by May Sage
He missed Silvia's signs, but he got Seb's response loud and clear:
“Would you show me?”
She nodded. Good. If she hadn't volunteered, he would have had to resort to coercion, incarceration and spanking.
Why didn't that sound like such a bad idea, in any case?
Erik saw her sign that she'd need her voice back to be able to help, as what he wanted to learn was more complicated than a little song. He did a double take, startled; so she could get her voice back? She hadn't permanently lost it?
Despite his lack of participation, this entire conversation had been upsetting, tiring and confusing; Erik was massaging his temples, trying to will his growing headache away when, for the second time in his life, he was met with the sight of a mountain of water.
They were at the edge of a beach; there was no reason why a fucking wave the size of Castle White might have formed on a cloudless sunny day. What the hell?
He ran towards the child and the woman, desperate to pull either, both of them to safety, but Silvia's hand rose and for the third freaking time, she pushed him on his ass, at the feet of his beach house. Ok, it had been fun at first, but this shit had to freaking stop.
Then, adding to the already surrealistic turn this day was taking, Silvia bent down towards Seb and dropped her lips on his forehead.
Something shifted on the atmosphere, something big, suddenly affecting gravity, pulling his centre towards the earth; he felt dizzy and a wave of panic sized him. He feared for his son, for his own life.
It was obvious that that new force was much, much stronger than what was approaching in the horizon; all of a sudden, the thirty foot high wall of water seemed akin to a little speed bump.
He looked up and saw that the menace was her.
Her entire body had been unnaturally illuminated from within; it was only in that moment that Erik realized that he really was in front of the Witch.
The idea had vaguely crossed his mind a couple of times, but it wasn't a ludicrous theory now: he knew it.
Stepping in towards the sea, Silvia sang.
It wasn't beautiful: it was terrifying. Her voice was vibrating, rumbling around them; yes, he acknowledged the sound was most probably exquisite, but the power behind it would have had a lesser man wetting his pants, he felt it down to his bones.
He heard a weaker, yet still potent voice chiming in, and was baffled to see that it came from his son, supporting every one of the Witch’s chorus.
The wave froze in place, at first. Now, under the lower, more sensual and coaxing undertone, it slowly settled, before finally retreating.
•
Would anything ever go according to plan?
She'd had to unseal her voice – of course she'd had to, that wave would have demolished any seaside building on the entire coast; the beach house, but also half of the Tower City and probably Castle White, too.
She had to come to the conclusion that it was personal; these things didn't happen twice in the same company by coincidence. As she'd never faced anything of that kind without Erik and Seb, and they'd also lived on the seaside for years without the oceans going AWOL on a regular basis, she imagined that the problem was the three of them, together.
Which meant that there was only one possibility as to the perpetrator of the crime: a jealous mother and ex girlfriend.
It didn't bother her as much as one might think; first, because the bitch was obviously out of the way, but also because she didn’t represent a threat to her.
Sebastian was a half Siren, like her – his voice, his ability to feel other people's moods attested to it – but the child was considerably weaker than she'd ever been, so the mother wasn’t a problem; which explained why Silvia had dispersed her wave without breaking a sweat.
She felt a certain amount of guilt, about that. It meant that if she'd thought of it, she might have been able to do so three years ago, and save an awful lot of people; but she'd been so focused on Seb and Erik, she'd failed to see the bigger picture.
She turned, to face an unexpectedly furious set of amber eyes.
Surprise, surprise.
“Fucking hell, that was your fault” Erik yelled right to her face. “That day on the boat; it was about you! Someone was trying to hurt you, and they didn't mind who got killed in the process.”
Here it goes. He reached out for Seb and pulled him away from her, behind his back, ignoring the child's protests.
“Or is it something you cause when you use your power?” Then, he turned to the child and told him: “Step back, she's dangerous.”
Of course she was.
Silvia was surprised by the laugher that escaped her lips; but well, it was her usual reaction to this. She was too accustomed to finding herself on the receiving end of such an accusation to display the pain it caused, although her heart was breaking in tiny little pieces, this time around.
No matter. In the end, she'd always known it would come to this. She really wasn't of this world.
She took a few steps back to make them comfortable and stood quite alone, looking at them, ready to cry; only the sirens have no tears and therefore, they suffer more.
After a last smile directed towards the child who was reaching out to her, Silvia turned around and returned where she belonged.
It would be for good this time.
Silvia had heard that the de Luz – like all those with Fay blood – were supposed to have two wishes, but over the years, she'd wished plenty and none of them had ever become true.
She'd wished to become entirely human, to fit in, to be loved by her family, to find a place somewhere on earth, with people. She'd wished for her mother to come back, too.
None of that had happened so she didn't know what pushed her to formulate it as clearly, now – and out loud too, in her dark, lonely frozen castle; her Drake was curled up on her laps, trying to share his warmth, and she wondered how she would have survived the pain without him, but the dragon’s company wasn’t what she craved.
So, she wished for one person to care right now. Just one. Anyone would do.
