“Do you?”
He forced a tragic smile. “I believe in sticking to my own business. Keeps me outta trouble. Anyway, it was five years ago—in the past, ain’t it?”
Callie nodded and glanced over at Angus.
Five years…
Five years ago, Callie and Meghan had gone missing.
Meghan had been missing for four years in the human world but in the fae realm, she was there for only four months. And Callie had been missing for the full five years—or five months in the fae realm, the last month spent buried under dirt.
The time slant should have offered a bit of comfort.
In the fae realm, Rain would still be at the court—time would be moving so slowly that no one would even know that she and Angus were gone yet.
Callie watched her tag-along.
Angus had wandered to the sweet aisle, and browsed through the chocolate bars with a curious look on his face.
As she made her way over to him, he packed a pile of snacks into his arms and smirked up at her. He might’ve looked like her son in his glamoured humanness, but his smirk was a fae one so like his father’s.
“We don’t have enough money,” she said, and gestured for him to put the sweets back.
Angus scowled. “Yes, we do.”
The shopkeeper returned to the counter and hovered his hand over the till, unsure whether to start the transaction or not.
“Angus,” she said as sternly as she could manage. “I said no.”
It did little good. He marched proudly to the counter and dumped the stack of chocolate bars in front of the shopkeeper.
“I’ll use my own money, then.”
He dug out fistfuls of notes from his pocket.
Five-pound notes, ten pounds, twenty, and even a fifty-pound note—the sight of which froze Callie in a state of shock. How he had managed to enchant those notes so quickly, and from what, she hadn’t the faintest idea.
“Ok.” Callie shrugged, then wandered around the store for things they would need. “If you’re paying, we should get more.”
Angus beamed and ran up behind her. Every step she took, he shadowed, and each item she lifted from the shelves, he stared at with wondrous eyes.
“I’ll just start ringing this up, will I?” called the shopkeeper.
“And bagging,” she said back. “I think we’ll be buying quite a bit.”
As the bus wasn’t due for another hour, Callie and Angus took their time in the shop.
But even knowing about the time slant, every time the wind blew too hard, or a customer entered, she grabbed Angus and ducked behind a shelf.
No fae came in—and Callie just had to endure the hour until they could be taken further away from where Rain was hunting her.
And she had no doubt that he was hunting her, or would be soon.
At the bus stop, Angus perched on the bench, a stack of sweets on his lap, and swung his legs leisurely.
“That was fun,” he said, ripping into a bar of nougat. “I enjoyed that very much. Father didn’t take me to the markets often, but I always liked it when we did go.”
“You’re a natural shopper,” she said, packing as much as she could into her newly bought blue backpack. “And a sugar-addict.”
Angus had a matching bag in red that he’d stuffed full of magazines about cars and toys, sweets—loads of them—, batteries, a torch, a bottle of HP sauce for whatever reason, something called a fidget spinner, and a tub of green goo that made crude noises whenever it was squeezed.
“Here.” She handed him the timetable and a stack of leaflets. “Make more.”
Sticking the nougat in his mouth, he clasped his hands over the pile and closed his eyes. The rustle of paper came before a faint glow of red between his hands. And when he offered the leaflets back to her, they were changed into pound notes again.
“That’s amazing.” She ruffled his hair, a still-nervous grin on her face. “You did good, Angus. Really good.”
“I know.” Still, a lift tucked under his chin and his smile widened that bit more at her praise. “I also know you would not have gotten very far without me.”
Callie doubted it was much different the other way around.
The small, smoky bus eventually chugged up the street. It stopped in front of them with a hiss.
They settled themselves at the back. Their plastic bags and backpacks took up two seats on their own in the cramped bus. Angus used one of the bags as a pillow and slept the whole bus ride away.
Callie couldn’t sleep. She constantly looked out the back window, expecting to see him. Expecting to see Rain, riding down the road on his black steed, sword at his side and fury in his eyes.
But however far behind Rain was, it was far enough for Angus and Callie to get off the bus at the city’s train station, then board a train to Edinburgh.
The train rolled out of the station too quickly for Angus’s liking—he was enamoured by the glass-dome ceiling and the takeaway restaurants lined along the walls. He’d only had the time to grab a roll and chips before Callie had dragged him to the train.
For a while, they watched the landscape of Scotland whizz by them through the window. But their travelling soon took its toll on Angus and by the time they boarded a second train to London, he was fast asleep, crashed from his sugar-high.
In London, they rented a double room in a cheap hotel near the train station, and shopped for clothes that wouldn’t catch anybody’s attention.
Callie couldn’t return home.
It gutted out her insides just to acknowledge the fact that Ireland was the first place Rain would look for them.
They had to go farther than that. And contacting anyone from home was a dangerous risk. One she couldn’t yet afford.
Still, she couldn’t resist using the computer in the lobby to read articles on the two girls who went missing five years ago in Scotland, and learn what had happened to the red-headed one who’d found her way back to the village.
The hollowness inside of her deepened with every article she read.
