Half Bad: A Reverse Harem Goddess Romance (Godhunter Book 31)

by Amy Sumida

  “High Prince, the King and Queen of Fire should exit the carriage first,” Isleen chided.

  Lugh huffed out an impatient breath and stepped back so that Arach could climb out first. Arach gave Lugh a sympathetic look as he did so, then helped me out of the carriage.

  “Hey, Lugh. How are you?” I asked before hugging him.

  “I'm good, V. You?”

  “I'm good too.” I nodded and waved him off, knowing he was anxious to get to his girl. “Go on. Don't let me hold you back.”

  Lugh reached into the carriage again and this time, Isleen took his hand and allowed him to help her out. She gave him a secret smile before going into his arms and then into a passionate kiss. I turned around and headed up the steps with Arach, leaving the couple to canoodle privately. Although, maybe I shouldn't have. According to Faerie and my husband, the Fire Fey enjoyed an audience.

  We waited for Lugh and Isleen in the entry hall. I tried to admire the exotic paintings hanging there but ended up focusing on fighting off my husband's wandering hands.

  “What is with you?” I hissed at him.

  “No one is here,” he growled. “The High Prince and Isleen are kissing on the castle steps but you won't kiss me in an empty entry hall?”

  “Will you keep it to kissing?”

  Arach grinned and pulled me against his hard chest. I slid my hands up his cheeks and into his hair to pull him down into a kiss. He growled into my mouth, his tongue lashing at mine, and suddenly lifted me off my feet, swung me around, and pushed me up against a wall. He was pulling up my skirt, his erection grinding against my thigh, when someone cleared their throat. Arach snarled over his shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw it was Lugh.

  “My King, we are waiting to escort you to the meeting,” Isleen said tonelessly as she stepped up beside her boyfriend.

  Arach laid his face in the curve of my neck and took a few deep breaths. I stroked his hair soothingly and gently nudged his fist so that he'd let go of my dress. He kissed my throat tenderly, then eased back and offered me his arm.

  “After you, Prince Lugh.” Arach waved his hand forward.

  Lugh gave me a what-the-hell look as he passed by, and I shrugged. It's not as if I could say anything, I'd gotten carried away that time too. Isleen, however, didn't look the least disturbed or even surprised at finding her monarchs making out in the castle entry hall. But then again, Isleen is good at hiding her reactions.

  I expected Lugh to lead us to the throne room and, if I'm being perfectly honest, I was hoping to see that wondrous hall—open all the way up to the topmost branches of the tree. The High Thrones were formed of living trees, their branches interwoven masterfully, and since it was Summer, the High Queen's throne would be in bloom. I would have liked to have seen that. But that's not where Lugh took us. Instead, we passed the throne room's double doors and continued down the polished wood corridor to another, much smaller room with only one door for entry.

  Nothing in the central tree could be called a disappointment so even though I'd been hoping to see the throne room, I was pleased with our destination. Technically, it was a meeting room—as evidenced by the long table placed strategically in its center—but it was also an aviary. No, that's not exactly right either. The room was simple in design: walls, ceiling, and floor all made of polished wood with the table growing up out of the floor. Only the chairs were separate pieces for necessity's sake. No artwork adorned the walls and a trio of pendant lanterns hung from the ceiling.

  At night, those lights would come in handy but at the moment, they were superfluous. Because the wall opposite the door was actually a window and beyond the glass was a small atrium, similar to the throne room in that it opened to the sky. It differed from the throne room in that it was full of plants, most of them fruit-bearing trees, and the fruit attracted faerie birds. Vibrant plumage fluffed and fluttered as the exotic birds of Faerie dined on their treats in their little sanctuary. The view, though lovely, seemed counterproductive for a meeting room. How would you get anything done with that kind of distraction nearby?

  Distracted like Faerie. I frowned as I considered her again and then I considered my make-out session with Arach in the entry hall. Very strange indeed. But then my stare caught on the baby with wings.

