by Lola Gabriel
“Sebastian,” Kaia gasped, her eyes stinging with sudden tears. She was so glad and relieved to see him, and she was so worried to see him so bruised, and she wanted nothing more than to go to him and pull him into her arms and pepper his face with kisses and tell him she was okay, they were okay, everything was okay.
“You should see the other guy,” Sebastian said, wincing at a cut on his side. He rushed to Kaia and cut off her ties, putting his blood-soaked dagger away to run his hands all over her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“No, no,” Kaia said, cupping his face between her palms, her thumbs caressing the skin of his cheeks. “I’m okay, just…still a little dizzy. But I’m fine now that you’re here.”
“Gods…” Sebastian wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest, and Kaia felt that piece of him inside her sigh in contentment. She clutched Sebastian’s back so there was not a single inch between their bodies. She didn’t want to let go of him ever again. “Kaia, I’m so sorry, I should’ve never let this happen—”
“Sebastian, it wasn’t your fault,” Kaia told him, pressing a kiss to his temple.
“How could it not be?” He broke away from her to look into her eyes. “I should’ve protected you. I should’ve been there for you—”
“And you are now,” she interjected. “You just saved my life, Sebastian.”
Sebastian leaned his forehead against hers. “You shouldn’t have been in danger to begin with.”
Kaia kissed him on the mouth, wanting to convey that she didn’t blame him for this, that what she wanted was to put this event behind them and move forward, to have his arms wrapped around her for the rest of time. As long as they were together, nothing else mattered to her.
Sebastian seemed to understand what she was trying to say, because he relaxed into the kiss and held her even closer.
When they pulled away, he apparently remembered that they were not alone. He turned to look at Micah, who was frozen in his place, still as a statue.
“You,” he growled, pointing his dagger at him.
“Wait!” Micah screamed, tripping, falling, and crawling back as Sebastian took his dagger out again and moved toward him. “Wait, wait, wait!”
“Sebastian!” Kaia called out to him. “Sebastian, don’t hurt him! He was going to help me!”
Both Micah and Sebastian stared at her.
“Was he?” Sebastian asked, the tip of his bloodstained dagger mere inches away from Micah’s head.
“Yes,” Kaia said. He hadn’t outright told her that he would, but she had seen his intentions on his face. She had seen that he wished to get out of the situation he was in, and he only needed the right convincing. If Sebastian hadn’t barged in when he had, Kaia was sure that Micah would’ve still dropped the needle and let her go. “He…did kidnap me, yes, but he had no choice!”
“I don’t know about that,” Sebastian snarled.
Kaia grabbed his head and turned it to her. “Sebastian, please. His life was in as much danger as mine.”
He looked like he was going to argue with her before he simply exhaled and nodded his head.
“Thank you,” Kaia said.
“Is…” She and Sebastian turned their attention to Micah. He was fearfully staring out the open door of the room. “Is…is Joshua dead?”
“If you mean the other man who was here, then yes,” Sebastian said. He looked back at Kaia and took her hands. “We need to get you out of here. I’ll call the king and tell him what happened, and…” He glanced at Micah out of the corner of his eyes. “And deal with him, I suppose.”
“Leave it to me,” Kaia told him.
Even though Joshua was dead, he might still have ears everywhere, if Micah was to be believed. And Kaia believed him. At the very least, she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, she had said they could protect him, and fae didn’t lie.
Sebastian pulled his phone out of his pocket, and just as he was about to call either the king or the mansion landline, Kaia held out her hand so he’d give it to her. She knew her father would be pissed off at Sebastian if he heard what had happened from him, but maybe he would be more willing to listen if he heard it from Kaia herself. She didn’t need to tell Sebastian any of this for him to understand the gesture. He handed her his phone and turned back to Micah, as if to ensure he wouldn’t make a run for it. So far, Micah didn’t seem likely to.
Kaia dialed her father’s number and waited with bated breath for him to answer. She heard the line ring, and ring, and—
“Sebastian,” the Fae King answered. “You know you’re meant to call me only for emergencies. I trust this is one?”
“Hey, Dad,” Kaia said, and she heard her father inhale sharply on the other end of the phone. “So, um, funny story…”
8
Sebastian stood by the door to the king’s office, watching him embrace Kaia with such tightness that she was trying to pull away from him.
“Dad,” she choked out, “I can’t breathe.”
“Kaia Rose Blackwood, do not even joke about that!” the king exclaimed, grabbing Kaia by the arms so he could look at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll run some tests and get you the best treatments—”
“Dad,” Kaia said. “I’m fine, seriously. I’m sure the drug will just fade from my system, okay?”
“Oh, my darling!” His Majesty hugged her once more before turning to Sebastian, his expression changing from concerned father to enraged father. “And you!” he snarled, thrusting his finger at him. “I entrusted you with my daughter’s life, and you let this happen to her?!”
“Dad—”
“No, Kaia! I sent him to EMU so he could prevent exactly this!”
“I have no excuse, Your Majesty,” Sebastian said, his hands folded behind his back, despite the pain it caused him. “I let my guard down, and the princess was kidnapped because of it. I have no right to be a warrior in the Fae Royal Guard.”
