“How nice of you. What will you do with my child after you have me murdered, Timothy the Troll? Will you have it for your dinner, as you have other queens’ children?” Remi laughed. Then she took a step forward and looked directly at Timothy as she lifted from the ground with her new wings. “You can end this now and live to see another day if you turn back the way you’ve come and leave us to our home.”
“That isn’t going to happen.” He took a step, and the earth rumbled around them. “You will all die this day if you stand with him.”
Harlin felt the brush of wings when the first bird flew over them. The shadow that was left in her wake made him think it was Mercy. When she landed in the field to the troll’s right, Blaze as her hawk landed on the other side of him.
They were all there, their beautiful deadliness for anyone to see. Their claws were as big as houses. Their wings were spread out far and wide. The other two, the owl and the phoenix, made him proud to be a part of this day. And his fear of anyone dying also lessened as they squawked and yelled at the troll’s army.
“You have birds, I see. Such puny things if you ask me. Is this a trick of magic? Are you trying to scare me with your showing of birds so large? It will not work. So that you know, I am stronger than any magic you have around you.” Piper blew white-hot flames at the men behind Timothy, killing more than half his men. “You would dare do such a thing to me? To kill my men even before the battle has begun? Unfair. I take your castle yonder for what you have done to me this day.”
“And what of the twenty-four faeries you murdered on your way here? You cannot tell me that you had no idea they were about. They flew at your head the entire time, trying to warn you that you were on their land, their homeland. You murdered my people even before you showed yourself to be an ass to us. What of that?” Timothy said he had no idea what she was speaking of. “I’m sure you’d like me to believe that, but I don’t. Would you like to speak to someone that knows all?”
Mother Earth showed herself before them. Harlin wanted to bow before her, but Remi held him upright. With a snap of her fingers, the dead, all of them, were laid out before the troll. The injured were being helped by the other faeries. It sickened him to think that so much had already been done, and they were still talking to this man.
“You have done this for no other reason than you could. I will take a penance from you, Timothy the Troll. And you will not fight me on this.” Mother Earth disappeared, and the dead did as well. When Harlin looked at Timothy again, he was missing an eye as well as an arm. Another portion of his men were missing as well.
“You are diminished by a great deal, Timmy boy. How on earth do you expect to take us on without the army you once had, as well as missing your parts? I’m sure if you look, your twig and berries have been removed as well. You can no longer produce heirs such as yourself. Thank you, Mother Earth, for that.” Timothy looked into his pants. While he didn’t know what he was looking at, he could tell that what Remi had said to him was a fact. He looked around as if he were looking for them. “Missing, are they? Well, I, for one am happy to know that. To think that there could be more than just you running around is a little sickening. Especially since there will be no one there to tell them the story as to how you lost your life. You will, you know. I plan on having your head removed soon. Do you have any last words? Anything to say before you’re dead?”
“You are fighting unfairly.” Harlin laughed and asked him how he thought that was true. “You have taken a good portion of my men. But that isn’t the bad part. It’s that you took away my manhood. I had a great and large one, and you have had it removed by magic.”
“I believe you heard the Mother say it was payment.” He shook his head and said it was too much. “Shall I bring her back here for you to tell her that? I can. You just say the word, and she’ll be right here.”
“No. No. I do not wish to bother her. She will only get angry that she’s been caught in her mistake and perhaps take more of me. No, we shall leave it alone for another time.” He was afraid of the Mother of the Earth, and rightly so, he thought. “I will need to come back another time. It seems I have forgotten about another fight I was to take on.”
“No. You will end it here.” Timothy asked Remi what she’d do if he left. “You will never see the sunset again, for I shall kill you where you stand. I’m going to anyway, but you’re not leaving here without you being dead. Your men too. You should have listened to your mate when she told you it was too dangerous for you to come here so soon after we’d taken the job. Now you will leave her alone for no other reason than you’re stupid.”
The pick hammer in his hand started to move. Timothy was drawing it back so as to more than likely slam it down onto their heads. Standing still, awaiting the blow, Harlin heard the whistle of wings flying quickly, then nothing at all. Opening his eyes, Harlin took in the scene before him.
Timothy was the only one standing upright. His heart had been burnt through with a flame hot enough to not leave much in the way of open wounds. It looked like his body was being held up only by the strength of his legs and the hammer that was propped against his leg. As his head rolled back and off the shoulders on which it had been all these years, the faeries began their job of cleaning up. Not a single piece of the trolls would be there by evening.
The other trolls were dead, their heads near their bodies, with the green ooze of their kind seeping into the earth. The weapons they had brought with them, nothing more than trees and some metal things that Harlin figured they’d stolen from other kingdoms, were put aside to be broken down and used for something else.
Duncan showed up just as Timothy’s head was being pulled away and taken apart for things to be used for the other animals. “Are you all right?” Harlin told him he wasn’t sure just yet. “I heard what you did here. You’ve done well. My mother would have been very proud of you both.”
