The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5)

by Jovee Winters

  Gathering whatever shreds of power she still had left to her, she swallowed the scream of pain trapped in her throat and yanked the apple free.

  Snow opened her mouth to say something else, but there’d be no more words from her.

  Shoving the apple so far into her mouth, that the girl had no choice but to bite down in order to spit it out, Fable didn’t have to wait long for the magick to take effect.

  With a gasp of surprise, the girl then dropped like a sack of stone on top of her.

  “Oomph.” Fable’s breath came out sharply, and her entire body ached, only adrenaline kept her going.

  Forcing her withered arms to work though they didn’t want to, she finally managed to roll Snow’s dead weight off of her. Snow White flopped over like a fish, long strands of hair mostly covered her face. The clothing of stitched deerskins she wore was stained by blood.

  But it wasn’t her own. It was Fable’s. She touched her side and winced, then grimaced as her hand came away tacky and sticky with blood. That was when Fable noticed Sterling’s horn lying on the ground.

  Snow’s hand had unfurled its death grip on it.

  Stooping, Fable retrieved it, then closed her eyes as she cried for her precious pet who’d lost his life so that Snow could finally exact her revenge.

  And it all came to a head.

  The past, the present, even the future, it all collided into one giant ball of rage and Fable opened tear stained eyes, looking at Snow White with the same kind of malevolent and twisted hate the girl now felt for her.

  The curse laced upon the apple was nothing but a sleeping curse. It wasn’t true death. Fable could still wake her.

  But she wouldn’t.

  Delicately strumming her fingers along the tip of Sterling’s horn, she decided that the only way to end this war between them, to truly end it was to end her. Kneeling, she steeled her heart against what she was about to do and lifted her arm.

  “STOP!”

  The voice, so full of power, blasted against Fable’s body, tossing her onto her arse violently. Nature was suddenly in chaos. Rain poured in great big bucketfuls from the sky which had boasted no storm clouds just seconds ago. Trees groaned—massively large trees with trunks as thick as a house—as they fought to remain standing in the suddenly hurricane force winds.

  Groaning, body still on fire from where she’d been stabbed earlier, a sense of dread and fear filled Fable’s body, because though she’d not heard the voice in years, she knew instinctually whose it was.

  Only one woman had the power to control water as she now did.

  Fighting to a sit up position, Fable stared at her grandmother. A towering vision of crystal clear water that raged like an out of control tide. Her beautiful face was twisted into a mask of pain and hurt and also anger.

  Deep-seated anger.

  “This is not the way, Fable! This is not how we taught you to be. Who we taught you to be.”

  And she felt such shame. Such horrible, horrible shame that she could no longer stare at Calypso. Could no longer see the wounded look in her eyes. When Fable had finally broken free of her captors, she’d told her family to leave her be.

  She’d felt too full of evil and darkness and so rotten to the core she’d not wanted their censure, their judgment, but most especially to ever have to see their disappointment in her.

  She’d known all along that if they’d seen Fable for who she’d really turned out to be, they’d hate her. Hate her like her grandmother did now.

  “I do not hate you, my little flower. It is impossible.”

  Grandmother, who’d been standing a fair distance away from her, was now kneeling beside her, and wrapping her arms around Fable’s waist and crying.

  Crying.

  Calypso—elemental goddess of all water and so ancient as to be nearly immortal—had never wept in all the years Fable had known her.

  But she did so now. And she shook violently with it.

  “Oh, my baby. My precious, precious baby. I should never have stayed away, even after you demanded I do it. I knew you weren’t okay. I knew it, I just knew. My fault. This is all my fault, oh my beauty. My precious and beautiful, dark beauty.”

  And Fable wanted to remain aloof, wanted to throw her grandmother’s arms off her and leave, wanted to vanish and hide and shake and be miserable and hope that she died of the heartache after a while.

  But she’d not been held with such love in so long that she was helpless against her grandmother. She wielded her love like a blade and had skewered Fable straight through the heart.

