“No way,” Alita says firmly shaking her head. “The less I see of that spider web, the happier I am.”
I laugh. “Yeah, it is pretty disturbing. I still can’t believe Isla came up with something so dark and potentially fatal.”
As if to prove its worth, an explosion of sound echoes around the spider web. We all rush outside to see what caused it. Looking up, we can vaguely see the red glowing light of some sort of missile attempting to penetrate the web. The web doesn’t even dip in with the impact.
Kegan lets out a low whistle. “You are one amazing Fairy.”
“Witch Fairy,” Kallen corrects him. He has his arms around my waist and I’m leaning back against his chest.
We stand outside for a little bit, even though the web is creeping us all out. Several more attempts are made to penetrate it, but not so much as one piece of silk detaches from the web. When it’s apparent that whoever is doing this is giving up for the night, we go back into my room and spend some time just hanging out.
It’s not long before Tabitha pokes her head in the door. “What are the four of you doing? Do you have any idea what time it is? You head on back to your own rooms now.” She looks pointedly at Kallen for that last part. “Scoot, you two. These young ladies need to dress for bed.” Need to be dressed for bed is more like it. Tabitha shoos Kegan and Kallen out the door with dire threats about what happens to Fairies who don’t abide by the rules.
Once they’re gone, Tabitha dresses us in long cotton nighties. She was going to do silk, but under the circumstances, neither of us are too keen on the idea of wearing anything that reminds us of spiders. Once that’s done, she leaves us alone.
“I am pleased that I met you, Xandra,” Alita says.
I can’t help a snort. “I left you on the beach when my Angel wings popped out, I caused you to almost lose a leg, and now I’ve sealed you in a giant spider web. What’s not to like about meeting me?”
She laughs. “You have made this one of the most exciting days I’ve ever had.”
“I really appreciate you staying. Now we just have to work on that shyness of yours.”
“A condition you do not seem to be afflicted with.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “I think because I was isolated in the mountains with ghost parents for so long, I’m making up for lost time.”
Alita looks stunned. “Excuse me, but I thought you said ghost parents.”
“Sorry, I forget how unusual that is.”
Her eyes are like dinner plates. “Unusual? Is that what you call having ghost parents? Or are you simply teasing me?”
I shake my head. “I really do have ghost parents.” I explain to her what happened.
After that, I’m beat. Alita can tell so she excuses herself to go back to her room. Just as I’m pulling back the covers to crawl into bed, there’s a knock on my door. It must be Kallen.
I open the door with a grin on my face that instantly disappears when I see who it is. “What do you want?”
“I want to apologize to you for treating you so abominably. I was a fool,” Dagda says.
“Can’t this wait until morning? I’m really tired.”
“I will leave you to your slumber in a moment. I want you to understand that I meant what I said earlier. I am ready to abandon the idea of opening the realms.”
“That’s great. Can I go to bed now?”
With only mild irritation showing around his eyes, he bows his head slightly. “Good night, Xandra. I hope your dreams are sweet.” He turns and walks down the hall.
After closing the door, I quickly crawl into bed before anyone else decides to keep me up. I use my magic to blow out the lanterns and I’m asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
Sometime later, I awaken to a kiss. I smile as I swim towards consciousness. I was hoping Kallen would join me. His lips don’t feel right, though. This isn’t how he usually kisses me. Opening my eyes, I back away and I’m pissed. “Kegan, what the hell are you doing?” I can’t really see him in the dark, but I know it’s him.
“I am sorry, Xandra. I just had to feel your kiss at least once.”
“You know, there are laws against stuff like this! At least, there are in my realm.”
“I am sorry I invaded your privacy, but you have turned my life upside down. I have never been so affected by a girl before. I believe I am in love with you.”
“Are you kidding me? You just met me yesterday. What did you think would happen here? Did you think you would come in and wow me with a kiss, I’d dump Kallen and we’d live happily ever after? Not going to happen.”
He doesn’t have a chance to answer. A hand moves in the darkness and grabs him by the neck. He’s slammed into the wall hard enough that I hear his head cracks the plaster. I can just make out Kallen’s silhouette in the darkness. “You accost the one I love in the middle of the night? You have crossed a line, cousin.” Kallen pulls him forward and then smacks his head into the wall again. Kegan is pulling at the hand around his neck but Kallen’s rage fueled grip is too strong.
“Kallen, you’re going to kill him.” He doesn’t respond; he just slams Kegan into the wall again. “Kallen, you have to stop.”
Suddenly, the room is flooded with light. It takes a second to focus after the assault against my retinas. When I can see again, Kallen’s face is twisted in a rage I personally hope never to see again. Kegan’s face is purple and getting darker by the second. “Kallen, let him go,” Isla says sharply from the doorway.