Meghan had been taken to a hospital for assessment. And not the kind that treated cuts and broken limbs. Another torment for her to suffer outside of the realm. One that Callie felt partly responsible for.
If she’d just waited for Rain to release her, or if she had included a memory spell in the Dowry demand, Meghan wouldn’t have faced more torture outside of the fae realm. She would have truly been free.
Callie realised then, neither of them were free. They never would be.
Lives lived in fear, looking over their shoulders, cowering at the clangs of metal or the sounds of flutes and harps. That was the cost of their escapes.
There was no freedom to be had.
Before she logged off, Callie risked sending Meghan a message from her old social media profile—a warning.
‘Don’t have kids. They will come for them if you do. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better.’
She wanted to write more.
Her fingertips hovered over the crumby keys, but even that one simple message she typed was too dangerous. Still, she hit send—then she deleted her account.
Callie couldn’t exist anymore.
Angus needed a few more days rest before they could leave again. He spent the days mostly in bed, but at night when the lobby was silent and the hotel manager was hidden in the back office, he snuck down to the main desk and broke into the file cabinets.
Each night, he studied the passports he found. Every shine, every detail of their layouts, every symbol hidden in the pages behind the words.
It took him a few tries, but he finally enchanted two second-hand books into British passports that Callie was satisfied with.
When she packed them up with their cash, she watched him spin a world globe they’d bought at the charity shop. He’d been rather taken with it.
“Where do you want to go?” she asked him.
Angus smiled dreamily and pressed his unglamoured fingernail to a spot on the g
lobe. “There.”
Callie came up beside him and squinted at the small country. “The Netherlands? Why there?”
“They have river-roads and tall colourful buildings.” He grinned at the book on the table, TRAVELLING EUROPE. “It looks magical.”
Her face pinched to one side as she studied the globe. “What language do they speak?”
Angus handed her the book, a piece of wallpaper he’d picked off at some point wedged between the pages. Callie flicked it open to the marked page and, in a moment, her lopsided scowl softened.
“Most of them speak English as a second language,” said Angus, telling her exactly what the book did. “But you should really learn more than your own language—the world is too big for only one.”
“I speak Gaelic, thank you very much.” Callie rested her hand on his head and pulled him in close. “But the Netherlands it is.”
The Prince’s Prisoner
∞Epilogues∞
The WATSONS
Callie threw her arm over his shoulders as they walked down the hot street. Angus didn’t pull from her hold, and instead chewed on a sweet that he wasn’t allowed to have before noon.
“You have a stash of red twigs, do you?” Callie said, and stole the raspberry stick from his grip. She tore a chunk off and chewed it. “They’ll rot your teeth.”
“Apparently not yours,” said Angus, and he pulled out another one from his pocket. “You know, you don’t have to walk us to school anymore. I’m old enough to get a driving permit.”
“Yeah, but are we well-off enough for people to believe you can afford a car?” Her ocean-blue eyes slitted at him. “And it’s two blocks, Angus. I’m sure your social life will survive a goodbye cuddle with me.”
His cheeks flared and he muttered a word she hadn’t understood eight years ago, but a word she now knew was worthy of a smack.
She tapped his head. “No swearing. Especially not in fae language.”
“Yes, mum, that’s exactly what the language is called.” He rolled his eyes. “And about the car—” It was Callie’s turn to roll her eyes. “—I can enchant the money for it. It’s what I do.”
Angus flashed her a grin so like his father’s that a bolt of cold fear shot through her, and took her back to a room of sealed doors and vines.
“Enchant yourself some better grades, then we’ll talk,” she said, then took a sip of coffee from her travel mug. She slid her arm back from Angus’s shoulders and stuck her sunglasses onto her head.
Angus nudged her arm and shot her a teasing smile that betrayed everything—he was really going to enchant better grades.
Callie should have disapproved, but much of his youth had been spent learning about the stars, the dirt of the earth, and how to fight. Even after eight years in the human world, Angus hadn’t completely caught up.
He wasn’t the smartest in his school, and neither was his brother.
“While you’re at it, enchant Affay’s grades as well.” Her gaze locked onto the seven-year-old boy who ran ahead on the sun scorched pavement, his backpack slamming against him with every bounce. “He’s started to burn his report cards in his palms whenever he gets them.”
Ahead, Affay skidded to a stop at the open school gates and waited, rolling on the balls of his feet, for Callie and Angus to catch up.
Angus agreed with a wicked grin and wink. He wasn’t that little boy skulking in the library anymore. He was a bright, popular boy who Callie was certain enchanted half his school into loving him.
Callie’s choker protected her from him that way. Even if she trusted him, he was still fae. And so was Affay. He hadn’t mastered enchantments yet, but she was sure it was because she wasn’t his father and couldn’t teach him. All the magic that Affay knew was whatever Angus could teach him.
“Mum,” whined Affay. He hooked his thumbs through his bag straps and jumped on the spot. “Hurry uppppp.”
Callie smiled and pulled him for a quick kiss on the cheek. Before she could even say goodbye, Affay went racing through the gates to join his friends by the small primary school to the left.