  “You brought her!” I declared joyfully as I rushed over to coo at the little princess with huge green eyes and monarch butterfly wings.

  The pale-skinned infant seemed to glow against Queen Breana's ebony complexion but despite this stark difference in their skin tone, Princess Eveline looked a lot like her mother—sharing the Queen's raven hair and brilliant green eyes. Breana held the baby out to me immediately, even though the High Queen and the Queens of Water, Earth, and Darkness were gathered around her, anxiously waiting for their chance to hold Eveline. I guess helping save the child's life had won me some special treatment—treatment I wasn't about to refuse. Not when it came to holding a faerie butterfly baby.

  “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!” I squealed as I lifted her to my face. “You are so darn cute, little girl!”

  Eveline's gauzy pink dress had flowers embroidered over it so realistically that it seemed as if they'd been picked that morning and glued on the dress. She gurgled happily and reached out to tap my cheek as her wings fluttered behind her. I had yet to have a baby with wings—wings that were a part of their normal form—and I knew from my jaunt into the future that I would someday so this was good practice for me.

  “How do I hold her?” I asked.

  “Place your palm between her wing joints to support her back,” the High Queen advised, using it as an excuse to slide closer. She smiled at the baby, flashing her Leanan-Sidhe fangs. “Oh, I want one.”

  “Me too,” Queen Bronagh of Earth declared. That's Earth, the faerie kingdom, not the planet. “We've been trying, even more so lately.” She paused to grin at her husband. “But haven't succeeded yet.”

  Queen Bronagh was one of the most human-looking faeries I've ever met. She had brown hair, golden-brown skin, and the usual Sidhe slim figure. Her only noteworthy feature was the color of her eyes—a glittering emerald—and they became even more beautiful when she looked at her husband. King Ruari of Earth was much brighter in appearance than his wife. He had pale skin and yellow eyes like Arach, though his eyes were more of a buttercup shade than Arach's deep citrine. But it was Ruari's hair that truly made him stand out—white at the roots, then darkening into violet. Unlike Arach, Ruari didn't have the fierce features to keep himself from looking too pretty. He was a step away from androgynous—a little girl's idea of a fairy king—but his wife seemed to dig it.

  “We're trying as well,” Nora said. “I thought, what with my race, that we wouldn't be able to conceive, but Faerie says otherwise.”

  Queen Nora of Water had once been the captain of the Fire Kingdom's cavalry—a Phooka with fiery eyes and a temperament to match. But she'd gone and fallen for another friend of mine, King Guirmean of Water. Guirmean is a Water-Sidhe and his coloring practically screamed ocean—indigo skin, pale green hair, and turquoise eyes. I'm sure it worked well in the water but on land, he stood out like a sore thumb. A handsome thumb, but sore nonetheless. Guirmean and Nora had a tumultuous affair that nearly ended in disaster. Guirmean would have given up his crown to be with Nora, but Nora wouldn't hear of it. Finally, Faerie stepped in and transmutated Nora—through me—into the first Water Phooka.

  Nora's fiery eyes were now distinctly fishy—rounded and without the white sclera—but were also a stunning shade of purple, lightening to lavender in their centers, and they matched the set of delicate, frond-like antennae at her temples. Nora's hands were now webbed and her Phooka claws had turned translucent opal. In short, she made a lovely dog-fish-faerie.

  “I'm sure you both will conceive soon,” I reassured them as I nuzzled the Princess' soft face, then handed her over to the High Queen.

  Queen Meara snatched the baby eagerly and twirled away as if she'd won a prize, her blood-red
hair swirling behind her like a cape. “You're mine now, little one,” she cooed at the Princess. “Yes, you are. I'm going to lock you up and keep you all for myself.”

  “And that's how nasty fairy tales start,” I muttered.

  “Sweetheart,” King Cian called to his wife, “we need to start the meeting.”

  “Oh, give me a few more minutes. I just got her,” Meara whined, then kissed Eveline's cheek. The baby giggled. “See? You hear that? She likes me.”

