying to scare her or not, she’s definitely terrified.
Dagda’s lips form a thin line before he responds. “I acted rashly, out of anger. I have since renounced the idea of opening the realms to each other.”
If I bite my lip any harder, my upper teeth and my bottom teeth are going to meet. I peek up at Kallen and his face has become a blank page, so I have no idea what he’s thinks about this sudden about face of Dagda’s. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’d still never trust the guy, even if he is being honest right now.
I’ll give Rhiannon one thing. She’s not stupid. Falling to her knees, she grasps at Dagda’s hand. “My King, I beg your forgiveness. I only followed my sister because she is stronger than me. She threatened to do terrible things to me and my parents if I did not do what she wanted.”
Dagda doesn’t even bother to look down at her. Looking at me, he says, “I believe that I can aid Kallen and Kegan with your physical training. I will meet you in the training room in five minutes.” Hey, how did he know about that?
Dagda walks away, leaving a crying Rhiannon in the doorway. Great. What am I supposed to do with her? Leave her here? I don’t think I’d trust her hanging out in my room. She’d probably booby trap something to kill me.
Before I have a chance to tell her to move, Kallen says to her, “There may be a way for you to regain some of King Dagda’s good graces.” I try not to snort at the good graces part. I little tiny snort got out anyway. Kallen narrows his eyes at me, but continues speaking to Rhiannon. “You have knowledge of Xeniaa’s plan.”
She looks crestfallen. “I am afraid that my sister has not been forthcoming with details regarding what she plans to do.”
She looks so miserable that I believe her. I’m sure she would tell us anything she knows right now if it will mean that Dagda doesn’t throw her in a dungeon or something. Hmm, I wonder where the Fairy jail is, and what they do to keep prisoners from breaking out. Are they bound with iron or something?
“What about how she fights?” I ask.
I don’t think she knows what I’m talking about because she looks at me like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. My powers of deduction are excellent that way. “Physically. Did you and she train physically as well as magically?”
Now, she seems to be getting it. She nods. “Yes, father taught us well. It is important to the Pooka to be warrior trained.”
What is this, ancient Sparta? “Come on then,” I say. I grab Kallen’s hand and walk out of my room, expecting her to follow. She does.
For the next six hours, I work harder than I have in my entire life. I have to stop every hour or so to heal my strained muscles. Kegan is the toughest on me. Even Kallen gives him a couple of harsh looks as he insists I try harder. Rhiannon is my sparring partner. Mostly because she’s the one most likely to snap and really try to hurt me. Dagda stops us every once in a while to show me a different technique or a dirty trick. I’d be annoyed if his tips didn’t help me put Rhiannon down on the mat more often than she does me. Alita watches from the side line but I’m pretty sure she’s spending more time watching Kegan than what is going on between me and Rhiannon.
I think Kegan and Dagda would have been happy to go all night, but Isla takes pity on us. We have a very late, and much needed, dinner, and then she sends us upstairs to relax until we have to get up and start all over again.
At the top of the stairs, Rhiannon splits off from the rest of us and heads towards the room she wi
ll be staying in. “Rhiannon,” I say and she turns around. “You’re welcome to join us if you want.”
I think she’s actually tempted, but she still shakes her head no. “I do not believe that would be for the best.” She turns around and continues on her way. I shrug. She can be lonely if she wants to be.
“Should we sit out on the terrace?” I ask the others as I open the door to my room.
Witch Fairy book 3 Page 19