“I won’t stand by and watch him get married to someone else. I will find a way to leave, I don’t care what he says,” I vowed angrily.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less of you, Princess. You did not grow up here, and I’m sure you realize that had you grown up here, you would be a very different person. Go back to everything you have learned about this place and what you have discovered about the Horde. Fae don’t marry unless it is to gain somehow. They don’t really understand what love is, and children are raised in sort of an emotionless vacuum in comparison to what you were raised in. Alazander made the deal with her family to seal a very powerful alliance. Her family is very large and influential in the Horde Kingdom, and this deal made sense at the time, and in our world, time is rarely of the essence. Fae marriages can be agreed upon and take years to come to pass. Ascending to the throne wasn’t the only thing Ryder has been pushing back.” Ristan sighed and continued. “Personally, I can’t stand the family, and I do not trust them. I have yet to meet Abiageal. However, Claire is in this for the prestige and standing it would give her. She and Abiageal share a mother, which was why Cornelius was eager to gift her—at her request. This isn’t something Danu showed me. It is where being a soul sucker comes in handy, though. It is easier for me to see through that shit, so I passed on what Claire was offering. Although, the rest have been sampling since she came to us. She is very good at disguising her true motives and desires.”
“I had wondered why she was so willing to become nothing more than food. She seems to have the rest of the guys thinking she is the shit.”
“Well, she does have her uses.” He gave a little snort. “She showed up shortly after the deal with her family was made, as a gift from Cornelius. Claire said it was so that she would be able to stay with her sister, and Alazander didn’t see any reason to say no.” Ristan made a face. “I think that is a load of crap, even though it is not a lie. Being a concubine to a monarch is a very powerful place to be, even though you may not think so now. Oftentimes a concubine can have more power, affection, and attention than a wife can, and I am pretty sure Claire was trying to get to the position of a second wife or a first concubine. The one that you now occupy, even if it is unofficial,” he said against my ear, as if he was trying to convince me I was important to Ryder.
“So she wants to be the head whore; that’s her deal?” I snapped. “That’s what Ryder wants me to be?”
“The Fae don’t have the same social morals that humans do, so they do not view a concubine as a whore,” he said patiently. “It is typically a place of honor, especially if the monarch does not attend to any other females as often as he does his favorite concubine.”
“It’s medieval and stupid,” I growled
“It is our way,” he said simply.
“I just don’t understand why he would think it is ok to do this. I am a Princess. Doesn’t that count for anything? You guys knew that I would eventually be the Heir because of the prophecy. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Danu’s visions set events in motion. He couldn’t offer for you in marriage because he was already promised, so he had to offer for you as a concubine to fulfill what the vision entailed. You have met her; you know she does not make these things easy, which leads me to the next part—Ryder does not love his bride, nor does he hold any affection for her, Flower. I wouldn’t put too much stock in what he thinks of her. If she is anything like Claire, she will go into the pavilion with the others, and she will be granted rights to dally where she wishes. He is obsessed with you; he might even me in love with you. Of course, he is Fae so he doesn’t recognize it as such, but it is all over him. We can all see it. He wants you and he will not let you go. He can’t break this contract; we have been trying to find a way. But I know something you don’t seem to have caught yet.”
“What; did your psycho Goddess give you another vision?”
He gave me a huge knowing grin. “She dropped a few clues in the maze. She called you the right choice for the Queen of Faery and told you to find something worth fighting for and your powers would come forth. Is he worth fighting for?” My heart stopped as I shifted back and stared at his patterned eyes. “You have to stop thinking like a Human, and start thinking like the Fae, Flower. They always stack the cards in their favor.”
“And what if I want to play a different game? Normally when the cards are stacked against you, it’s best to play a different game,” I whispered.
“Could you walk away from him? You carry his children, and I don’t foresee him allowing you to walk away.”
“I can’t just allow him to marry someone else, and keep me as his toy. I’d be nothing more than his whore, and I’m not stupid, Ristan. I know that a wife would be who he shared his life with, and I would be his bedmate. I deserve better than that, and even if it means walking away from him, I’d do it. I can’t be the other woman, and I know what I want. I want him, and I want to share his life; not just his bed.”
“Then fight for him,” he said.
“I can fight for love, Demon. I just won’t compete for it. I shouldn’t have to.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I was in that weird state between being awake and asleep, when Ryder sifted back to the room. He was silent as he sat on the bed across from me. He remained perfectly quiet until I finally turned over and leveled him with a glare.
“We need to talk,” he stated the obvious.
“There’s nothing to talk about, Ryder. Unless you went down there and figured out some miracle that ended with you not being married, well then, we’d have a shit ton to talk about,” I snapped angrily.
“Syn,” he warned.
“It fucking hurts! I can’t breathe, Ryder, because of you! Before you I was fine. I was living. I could breath and without you I can’t! When Adrian died it hurt like hell, but I could breathe, damn it!”
He pulled me across the bed before I could speak, and the tears that welled in my eyes ran freely down my face. “Put me down!”
“No,” he whispered.
“Stop touching me! I can’t think with you close. I wasn’t raised like this and you can’t expect me to just jump in line and figure it out. I can’t. I can’t erase what I was raised to believe in overnight.”
