by Kimbra Swain
Troy asked Tennyson to help him move Atohi to the house. Amanda and Tennyson followed Troy and the native to the house. Before Dominick walked off, I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to me.
“You make this right,” I growled.
“I will. I promise, Grace. I felt the power move, too. I’ll do what I can. I’ll call you if I have any news of what they do to Atohi. Thank you for taking him in,” he said, nodding toward Callum.
“You felt the power?” I asked.
He smiled slightly. “I’m only half wolf.”
“You devil,” I said.
He smiled wider, “Not devil. Just fairy.”
“Same thing!” I said as his smile infected me. “How can I not see that?”
“The wolf is stronger,” he said. “I’ve never met my mother. I was always wolf until I was banished.”
“What?” I asked.
“Another story for another day,” he said. “I’ll talk to Troy. He will listen to me.” He ran off up the hill after his Alpha.
“Well, wasn’t that cute?” Levi smirked.
“Get over it,” I said. “I’m not interested in Dominick, and we aren’t talking about this now.”
“I’m teasing you,” Levi grinned.
“I’m not laughing,” I said.
“But you should be,” he countered. “I can’t help it if you have a stick up your butt.”
Callum laughed at Levi’s attempts to diffuse my anger. He knew that in moments like this the darkness tried to take hold in my heart. He refused to let it happen.
“Levi!”
“It’s true, Callum. You’ll get used to it. I’ll take you two to the house, then come back for the truck,” he said, taking my other hand as I held Callum’s. “Home.”
Once again, Levi sacrificed his clothes for another young man. Even though he was a few years older than what Aydan appeared to be, Callum and he hit it off nicely. I watched as the two of them joked. Levi and I sipped coffee standing next to each other in the kitchen.
“What are you going to do with him?” Levi asked.
“I don’t know. I just know I couldn’t let him leave Shady Grove when he was cheated,” I said.
“Always looking out for the little guy,” Levi commented.
“Like you,” I said.
“Exactly like that. You took me in when you shouldn’t have,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“You had no idea how sexy I would be,” he said lifting an eyebrow.
“I will admit that I had no idea at first what having a changeling living in my house would be like, but the first time you walked through the trailer without a shirt, I knew I had made a mistake,” I laughed.
“Mistake?” he pouted.
“Oh, please,” I scoffed.
“Please what?” he teased.
“You make everything sexual now,” I said as I started to feel uncomfortable.
“No, you just take it that way,” he said trying to convince me.
Before I could speak, I realized that the boys had gotten quiet. I looked up to a set of green eyes and a set of blue eyes staring at me. “What?”
“Nothing,” Aydan said, then turned back to Callum. “See.”
Callum nodded. I didn’t want to know what he was talking about with the other boy.
“Letting me stay was a mistake,” Levi reminded me of our conversation.
“Absolutely,” I teased.
“That hurts me right here.” He pointed to his chest. “And other places. That turn blue.”
“Levi Rearden,” I muttered.
“Truth hurts. Man, does it hurt,” he continued.
“Would you stop?” I tried to hide my smile behind my coffee cup.
“You could make it stop,” he insisted.
“I could make it worse,” I added. He groaned, then sighed. “Where is he going to sleep?”
“In Astor’s old bedroom,” I said.
“Where am I going to sleep?” he asked lifting an eyebrow.
I sat my cup down on the counter and started to walk away from him. “I’ll bring you a pillow for the couch.”
“One day you will change your mind,” he said.
“Get out of my head,” I replied.
“Head rhymes with bed. I think your subconscious is trying to tell you something,” he insisted.
“I think my conscious is telling me you deserve blue balls,” I said. He died laughing. I wasn’t sure why it was so funny, but he continued to laugh as I realized the boys were staring at us again.
“He talks in her head,” Aydan explained.
“Oh, that’s cool,” Callum replied. “You must be very funny.”
“She’s hilarious,” Levi supplied.
“Hush your mouth, Levi Rearden,” I said. “Time for bed, Aydan.” Winnie was already asleep when we got home. I’d have to find out tomorrow how much Finley corrupted my son. He rushed out once I appeared with Callum, telling me that he had to get home. Home. Home with Riley.
“Yes, ma’am. Where is Callum sleeping? He can have my bed,” Aydan offered.
“No, he can sleep in Astor’s old room,” I said.
“Oh, Uncle Levi gets the couch,” he laughed.
“Yep,” I said with a smile.
“You are hilarious, Mom,” Aydan said as he jumped up to give me a hug. I kissed him on the cheek and tried to imagine my chubby little baby boy. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I replied. He bounded up the steps disappearing into Levi’s old room.
“I don’t want to take someone’s bed. I can sleep on the couch,” Callum said.
“Nonsense. I’ll take you back there,” Levi said. “Come on.”
Callum stood up, then walked to me. “Thank you, my Queen, for interceding for me.”
“You are welcome, Callum. Tomorrow I want to talk about what happened. Okay?”
“Sure,” he replied.
