“When is Gracie going to come here? I have a few things I want her to clear up for me. She shouldn’t have left me here this long as it is. I can’t purchase things for my children for Christmas.” Mother said nothing but only sat there. “Also, I want her to talk to someone about me getting a better living arrangement. I’ve been stuck here, for no reason, long enough, and I want to get my home back. This is not how someone like me is to spend their life. Gracie needs to get herself here and make sure that I’m out in time for the holidays. It’s the least she can do for me.”
“You’re talking in circles, Cora. No one is going to pay for your problems. You’re not leaving here until you’ve paid things back, and you don’t have a home. Not that you’d ever made that place a home. It was a showcase that you filled with things you didn’t own and no one liked. You’ve fucked up, and now you’re paying the price for your stupidity.” Her mother had never had the nerve to speak to her like this, and Cora wasn’t happy about it. But before she could tell her to shut up, she continued as she stood up. “You’re the worst daughter I’ve ever known, Cora. You’re selfish and mean. You expect everyone to do your bidding, and you’re ungrateful as well. I’m glad that you’re here. A place where I hope you learn how to become a better person.”
After her mother left and Cora was taken back to her cell, she thought of all the things she wished she’d said to her. Well, she did think she was being polite in not telling her mother a few things too. But Cora wasn’t like that. Nor was she what her mother had said. And she never would be either.
“Selfish and mean? I don’t think so. I’m just a person who likes things to be perfect. It’s not my fault that no one knows how to do anything as well as me.” She glared at the toilet and the sink that she had. “I hate how these people have reduced me to be a commoner. I’m going to get out if it’s the last thing I ever do. Then I’ll show them.”
~~~
Bryn opened her eyes and knew she wasn’t alone in the barn. It had been a few days, this she knew, but how many she wasn’t entirely sure. As she laid there, holding onto herself so that she’d not alert the person with her, she heard a male’s laughter. Pissed off, she pushed her way to the top of the heap of hay and shifted at the same time. She knew her mistake the moment that she saw the two men with her.
“Brynhilde, I presume.” She nodded, unable to not answer him, his powerful voice showing her that he was her superior in most ways. “I claim you.”
He stood up then, and she found herself on her knees before him, her armor covering her from throat to hips. As she waited for him to finish the claiming, the second man stood up. Neither of them seemed to know what they were doing, and she was confused more than ever.
“What now?” It wasn’t her job to tell them what they had to do to claim her, so she waited on them. “All right then. We want you to go to the land near here and kill the dragons. There are a few there…we’re not sure how many, but we want them all dead. As soon as possible.”
“Kill the dragons?” The second man nodded, but didn’t move to put his crest upon her armor. “I cannot kill them. No one is to kill them, and I especially cannot.”
“Why the fuck not?” She told him there were laws, rules that governed her and what she did for others. “So, we’ve been sitting here, waiting for you to take your fucking nap, for nothing? That isn’t really going to work for us; you know that, don’t you?”
“I have rules too. There are a great many of them.” He sat down, and so did the second man. “Have you ever claimed a faerie before?”
“Faerie? We were told that you were a warrior. That all we had to do was claim you and you’d have to do what we wanted. What else is there to it?” She said nothing again. “Come on, bitch, we don’t have all fucking day.”
“I cannot give you answers to those questions.” She saw Tinsel then, hovering just above the men and behind them. “You must have read them if you knew what I was.”
“I didn’t. We were told to come here, claim you, and order you to kill the dragons. And witches too.” He’d not mentioned witches before, so she didn’t either. “Now you’re telling me that there are rules we have to follow, and that you can’t even kill anything we want you to?”
Bryn reached out to Tinsel when the man jerked her from the floor. It was all it took. She belonged to him now. Her body burned with his desires to murder. Every thought he had, it was now hers. And when he dropped her to the floor, the hay beneath her burned with the power of his needs.
“What the fuck?”
She felt her armor thicken. Her hair began to reach out, stretch, and wrap around her. It would serve as an extra bit of magic, reaching out to things, the earth or trees, to help her heal and strengthen herself. Both men backed up, their mouths hanging open when she rose, her body ready for whatever they needed of her.
“I am here to serve you and none other.” She bowed before them, having no choice now but to do their bidding. Except that she could not kill the dragons. Her sword was now theirs, yes, but she could no more kill the dragons than she could herself. “Might I have the name of my master?”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now? You belong to me?” She didn’t answer him…there wasn’t any need to, she supposed. Tinsel flew to her, hiding himself inside of her breast plate. “I’m Huston. This is Doug. Holy shit. We have her.”
Bryn wanted to stand, take out her sword, and murder them both. She would be justified, she thought…their minds were as sick as she’d ever seen. The dragons, safe from her, were not the only ones that they wanted dead. The list, extensive in what they wanted, was as long as the day was, as her mother used to say. But not only that, they wanted them to suffer, suffer in ways that even she was sickened by.
