Ruby Morgan Box Set: Books 6-10

by LJ Rivers

  Auberon took a step forward, avoiding the ant regiment. “You can. I have never, and will never, betray you. Not knowingly. What happened to Dennis is my biggest regret, only contested by what happened to Merlin. His death was a tragedy as well. And though I have made mistakes, I have always been there for you, even from afar. If anything were to happen to you, I would not be able to go on. We are forever linked.” His lips quirked up. “Whether you like it or not.”

  I slanted my head. The man before me was still an enigma in my mind. There was truth to what he said, even though it surely came with alterations. He had been there for me, long before I knew he even existed, and he had saved my life so many times I’d lost count. Somewhere in his deranged vision of the world and his own actions, he felt love. For me. That was the one thing I could trust about him. But it was a love that came with strings attached and too many pitfalls for me to feel comfortable with.

  “That’s what scares me the most,” I admitted.

  “What does?”

  “That you seem to think the ends always justifies the means. I’m not sure I want your love, and I can’t give you mine.”

  “Perhaps in time. You did let me in once.”

  “And I regret it every day.”

  His eyes glazed over, and I was halfway to my feet to comfort him when I stopped myself. Don’t fall for it, Ru. Don’t get tangled back into his web.

  “I’m truly sorry,” he said.

  “I know you are. The problem is why you’re sorry, because I don’t believe you’re upset about the lives you’ve ruined. You’re just sorry that I’m angry and hurt about it.”

  “Princ—”

  I raised my hand. “It can never be water under the bridge, Auberon. I know who you are now, and I can’t unsee that. That is not to say I’m not also grateful for the things you’ve taught me, and the moments we’ve shared.”

  He gripped his cane, holding it closer to his body. His back straightened, and it was as if the very air stopped breathing for a moment before it swooped around him, lifting his hair and caressing his cheeks. The sun’s rays glimmered in his eyes, and the prince that would be king stood before me. “You are my daughter, Princess, and one day you’ll understand exactly what that entails. I promised you once that I would lay the world at your feet, and I still intend to do so.” He caught my gaze again. Man, it was hard not to drown in those eyes. “You say you can never get past what I’ve done, but I can’t give up hope that one day, given time, you’ll learn to trust and love me once again.”

  I stood and let my arms fall to my sides. “I can’t deal with you at this moment in my life, but I can’t pretend you don’t exist either. Give me some space to get my life back in order. I accept that you are in this world. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

  “That’s all I ask.” He smiled and my breath hitched. I wanted to hate him so much it hurt, yet a part of me couldn’t quite let go of the man that was my father. I cleared my throat and raised my chin.

  “And please, stay away from me. And if you can’t do that, at least stay away from Mum and my friends.”

  “I’ll respect your wishes. For now.” He stepped back over the ants and eased close to the shadows. “It was good seeing you again, Princess.” The darkness latched onto him, inch by inch, until it consumed him entirely, and my father vanished into the shadows once more.

  Chapter Four

  “Ruby? Are you there?”

  “Down here,” I replied. “By the pond.”

  Mum peeked out of the back door. “Not much service at this place.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear the car. Be right there.”

  Thank the Lady that Mum hadn’t come home five minutes earlier. There was no telling what she would have done had she come upon Auberon here. In her backyard.

  I got the book from behind the rock and sprinted back to the house, where she was still holding the door for me.

  “It smells divine,” she said. “My only thought the last couple of hours was to go home, stuff myself with whatever you’d prepared, and fall asleep in front of the telly.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said and turned off the hob. “Oh, crap! I forgot the garlic bread. It’ll take twenty minutes to heat it.”

  “Don’t bother.” Mum placed two plates on the table. “I’ve already peeked, and there’s more than enough food without it. Let’s have it tomorrow, with the leftovers.”

  “We could try the microwave?”

  “Please. Remember what Dad used to say?”

  “If I wanted boiled bread—” I began.

  “—I’d order some dumplings,” we finished together.

