by JL Madore
I wiped my eyes and cheeks as my feet met each step in rapid succession. The turning tide of my evening left me hollow. Abaddon mated me. And in a few days’ time, the Fates would declare it. I had lost my brother . . . my friends . . . my innocence . . . my choice and my future.
My inner construct shattered. The jagged edges of the break tore at my insides never to be whole again.
Rain-sodden ground squished under my feet as I reached the base of the Den’s rise and stumbled on. My energy flagged and still, no amount of distance helped. No matter where I ran, I remained trapped. Mayhap Abaddon’s intention to vacate my soul and allow Rheagan to claim my body was a blessing. My shame would end. My soul would soar free.
Gods how I wanted to be free.
I rounded the bank of Glass Pond. The moon’s reflection fractured and fragmented on the mirrored surface. I drew closer and stopped on the water’s edge, my mind drifting back to the last time I stood in this spot. Samuel had explained the formation of Canadian geese in the sky. “The lead bird bears the wind resistance as long as it can, while the others ride in its stream. When it tires and can take no more, it’ll fall back and another will take its place.”
I fought to breathe through the constriction in my lungs. As the only heir to the throne, if I were gone, there would be no other to take my place. Abaddon and Rheagan would be foiled, the people of the realm would have one less thing to threaten them. And I would be free.
“I can bear no more, Samuel. I am sorry.” I glanced down at the Academy t-shirt and sobbed. How I wished Samuel had claimed me. I peeled the t-shirt over my head and drew it to my face. His scent was trapped in the fibers and I breathed him in for the last time before I set it on the bank.
Icy water rose around my calves. Shivers racked me as it crept over my knees and up my thighs. Three more steps and the surface enveloped me.
Angry water, black in every direction, closed in. The silence dazzled. The rushing of the wind, the hiss of the rain, the echoes of my anguish all silenced. That solitude . . . that isolation . . . was the reason I found comfort under water.
Aching cold numbed my flesh, prickling hot.
I blinked in the darkness as a vision of Tham appeared before me. Peculiar, as my life ebbed away, he was the male delusion my mind conjured.
He looked frantically around the darkness, his ghostly apparition as perfect as the real male. I passed a hand through the image of my beloved friend and brother in all but blood. Amin mela lle, Tham.
My lungs burned for oxygen. My muscles cramped from the cold. I remained at ease. Months of headaches, denial and anxiety had worn me down. Black spots bloomed across my vision growing larger by the moment.
Tham disappeared and I missed him immediately. I missed Galan too. The ache of disappointing my brother sliced me to the core. What would the loss mean to others? Galan and Samuel would blame themselves. Jade would be overwrought. Might she lose her young? Even unborn, I loved those twins with all my heart.
I would never cause them harm. Any of them.
I forced my legs to bend and tried to push. My strength waned. My arms hung heavy. My head spun. I tried to kick, to breach the surface, but it was no use. My decision to live had come too late.
A thousand sharp, icy spears prickled my flesh as warmth surrounded me. Lethargy and confusion hung heavy in my head. No longer was I surrounded by darkness while freezing water filled my mouth, nose and lungs. I stood shivering in a small golden alcove off a royal bed chamber.
My gaze skipped over the ornately carved bed, the velvet drapery, the fabric-covered walls and settled on an ethereal female wearing a sheer champagne gown. She lay on a raised platform before me, her hair a rich burgundy I had seen on only one other person.
I sputtered for air and looked down at myself. Naked except for my mourning band, I clutched Castian’s pendant, Pond water dripped in a steady stream from my braid, my fingers and everywhere else.
Standing at the side of his unconscious wife, Castian looked murderously annoyed.
“Am I dead, Sire?” I coughed again and pushed my voice past the burning in my throat.
Castian drew his fingers along the woman’s face and curled a wayward lock around his finger. “You tell me, Ryanne?”
I winced. Usually, when Castian spoke my soul name, it filled me with an intimate sense of peace. Instead, his dry clipped tone gripped me, his pretense of civility veil thin.
