“I suspected that might be the case.”
Flexing his powerful shoulders, he stared down at her with keen, intelligent eyes, before finally sighing deeply.
“I sense a but in there somewhere, Fable.”
She cringed. Anytime grandfather used her given name she knew she was in trouble.
She shrugged, and he groused under his breath.
Grandfather was a very good grouser. He made the trees themselves shake almost as violently as Button could when he got grumpy. She’d always hated when grandfather got grumpy with her.
“Fable,” he drawled. “I already know what it is, so why don’t you just spit it out already?”
Frustrated with her stupid emotions, she squared her shoulders and glowered down at the silly flower she still couldn’t seem to let go of.
“Galeta, that’s what. I wanted out of here, grandfather, I did. I do. I was ready to tell him everything, ready to turn over a new life. But I’ve been given an opportunity to exact my revenge against the bitch who turned my life upside down and...and...” she trailed off pitifully because saying it aloud made her feel heartily ashamed of herself.
“Fable,” Hades said soft, “I’m going to tell you something, granddaughter, something you already know, but that you’ve probably forgotten.”
Looking up at him miserably, she waited for him to continue.
“I know the dark pull of vengeance. The need for revenge. I understand what it is to feel justifiably homicidal.”
She couldn’t help but chuckle at his turn of phrase. Grandmother had found grandfather strung out like a stuck pig when she’d first encountered him way, way back in the day.
Hades had been accused of murdering Persephone, and all the gods of the pantheon save for Auntie Themis, and Auntie Aphrodite had wanted to see him burn for it.
Only grandmother’s quick thinking had gotten him out of the mess.
“How did you let it go? How were you able to just move on with your life? How?” she asked softly.
His lips twisted. “It would be a lie to say it was easy, I chose love, and la-dee-da, we skipped our way into eternal happiness. Your grandmother is many things, and life with her has been an adventure in many ways, but my love for her was not what finally caused me to release my hate.”
She frowned, confused by his statement. Because she’d been so sure that love had fixed him. That that was the basis and foundation of true love, an immediate cure-all that would fix all of life’s woes and make her forever happy.
Rolling her wrist, she waited silently for him to continue.
He sighed deeply. “I simply came to the realization that it was too exhausting to continue to hang on to it. That no one cared about my hurt or pain as much as I did. No one lost sleep over it. Not a one of them realized the heavy strain I’d been under and suddenly wanted to apologize. For them, life had simply moved on, and that was an end of it. I was little more than a passing fancy in the framework of their thoughts.”
“That seems wholly unfair.”
“Yes, but that’s life, my girl.” He gripped her hands. “Since when is it ever fair? Is it fair that humans have such short lives as to be pitied? Is it fair that love can be found and lost all in the same day? Is it fair that a couple that strived for years to have a child should have one only to then lose it a few days later? No. None of that is fair. But it is what it is. It’s called life, dear. And life is full of glorious wonders and unimaginable pain, but you live it, and you move on because that’s the only thing you can truly control. Even in Kingdom, where death doesn’t come as easy as it does to those that are Earthbound, there is very little in this life or the next that you can control, the only thing you can change is your heart. How you choose to live your life. You can let the hurt and pain twist you into a monster, or you can let that same pain make you stronger and mature.”
Tears were falling again, but this time, they were tears of relief. Because she knew what she had to do.
“I want to kill her, grandfather. I want to hurt her as she hurt me...”
She admitted the innermost weakness of her heart to him. But the strangest thing happened when she did.
Rather than being overburdened by the pain of the past as she’d always been, instead confessing that truth had made her feel lighter somehow.
Hades smiled softly. “I know you do. And trust me when I say, Galeta the Blue will not have an easy road of it in these games. Did you really think that your grandmother wanted to see that awful fairy gain her own happily ever after?”
She frowned. “I did wonder why that bitch was here to begin with.”
He snorted. “Your grandmother and I have matured in many ways in our long lives shared together. We’ve learned that the best way of letting go of hate is to sometimes take the opposite road. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t have a little fun while doing it.”
Laughing, thinking of all the dastardly ways that grandmother was likely to punish The Blue for all her years of treachery seemed suddenly more than good enough to Fable.
And with one final click the last of her need for revenge faded away within her. Just as grandfather said, she didn’t suddenly feel love for the fairy or even wish her well...but what she did feel was freedom from carrying around the heavy burden of hate.
Let fate take care of the damned fairy. Fable was ready to begin her life anew with the man she loved with all her heart.
Smiling wide, she threw herself into her grandfather’s arms. He expelled a little oomph of surprise, but she heard his smile in his words as he said, “Now, little flower, will you please relieve my worries and go find your mate, tell him you love him and get the hell out of this twisted game your grandmother and Aphrodite have wrought?”
Chuckling deeply, feeling as though she could fly, and so impossibly happy that she wondered if it was actually possible to die from it, she popped a quick kiss on his cheek.
“Yes, grandfather, I will. And when you see mother and father next, please tell them that I’ll be returning for a visit this winter, with my mate in tow.”