  I placed the pot on the table and ladled a sizeable portion of the spicy stew onto each of our plates. “He would have hated this,” I said.

  “Are you serious? He would have loved to see you cook, Ruby.”

  “Yeah, right. His recipe for a proper chili con carne would probably start with planting the peppers and raising the cow.”

  Mum had to hold her hand in front of her mouth to stop a Mexican spit take from happening all over the table. “You’re not wrong,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the only way to skin a—oops!”

  As if directed by Spielberg, Kit came strolling in from the hallway. The kitten I had saved from being run over by a bus last August stopped and sniffed the air. He looked at Mum, then at me and back at Mum again, as if he couldn’t believe what we were actually eating. To underline how little interest he had in our meal, he stretched his body to nearly double its length and yawned, before simply dropping to the floor.

  “He’s charging his batteries for tonight’s hunt,” Mum said. “The little bugger is a mean killing machine when darkness falls.”

  “Mum!” I said, feigning shock. “He can hear you.”

  We shared stories about the patients we had tended to during the day, while finishing what had surprisingly turned out to be a tasty meal. I reckoned it helped that I had forgotten all about it and left it on the stove for at least half an hour longer than usual. When we finished eating, we promptly agreed to leave all the dishes as they were and roll into the living room, as Mum put it.

  We went to sit on the sofa together.

  Mum smiled mischievously at me, reached behind the pillow and retrieved a small, gift-wrapped box. “Congratulations on your grades, darling. I’m so proud of you.”

  I stared at the object in Mum’s hand. “You got me a present?”

  “You earned it.” She placed the box in my palm. “Go on, then, open it.”

  Carefully, I untied the shiny, blue ribbon and proceeded to unwrap my gift. Inside was a plum-coloured velvet jewellery box, soft to the touch. I opened it, and my eyes rounded. “Mum!” I gasped. A familiar ring twinkled on the cushion inside. It looked exactly like the one Dad had given me all those years ago—the one Auberon had destroyed to unleash my powers. The only difference was that this ring didn’t have a ruby in it. Instead, the miniature claws were wrapped around a beautiful, bright sapphire.

  “Something to go with your sapphire red eyes.” Mum winked, and I grinned at the old inside joke of our family.

  “I love it.”

  “I know it doesn’t replace the one Dad gave you, but perhaps it can be a comfort.”

  “As long as you didn’t bind my powers to it, I’ll wear it. Thank you!” I took the ring out and slid it over my finger. A perfect fit.

  “Nah, your magic is exactly where it ought to be.” She laughed, and I pulled her into a hug, then sat back to admire the ring while Mum turned on the telly. It felt as if a part of me had just been restored.

  As the voiceover announced that “Phil contemplates doing a deal with the devil” on tonight’s episode of EastEnders, I remembered what I had to tell Mum and hit the mute button on the remote.

  “Speaking of darkness,” I said, almost saying devil instead, “there’s something you should know.”

  “Mhm?” Mum was already half asleep.

  “Oh, sorry.
It can wait.”

  “No, it’s all right. If it’s exciting, I’ll stay awake and hear a good story; if not, I’ll doze off. Win win.”

  “Auberon was here.”

  “What?” She sat up, hitting the wall behind the sofa with the back of her head.

  Kit, who hadn’t moved a whisker since he so demonstrably showed his contempt for our taste, scurried over the wooden floor and jumped on her lap. Did he actually come to her rescue?

  “Are you OK?” It was my turn to quell a laugh.

  “That very much depends on what you mean by what you said.”

  I twined my fingers in my lap and took a deep breath. “For a moment, I wasn’t sure I should tell you, but we promised to end the secrecy between us. So yes, he was here. In fact, he left just minutes before you came home.”

  “Auberon! In my house! How dare he?”

  Kit hissed and swung his head from side to side, as if to look for whoever had hurt Mum.

  “It’s all right, Kit,” Mum said and scratched him behind his ears.

  “Not technically in your house. He came to talk while I sat down by the pond. Reading.”

  “And what could he possibly have to say to you that you would want to hear?”