“Damn right, you don’t!” the king agreed, and Sebastian let his head drop. He’d always been a fae warrior, since he was old enough to actually remember, and if he wasn’t one, then what was he?
You’re Kaia’s mate, he reminded himself, and the thought was worth all the physical pain he had endured in his fight against Joshua.
He hadn’t told Kaia yet. They hadn’t talked much in the time it took for other fae warriors to arrive at the underground bunker where Kaia had been taken and fly them back to the mansion, but Sebastian was absolutely sure of it. He knew that Kaia felt the connection he did, and he knew what it meant. The reason he had been assigned as Kaia’s personal guard since his childhood was because they were fated to be together.
“Sebastian, no!” Kaia cried. “Dad, he saved me! Have you seen how wounded he is? That was all to rescue me, and he should be the one getting the best treatments, not me! I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. He was the reason I was safe for so long in the first place.”
“Kaia, love,” His Majesty said in a tone that meant he wasn’t going to stand down.
“No!” Kaia argued. “I’m not letting you kick the best warrior you’ll ever have, and my mate, out of the Royal Guard!”
Sebastian nearly gasped. The king did.
Hearing Kaia say what he had been thinking established it as a reality. There was no question about it anymore. The two of them were mates, and nothing, no one was going to keep them apart any longer. They had already wasted so much time.
“Is he?” The king asked Kaia almost breathlessly. “Is Sebastian truly your mate?”
“Yes,” Kaia responded without any hesitation at all.
The king looked at her and then at Sebastian, his gaze moving between them like he couldn’t quite believe what Kaia had just said. In the blink of an eye, he wrapped one arm around Kaia, his other arm around Sebastian, and pulled them into a group hug, which felt more like a bear attempting to hug two humans, but the thought was what counted.
“I can’t believe this!” the king
laughed ecstatically. “My daughter and my best warrior! Mates! The gods have smiled upon us!”
“Dad,” Kaia chuckled. “No need to be so dramatic.”
“We’ll start planning the wedding immediately,” His Majesty said, and both Sebastian and Kaia almost choked on their own spit. “It’ll be the biggest celebration the fae have ever seen!”
“Dad!” Kaia managed to break free of her father’s arm. “Can we focus on what happened first?”
The king stopped his joyous rant and breathed deeply. “Yes, you’re right. You say this vampire, Micah, told you he was working for someone named Joshua?”
Kaia nodded her head. “Yeah. Do you know him? Or why he wanted to kill me?”
“Joshua used to be a warrior in the Royal Guard,” His Majesty began. “He was one of the best of his time. But he was also a loose cannon, and eventually, it got the better of him. The rest of the warriors couldn’t trust him or rely on him anymore, so neither could I. I had to let him go, and although I know he didn’t take it lightly, I…never thought he would actually target you, Kaia.”
“Another fae kidnapped me?” Kaia shook her head. “The last species I would’ve imagined…”
“Is it true that he doesn’t— didn’t work alone?” Sebastian stepped in. They had brought Micah with them, and even in the safety of the mansion, he was still nervous, scared that another of Joshua’s minions would take care of a loose end.
“Yes,” said the king. “Since we have Micah here, he will be the key to take down the rest of Joshua’s accomplices. Who knows how many other immortals he had under his command and how many of them were blackmailed or threatened into cooperating.”
“At least the main issue is taken care of,” said Kaia, turning to Sebastian and holding out her hand to his. He took it as soon as it was within his reach, intertwining their fingers together. “All thanks to you.”
“Well,” Sebastian said, “not all of it.”
The king clapped his hands together, leaving them in front of his mouth.
“Oh, you two are absolutely meant to be,” he nearly sobbed. “My darling, I can’t express how happy I am for you. I’ll have my best, strongest men work with Micah to end Joshua’s reign of terror, but I want you two to dedicate your time and attention to each other and to your wedding!”
“Father!” Kaia scolded him, barely holding back a laugh. “We’re not getting married right away. I need to finish school first.”
Sebastian glanced at her. He would love to marry Kaia at some point in the future, and he was beyond overwhelmed to hear her say that it was going to happen. That she was so sure of what they were to each other that she was already considering their future together.
“Of course, Kaia,” her father agreed, “which is why we must start with the preparations as soon as possible.”
Kaia cocked her head in Sebastian’s direction and rolled her eyes, like she was thinking, Can you believe this?
Sebastian curled his hand around her waist and pulled her to him so their sides were pressed together. Kaia responded to this by leaning her head against Sebastian’s shoulder, and he retaliated by kissing her temple and squeezing their entwined fingers.
No, Sebastian thought, listening to the king list off some ideas for the biggest wedding the fae kingdom had ever known. No, I really can’t.
Dragon’s Surprise
1
On the morning of her twenty-first birthday, the first thing Aubrey noticed was the rays of the sun directly hitting her face through her bedroom window, which made her realize that she had forgotten to close the blinds the night before. She turned to the other side, resisting the urge to pull her pillow over her head in order to cover herself from the sun’s heat. Right when the stupid, ridiculously cheap fan she had bought a month and a half ago had broken down, too.