He grunted deeply. “I will. And I love you, Fable, my beautiful dark one.”
Her smile took up her entire face; she practically burned with it. Her cheeks would ache tonight, no doubt, but she no longer cared.
“I love you too, grandfather.” Jumping to her feet, and ready to go find her man, she was stopped by a light touch on her hand. “Oh, and Fable, one last thing. Just so you know, we’ll be keeping Mirror in these games just a wee bit longer, if you don’t mind.”
She cocked her head, wondering why in the world Mirror needed to stay, but trusting that her grandfather had a very good reason for it.
“Oh, okay, I guess.”
“Good. Now, I think it’s time be reunited with your lover, don’t you?”
And so saying, he winked, waved and vanished right along with the bench built of skulls. And standing in its place stood Owiot, looking dazed and confused.
“What is—”
With a cry of utter joy and longing, she flung herself into his beautiful body, tackling him to the ground as she peppered his face with kisses.
He laughed heartily. “Fable...my darkness, what—”
“I choose you, you beautiful, beautiful man,” she said in between ardent kisses. “Always you. Forever you. I love you, starlight. I love you.”
He paused in his laughter, and his eyes grew intensely serious as he whispered, “And I love you too, Fable of Seren, with all my heart and soul and the very flame of life that burns within my chest.”
No sooner had they spoken the words the coiling magick of grandmother’s power washed over them, lifting them high into the sky and through a shifting tunnel full of starlight.
She clutched onto his shoulders, nuzzling her nose with his. “So it’s probably going to take us a while to get back to the Enchanted Forest.”
“Mmhhm,” he agreed with a gravelly voice, “and just what did you have in mind, my love?”
>
Chuckling, she dug her toes into his shins and shoved up just enough so that their mouths aligned. “Well, I was thinking that maybe we could do what we did the other night when you went all the way down on me, except maybe this time, we could both do it to each other at the same time.”
He growled, and the wild beast that dwelt in his soul came suddenly roaring to life. Owiot wasn’t a passive lover, he took her violently, almost aggressively, and she loved every bloody minute of it.
And that’s how they returned home, through a shifting tunnel of stars, and making happy, happy music together.
Epilogue
Fable
Walking back through her castle was the hardest thing Fable had had to do in a long time, coming face to face with all the bodies laying haphazardly in her halls—but especially with Snow’s, who Owiot now carried. They’d stopped quickly in the forest to retrieve her body and brought her back to the castle so that Fable would only need to murmur the awakening spell once.
Still dressed in her buckskin clothing and with her dirt-smudged cheeks and face, dirty and split fingernails, and cracked and bruised lips, Snow had definitely looked better.
Now the girl looked dead and gaunt. Sterling’s severed horn–which Fable gripped tight in her right hand—was a reminder all over again of everything she had lost to the princess.
There’d been no prince to kiss Snow White awake. That simply wasn’t the way Snow’s story would end. Not here in the real world anyway. Maybe in fairy tales, but in this world only the queen’s desire to awaken the child could do it.
Kneeling, Owiot gently laid Snow White’s body down beside the other sleeping bodies, taking care to arrange her limbs thoughtfully and respectfully. He glanced up at her with questions burning in his eyes, but ones Fable had no answer for.
For once she was willing to own up to the fact that she’d done wrong, but that didn’t mean that any of this was easy for her. Waking Snow White now would come with its own set of problems. Having to confess to the girl who’d once been more like a daughter to her that she’d been so very, very wrong in her treatment of her. How in Kingdom was she supposed to do that?
Pride could be such a terrible and heavy burden to bear. In no way did Fable want to have this conversation, but if she didn’t she’d never truly heal either. Not completely or fully, not the way she needed to. It stuck in Fable’s craw to admit it, but she needed to hear Snow White say she forgave her before Fable could truly begin to learn to forgive herself for all her past misdeeds, not just the death’s of George and Brunhilda, but everyone else she’d harmed in her tenure as queen.
Sleeping as Snow was, it was easy to remember the innocent, beautiful girl who’d once hugged her with such vigor and whispered repeatedly how much she’d loved her.
Slipping Sterling’s horn into a pocket hidden in her gown, Fable took a deep breath full of misery and regret. The lives she’d stolen, the dreams she’d shattered, all the terrible, awful things she’d done since becoming ruler of the Enchanted Forest began to bear down upon her with its crushing weight.
Fable shoved her hand against her rapidly beating chest. So much had happened to her in a few short days. Things that had changed her outlook on life forever. She was no longer the same woman. But who would believe her now, after all she’d done? Who could truly forgive her for the heinous crimes she’d committed?
If Fable were in their shoes, she’d never believe the change could be real. So why should they?
Owiot gripped her fingers tight. “You’re not alone, my darkness. I’m right here.”
She looked over at him and instantly felt her beating heart begin to still and settle into a more normal rhythm.
“What if she—”
“Ssh.” Owiot turned into her and planted a delicate whisper of a kiss against the corner of her lips. “Don’t do that to yourself. First, let’s look to see if we can find the witch’s mark upon her.”
