by Eve Langlais
“Ethan,” she said with a little giggle.
With arms comfortably encircling her waist and his chin resting in her hair, he responded teasingly, “Katherine.”
His voice was like a smooth chuckle on a warm night. At least it felt that way to her. Then again everything right now was taking on a more pleasant light. The holiday carols she usually hated weren’t so bothersome, the crowded party of coven and fae her mother had ordered her to attend wasn’t so claustrophobic, and the thick black turtleneck over dark gray slacks she wore weren’t so much confining as warm and comfortable.
Yes, the alcohol was definitely doing its job.
“Katherine, how much have you had to drink?” Ethan asked pleasantly.
Katherine rolled her head underneath his chin and buried her face into the part of his shoulder she could reach. Since he was a foot taller than he, he leaned over. For a moment she inhaled the clean scent of his aftershave and answered, “Not many.”
This time a real chuckle emitted from his lips. “I’ve been watching you. I think you’ve had too much.”
“Then why’d you ask,” she said, still pleasantly cocooned in his arms. She had no intentions of moving unless he made her, and she knew he had no intention of doing so. Just as much as Ethan loved to cuddle her, she loved to be held. At least for tonight. Tonight she wasn’t Katherine Thompson, the Queen’s daughter. Tonight she was just a girl in love with a cute guy at a bar and hoping to escape notice or worse…recognition. Tonight she felt at least a little bit free.
Chapter Three
She knew that those feelings of safety and happiness wouldn’t last long, but for now she would enjoy it. It wasn’t that Katherine resented being second in line to the throne. In fact, she reveled in it. Usually. Being the spare heir meant she wouldn’t be expected to live in this small town until the day she died. She knew with the certainty that she would draw her next breath, that one day, when she reached her witch majority, she would and could leave. Nothing could stop her. Not her mother’s order. Not her father’s deathbed wishes. Not her coven’s resentment. Nothing. And for that small grace, she thanked her living stars that she wasn’t Rose Thompson. Because being the heir meant responsibility. It wasn’t as if Katherine was lazy.
“I’m just not crazy enough to be saddled with a town of a couple thousand xenophobic witches, insane fae, and fearful humans,” Katherine muttered to herself. She knew it wasn’t right to say, but it was the truth. And what time was better than the holidays to bring up the crap that no one wanted to talk about? The dirty family secrets and friendship squabbles that everyone tried to hide with smiles and laughter. Well, this was just a tad bit bigger than ‘I kissed your boyfriend but we’re still friends, right?’ This was a secret the whole town and all of the colonies were aware of and nobody discussed. As if by ignoring what was in their face–the pain of the strained relationship between witch, fae, and human, that it would go away like a bad dream.
“It won’t,” Katherine murmured with a shrug, “but that’s also Mother’s responsibility–to keep the peace, to try to protect the weak, and foster the strong. I certainly can’t do it.”
She had no idea what she could do. She certainly wasn’t that good of a witch and trying to go to college was a bit of joke for a member of the coven. What would she do there, anyway, study philosophy? The very idea make her laugh. Witches didn’t go to college, humans did. College was for the foot soldiers of the new republic. Apprenticeships of power were for the rulers of the society. Katherine had been told all of her life that she would be a ruler. It might be on a dipshit little farm that her sister installed her on when she came to the throne, but it was power. Because of who she was. It mattered. She could choose her own destined and become who she chose…within the limits of her power.
And that there was the problem. Her power was dark, irrational, untamable, and unpredictable. She couldn’t use it, let alone rise in rank with it. So she would do the next best thing…do what she had only heard about in whispers. Katherine Thompson, daughter of the Queen of Sandersville, had plans, and those plans involved a major city, a head start, and a lot of hope. Whether or not she got there, Katherine decided, depended on how long she could last in this podunk town without being ostracized or punished by her coven. Katherine wasn’t powerful in the conventional sense, but she wasn’t weak, either, and her coven brethren recognized that. They recognized her as a threat but they couldn’t place a finger on exactly why. She hadn’t killed anyone like many notorious people around town and she looked innocuous unless she was upset. Even then in order to access her ‘gifts’, she had to be quite upset.