“Alright. Get some rest,” I said. His bruises were already healing. The wounds had closed not long before we left Troy’s house, but from the way he carried his shoulders, I knew he felt defeated. I would have to find something for him to do. I had taken in Levi and Astor. Callum was no different. I seemed to be a sucker for lost souls. Probably because I had been in the same place in my own life.
I sat on the couch waiting for Levi to come back. He reappeared with a pillow and a blanket from the room. He sat down next to me.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Tell you what?” I asked.
“What made you so sad talking about the forsaken,” he prompted. I hadn’t forgotten, but I hoped that by some miracle he had. He hadn’t. I took a deep breath and tried to psych myself up for a conversation that I had never had with anyone. Not even Dylan. Levi slid his hand into mine and squeezed. “If you can’t, I can wait.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Believe it or not. I know when to leave things alone.”
“You didn’t know your limits the other night when you held me back from Aydan,” I said.
“Or did I? I’m still here,” he said, checking out both sides of his hand to be sure.
“I suppose,” I said.
“If we aren’t talking, then you need to get off my bed,” he teased.
“The man who swore the blood oath to me tonight was Zahir. He was once one of my father’s knights, but when the kingdom split, he along with a few others, supported Lancelot. I know now that madness had taken over my father spurred on by my Uncle’s poison. I cannot speak his name, because he was forsaken,” I said.
“I’m not forbidden to say their names. I’ve read the stories,” he said.
“The stories don’t tell everything. My father tried to erase them from history,” I said.
“He’s dark-skinned. Palamedes,” Levi surmised.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “And now he is doomed to walk in the land of angels and demons. He came into Shady Grove that way. He promised to watch that
way for me.”
“That’s handy,” Levi said. “Which one made you sad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Thinking about the forsaken made you sad. One in particular,” he said.
“I’ve always said that I’ve never lied to you, but that isn’t true. This truth I’ve never told anyone,” I said. “Jeremiah knew. I’m certain Tennyson knows. Tonight, Zahir reminded me.”
“Grace,” he said turning my face to his. “You have never lied to me. Even this doesn’t feel like a lie. It’s more like a story you couldn’t tell for whatever reason.” His thumb brushed over my cheek, then his hand sank to my neck.
A memory awoke in my head.
The touch of a man.
This touch.
Just like this.
“Levi, I…”
“Don’t. You don’t have to,” he urged.
I jumped away from Levi’s touch. Backing away from the couch, I stammered over my words. “I can’t…”
“It’s okay.” He stood reaching for me.
“No. Please, no,” I said. He didn’t listen. Pulling me into his arms, I shook with memories that I had never allowed myself to ponder. The memories of what truly drove me from the Otherworld. My banishment.
Levi slept in the chair across from my bed. I watched him rest thinking about him guiding me to the bed last night. He asked no more questions. No words in my head. I had climbed into the bed and fallen asleep without him disturbing me at all. I wasn’t surprised to see him still here. Glancing at the clock, I realized it was still early. I stretched my feet to the floor slowly. He didn’t budge, sleeping hard. I grabbed the blanket off the end of the bed to cover him up as I padded by it.
Before I put it over him, I reached out to him to see if he was playing possum on me. He wasn’t. I found the peaceful sound of his brain at rest. I tried to resist the urge to touch his face but failed. As my fingers brushed the scar on his cheek, he moaned opening his deep blues to me.
“Grace.” His voice just above a whisper.
“Got you a blanket.”
Reaching up to my hand on his cheek, he placed his palm over mine.
“Keep going,” I urged with a grin on my face.
“You like this,” she protested.
“You like this,” I countered.
“I still don’t know what possessed me,” she huffed.
“My undeniable charm,” I offered.
“Not hardly. More like lonely, sexually charged fairy,” she said.
“If you had been so sexually charged, why didn’t I get any?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. I didn’t know the answer then, nor would I for a long time, but she was right. This moment was important in our history. A moment she gave to me for no reason whatsoever other than she just needed it. And, so did I. “Grace.”
“Hmm?”
“Keep going,” I urged. She smiled widely for me, and I was lost in her all over again.
Instead of throwing the blanket over his head, which I resisted the urge to do, I crawled up in his lap and buried my face in his neck. He grabbed the blanket, laying it over us, then wrapped his arms around me with a sigh. I felt his heart beating hard in his chest. He didn’t know what to say, and neither did I.
It wasn’t the most comfortable position for either of us. The chair was large enough, but it didn’t matter. The comfort I needed I found wrapped up in his arms. Levi. My best friend. My bard.
We weren’t there long before little feet padded up to the door. Winnie stood outside the door for a moment before she knocked.
“What’s she waiting on?” Levi asked.
“Dunno,” I answered.
Finally, after a few minutes, she knocked. “Momma.”
Leaning up, I kissed Levi on the cheek. “Time to be a mom,” I said.
“You are a great mom,” he said, as I backed off of his lap to the floor. He sighed again.
“Come in, Winnie,” I said.
She opened the door slowly with her eyes on the bed. She slowly turned to where I stood next to Levi in the chair. “Oh, hey, Uncle Levi. You were quiet, Momma. I thought you were asleep.”
“No, I’m awake,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, but when I went downstairs, Aydan was talking to a man I didn’t know. It scared me,” she said. “I didn’t want to burn him, so I came up here.”