I knew I should’ve saved up more to buy another one, a better one, Aubrey groaned to herself. I should have known it was on sale for a reason.
This was turning out to already be kind of a crappy birthday, and the day hadn’t even really begun yet. Aubrey had a gut feeling that it was only going to get worse from here, and her gut feelings tended to be right in the end. She had always been lucky (or in this case, unlucky) like that.
She shook her head, still resting against her pillow. Since a few years ago, her birthday had started to bring a bout of anxiety with it along with the excitement of growing up; it was part of the whole concept of getting older and sometimes feeling like the world was moving too fast for her to catch up and she was somehow falling behind.
Today, Aubrey decided not to dwell too much on that bout of anxiety. Sure, perhaps the day had not gotten off to a great start, and she was still in bed, but that didn’t mean the rest of it would be equally bad. She was turning twenty-one years old, she had a couple of days off from work, and her friends had organized a picnic for her in Central Park, which was one of her favorite places in the entirety of New York City and had been ever since she was a kid. Aubrey would make sure that this birthday turned out to be one of the best she would ever have, and her negative gut feelings could shove it, for all she cared.
With another shake of her head, Aubrey kicked the bedsheets away, stretched her arms, and forced herself to get out of bed. It was still pretty early, so she had enough time to take a long, relaxing shower, dress up in the gorgeous turquoise summer dress her mother had gifted her especially for the occasion, and go meet her friends for her birthday picnic.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a good, hot cup of coffee first, though, she thought. Maybe making some coffee first would brighten her day and change the negative feeling still in her gut. Her father used to say that things often looked better after he’d had some breakfast, or at the very least a cup of coffee, and Aubrey had found that his advice was usually not wrong. It would take a few extra minutes of her day to make it, but it would be so worth it.
As she dragged her feet to her small kitchen, she was suddenly craving a cup of coffee so much that she was almost imagining its delicious scent wafting through her tiny, barely affordable apartment. She could also almost hear it dripping in the pot of her cheap coffee maker, nearly ready to be served and drunk.
When she finally strode into the kitchen, Aubrey halted in her tracks.
Her crappy coffee maker on the counter was off, but the pot was half-filled, and there was a cup resting next to it, the delicious smell of coffee emanating from it.
Aubrey immediately looked around the kitchen, searching for any sign of an intruder. Then again, why would an intruder break into her apartment, start the coffee machine, turn it off once the coffee was ready, serve himself a cup, and then just leave it there? Besides, she had two locks on the door, and a quick glance at it confirmed that they remained unopened.
Had Aubrey sleepwalked? Even though she had never done such a thing, she supposed there was a first time for everything. Would she remember if she had? She hoped not, because the only other alternative she could think of was that she was hallucinating, and Aubrey certainly didn’t want to consider that as a real possibility.
God, Aubrey, get a grip, she scolded herself. This was obviously nothing more than the bout of anxiety that had presented itself on her last few birthdays, and the right thing to do was to ignore it altogether. After her shower, she would walk by the kitchen on her way out and see an empty coffee maker and no cups to speak of, and her weird morning would become a funny, odd story to tell her friends later today or her parents the next time she called them.
Her shower ended up being half as long as Aubrey would have liked it to be on account of her running out of hot water, which was the perfect proof that her gut feeling was unfortunately right: the day did seem to be getting worse the longer it went on. Still, she didn’t let that drag her down. Taking a short shower was better for the environment, anyway. At least, it was supposed to be.
She came out of her tiny shower with a towel wrapped around her and another wrapped around her long red ha
ir, having dried herself as much as she could so as not to trail wet footprints across the floor.
Aubrey was about to start drying off her hair when her phone went off, blasting an annoying Top 40 song that her friend Chelsea had chosen as her ringtone. Aubrey rolled her eyes before she picked up the device and answered the call.
“Hey, Chels,” she greeted her friend.
“Hey, birthday girl!” was Chelsea’s response. “Listen, I know it’s your birthday and you’re allowed to do whatever the hell you want, right? But I should tell you that the picnic’s gonna be huge. As in, we spared no expense and bought a ton of food, so you don’t have to eat anything beforehand, okay?”
Aubrey let out a small groan, mostly to herself. “I told you guys it didn’t have to be this giant thing!”
Her friends—Savannah, Chelsea, and Dana—had all wanted to throw her a huge party, because Aubrey was the last one of them to turn twenty-one, and she would only turn twenty-one once in her life. Aubrey had joked that they were more excited for her birthday than she was, but she had still managed to convince them that they could just do something simple, just the four of them hanging out and having a nice time. Dana had suggested going to Central Park, with Aubrey finally telling them that if they really wanted to throw her a birthday celebration, they could simply have a picnic.
“Well,” said Chelsea, “you need to have enough energy for the dance club we’re going to afterwards!”
Aubrey paused.
“We’re going to a dance club afterwards?” she asked, and then she heard Chelsea gasp quietly on the other end of the line.
“Crap,” she cursed under her breath. “That was a secret. Please don’t tell Savannah and Dana. It took us so long to decide on the perfect place to take you to, and they’re super excited to see your reaction when we tell you!”