“I thought we were dead a couple of times. No matter how many times someone tells you that you won’t die, you can’t help but think they might have it wrong. This didn’t last nearly as long as I thought it would.” Duncan looked out over the dead still being dealt with. “Remi said the story of what happened here will be spread wide and far. It will be a good long time before anyone tries this again. Do you suppose she’s right?”
“No. There’ll be others. I think she was only telling you that so you’d rest easier. You were here when my mother was alive. You got your memories back. How many times did it take for others to still not get it in their head that they were nothing compared to what she was?” He had forgotten about that. Or he wanted to. “It’s a good thing the dragons are friends of the earth, or that would have been a good deal harder to clean up today. I saw Piper as I was coming here. She is so happy to have been able to be helpful again. She said that when the faeries and such got all they wanted, she’d burn the fields to the earth for you. That’s a wonderful idea.”
Harlin walked with Duncan so he could find Remi. She was still out on the field directing things to be taken away, the rest of it to be burned. He smiled at her when she waved at him. Having her at his side, he was happier now than he’d ever been at any time in his life.
~*~
By nightfall, the dead were taken care of, and the ground was already showing signs of recovery. No one could eat the meat of a troll, but the skin was very useful to all manner of small animals. It would be stretched out and dried for roofs of houses for them. Also, the bones, since they were so hard, could be sharpened and used for saws and knives that all creatures needed. Remi stopped to watch a group of brownies trying their best to take care that their bounty wasn’t lost on their way home. The hair of the troll, while not a great deal of it, would be used for sewing things like sails on boats, as well as chopped up in brews for a salve that would heal almost any kind of cuts. Picking up the brownies’ things, she took them to their workshop so that they’d not have to strain thems
elves any longer.
“You have done well here today. I hope you know how much they all appreciate it.” She knew who was speaking to her but didn’t bother looking for her. Dante had been visiting her for several days now. “Are you now glad that I made you into what you are?”
“I was never unhappy about being a bird for you. Never that. I didn’t care for being a human, not until lately. What I was upset with you about was how you’d gone about it. There was no reason for you to die like you did. Not telling us that you were taking a poison that would make it so you’d feel nothing. That is why I’m upset with you.” She said she hadn’t thought anyone would care. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Everyone loved you, and every one of us would have died for you or with you.”
“I know that now.” She turned and saw the misty figure of her queen. “You can see me now because you are so very powerful. More so than even my Duncan. You and Harlin will be able to keep everyone safe for decades to come while improving the way the lands are cared for. I knew you’d fall in love with Harlin. What I didn’t know was what you’d bring to each other in the way of magical power. You are more than I ever thought possible for one of my birds.”
“I never wanted to be without you. Although I knew Mercy was your favorite, I also knew I loved you more than she did. And in a different way. My love for you was like a daughter to a mother. Not friend to friend, as she loved you.” Dante told her she’d not known that. “I’m sure that even though you have the gift of sight, my dear queen, there is plenty you didn’t know about.”
“I knew you would go into the trees and fell things for the families to have. Seeds from trees, pinecones for the children to decorate for gifts at Christmas. That you give a bit of yourself to small animals, just enough that they’d be healed from whatever ailed them. They were to still die, but with their family around and not some bear attack where no one would find their bodies. You also fished for the families that had no means to do so. Filled a net nearly as big as you with fresh meat for families too proud to ask for help. You also took care that there were funds for kids that wished to leave the area. One by one, they’d leave, only to return and add to the bounty that is here now. You did all that without anyone knowing it.” Remi told her she liked to do those things. “Do you? I also know that as a human, you made sure that each of your employees in every restaurant you had was well paid and well-fed. When you had to shut down one of them years ago because of a fire, I believe you paid them all, even using some of your own funds to make sure they were all right.”
“I had plenty enough that I knew I would never starve.” Dante told her it was more than that. “Don’t rehash things in order to soften me up for something, Dante. Just tell me what it is so you can go back to your deathly slumber.”
“I know you say that not to be mean, but you wish me to rest so I can see my son more. I don’t visit him as much as he’d like for me to. It’s not good that he would come to me so often now that he has a mate. What of your mate, Remi? Where is he?” She told her what she knew. “That’s right. Your quiet giant is out making sure the families of the fallen today have enough to make up for the loss. He is also telling them how their bravery in making sure the others were hidden away is all that saved them. Harlin is a good man.”
“He is. I love him very much.” Dante sat on the stone beside her. Her body was just a mist right now, but enough so that Remi could make out her face if she looked hard enough. “Do you know what my child will be, Dante? Will he be strong like his father. Smart too?”
“He will be everything to you both, and that is all that matters. The child you have next will be a handful for you, but you will handle her well enough. She will be exactly like you in all things. A great warrior, as well as a woman compassionate for the next part of her life.”