  “Nothing.”

  The kitten—which was no longer the right term as he had grown considerably since I last saw him in February—curled into a ball on Mum’s lap and started to purr. Somehow, I thought there was a different tone to it, like a rumble underneath the surface. He was still on guard. I loved how he had settled here, and Mum had said repeatedly how much she appreciated his company.

  “He wanted me to forgive him, of course,” I continued. “And have some part in my life.”

  For a Fae, even a pure one, Mum was as close to conjuring fire as she could get. Her chest rose and sank considerably with each breath, and I imagined her counting to several hundred in her head.

  “I told him I didn’t want to have him in my life. That I hate him for what he did to Dad, and that I would never be his daughter, blood or no blood.”

  Mum exhaled heavily. Her shoulders slumped, and sadness replaced the anger in her eyes. “Oh, Ruby, darling. I’m so sorry! He should have never been here in the first place.”

  “He came through the shadows,” I said.

  “No, I mean here, on Earth. His powers were much stronger than Morgana anticipated. Three knights weren’t enough.”

  “Four.”

  She tilted her head at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I think Arthur was there, too. In the Realm of Shadows.” I swallowed. This was clearly not something Mum had ever heard about. “He—Auberon said he took Excalibur from Arthur. King Arthur, I mean.”

  “Took?”

  I nodded. “He killed him. And I killed Percival. Like father, like daughter, I guess.”

  She took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Ruby Guinevere Morgan! Don’t say that. You’re nothing like that monster!”

  “Well, I have his blood, and there’s no denying my actions in the Realm of—”

  “You were protecting a man who had lied and deceived you into thinking he was something he’s not. Don’t ever compare yourself to him. Your heart is pure and righteous. His is just—just—dark!”

  Absence of light.

  “Nevertheless, I have to live with what I’ve done.” I rubbed my thumb over the sapphire on my ring. “The images won’t go away any time soon, I reckon. He visits me every single night.”

  “Percival?”

  “Mhm. The tip of Felicia piercing his flesh, and me pushing—”

  “Please stop, darling. You shouldn’t punish yourself like that. And frankly, I’ve too much chili in my stomach to hear the details. I’d prefer to decide for myself how and where it leaves my body, thank you very much.”

  We locked eyes for a few seconds, before letting the laughter out. Macabre as it was, we couldn’t help ourselves. Eventually, I was heaving for air and wiping tears.

  “That’s so disgusting,” I croaked between gasps.

  Mum lifted Kit gently off her lap and placed him on the sofa before standing. She stretched and yawned, much like her live-in furball did earlier. “Could you kill—pardon the pun—the telly, please? I’m totally exhausted and seriously considering if I should drop next to Kit and spend the night downstairs.”

  “It’ll be my pleasure.” I cut off the silent image of a weather map showing a giant, yellow sun over London for tomorrow. Much as I missed my friends, the thought of spending a sweltering summer day in the asphalt jungle wasn’t tempting at all. Spending it with Brendan, however, was.

  “Put the pot in the fridge, and leave the rest,” Mum said when I started clearing the kitchen table. “I’ve told Hugo that I won’t be at work until eleven tomorrow, so I’ll do all this at breakfast.” She waved a hand in the general direction of the kitchen and went upstairs.

  “Fine by me,” I said. “Sleep well, Mum.”

  “You too, Ruby. And for what it’s worth—sweet dreams.”

  In William’s book, Thou Shalt Not Reveal, there were some accounts of the Knights of King Arthur’s court. Not many details, but enough for me to know that Sir Percival grew up in the forests of Wales, raised by his mother. When he was fifteen, he killed a knight who had stolen King Arthur’s armour, prompting the King to invite the young boy to his castle, Camelot. The King thought Percival was much older, as he was already ‘taller than Sire Galahad by a finger and a halve’. This according to Leisha, the thirty-two-year-old Phoenix who wrote the passage in the year 1382. When the young apprentice, Percival, after only six months of training with the other knights, won a jousting tournament, the King proclaimed the victor with the title of Knight of the Round Table of Camelot. He gave Percival his own sword and told his weaponsmith to forge a sword from the blade of the thief Percival had killed at fifteen. On the pommel of the sword, a red cross was inserted, the sign of Saint George, England’s patron.