I steadied my slippery footing on the marble floor. Was I passing to the After to join the dead of my village? Had my momentary loss of hope cost me everything? My mind whirled with a multitude of questions, but
“Has Jade spoken to you of her mother?” He rounded the foot of the platform. The powerful fury seething beneath the surface of Castian’s gaze took me aback. “I asked you a question. Find your voice and speak.”
My gaze flashed up to meet his. “Uh, yes, some. Her name is Abbey. She remains dormant after a Scourge attack though her body is healed. Jade holds hope her spirit will find its way back and you three will be reunited.”
His square jaw flexed. “Do you know what she suffered to leave her in this state?”
I hated to speak of the pain that haunted his emerald glare. “She was violated, tortured to gain access to Jade but she protected her daughter until Reign came upon them.”
Castian nodded. “Do you believe it was her fault . . . what those men did to her?”
Who was I to hold an opinion on such matters? He was the God of gods. I was . . . no one. I barely knew the male and could not speak to what happened two decades ago. Still, he stared at me awaiting an answer. “No Sire, of course not.”
He crossed his arms and looked down at me. “Do you think I reject her and find her unworthy because some vile men forced themselves inside her?”
“No, my lord, it is obvious you cherish her to the depths of your soul.”
He raked his fingers through his long, brown hair and turned to his mate. “I believe the torment of her state is my penance. I saw the horror unfold and refused to stop it. And as much as everyone despises the Fates, every event affects another along a long chain. For Jade to survive and claim the life meant for her, I couldn’t interfere. And so, I left Abbey to those animals.”
“It was an impossibly horrible choice to make. You must not blame yourself for her condition.”
Castian frowned. “Fate and free will are poised in a tenuous balance. Image two twining vines growing and thirsting towards the same source of light. Both are needed to create the whole. Abbey’s body is healed, yet, on some level, she chooses to abandon our life. Is it punishment because I failed to save her from those monsters?”
My stomach knotted.
He brushed his knuckle against her cheek. “I watched as evil took something precious from us. Do I love her less for it? Does it change her in any way in my eyes?”
My mouth dropped open, closed, opened again. “I cannot speak to your feelings, Sire, but I think not. Your feelings exceed the circumstances, no matter what you were made to bear witness to.”
A grim smile curled his mouth as if my answer spoke more than my words. “Yet here she lays, a shell of the woman I once loved. A beautiful husk for me to mourn. She gave up. On me. On Jade. And now, I ask you, why?”
I shook my head. “I cannot say, Sire.”
His emerald gaze narrowed. “You hold no insight as to why a woman in her position would surrender to oblivion rather than fight to claim life?”
I clasped my shivering hands before me and dropped my gaze. “Forgive me. I cannot begin to tell you . . . to express how I wish I had chosen a different course. When I learned the truth of Abaddon’s claim—when the images overtook me—to be mated to such a male . . .”
Energy snapped in the air. He clasped a hand around my wrist and tugged me to his beloved’s side. Clasping the back of my neck, he held my gaze fixed on Jade’s comatose mother. “Is this what you want? To be dead in all ways save the most final. To have Galan and Samuel mo
urn you and relive the ways they failed you for decades to come. Do you blame them? Wish they had done more, said more—”
“No.”
Castian held me fast and leaned close to my ear. “What will you do about it?”
Tears burned my cheeks. “What can I do?”
“Change. Change your course. Change your mindset.” He released me and I spun around to look at him. The fury ringing in his voice was absent in his expression.
He looked composed. Calculating.
Taking my hand, he led me away from the raised platform and sat me on the edge of one of the two upholstered chairs in the alcove. “Harness your pain and fury. Let it fuel the fire within you to grow stronger. The life you envisioned as a child is gone. Forget it. Take charge of your destiny and forge your path as Queen of the Realm of the Fair.”
I blinked back the tears blurring my vision. “You cannot truly believe I am the woman the realm needs.”
He opened my clenched fist and twirled the blue diamond from my palm to its proper place on my finger. “Will you do this, Ryanne? Do not let atrocities define you. Seize control of your life and lead the realm.”
Castian produced a silk handkerchief and gave me a moment to wipe my eyes.