Chapter 11: The Queen.
The day she woke up absolutely certain that she was pregnant was also the day she stormed out of her bedroom, slamming doors behind her, and interrupted her husband's meeting.
She needed answers and she needed them now.
“Cind...”
"Where is she?" she hissed, conscious that – especially as she hadn't bothered brushing her hair – she looked, acted, and sounded like some kind of wild beast. He'd be frightened, if he knew what was good for him.
“Who...”
“Where is Silvia?”
Where was her sister?
Ella had shrugged off every single thing Sandro had ever said against her, as one very distinct memory of Silvia had stayed with her since they'd met.
She recalled the look in her eyes when Ella had berated Dane in front of her. Silvia was crazy protective of Dane, loved poured out of her very core through the entire bitchy persona.
Then, over the last few months, settling at Fortswood, Ella had gradually come to understand just who the missing princess was.
It had started the very first Monday of her stay, when the internal phone line connecting the royal council to the rest of the officials had incessantly been ringing, drowning her, Sandro and Dane under mundane queries they had no idea how to deal with; they'd hired an executive assistant to sort them out, and the woman, despite the humungous salary, has resigned within three days. Then, they'd set up a team, and while it had sorted out the issue, complaints were flowing in; these who'd dealt with Silvia before were demanding to have her back.
“How much did she get paid for this?” Ella had asked Chantelle, out of interest.
That's when she'd been told that Silvia, as a member of the royal family, had access to a share of the de Luz wealth; so, in short, no one was directly paying her.
One look at the records revealed that she'd never taken any money from th
e crown's coffers, either.
There also had been the matter of the general mood since her departure.
Sandro had come across as a puzzling character from the start, blending a mixture of confidence, intelligence, with a cold, efficient demeanor and a detached, indifferent approach to most things.
Now? He was constantly irritated, aggressive or miserable. Even Dane had turned quite short tempered, towards anyone but her.
Everyone seemed to link the atmosphere to Silvia's absence, somehow. What was pissing Ella off was that they weren't wishing her back, no. They were blaming her for abandoning her brothers.
This had to stop. Now.
Ella hadn't had a family for years. Dane was great, and she loved Sandro, despite his grumpiness, but Silvia was the heart of the family, and it was past time they admitted to it.
“Look, Ella...”
“Don't. Just don't. Your little sister is missing – has been for five months. I don't give a damn what he thinks,” she said, accusingly pointing to Sandro. “If you believe she'd bad, you've obviously not met my sisters. More to the point, I'm freaking pregnant, Daniel de Luz, and I want the aunt of my child. I will get what I want.”
Completely missing the point, Dane leaped to his feet and gathered her in his arms before kissing her silly.
While she was distracted for a heartbeat or two, it didn't last long. Getting to Silvia seemed like a compulsion, she needed it.
“Dane,” she said, “I heard that Silvia went away at the beginning of February. Five days after, Skinny was convincing me to try and come back here. It didn't hit me, at first, but meddling isn't in his nature.”
And she knew that Rumplestilskin led a lonely life; he'd liked having her around too much to willingly relinquish her without reason. It hadn't added up at the time, but she'd let it go, overwhelmed as she’d been by everything else around her.
Now, she saw it clear as day; from the way Dane froze, he saw it, too.
“Can we get hold of Skinny? We need to ask him.”
•
The Fay hadn't even tried to bluff his way out of it, immediately admitting to the accusation:
“Oh yes, she threatened me. Complying isn’t my usual response to intimidation, but as it indicated that there must have been some sort of a miscommunication, I encouraged you to go and find out.”
Dane was inches away from shouting, yelling and punching. Really? Why the hell hadn't he just said so, then?
He'd never felt as shit as he had when Ella had made him and Sandro sit down and listen to everything she had learnt about Silvia, especially since she finished the speech saying that she was ashamed of both of them for not even looking for her.
Dane had been looking, but his efforts were so pathetic he didn’t bother pointing it out; it wouldn’t have earned him any brownie point. He had very proficient spies under his thumb and the fact that he hadn’t reassigned one of his top ten on his sister was disgraceful.
Sandro had told her she had nothing to go on, expect rumors and words of mouth – she didn't know Silvia like they did; but Dane wanted out of the "they."
He didn't include himself: what he knew of his sister did coincide with Ella's vision of her, not Sandro's.
Now, they had proof. The only holiday Silvia had taken from the “employment” she didn’t get any retribution or acknowledgement for had been to go and find his wife for him. And she had found her, somehow. Which meant that she had deserved to.
Shit.
Sandro didn't even apologize, just storming out of the palace, probably to hide out into his woods, like the miserable sod he was, these days.
Dane knew what was good for him, so he begged forgiveness and made Ella come, three times in a row, before finally fulfilling both of their fantasy and pumping her plump ass relentlessly.
He'd needed the wild release.