  So she stayed, and she squeezed her eyes shut—still wishing she could die and not have to witness the hurt, pain, and remorse in Calypso’s eyes—but she held fast and sank into the cool depths of her grandmother’s form.

  When they finally pulled apart several minutes later, they were both tear stained, and heaving for breath, but the sky no longer shook.

  “Grandmother, what are you doing here?” she finally asked, shocked by the little girl voice that had naturally come out of her.

  She was a woman who’d done bad things. A lot of bad things, but she still felt small and inconsequential compared to her grandmother.

  Calypso’s face, which was now in elemental form, nothing but a cool sheet of water in the form of a stunning woman’s face, looked at her with a mixture of love and terrible sadness.

  “I’m here for you, my darling. To save you.”

  Fable’s gaze flicked to the still sleeping Snow White, and she twisted her worm lips into a tight frown. “Save me from what? From killing her? She would have done it happily to me. She tried.”

  Caly’s hand slid down Fable’s waist, and wrapped around the wound in her side and instantly Fable felt the cool wash of her grandmother’s powerful magick undulate all throughout her body, stitching her flesh back together. Not even a unicorn’s horn was enough to stop the magick of a god.

  “I know she did. But if you had done it, if you’d stuck that horn through her chest, then you would have been locked in this form in truth all the days of your life. And I did not want that for you, my precious.”

  Fable’s lashes fluttered as Calypso then caressed the side of her face, and another powerful wave of magick rolled through her. And she saw that she was back to who she’d been. Her skin was taut and smooth and dark as the blackest night.

  A fat tear splashed onto the tip of her nose as her heart ached, knowing she’d almost taken the dark path in truth.

  “Look at me, dark flower.” Calypso tipped her chin up, forcing Fable to meet the electric blue glow of her grandmother’s eyes.

  And seeing that love shining as bright as a beacon, even still, even having witnessed the depths of Fable’s depravity firsthand, it was almost too much to bear. She tried to turn away again, but Calypso wouldn’t let her.

  “No, my dear. The prodigal has run long enough. It is time to heal you, Fable. It is time to rid you of this disease now infecting you. You are coming with me.”

  “Where?” her voice sounded broken and scratchy to her own ears.

  “To a place far away, where you can heal, if you’ll let yourself. Where no one expects you to be anything than what you truly are. Where you can relearn what it means to be you again. Will you come with me, my love?” Calypso gently, but determinedly took the horn from out of Fable’s death grip, setting it down on the ground gently.

  Snow’s curled fingers were mere inches from it now. Sterling’s horn, which had once been a symbol of great love for Fable, now turned into a weapon of ultimate destruction. It sickened her to see it.

  She swallowed hard, tempted beyond imagining. But she also knew her scheming grandmother well, and though she sensed nothing bad, she did sense that Calypso was hiding something from her.

  “You’re not telling me everything, though, are you?”

  A corner of Caly’s lips tipped up. “No, my darling. I’m not. But you’re going to have to trust me. Can you do that?”

  She was tire
d.

  Deeply.

  To the very pit of her soul. Tired of the politics. The power. The darkness in her heart. Tired of fighting Snow White, tired of trying to get the people to—maybe not love her, but not fear her either. In short, Fable was tired of the life she lived.

  Closing her eyes, she nodded as silent tears trekked down her cheeks. “I’ll come. Wherever you want me to go, I’ll come.”

  “Then stand up, my love, and follow me.”

  Chapter 9

  Owiot

  He stood before the enormous man.

  The Greek Lord of the underworld—Hades himself.

  The god was an imposing figure dressed all in black, and standing before him with his arms crossed and glaring heatedly down his nose at Owiot.

  For his part, he had no idea how he’d wound up here. All he knew was that he’d been walking amongst the stars one second, and the next he’d been snatched away by magick. Extremely powerful magick at that.

  He’d expected maybe to find brimstone and madness surrounding him, but he stood instead in a forest full of shrieking screams and towering trees. Surrounded by several other men all blinking around in wide-eyed shock and wonder.