  “My love,” Cian—who, if not for his slimmer build, would have been the mirror image of his son, Lugh—continued in a gentle tone as one might use with a dangerous animal, “you can hold the baby during the meeting. If her mother permits, that is.” He looked at Breana beseechingly.

  “Of course,” Queen Breana, who was already seated beside her husband—both of them on special, thin-backed chairs made to accommodate their wings—said graciously. “I expected that she'd be passed around.”

  “Thank you,” Cian said sincerely. “Now, if we can all be seated, my son has some very disturbing news.”

  That, of course, dampened the baby high and the Royals of Faerie hurried to their seats.

  Lugh helped Isleen into hers before he sat down and met our curious stares. “Faerie is seeping into the Human Realm.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I'm sorry, what?” I asked, unsure I'd hear him right. “Did you say seeping?”

  “Son, that was not well done,” Cian chided Lugh. To us, he added, “We are not certain that is the case as yet. What we do know is that there has been a sighting of faerie flora on Earth.”

  “You saw a faerie flower on Earth?” I glanced at the table's simple centerpiece: a glass vase with a single flower in it. “Where?”

  “Ireland,” Lugh said grimly. “That's where I was with my mother. We wanted to spend some time together away from her pantheon.”

  Lugh had once been a member of the Celtic Pantheon—a pantheon with two branches: the Fomorians and the Tuatha de Danann. Lugh had been raised Tuatha but had believed himself to be half Fomorian and half human. He'd been told by the Tuatha that his mother had given him up at birth and his father was a dead human king. His adoptive parents—Manannan and Fand—each had their reasons for feeding Lugh this lie. Manannan did it to protect Lugh from what he thought to be the harsh truth—that his real father, King Cian, didn't want a half-god child. But Fand, who wasn't a goddess but a Water-Sidhe, had other, more devious reasons to deceive her foster son.

  Fand had been in love with King Cian, and had been deeply envious of his relationship with Ethniu, Lugh's mother. Her resentment ran even deeper because Ethniu was a goddess, not a faerie. When Lugh was born, the Fey were on the verge of closing the paths to Faerie. It was the perfect time for Fand to enact a diabolical plot to get revenge on both of Lugh's parents. First, she convinced Ethniu to send Lugh to his father to be raised in Faerie. But once Ethniu agreed, Fand didn't take Lugh to Cian—who never knew he had fathered a child. Instead, she took him to the Tuatha and told them that neither Ethniu nor Cian wanted the baby since he was a half-breed. All the Celtic Gods had a deep respect for the Fey and the Tuatha considered it to be a great honor to raise King Cian's child. They accepted him as family, never suspecting that they'd been tricked by a spiteful woman and were actually keeping him from his real family.

  Fand was dead now, but Lugh still held a grudge toward the Tuatha for lying to him all of his life—claiming his loyalty and using his skills at warfare to fight his true family, the Fomorians. But now, the Fomorians and Tuatha had a truce and were trying to be a united pantheon. Which made it uncomfortable for Lugh to visit his mother where she lived—the Celt stronghold on the island of Tara. Thus, their visit to Ireland.

  “What exactly did you see?” King Rowan of Darkness asked Lugh.

  Rowan and I had a shaky start. Honestly, my start with the entire race of Dark Fey was rather tremulous despite the fact that I had helped create them. They had once been the element of Darkness, as all Faeries were once elements. Faerie, the Consciousness, used me as an avatar to channel her magic through and changed the element into a race of faeries. The first of the Dark Fey races had been the Dark-Sidhe.

  All of the Dark-Sidhe have a similar coloring: ebony skin, raven hair, and eyes in a shade of blue. But, as is the case with every race, a collective coloring doesn't mean they look the same. In fact, it was Queen Liatris' appearance that caused the issues between Rowan and me. When Faerie used me as her avatar, a little piece of me went into the Dark-Sidhe and most of that piece wound up in Lia. In short, she looked like me. If you disregarded her coloring, we could be twins. It was rather unsettling when I'd first realized it. But colors have a way of concealing and revealing; no one noticed how similar our appearances were for awhile—not consciously at least.