“We want you to kill all the dragons you find.” She told him, again, that she couldn’t kill them. “But you said you served me. That’s what I want. What we all want, for them to be dead and no longer taking all the resources from the earth.”
“They give to the earth, not take.” He hit her. Not that it was painful nor very strong, but she felt her armor wrap tighter around her, and she felt Tinsel’s anger as well as her own. “I beg your forgiveness, master. But there are rules that—”
“Keep that in mind the next time you tell me no.” Saying nothing, she waited for him to continue. “Why can’t you kill the dragons? I want a truthful answer, too.”
“They were the first paranormals to roam the earth, giving life to the soil, air, and the plants. To kill them would destroy everything that you hold dear.” He hit her again, laughing like this was a game to him. “I cannot lie to you. That is the truth.”
“I want them dead. All of them. And if you can’t do that, then I want you to kill anything and everything that helps them.” Again, she could have explained to him that he was a part of the cycle that made the dragons live, but said nothing. “There is a land not far from here. There are people there, the Bensons, who have been gathering them dragons together and helping them. Destroy them.”
“Magical grounds?” He told her that no one could enter the area, nor could they see beyond the trees. Bryn knew the land. She herself had come from a part of it.
“You’ll go there, kill them all, and bring their.... You’ll bring their hearts back to me. I want them on a golden platter.”
He poked his friend in the belly, a gesture that she’d seen many times, but understood it no less now than she had before. She thought it indicated that it was funny. But none of this was.
Bryn stood up, ready to do what she was able to do for him, when something occurred to her. The Bensons…they were the very people that she was to go to. Or at least one of them. She could no more kill the family than she could the dragons. Asher, he was the dragon king, and would be the only person in the world, even claimed as she was, that could order her death or for her to no longer be claimed by these men. Then she thought of something. A way to get out of being a warrior to any man, claimed again, and to not hav
e to go through with the wishes of this man.
“Where are you going?” Bryn put her sword at her back. Her other armor, just as lethal as her blade, was there for the taking should she need it. Turning, she looked at the man, then put out her hands and let her magic show him what she had been asked to do. The magic stirred around until a dragon, long dead, appeared before him, then a scroll that she held out to him. “What is that?”
“Our contract.” There wasn’t any such thing. She only had to be touched to be claimed by the king. Or for him to order her to stand down. But she thought of keeping these men busy while she decided what she had to do. “You must read this over and agree to it. For your safety.”
“Safety?” Bryn watched the men, but she did hear Tinsel laugh. “What would come to harm us, with you at our side?”
Bryn could have told him that they’d only ordered her to kill the dragons and those that were helping them. She also could have told them that if they were hurt, a sword drawn against them, they’d die while she would not. But she said nothing, only shoved the “contract” at them while her mind worked.
“When you have finished, you only need to call me. I will be there as soon as possible, wherever you may be.” Backing from them, she decided that if the current king was as stupid as these two, she might be able to get out of both the claiming of these two and helping the king with his castle. If there was one. “I must go and prepare.”
As soon as they were away, she shifted. She could turn into anything…hide in plain sight too. So, she shifted to a hawk and Tinsel joined her in the air. They had lied to a master. Or she had. She would suffer greatly for it, for a long while too if not forever, but there was something so incredibly wrong with them. Not just the fact that they wished to kill all dragons, but their minds were filled with jumbled thoughts that were better left unsaid or known.
The mother of Doug, for one. A woman of high moral standards and religious beliefs. She’d set rules for her children, and Doug thought himself above them. Better than her. He wanted her dead, out of his life, so that he could do as he wished without her hanging over his shoulders. And not just dead, but to suffer, suffer as he thought he had when living with her. And when she’d found out about his plan, she did the only thing she could and left them. That or die. And she preferred to live a bit longer.
That was not the way to treat the woman who gave him life…and Huston had planned to help Doug. The sick depravity of their minds was going to hurt a great many people if they found someone to help them. Her for example. She would do as they said to her, with the exception of killing the Bensons or the dragons. Many would die at her hand if they made her.
“My lady, we have done a wrong. We’ll pay.” She told him that she would be the only one that would pay. “But I am your servant. I should have warned you that you told untruths.”
“I know what I said, Tinsel. I’ll be the one taking full responsibility. But we must hurry to the dragon king. The book will be his, then I shall tell him of their plans. Not that he might not know them as well, but we must hurry before they summon me again.” The property was just ahead. “You must wait here. I do not want you harmed in any way.”
He, of course, refused, and she stopped to land on a branch. He was pushing her to hurry to the king. Insisting on it like he hadn’t ever done before. It was then, right at that moment, that she knew he knew something. Touching his mind, she stared at him…he did know much more than she did about any of this. She knew that he had only done what the king had told him, but it hurt her more than she could say that he’d betrayed her this way.
“You knew about my life. The way things would go for me. What I was to encounter when I went to the new king.” He nodded, then bowed before her. “You knew what my life was going to be, yet, as my friend, you said nothing to me about it. About the mate and the life I would lead? All of it?”