“You will not be alone. Reign will help you. So too will Galan, Samuel, Bruin and countless others. Accept your destiny. Seize it. Make the Realm of the Fair a safer place in which to live. Think of the lives you can save.”
Gooseflesh raised on my skin. “I was thinking about the citizens of the realm in my despair. With me dead, Abaddon’s plan to vacate my soul for Rheagan would be moot.”
“Rheagan is my problem, not yours,” Castian said.
“Until she possesses me. How do I focus on a future when I wait in terror for her powers to grow strong enough to take control of my body?”
Castian pressed a hand to my forehead and an electrical charge tingled from my scalp through my body and sent goosebumps prickling along my skin. He placed his other hand over my heart, and the instant the circuit connected, a white-hot fire spread across my shoulders. I gritted my teeth, the scent of bergamot growing until it was rife in the air.
A moment later the burn was gone. I glanced down to my shoulder at the crescent moon tattoo inked on my skin.
“Safe from possession, now your task is to fight. Become Queen of the Realm and steer the course of your life. Stand for those who suffer at the hands of the plague of the realm.”
I stared at him, numb. “Where shall I begin?”
He moved back to his wife and brushed his finger along the line of her jaw. “Tell Samuel of your intentions, my sweet niece. Tell him what you want and he will make the arrangements.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I was drowning again—my world filled with frigid darkness.
My feet compressed into the thick muck at the bottom of Glass Pond and I pushed with all I had. My limbs, heavy and useless from my time underwater, refused to get me off the bottom. Despite a renewed conviction to live, my body remained numbed by its prolonged exposure to the cold.
No, no, no. NO!
Raising my spotty gaze to the darkness above, I fought to hold my breath—to save the oxygen locked within me. While I held an ounce of breath left in me I would do as Castian asked. I would fight to become the Queen the people of the realm. I would fight to ensure Abaddon and his disgusting army of monsters never won another battle. I would fight to reclaim the two males I loved most.
The thought of Samuel agonizing over my death for decades like Castian twisted my gut. A male of worth, sworn to protect me, he would take on the responsibly of my stupidity. He would blame himself, isolate himself from friends and family, sink deeper into his despair than before.
Samuel. I shuddered as his handsome image appeared before me. He was there. My mind had heard my heart’s call and conjured the proper illusion this time.
Samuel—my garda síochána.
The apparition of Samuel scowled. His dark features creased and pinched, his luminescent eyes glowing and swirling with emotion. If he were real and could speak, he would lash at me, his lilting accent thick.
I would have welcomed his chastisement.
Strong hands grappled under my arms. He yanked hard and we broke the surface as one. Samuel’s grip shifted as he pulled us toward the pond’s grassy edge. Was he real? I collapsed, coughing and sputtering, onto the rain-sodden ground. I grabbed the folded t-shirt and curled around it.
On one knee, he rolled me on my side and struck the center of my back in a sharp rhythm. “Jaysus, Lia, what the feck were ye thinkin’?”
Water thrust from my lungs. It gushed forth in alarming volume. It spewed from my mouth and nose.
“Breathe,” Samuel snapped.
Wave after wave wracked me. It burned my sinuses and tore at my throat. The expulsion failed to give me enough time to inhale.
“Dammit, Lia, breathe.” Samuel’s voice, wild and angry, rang sweetly in my ears. His fury did not frighten me, it stemmed from fear. If I survived this, he could rant until the coming of the equinox moon and I would not utter one word of complaint.
Galan and Samuel both postured as a cockeyed expression of their affection. Stupid males. I felt sick, despaired about the distance between me and the two of them. Another tide of water convulsed from my belly. I retched again.
Samuel groaned, hovering over me as rain dripped from his shoulders. “Christ woman, look at me. Are ye all right? What can I do?”
I tried to focus past the spots in my vision. Samuel’s face was close, his eyes too wet. I raised a shaky hand to his face and he pressed his cheek into my palm. My teeth chattered. My lips quivered. “M-m-make c-c-c-cocoa and I shall love you f-f-f-forever.”