She had stood at the door trying to calm down before she came into the room with me. My little Phoenix was trying to control her powers.
“Good girl. That’s Callum, and he’s going to be staying with us,” I said.
“Callum. He’s a wolf,” she said.
“Yes, he is. How did you know?” I asked.
“He smells like Mark,” she replied. Interesting. She could smell the shifters. Levi raised an eyebrow catching it too.
“I’m going to change clothes, then I’ll come downstairs,” I said.
“I’ll go down with you, Winnie,” Levi said, standing up. He handed me the blanket. “Thank you, Grace.” He leaned over, kissed my forehead, then left with Winnie.
“I must be losing my mind,” I muttered.
“Can’t lose something you don’t have, crazy woman,” he said.
“Bite me,” I replied.
“Next time,” he answered.
Instead of being intimidated or uncomfortable, it made me laugh.
After a shower and a change of clothes, I joined Levi, Winnie, Callum, and Aydan in the living room. Levi pointed at my cell phone.
“You have missed calls,” he said.
I picked it up looking at the number I didn’t recognize. “I wonder who this was,” I pondered.
“Probably Nick since he said he would call you,” Levi offered.
“I didn’t give him my number,” I said.
“He must have it already,” Levi replied. “Bastard.”
“You have my number,” I said.
“So?”
“So, don’t be jealous,” I teased.
He didn’t answer, but he looked up toward my bedroom at the other end of the house. I knew what he meant. After giving him that moment, he would never be jealous of Dominick again.
Suddenly, his eyes shot to the front door.
“Aydan, get your sister and go upstairs,” Levi ordered. “Callum go with them.”
Aydan looked at me for reassurance. “Go!”
Aydan grabbed Winnie and ran up the stairs with Callum on his heels, as someone started pounding on the front door.
“You stay back,” Levi ordered. It wasn’t the time to argue with him.
He slowly walked to the door. The guitar on his arm thrummed with a deep warning tone. I felt the protective power of an intense ward flow out of him slowly surrounding the house. He reached into the closet beside the front door, producing Excalibur.
The pounding at the door continued as I drew in my own power feeding off his. The ward itself drew power to it, feeding us.
The door blew into splinters as Atohi bounded inside with his fists raised.
“Where is he?” he spat at Levi.
“You have crossed the warded threshold of the Queen of the Exiles,” Levi warned, lifting Excalibur.
“Your damn wards don’t mean anything to me,” he said. “I’ve still got power.” He lifted his hand, palm forward to Levi.
“Don’t do this, Atohi. Whatever is the problem, we will fix it,” Levi shouted at him.
“I want the white wolf,” he said. “His blood is owed to me.”
“Over my dead body,” I snarled at him.
Dominick appeared at the door behind Atohi. For a moment, I felt alarmed, but I saw his face. “May I enter?” he asked.
“Yes,” Levi immediately answered. “Where is Troy?”
“He’s coming. I’m faster,” Dominick said. My eyes drifted from his face to the rest of him. Completely naked. He’d run here as a wolf, chasing Atohi.
“He can’t stop me. I’m not a wolf. I’m First People. The white wolf�
�s blood is mine to take,” he said. “Give him to me.”
“Atohi, if you think that she will hesitate to put you down, you are wrong. I know she can,” Dominick warned him.
“Not if I stop him first,” Levi said, as Excalibur sang in his hand.
“It is my right, by law,” Atohi claimed.
“Leave this house,” I said. “Last chance.”
“You heard her. Leave,” Aydan said at the top of the steps.
“Aydan,” I said, turning to him in a panic.
“Thunderbird. This is of no concern to you,” Atohi said with a calm voice.
“Aydan,” I repeated his name, but his eyes were fixed on the midnight wolf.
“It is my concern. He asked me for help. Explained everything. He is my friend, and the blood debt was paid by his father,” Aydan said.
“Blood debt! What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“I am due his entire line. They must all die by my hands. I deserve justice. The white wolf is the last. Give him to me,” Atohi demanded again.
“No,” Aydan replied. “Leave this house or suffer the consequences.”
“You aren’t old enough to make that call, Yas Shikoba,” Atohi protested.
“I am, and I do,” Aydan said defiantly. He may have looked like his father, but I was pretty sure he got that backbone from me.
Atohi didn’t listen. He lunged past Levi toward the stairs, but before he hit the first step, my father’s sword-actually my bard’s sword- jutted out from his chest. The gleaming white light pierced through him.
“I may not be old like you, Atohi, but I know right from wrong. You never learned that lesson. Perhaps the Great Spirit will have mercy on you,” Aydan said, as he descended the stairs. He stood before Atohi as he gasped for air. Levi did not withdraw the sword.
“My children will avenge me,” he rasped as he sputtered blood.
“The cycle ends here,” Aydan said. “I’ll see to it.”
Atohi’s body slumped as he drew his last breath. Something in his face knew that Aydan would keep his promise. His death would not be avenged. Levi jerked the sword back, allowing his body to hit the floor.
I looked down at the body, then back up to Aydan. “Start talking, young man,” I said.
