“A hunt?” Adelric called. “In honor of our guests. I’ll gather a hunting party.”
“Make him muddy, just don’t kill him,” I murmured, knowing they meant to drag the human along, test his will. “And you have to take Cephonie with you,” I added, knowing it would level the playing field for poor Thess. “And Vachel, should she so wish.” The young Tauran was growing quite proficient with a bow.
With a rumble that makes my toes curl, Adelric leaned in. “Of course, vacha.” Warm air wafted across the top of my head.
“I’ll go too,” Kvigor offered, getting two belted out, “NO!”s for his tease.
Tossing his head, the remnants of his horns glinting in the waning light, he threw his hands up. “Just a bit of a joke! I was only kiddin’.”
The steam wafting from his nostrils and the remnants of his horns as his lips pulled back into a wide, ear splitting grin said otherwise.
Vetra and Thessen cringed, shrinking back, not accustomed to Tauran mirth.
Hand to my belly, I shook my head. Yes, definitely grand to have everyone in one place. One big, insane, wildly inappropriate, happy family. Never in a thousand solars would I have dreamed things would turn out like this.
It was everything I’d ever wanted, and more.
No great gain is accomplished without any amount of suffering or sacrifice, Nan used to say. Amen to that.
“Cake!” I called out, shoving my hand up. “I need Argemon. Where is my greatest friend and baker! I’ve a commission for my dearest friend!”
“He is only your dearest friend at the moment because he has shown you cihpsie nuts and valarin root, and caters to your cravings,” Kvigor mused.
“Like your vanilla and caramel,” Cephonie could be heard telling Thessen and Vetra. “Our lady demon’s spawn have a sweet tooth.”
“You heard her,” I chuffed at Kvigor, “my spawn have a sweet tooth.”
“Argemon is only too eager to oblige,” Adelric pointed out. He found it funny just how eager the aged Tauran was to assuage my cake cravings. He was the grand baking grand daq—Tauran for grandfather—I’d never had.
“What?” a scratchy voice called from several huts down the way. “My lady is in need?”
Chuckling at how wrong that sounded, or maybe just how right, I burst out in a fit of laughter when my males huffed in unison.
Yes, life was definitely better than I could have ever asked for. Two bloodthirsty, possessive knights in armor all to myself, ready to do battle for their lady love, a tiny, thriving village of beasties willing to come together in this new day and age, different, the same, human and other alike, a big, loud, dysfunctional family of sorts. My babes gave a few kicks to my belly, my smile widening until it hurt. Mine. All of it. All MINE.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Back to the basics
Unseelie court
“You were supposed to be on my side,” Robin muttered petulantly. He was pale, his pallor a sickly snow white. Large, purple rings rimmed his eyes. Or they would, he knew, if anyone could see beneath all that ugly fur.
“Oh?” Titania turned from her vanity, peeking up at him from her mirror, “you mean like how you were supposed to be on mine, dearest lover mine?”
“You abandoned me. And don’t call me that. I’m not your anything.” Turning, Robin, Puck, and most recently Peacock, who had collected a great many names throughout the years, sniggered, shuffling off to his room in the palace.
Flopping on his opulent bed, his furry head itching enough he felt the need to scratch it, long ears twitching, he picked up the small hand mirror gifted to him by his former lover all those years ago, whispering the name of his heart’s desire.
Envy stole through the fae as he watched her clutch her rounded belly, full to bursting with life. He liked her like this, panting, sweating, laboring. He’d never admit it aloud but he found her magnificent. She was resilient, bold, her heart bigger than the rest of her. How his chest ached, haunted by her touch. And touch him she had, in so many ways. He cursed the day he ever met her, cursed and claimed her in the same breath.
Her mates helped her as she groaned, fluid soaking the diaphanous gown she donned. A snarl left his throat. He loathed the kowtowing males doting on her, wanted their heads on pikes for the court grounds. Reaching out, his finger traced the line of her heart shaped face, wishing, hoping, for one more chance to feel that soft, pinkened flesh. Addie... Addie mine.