Kallen hesitates. I don’t think he’s going to do it. After a couple of heart beats, he surprises me and he pulls his hand from Kegan’s neck. Kegan slides down the wall gasping for breath. He was milliseconds away from passing out.
“What is going on?” Dagda says loudly. He stops in the doorway and assesses the scene. “Xandra, why are they in your room?”
“Hey, how did I become the bad guy in this? What a bunch of chauvinistic crap. I’ll have you know, I was sound asleep until five minutes ago.”
Nope, he’s not used to someone talking back to him. He has to take a few deep breaths before he responds. “I apologize for assuming the worst.” Wow, what a suck up! Even Isla gives him a quizzical look. “I still would like an explanation. Kallen, why are you in Xandra’s room?”
Kallen turns around and even Dagda seems taken aback by the unchecked hostility on his face. “I am preventing any further advances on her from my cousin.” The way he says cousin makes it clear how betrayed he feels by Kegan. This sucks. I don’t want to be the thing that drives them apart.
Thunder clouds are forming in Dagda’s eyes. “Kegan, is this true?”
I don’t think Kegan’s vocal chords are working yet. “Okay, this is getting blown all out of proportion,” I say.
Kallen crosses his arms over his chest and glares at me. “What proportion of anger do you think finding Kegan in your room in the middle of the night merits?”
“So, you’re mad at me now? How does that work out?”
“I apologize. I was under the impression that you did not want him in here. Perhaps I was mistaken.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. I get off the bed glowering at him. “You’re being a jerk.” Rounding on Kegan, I say, “Get out of my room. Now.”
My voice must tell him I’m serious. He stumbles to his feet and walks unsteadily towards the door after giving Kallen a wide berth. His eyes are cast downwards as he walks by Isla and Dagda.
“Kegan, wait for me in the kitchen,” Isla says and he gives the slightest of nods and then grimaces in pain. His neck is already bruising. Turning to me, she interrupts Kallen’s and my glaring contest to say, “Xandra, do remember what I said to you on the stairs yesterday. Dagda, Xandra and Kallen need some time alone.”
Dagda has a few words to say about that but Isla wins in the end. I don’t even pay attention to them. I’m too angry. I’m glad when the door closes softly behind them.
“Did you enjoy his kiss?” Kallen asks with a sneer.
/>
Instead of answering him, I turn and grab a pillow off the bed. Then I turn back around and hit him with it. He seems shocked but he doesn’t do anything. I hit him again. And then again. I don’t know about him, but this is making me feel a lot better.
“How long do you plan to continue this?” he asks.
I shrug. “Until you apologize for what you said.”
“You want me to apologize?”
“Yup.”
“For what?”
“For what you said before I started hitting you with the pillow.”
He glowers at me for several minutes without saying anything. So, I hit him again with the pillow. Which he then grabs out of my hand and tosses towards the chairs. So, I get another pillow from the bed. There are tons of them.
I turn around to hit him with it and I’m almost disappointed when he says, “Fine, I apologize.” Hmm, that didn’t sound like he meant it. I hit him with the new pillow.
“You are not helping my mood.”
“That’s okay. This is doing wonders for mine.” I hit him again.
He grabs the pillow out of my hand and tosses it like he did the first one. I turn around and crawl across the bed to get another one, but he grabs my ankles and drags me back towards the edge of the bed. I half-heartedly kick at him but I’m laughing too hard to put much effort into it. Kneeling over me, he grabs my wrists gently and pulls them over my head. He doesn’t look mad anymore but his face is still serious.
“I have never felt jealousy before. I was unable to control it.” He lets go of my wrists and runs his fingers through his hair. “I was coming to you and I heard Kegan’s voice. I didn’t know who to be angrier with.”
“Kallen, I didn’t…”
He places his finger on my lips. “Let me finish. I listened to what was being said. I was wrong in accusing you of anything. You made it clear that he was unwelcome.”
I smile. “Finally, a real apology.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, now you have to go get the pillows you threw over there.”
He smiles. “Why should I have to retrieve the objects of your assault?”
“Because you were the biggest jerk.”
He chuckles. “I will retrieve them only if I may use one.”
“Does that mean I can finally go back to sleep?”
He gets up and grabs the pillows and brings them back to the bed. “Move over.”
I scooch up on the bed and pull the covers over me. He places a pillow under my head, crawls over me, and gets under the covers. He puts his arm around my waist and pulls me close. “I love you,” he whispers in my ear as he blows out the lanterns in the room with his magic. “I hate being away from you.”
“I love you, too. Not that I want you to leave, but won’t Isla be mad?”
“I do not care.”