On the right, was the high school—and just as Angus tried to sneak towards the school without her noticing, Callie cupped her mouth with one hand tangled in house keys, and shouted across the lot at him, “Love you, son! Be good for mummy!”
Again, he cursed in a language worthy of a smack, and tugged down his baseball cap to hide his beetroot face.
Some of the other kids laughed, but the woman behind Callie didn’t.
“Lisa, you can’t tease them like that or you’ll end up in a nursing home.” Her over-makeup’d face slackened. “Or worse, they’ll end up in therapy.”
Callie—or Lisa—gave a ridiculous laugh and wrangled her sunglasses onto her face. “I’d rather they wind up in therapy than me wind up in a nursing home.”
Gwen, the reigning bitch of the town, gave a haughty hum and folded her arms. “Are you running yoga class today?”
Callie flashed her a grin. “Like I do every day.”
“Wonderful.” Gwen put her hand on Callie’s shoulder and leaned in as if to confide in her. “You know I never miss a class. It’s just, your family needs the money so much more than mine does. I guess it’s charity,” she added with a false smile. “I mean, how you raise two boys on your salary, I’ll never understand.”
Gwen paused to shake her head and rest her hand on her heart. Callie wondered if she had ‘pity me’ written on her forehead.
Gwen looked at her as though she was a tragedy in a body. “I admire your strength, Lisa.”
“You have no idea,” said Callie, then waved her key-clad fingers at her. “See you later!”
She walked back up the street to her quaint, shabby house. The smallest house on the block that she, Lisa Watson, bought with the small inheritance that her dead grandparents left her. An inheritance that took Angus a few months of practice to switch over to their fake bank account.
He was getting better.
For a human tutor, Callie fancied herself quite successful.
Being the mother, adopted or otherwise, of a half fae son was never easy. But it did have its advantages.
A small smile reserved for Angus and all his talents settled on her mouth as she jimmied open the stiff lock.
As always, the old creaky house greeted her with a punched stench of stale chips, over-brewed coffee, deli-bought buns, and cereal left out too long.
The milk was starting to go bad. Callie knew it before she managed to slam the stiff door shut, and threw her keys into the bowl on the table stand.
She peeled off her sunglasses and hopped up the first two steps from the porch—
—and stopped.
Her hand gripped on the bannister, knuckles turning white.
Every inch of her screamed to run, but under the siege of pure fear that thrashed through her, Callie was ... frozen.
It was her own fault. Unleashed, self-loathing laced the fear rushing through her veins—because she’d gotten comfortable.
Seven and a half years. That was how long she’d managed to evade Rain and the fae. Seven and a half years—enough to lull her into a sense of comfort and safety.
But to the fae, it wasn’t years … it had only been seven and a half months.
All the time they needed to find her.
And they found her.
Easton leaned against the kitchen door down the hall, and in the open space in front of her, opening to the living room, lurked Senah, with the stealth of a ghost.
But Callie barely spared either of the fae guards a glance. For the second she sensed them, saw them, her gaze found him.
Rain.
Her tall and proud fae prince of unspeakable viciousness.
Callie was so seized by the panic that she couldn’t even manage to choke out his name. But the name screamed in her mind, an alarm blaring in the face of danger.
Rain had found her. And his sons.
Loose in his gloved grip was a
framed photo of Callie and her sons. Both Angus and Affay—the child Rain hadn’t known existed until he’d found that picture.
Leaning against the book shelf, Rain kept his solid gold eyes on the frame in his grip. He stared at its centre with such a ferocious, focused calm that Callie’s toes curled in her sneakers and her heart jumped up into her throat to strangle her.
Rain didn’t look up from the photo.
But, in a voice so low and dangerous, so thickly accented with his cruel native tongue that Callie had to force herself not to pee on the spot, he said, “I suppose this means our bargain is fulfilled.”
A tangled rope of relief and terror unwound through her.
For the briefest of moments, Callie wondered if he would leave her now—leave her to her life, unharmed, unhunted.
But then, that would have meant he would take both of her children. And they were hers. More than they were his.
Not that any of that mattered, because finally, Rain lifted his molten eyes to hers, lashes casting dark shadows over his brilliantly carved face, and struck the purest terror through her that she’d ever known.
So much for not wetting herself.
“Yet,” he growled, grip tightening on the frame so hard that it started to creak under the pressure, “the ritual is owed, my fury remains unquenched, and the sting of your betrayal still haunts me.”
The frame shattered in his hand—a single burst of glittering shards and brass fragments erupting like confetti.
Then, Rain was on her.
Callie didn’t have a second to scream before the first strike came.
And she knew then, there was no escaping Rain.
The Mysterious Case of Lisa WATSON
Lisa Watson wasn’t in town for very long. She had no husband, and even less friends.
Everyone in the town knew her sons were fatherless.
No one knew who or where he was.
Lisa didn’t talk about him. She didn’t date the ordinary men around, not even the attractive single dads that flirted with her in line at the local fruit shop. And she was always looking over her shoulder whenever the sound of heavy boot-steps hit the pavement.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 30