An image came to him, unbidden, a rubenesque form before him, bared in all her pale, creamy skinned glory. She kneeled, lips parting and...
“Argh,” he groaned. His cock swelled at the idea, but then he turned away with a snarl of a groan. I hate her, he told himself, but he knew in his heart of hearts, he couldn’t.
Mine, that disgusting organ in his chest entreated, thumping wildly at the mere sight of her. “She’s forsaken us, deprived us of her attentions. And for what?” he spat, tossing the mirror to the bed beside him. “Those... things? Beasts? When she could have me?!”
“Are you not much different than those beasts you’ve created?” Oberon stood in the doorway, a golden god of a man, wide chest bare, dressed in nothing but a form fitting pair of leather breeches, that smirking face of his devastatingly handsome where others found Puck beautiful. It rankled the fae, to feel second best in everything.
“Come to gloat,” Puck muttered from the rumpled, silk bedding.
“No.” Oberon’s footsteps echoed as his boots fell. The bed dipped and he lifted the mirror. “Came to... return a favor.”
“A favor?” The Trickster perked up at that.
“Aye. In exchange for... something owed to you.” Watching the woman in the mirror a moment, naked and panting as she struggled to bring new life into the world, he tossed the silver handled trinket he’d given to his wife on the eve of their dreaded union, snapping his fingers to watch it evaporate with a poof, disappearing in a flash to places unknown to all but him.
“Owed to me?” Oh, Robin was liking this better and better. A boon? Token? Could he wish his claimed to him? Hah! He’d show her! Get her with brats by the dozen, make her watch as he made love to a harem over and over until she swore to love him and only him.
Rolling to his back to pop into a sitting position, mirror forgotten, that jackass face as ghastly as his insides, it took all Oberon had in him not to laugh outright in the male’s smirking donkey mug.
“A debt owed, one might say,” the Warrior King stated cryptically. “You’ll come to the throne room when you’re ready? We’ll be waiting to receive you.” The bed dipped again but then his ear twitched as the king flicked the end of it. “I’ve a deal to propose. I tire of looking at your ugly face whenever you dare present yourself at court.”
Puck’s ears drooped. So used to being praised for his beauty, he could dole out the insults hand over fist, yet in all his years of exile and punishment, had yet to learn how to take them. Beauty is as beauty does, that blasted warrior king was always telling him, Puck thought with no small amount of irritation.
When Robin had finally plucked up the guts to face the bloody couple, King and Queen, not so happily after, he found the grand throne room, solid gold and silver swirling everything, empty but for the three of them. “Am I to be given a debt owed, or...”
“As you recall,” Oberon glanced lovingly to his wife, a flick of his wrist sending the gold hilted double doors to the royal chambers slamming shut, “I have won the wager.” He waited until they both nodded to continue. “You remember my terms?”
Squirming in her seat, lips pursing mulishly, perfectly shaped eyebrows puckered in a frown, Titania slowly, reluctantly gave a short nod.
Eyes, wide in his long face, slid from king to queen, Robin’s heart starting to race a little, gaze zapping to the sealed doors when his once longtime confidant and lover dipped her head regally. They’d cheated. How could he forget? Oh, how they’d cheated. That eager twist of his lips fell.
“Robin?” Oberon’s head c
ocked slightly, expression unreadable. Leaning back in his seat—a throne with sliver, green, and gold twisting throughout a filigree like pattern of leaves, maple and oak, the padded back black and gold material with vines entwining a long sword and two daggers, his crest, a maple over an oak leaf, covering most of the middle, right where his shoulders sat—he eyed the male.
“Ah, yes, my lord. I- I- Yes.” It had been so long since Puck had felt like this, palms sweaty, brow twitching and itchy, heat creeping along his neck. Nerves, fear, such faint memories for him, resurfacing, reminding him of the last time. No, he could recall, terror still filling him until he was right back inside that waning body of Ekodar, almost unmanned with the beast sword by the stunted head of his guard. If pride cometh before the fall, Robin was about to fall hard.