  Rowan had acted a bit... ungentlemanly toward me at first but it had all been prompted by his connection to Lia. He'd been subconsciously drawn to me because I resembled the woman he was meant to be with. It's in the past now; we've all moved on. Rowan is happily married to Liatris and they had been transmutated once more by Faerie to become another race of dragons: the Dark Dragon-Sidhe. Their twin children—Prince Baidhen and Princess Sinnea—are very much like my twins, in that they are the hope for the race of Dragon-Sidhe to continue. Or rather, their fathers hope that Sinnea and Rian will someday marry and have more dragon babies. I have some issues with that but I won't go into them now because there are other, more pressing matters to discuss. Such as a faerie flower in Ireland.

  “My mother and I were walking along the Cliffs of Moher when we paused to look out at the water. While we were standing there, a flower grew at our feet. Instantaneously. That flower.” He pointed at the flower serving as a centerpiece.

  “A vianne,” Queen Bronagh murmured. “It's from our kingdom.”

  The vianne was lovely and strange, as most faerie flowers were. It's pale pink petals, of which there were many, were as long as my middle finger and very thin. They grew upward from the stem, then drooped after an inch or so as if too tired to bother keeping that much petal aloft. It looked like the floral version of a pom-pom.

  “It just sprouted instantly?” King Fionn set his black stare—black from rim to rim—on Lugh. At least, I think he did.

  “Instantly.” Lugh nodded.

  “The Cliffs of Moher,” I murmured thoughtfully. “Isn't there an entrance to Nuada's territory just off those cliffs?”

  The Celts, as I mentioned, used to be very close with the Fey. They mimicked them so much that they often got mistaken for them. One of the things the Celts copied was the way the Fey created paths into their realm. Currently, there was only one way to get into Faerie: through the Great Tree at the End of the Road. But once, there had been many routes leading to and from Earth—trails that formed bridges through the Aether so that anyone could walk from one realm to another, no chant or tracing ability needed. The paths hadn't even been guarded; the Fey loved it when humans wandered into their world. It was like a license to hunt. Back then, every human knew that you entered the Faerie Realm at your own risk. And still, they went.

  The Celtic Gods liked the idea of an open path to their territory, but they didn't so much like the thought of humans—or other gods, for that matter—being able to traipse in randomly. So, they made some improvements. They hid their paths and warded them. Without permission, you couldn't come through. Only one such path was left unwarded—the Cave of Cats that led to Morrigan's home. But that was due to human belief: human myth said that Oweynagat, the aforementioned cave, was a way into the Celtic Underworld—Ireland's Gate to Hell. So, Morrigan couldn't ward it. It was well hidden but still open for anyone to use. And now, Morrigan was dead so its chances of ever getting warded had been significantly reduced.

  Anyway, Nuada—also deceased (there was a big war)—had one such path to his home in the Celtic territory. You had to step off a cliff to walk it. It was a literal leap of faith.

 
“Yes,” Lugh confirmed. “Nuada's place was near there. At first, I thought that might have something to do with it. But why? How could a connection to the God Realm produce a faerie flower? Then my mother told me that there had once been a path to Faerie in the area as well; it was the reason Nuada made his home there. She was able to find the old path and there, outside its sealed entrance, were more flowers.”

  “That is not good,” Arach muttered.

  “But the path was definitely sealed?” King Guirmean asked.

  “I couldn't walk through it, but I'm not an expert on faerie paths,” Lugh said, then looked pointedly at his father.

  “I had a wayfarer return to the Human Realm with Lugh and check the site,” Cian added. “He says there's magical seepage. He had to reinforce the spells that sealed the gate.”

  A wayfarer, by the way, is a faerie who specializes in opening or closing paths between realms.