  Every single night since the fight in the Realm of Shadows, my dream had ended exactly the same way. My sword penetrating the neck of Sir Percival, and me pushing it all the way to the hilt. In the corner of my eye, I watched the knight’s gauntlet-clad hand release its grip on Yddraiggoch, the sword falling to the dark void beneath us.

  That was usually when I would wake up from the dream, gasping for air and bathed in sweat. At no point in my dream did Percival have a mobile phone, however. And he certainly never had one with The Rembrandts singing “I’ll Be There For You” just as I was about to catch the flying Felicia and thrust it in his neck.

  I rolled over and fumbled for my phone on the nightstand. Not nearly awake enough to connect the ringtone to the caller, I barely managed to swipe the green icon to the right.

  “Hello?” a voice resembling my own whispered.

  “Ruby!” Jen said breathlessly. “I’ve tried phoning you a million times!”

  “I’m sorry, Jen. I must have slept through it. Working at the sanctuary is no—”

  “Listen, Ru! Nick is hurt. Do you know of any Fae in London that can come and heal him?”

  I sat up, way too fast. The room was spinning, and I almost fell right back on my bed. “What’s happened?”

  “There was an attack on the campaign office. But listen, focus. Are there any Fae that can come here and save him?”

  Save him?

  “I—I don’t know of any, I’m sorry. Where are you?”

  In the background sounded a steady beep and something that resembled an asthmatic Darth Vader. I knew where they were before she replied.

  “Ravenscourt Park Hospital,” she said hurriedly. “I’m so scared, Ru. He’s dying unless I can find ...” Her voice broke into a sob.

  “Call Char and have her look in her databases and registries. She must be able to locate—”

  “She said no, merde!”

  Of course. Charlie, our computer-savvy flatmate and my de facto sister, had got a job as an intern at Mag-Ops, a special branch of The M
etropolitan Police. She was a beacon of integrity, a virtue I—and Jen—normally valued extremely highly in her. She would never breach confidentiality by leaking information she was privy to in her job. Not even to Jen.

  “Keep him alive,” I said, clueless as to how the poor wolf Shifter should go about such a task. “I’m on my way!”

  I rang off, only now noticing the long list of lost calls from Jen. She had started at 11.30 last night, then tried again at anything from one to twenty minute intervals until I had finally picked up at 6.25. If Nick died, I would never forgive myself.

  Less than twenty minutes later, I jumped out of Mum’s ancient Ford Fiesta before it had come to a complete halt, and ran into Chester Station. On the drive down from our house, during which Mum had shown previously hidden rally talents, I had changed my ticket to the 7 a.m. to London. My phone showed 6.57 when I dumped down on my seat. As the train rocked out of the station, I sent a text to Brendan.

  On my way to London a bit earlier than planned. Train arrives at Euston at 9.37. Might make it around 10.30. Text me when you wake up. Nick’s hurt! Ravenscourt Park Hospital.

  Brendan replied immediately.

  Already on my way. Don’t worry, he’s stubborn as a mule.

  The little red heart at the end of his text vanished in a blur as tears filled my eyes. I knew the heart was meant for both Nick and me. Much as I wanted to see Brendan, and Jen and Charlie, I hated that it had to be under such horrific circumstances.

  Chapter Five

  I got off the tube and sprinted up Ravenscourt Road and through the park. A group of people walked past me, sporting the Lionheart logo on their chests, chanting “Maggers Out” as they went. Frowning, I ignored them to the best of my ability, though it was proving difficult. It wasn’t the first Lionheart logo I’d seen on my way from the train to the hospital. There was a tension in the air that was hard to shake, and my instincts told me to keep my head down. Not that keeping my head down was one of my finest talents, but there wasn’t much I could do about the growing unease in the country.