The Trickster’s back tingled at the memory of the King’s punishment for his dalliance with the Queen and he flinched as if receiving his lashings, the price for betraying his kingdom, all over again. The scars still remained, very much like the raised scars and blackened marks on Kvigor and the gold seals coating his bonded.
His bonded. Robin’s thoughts were always swirling with her. She’d burrowed her way deep inside him, accepted him at his worst, claimed him, even. He could barely fathom it. Robin was broken, beyond repair, and he knew it. His hands lifted, covered in ugly, coarse grey hair. Who could ever love a beast..?
That would be his boon to collect, he thought. I’ll turn myself back into the man I once was, and court be damned he’d slash his way back to Tavros. That village wouldn’t know what was coming to them.
“We will stop a moment,” Oberon began, “for I’ve a deal to make with you, dear Robin.”
While that sounded well and all, Robin had long ago learned to know better. “Oh, my king?”
“You wish to rid yourself of this facade?” He motioned to Robin’s head. “You will agree to my terms, here and now.” Looking to his queen then, there was no spark of gold or green for his bloodthirsty love. “And you will have what you so wish, my dearest love, should you agree to the same.”
“Beron... Truly, heart?” Titania perked up at that, her put upon pout dissolving like freshly fallen snow under the hot sun, until she was all soft, indulgent smiles and demurring purrs.
Dread filled Robin, no matter how well he hid it. Puck’s ex-mistress wished her powers back. And with Puck no longer in her service, well, the Queen could be a cruel, jealous beast.
The Queen had yet to forget the slights done unto her, or by her mate, for that matter. As she perceived these supposed slights, that is. She relished the idea of achieving the greatness she’d once known.
Robin felt sick just watching her. Everything about her was repugnant to him now. Her eyes gleamed with a particular malice he felt directed at him.
“The terms, my king?” Robin addressed Oberon, careful not to make eye contact with the ruler’s wife.
“I’ve found much inspiration as of late. Your Abandoned have helped me see a great many things. Enjoyed watching them find their way, my Chosen,” he looked to his wife, “our Chosen, amongst them, adapting, in particular.”
The Queen’s pout was back, green eyes glowing until black eclipsed the whites of her eyes. Up until Oberon’s proposal she’d yet to talk to her mate these last few months at all. Didn’t matter that she’d set the terms for her mate’s suggestion assistance would at some point be needed, no matter who their Chosen gravitated towards.
The Queen would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy watching her male in all his sexual glory, making love to the insipid little bitch like she was his first love. Hah! She, and only she, she assured herself, would ever be his anything, she’d be sure of it.
He thought to grant his queen her power back? It was about time, or so she thought indignantly.
“We’ve also yet to settle the matter of the tourney, I’ve a prize to claim.”
“So claim it.” Titania gave an unladylike snort. “We’re not to meddle in the affairs of lesser beings from this day forth, etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah, we all agreed to the terms, it’s set in stone, gold and stone and whatever else, by the fae before us and those yet to come, so it shall be done.” With a roll of her eyes, she snapped her fingers. As her fingers snapped, though, sparks of gold and green shot from the tips.
Blinking, the Queen started. She clearly hadn’t been expecting that.
“And so it is,” Oberon intoned gravely, a smug smirk starting to curve his smooth features.
“Wait.” Titania froze. “I didn’t-” She pointed. “You- I just- You can’t- Beron? How?”
Long, gold, shimmering fingers drummed along his chair. “By your will, my love,” he purred, the word not nearly as endearing as it could have been, “and your will alone. You have agreed to my terms,” his hand lifted, gesturing lazily, “said so yourself. Nay, decreed it.”
“Oh, but that’s not,” she sputtered. “I didn’t mean- Beron, you couldn’t possibly have thought I meant-”
“Tis done.” His fingers steepled. “Wasn’t I who said it, dearest, twas you.”
“Well, I take it back!”
Black eyes glinted with gold. “Too late.” He was enjoying himself most thoroughly. The queen thought it amusing he was physically ill without his female’s presence, denying him of her touch, affections, things his kind craved with a fierceness that ate at him, literally, from the inside out. Knowing his spirit was waning, unwilling to just leave his menace queen behind, he’d hatched his plan.