“I know nothing of children and rearing them. I’m glad to have the help of Alma beside me so I can not mess up too badly.” Dante told her she’d not mess up at all if she only loved them. “I do already. Even though he’s not shown himself to be here yet, I still find myself ready for him to come into the world.”
Dante left her a while later. She couldn’t stay long, not on this side of death, and Remi was glad she’d left on a good note this time. The other times she’d come to see her had ended in a fight or cross words. Today was different. Dante wasn’t mean to her, but there were things Remi didn’t want to hear from her. Like the fact that she couldn’t come back too often, as it was not right for any of them to have her over their shoulder all the time. Remi had asked her why this time should be so different than any other time when she’d been alive, and that pissed the queen off. She’d left in a huff and Remi in tears. She so wished she could have a nice long conversation with her and it not end badly for either of them.
It was Alma that sat next to her this time. After handing her Pixie, Alma sat there for several minutes, not saying a word. It was fine by Remi—she didn’t care for useless chatter anyway.
“Would you believe me if I told you that the queen from long ago came to see me just now?” Remi told her she’d believe anything she told her. “Thank you. But she told me you needed more than a friend. You needed a mother. I wasn’t at all sure what she was talking about until I remembered you were never human when you were growing up. You missed a great deal, she told me.”
“I did. I have. But I have also learned a great deal in my lifetime. More than I think you have living in that nursing home faking your own insanity. What was that like? Living there knowing you could be caught at any time?” She said it was frightening. “I bet it was. But I also think a great many of the residents benefited from you being there. How often did you come out of your room to feed and care for them?”
“You’re too smart for your own good, young lady.” Remi laughed and played with Pixie while Alma continued. “Daily. Sometimes I’d never get back to my room for days at a time, worrying about the others. The magic I had saved us all from starving to death. Meds, while I knew very little about them, I could figure out well enough. Some of the faeries that helped me, they did a great deal of the heavy work. Changing beds, bathing them and such. It wasn’t until the last few months or so that I realized no one was coming to rescue us. That we were all on our own.”
“You would have continued to help them and keep them safe.” She nodded and said she would have. “I know nothing about babies, much less magical ones. I’d like you to help me with that. I’m sure you have a wealth of information to hand down to me.”
“I think we’ll be helping each other on that. I only realized today that I’m the mother of a man that is decades—no, centuries old, and I’ve been hiding him away from the world too.” She looked at her, and Remi smiled. “You’re good for my son, Remi. He loves you, of course, but you make him feel as if he were atop of the world all the time. That is all a mother could ask for her children. For them to find happiness.”
“I do want that for my child. That and to be a good person. I spent enough time in the human world to know it’s not always that way. A person could be raised to be good, and something happens, and it all goes to shit. I’m going to teach them, with Harlin, what is right and wrong, and hope for the very best. I think you’d agree with me on that.” Alma said she did. “I know you have your own house, but I do hope you’ll come to see us a great deal. Stay with us too.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” They hugged, and Pixie went to Alma. “She’ll make the two of us young, Basil and I. We’ve both fallen in love with her so hard in just this little bit of time. We were asked to see if we’d like to take on other children like Pixie here. Children abandoned for one reason or another.”
“That will be wonderful. I heard from one of the faeries yesterday that the house for abused children is full up again. So many of them being hurt for no good reason. I don’t understand that myself.” Alma said she didn’t either but had been helping out as much as she could. �
��I’m going to help as well. Maybe after this child is born, Harlin and I can bring a few of them here to live and be a part of our family. Perhaps before that.”
“I’m sure they’d welcome you to do that for them.” Alma stood up. “I’ve much to do now that I feel better. Sometimes I have missed that. Just talking to someone that has no vested interest in not telling me the truth when I ask for it. I’d very much like to meet with you more if that is all right with you.”
“It is. Every Wednesday night is the night my sisters and I get together.” Alma told her she’d not bother her on those nights. “That’s not why I told you. I want you to join us. The more, the merrier, I think. We never have our cell phones or computers but talk and argue a great deal about everything. I think you might well enjoy that too.”
“I think I’d love that. Thank you.”
Remi nodded, and Alma left with Pixie. Getting up, she went to find Harlin. She wanted him to take her to bed and never get out of it again—not practical, but it was a good try, she thought. Finding him with Basil and the brownies at the greenhouse, she left them to it and went to find Esme. Her mate might even be here now, she thought, and that would be a blast for all of them.
Laughing, Remi thought she was lucky to have found Harlin when she did. All of them had their mates come to them when they were needed most. Mercy had been about to have a nervous breakdown was the one thing Remi remembered the most about her having a mate around. Not only had Joel calmed her down, but he loved her with all he was. And loving Mercy was not an easy task. Yes, she thought again, she was happy to have all her family here, and all of them in love. She wondered what sort of person Esme would find to love.
Remington: Queen’s Birds of Prey: Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance Page 11