It wasn’t his first anal intercourse, he thought he’d known what he should have been prepared for, the incredible tightness, the way an ass could squeeze cocks like a vise. Everyone knew it was the best orifice a man’s penis could ever enter. And it was Ella, who’d blow every single other sexual experience from the very first night so, yeah, he had been prepared for the best sex of his life.
Whatever he thought he’d expected went out of the window. There was nothing, nothing comparable to fucking his wife’s tightest hole.
Because she loved it. She didn’t comply to please him, she certainly wasn’t ambiguous about it: she absolutely loved it. There was nothing fake about her reaction. She trembled from the moment he pushed in, slowly easing himself, spreading her with two fingers to fit.
He knew better than to try the gentle approach; occasionally, he pinned her down and forced her to take it nice and slow, to actually make love to her, rather than screwing her to the moon and back, but they both knew the way she liked it, and now, he wouldn’t deny her.
So as soon as she accommodated him, he withdrew and pushed back in hard, slapping against her; the scream did give far too much information to Northern Alenia as to what their King and Queen were currently up to.
Ella was so wet she was dripping on his leg well before she shuttered around him.
He'd still be lodged inside her and she, bent over his desk, when Sandro came back in.
“Fucking hell!”
“Heaven,” Dane corrected. “Fucking heaven.”
He pushed Ella's skirt down on her ass, playfully slapping it before making himself presentable.
“I was jealous,” Sandro confessed, after Dane's dick had been put away. “Ella, growing up wasn't easy for us. Dane's mum was a shadow, mine died, and our father was abusive – towards both of us, as well as everyone else around. Everyone except Silvia.”
Dane didn't recall that particular fact, although one of his most distinct childhood memories did corroborate it.
He'd been about eight the last time their dad hit him. It had been in the gardens, he'd just pulled his hand to slap again, and his little sister – a tiny blip of a three years old – had screamed, ordering him to stop.
He had. He'd never put a hand on him again, either.
Dane hadn't understood it, but the scene hadn't endeared Silvia to him: he'd been wary of her ever since. He realized there was more than met the eyes. She had considerable powers packed under the façade and he'd never trusted her not to use it against him.
“One year isn't much, but it counted when we were little. I saw myself as Dane's protector. Yet, when I was nine, our baby sister stepped in between our father and Dane. She won. I never got over that. There also was the fact that her mother used to visit, spending long period of times with her. You'd have to meet her mum to understand why I resented it. She was pure beauty, grace, fun. She taught her to sing, and I was just wondering why I couldn't have a mum like that. I thought I had outgrown the resentment, but when the Atlentians came with an accusation, I just pounced on it and...”
Dane understood every stage; he'd thought exactly the same thing, although his own attitude had been on the passive-aggressive side, rather than the outright disdain Sandro had served her with.
God, what Ella must think of them, of him.
She opened her mouth and surprised them both: “You were an ass. It happens, get over it. No one cares about what you did in the past; the only thing that matters is what you're going to do about it today.”
Shit, the orgasms might have put her in a very agreeable mood, but regardless, that woman was way too good for him.
“I'm going to find my sister, and beg her forgiveness?”
“There's a good boy.”
•
Flagellation; yeah, that was a good one. Oh, and stoning; if anyone ever deserved to be hit by a fucking stone, it most definitely was him.
Why had he said any of that shit? The thing was, yes, the wave was linked to her, that much was obvious, but it was also quite evident that she wasn't causing it, not voluntarily; she was a victim.
He should have offered his protectio
n against whatever was trying to hurt her, not jumped and bitten her head off. The words had tasted sour in his mind and he'd wanted to swallow them all back as soon as he'd seen her eyes, but the next instant, she was running – quite literally running – and disappearing in the ocean.
His son hadn't talked to him since.
Fuck, fuck, cluster fuck.
“She used to stay at the Tanners,” Ludwig, who'd finally managed to get some intel, now they'd stopped looking in luxurious hotels. “And she's regularly eaten at a few restaurants along the coast, they've all got nice stuff to say about her, she leaves great tips and join in conversations. Solves problem. There was a wake at the pub, one day, and that involved a lot of crying. She popped by at the request of the family, and within moments, they were all laughing, recalling the grandfather’s memories… Some people say she’s a good luck charm, a fairy; most have guessed she was a mermaid from somewhere in the south. A few Atlentians have sneaked around, asking about a stranger, and they've all held their tongues. I went to the Tanner, to enquire about her things – as you’ve asked – and they were still there. The Tanners just told me that she was the Sea Witch, and they considered themselves blessed to have been able to welcome her. I asked if she’d paid everything – you know, I was going to clear the balance, as it’s your fault she left so suddenly. They yelled at me and kicked me out.”
Erik wondered why he had bothered asking. Of course his people loved her. She just had to be perfect in every single way now he'd completely, irrefutable screwed up.
“Erik...”
Whatever his friend had meant to say was interrupted by a startled butler, who came in forgetting to knock, and informed them:
“The King of Alenia, his wife, and prince Alessandro Primerius are here. They've requested an audience.”