Something flashed across Samuel expression and he scooped me back into his arms. “Aye, I can live with that. I’ll tan yer beautiful bare arse once yer warmed up then, shall I? Dinnae think fer one minute this is finished between us.”
I let my cheek fall to Samuel’s chest. The heat of his words and the scent of his panic seeped warm under my skin. Nothing was finished between us. “Agreed.”
Samuel’s accent snapped thicker than I had ever heard, his body more rigid than I had ever felt. After Flashing us back to the upper plateau of the Dens, he stormed past the guards and then Bruin, Cowboy and Kobi without a word.
“Dinnae move,” he said, dumping me unceremoniously on my bed. He tugged his wet t-shirt from my grasp and wrapped the coverlet around me tight. Before straightening, he glared, finger pointed. “Not an inch, lass. I’m warnin’ ye. I cannae take it. Not. One. Feckin’. Inch.”
I did not even nod.
He stormed through the bathroom door, his flannel night pants hanging low on his hips from the weight of pond water. Water thundered into the bathtub in a rush. A moment later, he returned, wearing a dry pair of boxer briefs and a towel in hand. He scrubbed the towel over his head in a flurry as he paced back to the hall door and slammed it shut.
“Ye took twenty years off my life tonight, Lia. I swear it. What the hell was that about? Jaysus fecking Christ.” He wrenched the towel from his hair and slung it to the floor.
“I uh, lost hope for a moment.”
“A moment? A moment? Ye nearly lost it fer good.” His hands flew into the air as he strode back into the bathroom. The water shut off and he was back. His gaze bounced around the room landing on everything and yet nothing at all.
“Samuel, let me explain—”
The door to my suite flew open and Galan raced inside. He stormed to my bedside in a pique that could only be equaled by Samuel’s. “Tell me Tham is mistaken, little one. Tell me you would never intentionally end your life.”
Sweet goddess, I loved these males.
I worked my hands out of the blanket mountain tucked around me and shoved my hair from where it stuck to my face. Tham stood behind my brother looking equally pale, if not more so, for the fact that he was a spirit.
So, he had been with me down
there. “Apologies, brother mine, but I cannot say what is not truth. I had a lapse.”
Galan hissed, wringing his fingers through his hair. “A lapse? What in the two realms would possess you to harm yourself?”
Samuel nodded. “Aye, I asked her the same feckin’ thing.”
Galan swung to see Samuel standing beside the bed in his boxers and tensed.
“Galan. Stop!” I squeaked, my throat raw and sore. “If you wish to stay, you will neither say nor act against Samuel in any way. He saved me just now. If you value my feelings at all, lay aside your anger and hear me out.”
The muscle along Galan’s jaw clenched but he settled.
“Now, if you could close the door, it has been a difficult evening and I think it best to explain from the beginning.”
Tham took my request for privacy to heart and left Galan, Samuel and I to speak.
Where to begin? My fight with Samuel would only exacerbate Galan’s mood. My encounter with Kobi was liable to send Samuel over the edge. I drew a deep breath. “Zophia visited earlier this evening, to prepare me.”
“Prepare ye for what?” Samuel asked.
“During Abaddon’s hearing with the Fates, she must read the tapestry of my life and testify to the factual account of my incarceration last summer.”
Samuel’s mouth narrowed into a hard line. “And what did yer cousin say about it?”
I met his anguished stare. “I believe we three know what she told me, or showed me, rather.”
“Showed ye?” Samuel turned, his shoulders and fists clenched tight. “Feckin’ Fates! Why would she want ye to see such a thing? Ye said she was different than her sisters.”
“She is,” Galan said, his voice flat. “Zophia would never bring it up if avoidable. If she must testify to the validity of Abaddon’s claim, she has no choice.”
Samuel rounded on him. “Then she shoulda’ done it when we were there, not leave her alone in her grief 'til takin' a midnight swim seemed a good idea.”
I squeezed the coverlet tighter around me. “Samuel, my actions are my own. After I saw . . . once I knew the truth, I asked for privacy. Zophia respected me enough to leave me. She is not to blame.”