  Hades clapped and the world shook. Even the shrieks ceased.

  “Welcome,” Hades boomed.

  But his welcome had hardly sounded welcoming at all.

  “You’re here for one purpose. To find your forever mates. I don’t care if you don’t want to be here, my bride says you’re destined to be here, and that’s an end of things.”

  A few of the men blustered at that, several were gods themselves and puffed out their chests with hubris and disdain at Hades’ high-handed treatment of them. But they were all lesser gods, like Owiot himself was, and when it came to a battle between lesser and greater, greater always won.

  Well, all but one was a lesser god. The blond haired male looked Viking or Nordic. With his ice blue eyes and ruddy complexion he was definitely some form of Scandinavian god. Owiot vaguely recognized him as some sort of fertility god, but considering they were a dime a dozen, it didn’t really pay to keep close attention to who was who. The only one that really mattered was Aphrodite, and he’d already had the distinct pleasure of meeting her face to face.

  The Viking didn’t seem as put out by the idea of being forced to play a game the way most of them were. He had his massive arms crossed over his massive chest and wore the type of secretive smile that said he found all of this more amusing than annoying.

  “In a few moments, I will cloak you all in shadow. You will not get to choose your women; they will choose you.”

  “Oh, come on!” One man snapped. There was something about that male that was very off-putting to Owiot.

  Not in his looks either. He had blond hair and green eyes with a skin tone much like Owiot’s own—a burnished shade of umber. But every so often, when the light would strike him just so, there’d be a flicker of something very dark and very wrong in that male’s eyes.

  Hades lifted a brow. “You have something to say, Syrith?”

  Syrith gave a cocky grin, shrugged, and said, “No. Nothing at all.”

  Hades narrowed his eyes, clearly not believing the male’s easy acquiescence. “And how are your parents? Ragoth and Zelena? Still good I hope, so much catching up to do.”

  Syrith went instantly still, narrowing his eyes into razor-thin slits. Something about the mention of his parents had done it. Owiot couldn’t help but wonder why.

  “Fine. Just fine,” Syrith practically hissed.

  “Good. Happy to hear that,” Hades said, and somehow Owiot had a feeling the Greek god had just won a small victory, though he couldn’t fathom how.

  “Now, as I said,” Hades pressed on, “the women will be here shortly. They will choose you, guided by their inner muse. Do not flinch. Do not try to approach the women in anyway, if you do, I will kill you. And that is no bluff, trust me.”

  This time, when he said it, he looked directly at Owiot. And in his eyes glinted something dark and violent.

  Owiot hadn’t even known he’d be coming here in the first place, let alone that he’d be paired up with some female of unknown origins. But he’d always been quick to learn the world around him first before making any snap judgments. First impressions weren’t always the right ones; they were simply the ones that stuck with you longest.

  “Any questions?” Hades asked, looking and sounding bored.

  Syrith raised a finger.

  “No one. Good.” Hades smirked because clearly he’d seen Syrith raise his hand. “Then go away.”

  And so saying, a thick veil of shadow descended on all of them. Shadow so deep and impenetrable it wasn’t natural, but concocted by dark magick.

  There was another side effect of the shadow; it canceled out any noise outside of his own sphere of it. Owiot could see the vague shapes of the other males, but could no longer hear them.

  He was just noting that when he sensed, he was no longer alone.

  “I wanted to speak with you privately, Owiot.”

  Turning, recognizing the voice of Hades, he dipped his head. “About?”

  It would do no good to demand Hades release him. The major gods of any pantheon were always capricious and willful; it was never smart to get on the bad side of any of them. No, instead he’d wait this out knowing that eventually he’d uncover the truth of things.

  Hades, tall and imposing, had scaled himself down to size, so that he no longer towered over Owiot, but instead stood only a few inches taller. He was attempting to be approachable, a tactic Owiot himself was familiar with as his god form was far too imposing for most anyone to gaze upon long.