“I am not trying to force it, Syn. I’m trying to figure a way out of this contract. It just takes time. Just give it to me and I will figure it out.”
“Like the harem?” I barked, fed up with the lines. I didn’t trust that he would find a way out and it hurt. It really hurt.
“That’s not up for discussion,” he replied on a sigh.
“Why? Why isn’t it up for discussion? It’s off limit’s, that’s all you say. Explain it, and then maybe, just maybe I can understand why it’s off limits.”
“Because…Fuck! They are not just Alazander’s concubines! Synthia, think about it; what the fuck could make me keep women my father had?” he snapped.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, taking in his defensive posture.
“My mother is in there, along with many others my father hurt. I can’t just release them; it’s not that simple. Some of those women have been crushed and are just starting to come out of the shells my father beat them into. My mother is lost. She is trapped in her own body and becomes hysterical when she is around groups of people. He finally broke her the day I killed him. Yes, some are mine, Synthia, but I don’t fuck them. I only want one woman in my bed. You.”
“Why didn’t you just say that to begin with, Ryder? I’m human, or I was raised as one anyway; I have helped save women from Fae like your father, as a Witch. That? What you just told me? I understand and can accept it. I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to trust me, but if you could just give me the benefit of the doubt and trust me, I might just surprise you,” I replied. Ristan tried to tell me about the pavilion. Hearing it from Ryder’s lips helped me to understand that the Demon wouldn’t lie for him just to make me feel better.
He ran
his hands through his thick midnight hair and smiled. “You amaze me every day, Pet. I gave you to another man, and you should hate me for that, but you don’t. You haven’t even screamed at me for it yet. I went fucking crazy, Syn. I held it together by a thin thread to maintain the peace, but on the inside I was as crazy as the beast. So I get it. The thought of you fucking Adam drove me insane. That he would touch you like I had, or that he would kiss those sweet lips that I’d become obsessed with. The only fucking thing that kept that thread from breaking was knowledge that I was sacrificing my desires for Faery. I thought I deserved it, for everything I had done. And even though I was prepared to give you to him, I was plotting how to take you back.”
“This is different, though, Ryder. There isn’t a chance that it’s a mistaken identity. Your father made this contract, and if it was written by him, I don’t see a chance of you getting out of it.”
“That’s where you need to trust me. My father always had a way out of everything. I just have to find it. I’m only asking you to give me enough time to find it.”
“We both need time. You’ve put me through hell, and no, you’re right. I haven’t freaked out, but then again, I’m not that type of girl. I was taught to be a good man in a storm. I don’t explode without thinking shit through. You need time to get out of this mess, and I need time to think. You knew this was coming, and yet you never told me anything. It’s a betrayal; maybe not to you, but to me it is. You got me pregnant. It may have been the beast that got the job accomplished, but it’s your children growing inside of me. Now, I get this dropped in my lap because you decided not to trust me, and that I see as a betrayal. I haven’t asked for much from you. So give me time. I realize I need to feed, but you also promised to show me other ways to feed as well, and have yet to deliver on your words. Teach me so that I can have the time to think without you mucking it all up.”
“Mucking it all up?” he asked pointedly.
“Yes, Ryder. When you’re this close, I can’t think. You come in all tall, dark, and deadly and my lady parts go all cuckoo for cocoa puffs and shit.”
“Is that so?” he asked silkily.
“Not even, Fairy.” I stood my ground, watching him.
“Fine, but that time is going to be here. You will be in danger if you leave this place without me. Here, I can guard you and the babes. I have enemies everywhere, and you would be their best tool to use against me while you are pregnant. I can’t show too much emotional attachment in front of anyone in this castle, outside of my elite guard. It’s dangerous, as I have enemies here as well.”
“Then why fight so hard for it?” I asked.
“Because I need to fix what I helped my father perpetuate. I need to save this world, and if it means sacrificing my own needs, I wouldn’t hesitate, you already know that. Destiny didn’t fight this hard to bring us together just to tear us apart, Pet. She has a plan.”
“I’ve met Destiny. She’s a mind freak who loves a game twister, seriously,” I mumbled.
“Ristan said she was interested in you. She didn’t bring you here just to torment you. Danu has a plan, and even though she can’t intervene directly. She will throw us some sort of a lifeline. We just need to figure out what it is.”
He scooted off the bed, and held out his hand for mine. “I want to take you somewhere. Think you have enough energy to go, or shall I feed you first?” he smirked wickedly.
I took his hand and stood up, as he glamoured a soft blue baby doll dress over my skin. It went to just above my knees, and stopped with a soft length of lace. He pulled me to him and I flinched as his hands came up, but then I realized he was reaching for my hair.
“What are you doing?” I asked quietly.
“I’m putting your hair up.” He pulled it up gently and placed a rubber band at the base of my neck efficiently.
“I can do my own hair,” I said as he looked at the ponytail that was situated too high on my head, like a late 80’s hair-do. All it was missing was a scrunchie.
He pulled me toward the door, and when he opened it, I narrowed my eyes at the entire Elite Guard that stood ready for war behind the door. “You did my hair to off me?” I asked jokingly.