Biting down on the corner of her lip, she nodded anxiously. “Okay.”
They looked for all the big things first. Pieces of jewelry, articles of clothing that seemed incongruent to a girl living wild and struggling to make ends meet.
“Nothing,” Fable whispered brokenly several minutes later after rolling Snow first one way then the other as she’d run her hands over the girl’s body.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not there, Fable. Keep looking,” Owiot said, eyeing her sternly.
And she would probably never tell him so, but she loved that he didn’t let her walk all over him. Owiot, calm and patient as he was, was all male and very much his own man.
No one would ever take control of his mind and heart. He simply was who he was, and that was probably the best part about him.
That, and he was the sexiest thing alive too. That certainly didn’t hurt.
She smirked, and he narrowed his eyes. “What’s the matter with you, you suddenly look like you want to ravage me.”
She snorted. “And so what if I do, male? You’re mine now. Or have you forgotten.”
He waggled his brows. “I’ve not forgotten, female. And I have a surprise for you once we finish here. But come, let’s finish first. It feels strange to flirt with my blushing female over what amounts to cooling corpses at the moment.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, boss.”
Owiot only snorted.
Kneeling down beside him, Fable decided to take things more slowly and really look rather than simply rely on touch alone. Starting with Snow’s feet, she slipped off the girl’s boots and looked not just on the soles or the tops of her feet, but between each toe.
Nothing but smooth skin.
“Owiot, sweetheart, turn your eyes away while I take the girl’s pants off.”
He snorted again, but did as asked, standing and turning his back to them. Fable smirked, she wanted Owiot to see no woman nude—dead or alive—except for Fable herself.
Yanking Snow’s pants down, Fable studied one shapely leg, then the other, moved to the apex between them, only giving it a very cursory glance, she was pretty certain Brunhilda had likely not marked the girl down there, but one had to be thorough.
After determining there was nothing at all, she flicked a little magick over the girl to cover her up with a blanket of shadow and moved up to her chest and back and hips.
And again, nothing.
She studied the front, sides, and backs of her arms, between her fingers, and was starting to get a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that Snow hadn’t been enchanted to hate Fable at all, she simply did.
And the truth of it was, Fable could understand why. Evil or not, George had been the girl’s father, she’d only been a little thing when she’d witnessed her evil stepmother brutally slaughter him.
Of course, there was hate.
Fable hated The Blue, and all the fairy had done was trick her. Not stolen the life of someone she’d actually loved.
It was a sobering and disturbing thought and also a disquieting one. At this point, Fable no longer believed that Snow would ever forgive her, that there was no magical curse upon the girl, but rather one of Fable’s own making that had caused such division between them.
Once she’d traced her fingers across the length of the girl’s neck, front and back, and peeked inside each nostril, she finally had to concede defeat.
“Oh, Owiot, what have I done?” She sniffed and stood, shaking her head miserably as her heart bled with the heavy burden of her sins bearing down on her.
He hugged her tight, kissed her brow, and then asked, “Did you check her hair?”
“No.” She sighed. “But there’s no point. I know there’s nothing there. The child hates me, Owiot, and she has every right to. I never wanted to accept that as fact, but I’m ready to now. I killed her father, justified or no, it doesn’t matter to her.”
“Would you mind if I checked?”
She waved her fingers. “I don’t care. Do whatever pleases you. But I already know the truth.”
True, Snow had hurt her too. But the truth was, Fable had hurt her first by killing the one thing she’d loved most in the world.
How could she possibly blame the girl for that?
“Fable, come here,” Owiot said slowly a moment later.
Blinking, she looked at him from the corner of her eye, her pulse beginning to stutter with skipped beats.
“It’s not possible. You didn’t find—”
“Just come here, love.” He waved her over.
Her steps felt like lead as she moved to his side.
“Here,” he held his finger over a spot on her scalp, “tell me what you feel.”
Frowning, she dropped to her knees, and moved to where his finger was, but no sooner had she gotten close to his finger she felt the very faint, but obvious pulse of black magick.
Gasping, she gently moved aside his finger and where it had been she saw a very tiny, fractured heart shaped mole on the girl’s scalp.
“What is this?” she breathed, looking at Owiot.
His look was grim as he said, “It is the very epicenter of hate. The witch did mark her, Fable.”
Shaking and jittery, she looked back at the tiny, tiny mole no bigger than a freckle and shook her head.
“That poor girl,” she breathed, strangled by the knowledge that unlike Fable herself, Snow White had had no choice but to drown in the darkness of Brunhilda’s curse.
“I blamed her for everything, Owiot. All my pain, all she’d done, I didn’t know...”
He took her trembling hands in his and held on tight. “But you do now, my beauty. And you can fix this. Free her, Fable. She may never love you again, but you can at least free her of this terrible curse.”
Nodding gently, she murmured, “To free her I would need to tap into my own darkness, you understand that.”
She glanced at him.
“Yes. But you have light in you now too. Use both, and you will not drown.”
The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5) Page 21