She knew the truth of his knowledge. How the king had summoned him to come back to him. The stories that he’d told him. Bryn had never bothered to look before. She wished now that she had when she first woke. All of it was so that she would be the mate to some person, a person that the king, her king, deemed for her and only her.
“Not all, but I knew that you’d be hardened by the life. You would then find love in the end that would sustain you forever.” She said nothing to him, waiting for him to finish. “He forbade me to tell you, my lady. He said that you knowing would change the outcome of yours and his son’s lives. I wasn’t able to tell you.”
“You mean that he was concerned that his son got all that he needed.” Tinsel wisely said nothing. “I’m disappointed in you. Very much so. All this time, you could have said something. Even after he was dead, the king, you could have told me what I was to do for him. Is the book even a real thing? Or is this something else that you didn’t tell me about?”
“Yes. It is real. There are spells in it that would help the young king. Also with your help, I’m afraid.” She looked beyond where they were, to the smoke curling from the chimneys just over the treetops. “You must take it to him. He will be needing it soon.”
Shifting to her true self, Bryn leapt to the ground below her. Tinsel followed her, his small body stiff with the unknown. And hurt…she would imagine that he hurt too. But she hardened herself more against it. She no longer trusted her feelings.
He’d not told her, letting her go on with her life as if it had meaning. That she was needed in order for the new king to live and save the dragons. But it, like a great many things, had been thrust upon her. And now she’d been betrayed by the one person that she had trusted like no other.
“I quit you, Tinsel.” She turned and looked at him, and could see the hurt and shock on his face. “You have sentenced me to a lifetime of servitude as a prisoner to a man that I do not want. I am never going to be free again. You should have told me. I could have...I don’t know what I could have done now. It is far too late. Let me have the book. I shall take it to him now.”
As she walked away, leaving him there, she felt her heart break. Her friend, her only true friend, had betrayed her. And for what? A dead king and queen? It hurt her to her core to know that she had never had his honesty.
Chapter 2
Simeon and Akassa weren’t sleeping well. Neither of them had had a good night’s sleep since Tinsel had come to tell them that their mate was close. He’d not tell them much about her, other than she was a beauty beyond compare and that she had a temper to match such a fiery red head, but nothing about her magical power, nor what she could bring to them.
Simeon looked at Asher when he came to the castle clearing where they were.
“Tinsel is here.” Simeon dropped the shovel he was using to smooth out the walkway they were going to cover in small bits of stone that had been set aside for just this purpose. “He said that she has left him and that he no longer is her companion.”
“Did he say what happened?” Asher nodded, looking as grim as he’d ever seen him. “Something has happened and you don’t want to tell me.”
“Yes. I mean, no.” Clear as mud as usual. “He’s here to tell us that he no longer is her sidekick. He said he was no longer her backside, but I took that to mean that he no longer worked for her. Have you noticed that he gets his words messed up at times when he’s nervous?”
“You mean like you prattle on when you are?” Asher grinned. “What else did he have to say, Asher? You know as well as I that there is more to this than just her quitting her brownie. Tell me so that we can fix whatever it is.”
“She’s been claimed.” He knew what that meant. Someone, a person who needed her services, had come to make claim on her sword. “This person wants her to come here and kill us, and all the dragons. He said that there was more in their minds, these two men that found her, but she doesn’t want to do them. Killing the mother of one of them is one example, but Tinsel said that she’d have to do it if he ordered her to. There’s something about a contract she gave to them to read ov
er so that she could buy more time.”
“Christ.” Asher nodded and sat down just as Akassa joined them. Simeon caught him up on what Asher had said. “So, she’s close now and has been found. I’m assuming that these people that have claimed her, they are a part of the dragon slayer group that we’ve been dealing with all along.”
“I would think that is a safe bet. Tinsel said that they were young. I don’t really know what that means since he’s older than we are. They could be in their nineties as far as that goes.” Asher looked up just as the little brownie joined them. He was as flat as a piece of paper on the ground, as well as unmoving as the castle was right now. “You may rise, Tinsel.”
“I cannot, my lord king.” Simeon snickered. He did that every time someone called one of them lord. It pissed Asher off, so that was an added bonus. “I am but a lowly brownie. Not even one with my own master. She has.... She has, and rightly so, quit me. I have injured her greatly. By farcing untruths, she has left me to my own.”
“Fabricating. You fabricated…never mind. Where is she now?” He told Asher that she was on her way here. “I’m assuming that since this other person has claimed her, we should expect the worse?”
“Nay. She has given them a falseness as well. A contract to keep them busy so that she might bring you the book and get away. I think she is planning to leave. That will mean that she will be encased in a prison.” Simeon asked him what he meant. “Jailed, I think you call it.”
“Incarcerated. You mean that because she lied to this man, she will be punished? Even though it will save the dragons? And the king?” Tinsel looked up at him, then back to the dirt. “I’m not the king, nor am I anyone to be afraid of. Stand and speak to me.”
Simeon Page 3