“No, it’s just a precautionary measure for your safety. I figured it might be good for you to get out of the castle for a short trip, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it without measures for you and the babes safety.”
As I moved closer into the full Elite Guard’s path, I caught sight of Adam. “Where are we going?” I asked, wondering where in the world we were heading that he needed to take such measures as to enlist the entire guard of thirteen men, plus Adam.
“It’s a secret,” he whispered as he turned me into his arms and smiled.
I hated surprises, but the thought of getting out of this place was tempting. I melted against his body as he wrapped his arms around me protectively. It felt nice to be secure in his arms, cherished even. He sifted us out of Faery and to a busy industrial area in California; if the palm trees and license plates were anything to go off of.
It wasn’t home, but it was close. I looked around the area and noticed a few things. One: it was a factory in the industrial park and the smell coming from it was horrible. Two: there was a woman waiting for our group at the front of the business.
Great, he’d brought me back to my world just to remind me how much it could stink here? I watched as the woman approached us and noticed she had pointy ears. Her eyes were large in her oval face, and sparkled like fresh dew in the morning after a storm. Fae? I hadn’t seen any with ears like that yet.
“Elven,” Ryder said with a small smile that twisted his lips up. “Arista, this is Synthia. She’s here for what I ordered,” Ryder spoke to the woman softly.
Jealousy reared her ugly head, but it was more to do with the way the woman laid her hand on Ryder’s chest, and leaned in to kiss his lips. “Good to see you, my King,” she said sweetly.
I lifted an irritated brow at Ryder. Great surprise! He’d brought me here to watch another woman swoon at his feet. This was just what I needed.
“If you will follow me, Princess,” she said and smiled softly.
At the front doors of the cement building she inserted her key card and pushed a few buttons into a code panel. She fluffed her short blonde curls and opened the door, which the men quickly took for her and held it open.
I shook my head because of the look she gave them in thanks. It was more of a see yourself to my bedroom look. Inside, the smell grew worse, but the sign that hung over the front desk made all of the stink in the world fade away. It read simply OPI Headquarters.
I felt hot tears push behind my eyes.
Holy fairy farting buckets!
“This way please,” Arista said, and I followed her silently.
Inside the hallway, we were guarded on both sides by the men. The entire building was silent as we made our way through it. I was trying to swallow past the thickness that was clogging my throat. It wasn’t until she stopped at a door and clicked numbers into another panel that the tears welled up, dropped.
Inside the room, was shelf after shelf of my favorite nail polish. It wasn’t just nail polish, though, it was OPI nail lacquer. My Fairy had remembered that I was obsessed with it, and that my entire collection had been destroyed when my house had.
“You can pick from any shade. If you leave the bottles you want, I will have them sent to Faery for you,” Arista said politely.
“All of them; I want them all,” I whispered brokenly, even as I turned and threw myself in Ryder’s arms. “Thank you!” I cried, unsure if it was hormones or that he was extending an olive branch and trying to give some of the comforts I’d thought to never have again. There was a lot I could live without, but my nail polish and coffee were both something I needed to just feel like I was myself again.
“We will take one hundred of every color,” Ryder said over my head to Arista.
“Seriously? That’s a lot of polish,” she re
plied.
“Synthia wants it,” he whispered into my hair, “and I want her to be happy.”
Arista sighed at his romantic comment. Shit, I was sighing! He’d brought me to the freaking OPI factory. Shit! I was at the OPI factory, and was too busy hugging on the Fairy to be grabbing bottles. I ripped myself from his arms and darted my gaze, looking for my favorite shades.
“Can I take a few bottles back with us?” I asked as my fingers itched and my palms sweated to touch them all.
“He is paying for them.” She laughed and shook her head. “So feel free, Princess, to take any of them that you want.”
A few bottles? I left with thirty shades of polish, hand lotions, polish remover, and countless other things that I’d never been able to afford before. When we sifted back to Faery, and the men had piled all the goods into a cabinet that he glamoured for me, Ryder turned and smiled.
“Good surprise?” he asked.
“Best surprise.”
“I knew you loved the lacquer, and I’m trying, Pet. It’s not safe for you to go home while your brother is hunting you, but this was something I could do. Ristan has history with Arista, so he reached out and made sure she could help. So, how do you plan on thanking me?” he asked with a boyish grin.
“Nice try, Fairy. I still need time to think,” I replied. “Maybe I’ll thank you later, in a way we can both enjoy.”
“I like that idea,” he purred.
“I didn’t say drop your pants and get naked. I said later; as in not right now,” I replied as he took a calculated step toward me, only to stop at my words.
“Pet,” he growled.
“Fairy,” I smiled.
“I don’t like to be kept waiting,” he replied.
“Neither do I, so I guess you better get to figuring out how to void that contract.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I spent a few days learning more about the Demon. Not by choice, but because he said he had been getting erratic visions about the Mages and my brother, Faolán, that he couldn’t pinpoint. So he, which really meant Ryder, wanted to make sure I was safe at all times, so I got stuck with over six and half feet of Demon as a babysitter. Well, they called it extending his duties as a bodyguard.
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