  “It is against the rules of this infernal game to reveal the female who’s been chosen for you.”

  Owiot set his lips, waiting to hear the god out.

  “But”—Hades inhaled deeply before steepling his fingers—“there are mitigating circumstances near and dear to my heart with your chosen mate. Circumstances that force me to break my woman’s rules, and should she learn of this, she’ll no doubt try to drown my bubble butt arse.” He snorted, sounding amused, but then quickly turned serious again. “Your chosen mate is my granddaughter, Fable.”

  Why did that name sound so familiar to him?

  Being of the Native American pantheon, Owiot wasn’t as familiar with other smaller pantheons, but the Greeks and Romans were extensive and hard to ignore on a bad day. He’d heard her name before.

  Something to do with curses and death and violence—none of it, had been good. Which made him wonder why they thought pairing her with him would be a suitable idea.

  Hades closed his eyes, and Owiot was taken aback by the raw honesty that the Greek god revealed in just that simple gesture. His granddaughter meant a great deal to him, and Hades was worried. Very much so.

  “Why have I been chosen for this...game?” Owiot asked slowly, taking his time with framing the question, knowing that sometimes you didn’t get more than one shot to learn something.

  Hades eyes glowed with hell flame, and Owiot knew it was well within the god’s power to shield his emotions from him, but he wasn’t doing it. It was that small reveal that had Owiot finally curious about his “chosen mate.”

  “Because you can mend her.” Was all Hades said.

  Owiot thinned his lips. “I’m not certain that you truly know who I am, Lord Hades—”

  He held up his hand, stalling Owiot’s words. “We know exactly who you are and what you do.”

  “So if you know, then you understand that I bring nothing but sorrow to whoever I’m with.”

  He gave a bitter chuckle. “Oh, believe me, I’m aware. But feeling sorrow, keenly, it is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s only through accepting the sadness that we can start to heal.”

  No one had ever told him that before. When his brothers and sisters would go on their great hunts, Owiot was never asked to attend. They loved him, but no one liked him, not really. No one liked to
be reminded of all they’d lost, of all they’d once had. No one liked to feel the blade of sadness pierce their soul; constantly reminding them all the mistakes they’d made throughout the entirety of their long-lived lives.

  Even Owiot himself grew weary of the suffering.

  “It is a cruel fate you’ve inflicted upon your granddaughter.”

  “No.” Hades smile was soft but sad. “No. We’ve chosen correctly, for you both.”

  “If you feel you’ve chosen correctly, and yet still you come to warn me, then I can only imagine that your next step now is to threaten me if I don’t make your granddaughter happy. Am I correct?”

  Chuckling under his breath, Hades winked. “Something like that. Brimstone. Fire. Hail. Cerberus ripping your heart out.”

  Being threatened with bodily harm shouldn’t have made Owiot chuckle, and yet it did. Despite the fact that he didn’t want to be here, and wasn’t sure he was ready to meet the fable herself, he liked the Lord of the Underworld more than he might have imagined.

  “Just be good to her, Owiot. Treat my little flower kindly; it is all I ask.”

  The promise sprang readily to his lips. “I vow it.”

  No sooner had the words left, than Hades vanished and suddenly Owiot grew aware of the females. Standing before the group of them was Calypso and Aphrodite, it didn’t matter which pantheon you belonged to, everyone knew of those two wild women.

  Calypso’s temper was legendary, and Aphrodite’s ability to create a true love match was equally so.

  But for once Owiot didn’t care what the goddesses were saying, no, his attention had been drawn like magic to the dark skinned beauty standing off to the side alone. Dressed in a cloak of midnight and starlight, her form was covered, but her face was revealed to him.

  Her eyes reminded him of the golden pelts of the buffalo that roamed his planes. Her lips were painted both dark and ruby red and split right down the middle—so that one side was a vibrant red and the other a bottomless black. She was unique in looks, and different than the women of his land, but something inside of her called deeply to something inside of him.