That works for me. I snuggle into him and fall right back to sleep.
Chapter 15
I wake up early the next morning despite the interruption of my sleep the night before. Kallen’s still asleep so I lay snuggled against him, trying not to wake him. As I lie here, I think about what Isla said before she left my room last night. She referred to what she had said to me in my room when I first got here. Like a ton of bricks, it hits me. She wanted me to be kind to both of her grandsons and pick the one I thought best suited the woman I will become. She knew. She knew that Kegan was going to do that last night. That’s why she knew to come in and turn on the lights before Kallen’s anger really did kill Kegan. A rush of blood fills my cheeks as I wonder what else she has seen in her visions. She must know that Kallen is sleeping in my bed.
As quietly as I can, I slip out from under Kallen’s arm. He almost wakes up, so I stay still for a moment until his breathing evens out again. Finally, I am able to get out of bed. I practically tiptoe to the door, pull it open and head down the stairs.
I find Isla sitting in the kitchen as if she’s waiting for me. “You knew,” I say as I sit on the stool opposite her. It’s not an accusation, it’s simply a fact.
She takes a sip of tea before she says, “Yes.”
“Did you really think I would choose Kegan?”
She sighs softly. “I hoped you would not.”
“Why?”
“Because Kallen deserves to be the one.” She looks at me for several long heartbeats as if she expects me to say something against that. Finally, she says, “I have asked a lot of him and he has sacrificed a great deal to keep this, and your, realm safe. He deserves to be the one you love.”
“Then I don’t understand why you thought I might choose Kegan.”
“I don’t usually share my visions, especially when I have seen two different outcomes.”
“Okay.” Where is she going with this?
“I had a vision that you chose Kallen. Then another vision that you chose Kegan.”
“That’s why you put him in my room last night when he was injured. And why you haven’t said anything even though you know he’s sleeping in my bed.” I close my eyes hoping that she hasn’t seen everything.
Opening my eyes back up, I ask, “If you knew that he’d sneak into my room here, why did you make such a big deal out of us sleeping together on the couch back home?”
She makes a sound that could be a chuckle, but it doesn’t quite merit the term. “I thought I could change the future. Sometimes, that is not possible.”
Okay, I’m going to quit while I’m ahead on that subject. “What about the spider thing? What did you see that inspired you to find a spell so outrageous, and seemingly unnecessary, considering the amount of magic I can wield.
She takes another sip of tea as if she is letting the words form perfectly in her mind. Finally, she says, “The house exploded, killing all of us. I thought that I was going to change that future by having you stay at the palace, but you refused to be pushed into that.” A sad smile touches her lips. “Fortunately, I have learned to always have backup plan.”
I shake my head in wonder. “So you made the house explosion proof.”
“Yes.”
“When was this supposed to happen?”
“Tonight.”
“This had nothing to do with needing to train me or to come up with a plan. The spider thing was just to keep us alive past tonight.”
She nods. “Yes.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what to say to that. Other than that I’ll be a nervous wreck all night waiting for the house to blow up. “Does that mean I can skip training today?”
She smiles. “It is a valuable thing to be able to defend yourself without magic. You still live in a human world where magic is a thing of legend, not daily life.”
I hadn’t thought about that. I guess if I get into a weird situation, it might be a bit alarming if I started blowing things up. “Does anyone else know about your visions?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“I suppose you want me to keep this to myself?”
“If you do not mind, I think that is for the best.”
I nod reluctantly. “I suppose.”
“You will be hand-fasted to Kallen one day.”
“Is that from a vision?”
She shakes her head and smiles more brightly. “No, that is simply a grandmother’s intuition.” She takes another sip of tea as I try to get my cheeks to stay pink instead of turning bright red.
“I should go back up.”
“Yes, you should.”
I walk out of the kitchen feeling like Isla still knows a lot more than she is letting on.
Kallen has woken up and is stretching his arms and back when I close my bedroom door behind me. “Where did you run off to?” he asks in a sleep ridden voice.
“I had to talk to Isla about something.”
His eyes go from sleepy to alert. “About what?”
I walk to the bed and climb back in. “About how I can keep her grandson from being a jealous jerk.”
He doesn’t respond, he starts tickling me inst
ead. I’m laughing so hard I know I’m going to pee my pants any second. “Stop it,” I say through a gasping laugh.
He doesn’t. He continues to torture me for a couple of more minutes. Finally, he feels I’ve had enough and lets me go. I lay on my back trying to fill my lungs back up with oxygen. “You are so mean.”
Kallen reaches over and brushes my hair back from my face. “It is often said that Kegan and I could be twins. His personality is more relaxed, more playful, and he tends to be much nicer than I am.”
Witch Fairy book 3 Page 20