So the townspeople tended to avoid her and Katherine thought that was just fine. Just as they couldn’t put a finger on why they avoided her, she couldn’t shake the suspicion that they would harm her if they got the chance. She knew she’d been spared the indignity of a coven council meeting to ‘discuss’ her talents due to her mother’s influence. The moment her mother was gone, and yes, her sister, Rose, wasn’t outwardly claiming her as family and therefore defending her right to be a coven sister, they would have something to say about her gifts. Because, you see, different was dangerous and unknown was threatening. And Katherine was both even though she had grown up in this small town her entire life, had gone to civil ceremonies with her neighbors for the past fifteen years, and had walked down these streets with her coven brothers and sisters.
After all, everyone, witch, human, or fae believed in a central concept–every person for themselves. That meant protecting their lives and their community ahead of a threat instead of waiting for it to come to them. Luckily for Katherine, her mother was the queen. But she felt the resentment of the entire council about her presence. Even if her mother refused to see it and her sister laughed it off as paranoid hysterics. They couldn’t read the auras of the individuals around them. They didn’t see what Katherine saw. Which was why she was very careful to socialize only with those she could trust and she made no efforts to make friends with those that she considered allies at best. Not because she didn’t care. But because she didn’t want to hurt anyone else and she didn’t want anyone trying to stop her when she did. She had enough problems with trying to figure out what her mother and her cousin knew about her plans to leave town as soon as she could as it was. As for Rose, the future queen could care less.
Sighing, Katherine rubbed a tense brow and looked around the room at her mother’s subjects. Even thinking about taking on her mother’s role as queen had Katherine shuddering. Sandersville had a population of four thousand witches, humans, and various races of fae. For such a small but diverse community it did a remarkable job at keeping the peace with rare scuffles between the witches and fae primarily and the occasional human turning up dead because of an over–enthusiastic rumble with a fae or witch who could care less about ending their life in the time it took to order a pizza.
There were laws against killing humans without just because Katherine knew. She also knew that her mother was one of the few queens in Georgia to actually go about enforcing those rules. Humans were petty annoyances on a good day and outright menaces on a bad day. It didn’t help they outnumbered the fae and witch populations combined. It wasn’t a comfortable dichotomy, but the magic that the coven could call upon at any time helped keep the population in check. The power included the gift to control the weather, the power to shift the lands, and the natural talent to practice spell work, which meant that the humans could never overpower their witch or fae brethren.
A piercing whistle went through the mingling crowd at that moment. Awakening Katherine from the semi–haze of being comfortably enclosed by Ethan’s arms and drawing her attention to the stage where her mother stood.
She grimaced and stood erect, stepping out of his protective arms and looking around for somewhere to put the drink she shouldn’t have, even if was just eggnog.
Fortunately, Katherine’s saving grace came floating through the crowd at that moment. Katheri
ne watched the woman in a sparkling blue bodysuit and top hat with envy as she parted the crowd with persuasive touches as she picked up used glasses from tables and made her way to the bar. When the woman grew close enough that a quick lift of her hand would have let Katherine touch her, Katherine was able to see the curls of her hair moving independently like the snakes that inhabited Medusa’s shroud.
Katherine hoped that Sylvie was sufficiently distracted by the flirting carpenter that she could slip the glass on the tray with no one else the wiser. As Sylvie’s attention stayed riveted on her suitor Katherine dropped her well–nursed glass onto the tray and whispered a silent prayer that she would continue onwards through the crowd and back to the kitchen without noticing.