His little Chosen hadn’t been wrong. And he tired of sitting idly by as his heart did as she would, rending a piece of his from his chest, one unkind word, angry glance, shunning silence, waiting, hoping, praying, groveling at times in the past if need be, for her favor.
No. The little human had wormed her way into his subconscious. Her thoughts at the beach bothered him. How some tiny little insignificant mortal could set his thoughts on a different track, a diverting track, he couldn’t explain it. But it wasn’t just her; her mates fought for and loved her with a greatness he envied.
Beron wanted a great love, not an angry wife and timid lovers. Beron wanted equal footing, a place with warmth and affection, a mate that accepted his and gave it back tenfold. Beron was... tired. So very bone tired.
His heart gave an ugly glug that pained him. He looked to his queen, who was too busy shouting at him from her seat about agreeing to his proposal without realizing it. “You will never love me,” the King whispered, bringing Robin up short as he watched.
“What?” Titania paused in her ranting tirade. “Love? What’s love got to do with anything? Love? You want love, Beron? Mayhap you should go back to Puck’s ugly world of hybrids. His disgusting Abandoned.” She gave a shudder. “Inundate yourself with animal headed, grass sucking beasts. Pray one of those stupid enough to accept your body will take care to love you, hmm? Foolish... stupid... weak!”
“Love isn’t weak.” Oberon stood, looking to Robin with his piercing gaze.
Robin had loved his wife at one time too, the great king knew. And he’d perished under her crushing, cold hearted callousness. The creature before him now, a shell of the former creature first come to court, flush with youth, was a pale impersonation of what once was.
“Do you agree, Robin of Puck?” Oberon thought of all battles he’d waged, fought, won, all in the name of pleasing his wife, in a bid to win her favors. Her favors he’d won, physically, nothing more. It wasn’t too late for the court fool. He could do this one thing before he-
“Love is for fools!” Titania spat, scrambling his thoughts until he was drawn to her ire.
He was a moth to the flame for her, knew he’d continue to do anything for her if she’d just give him some glimpse of- No. He was only fooling himself. He’d thought to force her to see reason and look where that’s gotten him?
Oberon wasn’t a complete fool. His precious Queen’s powers fed from him. He was her source, he’d discovered long ago. The unsteadily thumpin
g lump in his chest had fueled her voracious appetite and overuse of magicks. The queen was not aware, of course, and he was not about to tell her. He’d always held the power. He’d just been too stupid to reel her in.
“Puck?” Oberon prompted.
“Am I not to know the terms at all, my king?” Robin began to squirm, his discomfiture obvious through that stupid donkey face of his.
“Do you wish to be restored to your former glory?” the king asked of him.
A dark gleam entered the Trickster’s eyes. “More than anything.”
“Then you accept?”
“I-” Robin licked his thick lips. “I- Yes. Yes,” floppy ears nodded with his big head. “I agree.”
“Good.” Oberon settled himself on his throne. “It is agreed, then.” The king flicked his wrist.
The Trickster gasped then, grimacing. The pained noises he made grew, until he was writhing on the floor. Curled in the fetal position, the court trickster began to scream as his head reformed. Hair fell from his face, the thinner dusting on the rest of him following.
Titania watched impassively. She’d grown so much colder of late. Her heart was so full of it the king wondered if it’d stopped beating all together.
“There is also the matter of your treason,” Oberon continued, watching as Puck’s punished face turned to that of a man in pure agony. Small slashes appeared on his skin, until he was covered in the bleeding gashes from head to toe. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what price the King had extracted in exchange for the Trickster’s donkey dissolution.
Robin’s pained screams were silenced with a flick of the Queen’s wrist, his mouth working though no sound came out. Her annoyed huff at what she perceived as just another annoyance further proof of her downfall.
“And now he will be scarred for life. Clever. Recompense for his silly thing with the human and the trees, I presume.” The queen sounded bored, buffing her nails on her gown. “A bit much, my handsome warrior king,” she purred, liking the idea. “You know I’ve only eyes for you.”
By the Horns Page 57