Mind awhirl with nervousness, Katherine turned eyes to her mother’s stage, hoping that she wasn’t watching, either. The queen’s attention was currently focused on an adviser who had stepped up to the podium and put covered lips to her mother’s ear while the microphone dropped to her waist and away from their conversation. She wasn’t the least bit interested in what they were saying. All Katherine cared about was that at the moment, she wasn’t her mother’s focus.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for the waitress, as Katherine turned back to look at her casually and saw the sylph’s eyes trained on her. Katherine’s weak smile immediately transitioned into a worried grin.
“Hi, Sophie,” Katherine said a little shyly.
The sylph gave a narrow look and raised an eyebrow as she said, “I saw what you did there, young lady.”
Katherine bit her lip and wished she was anywhere but here in this small town and living this life. Because no matter what she said and who her mother was, the sylph was going to go to the coven mistress with the information. It was almost as if her mother had spies in every corner of the town, each playing their part to keep Katherine obedient and docile.
What kind of place is it when a waitress and a queen can gang up on another person? Katherine grumbled internally.
Avoiding Sophie’s look with hunched shoulders and a turn of her eyes, Katherine muttered, “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
It wasn’t legal for her to be drinking anything, really. The rules of the gathering had been clear: anyone under the age of sixteen who attended could only have some of the more…palatable concoctions with permission of their guardians.
Katherine’s mother would have never agreed to that sort of thing. Not because she was queen, oh no. But because she believed in the silly human notions of age progression and her daughters not being mature enough.
“Uh–huh,” said the sylph in a decidedly dry manner.
Ethan stepped forward to her side. As he did so he brushed the edge of her bare shoulder with his fingertips and left her skin tingling in his wake. It was hard not to react to him. Even now while she stood in abject humiliation and waited on the sylph to chastise her for letting loose just a little at a party when half the adults were letting loose a little too much.
Katherine saw a shirt fly overhead at that moment and thought, Yet I’m the one that’s getting a talking–to.
Its owner was a rotund man with apple cheeks and the horns of a fae creature related to Dionysus. She could tell because he was waving a goblet of something in one hand and chasing after the shirt as he did so. She wondered how it had come off. It didn’t seem like it had been a voluntary process by the way he was running about after it. Perhaps it had come off by itself and tossed itself a way?
Maybe it had, thought Katherine as she saw a few giggling fairies in the corner eyeing the drunk buffoon. As they huddled closer together and pointed at the scene, she became sure it wasn’t an accident. They were nothing if not fun loving, those sprites, usually at the expense of others. Katherine knew it would soon, very soon, be time for her to leave. Her mother had invited her because it was only proper for the heirs to the queen be present for the announcement, although a bemused Katherine wasn’t quite sure why the announcement couldn’t have been made in broad daylight at a more sober venue.
“Right, Katherine?” Ethan prodded gently.
Katherine’s eyes snapped back to Ethan and Sophie from where they had clearly strayed to watch that man stumble away.
“It was just a spot of a drink? Nothing more?” Ethan confirmed. “And you’ll be heading home with the queen in the next half–hour.”
“Right,” she said hurriedly. “We’re heading home soon. I promise I’m not drunk. Promise, Sophie.”
Sophie raised her eyebrows. “If I thought you were drunk we wouldn’t be standing here, now would we?”
Katherine gave a weak shrug and a grin. “I guess not.” She knew when to lick her wounds and play nice, hoping it elicited the same response.
Sophie nodded. “Well, I’ll be on my way then. No more drinks for you tonight, miss. Not unless it’s some ice–cold water.”
“Of course,” Katherine said a little too quickly.
Ethan barely held back his audible laugh.
Chapter Four
“And you, young sir,” Sophie said, rounding on him so swiftly that the sequined tassels of her bodysuit bounced along her thighs in response. “You’ll be seeing her to her mam as soon as that speech is done.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ethan said respectfully.
Sophie nodded and walked off. Katherine watched her derriere move away through the crowd with something close to disbelief and envy. Not because she’d let her go, but because it was pretty distracting, and she said, “I hope I have a butt as nice as hers when I’m one hundred and fifty.”
“Yep,” Ethan said with an appreciative tone. She looked up and over to see his eyes pinned on the woman’s behind. Just like hers had been, but the flame in his eyes told her he wasn’t thinking cordial thoughts.
Katherine quickly elbowed him in the ribs to refocus his gaze.
“Ouch,” Ethan cried out.
Katherine lifted a temperamental chin. “You were saying?”
“I was saying,” Ethan said with a chuckle as he traced his finger on Katherine’s jawline, “that I could really do with a kiss from the most beautiful girl in the room.”
“That’s more like it,” Katherine grumbled as she lifted herself up for a kiss and he dipped down smoothly.
His eyes caught hers with a warm gaze, and just before their lips locked Ethan said, “You know she’s three hundred and nine, not one hundred and fifty, right? For a three–century–old butt, that’s pretty nice.”
Katherine quickly pushed him away in disgust with a muttered, “Oh, you!”
This time Ethan didn’t hold back his laughter.
Grumbling, Katherine turned away from him with her arms crossed in front of her. The mic in her mother’s hand raised as the queen smiled and strode to the front of the stage, prepared to give her speech. Out of the corner of her eye, Katherine spied her sister climbing the steps of the stage to proudly stand by their mother’s side. In her left hand Rose held a glass of light–colored wine and in her right she gripped a large rectangular object that Katherine couldn’t quite make out.
With a displeased murmur, Katherine said, “Well, one of us gets to drink.”
“One of ‘us’ is seventeen,” Ethan pointed out with a murmur of laughter in his voice.
“You could at least pretend to be on my side,” Katherine said.
Ethan stepped closer to her and wrapped his arms around her from behind. Tightening his grip, he began to massage her muscles and Katherine felt herself melt…just a tiny bit.
“I am on your side,” Ethan said quietly. “Nothing could change that.”
“I know,” Katherine said apologetically. “Sorry. Sometimes it just gets to me. On nights like tonight I can really feel the difference between us.”
Leaning back, she said with a rueful sigh, “Perfect Rose and dark Katherine. I mean, look at her, she’s wearing paisley pink and her hair is in a bun. She’s the perfect imitation of Mother. And look at me…dark jeans, messy hair, weird power
s–”
“Stop it,” Ethan said fiercely with his hands on her shoulders. “You’re perfect. You don’t want to be an imitation of your mother, you want to be you.”
Katherine paused with a flip of her hair. “Sometimes I do.”
“Well,” Ethan said in a considering voice, “sometimes I want to be an archangel, but that’s not happening.”
Katherine couldn’t help it. She snorted in laughter. “An archangel? Really? Where did that come from?”
He shrugged uncomfortably.
“Just throwing it out there. If you’ve got a wish fairy, which I hear are very rare,” he said in a teasing tone, “I have some wishes of my own to get done.”
She snorted and tried to control the laughter coming out in full force now. “You know there’s no such thing.”
Ethan tilted her head back and said, “Just as you know there’s no such thing as a perfect person. But, in my opinion, if anyone could come close to that ideal…it would be you.”
She searched his eyes and it looked as if he was saying nothing but the truth.
“With all my faults?” Her voice dipped in sadness.
“And all your triumphs,” he said without hesitation.
Smiling, Katherine lifted up on her toes and planted a surprise kiss on his lips. It deepened into a lip lock and she ended up with her arms around his neck and his fierce grip at her waist. But it quickly ended when a voice next to them cleared a stern throat and Katherine turned around to face back toward the stage with a twinkle in her eyes. She didn’t bother acknowledging the man who had interrupted them. It was enough that she could put her hands behind her back and feel Ethan’s hands envelop her own in a steady grip.
Katherine watched as Rose lifted the wine glass in her hand and their mother followed suit as she said into the microphone, “My coven brothers and sisters. My fae cousins. Thank you for joining us on the eve of a new year in celebration of all that has gone and that will come. We, the Thompson queens, salute you.”