“Yes your Highness.” Bran bowed until his forehead practically touched the earth in his groveling. Even this posture, however, did not appease the power flaring within Khiara.
“Tell your cronies – in fact, tell any faerie you see that they are not to touch the mortal woman, let alone interfere with her journey. She is mine and I will exact a high price from those who harm her.” Liam pulled Khiara to her feet, and led her away.
Her feet moved in the direction in which he guided her, but she still saw nothing but red.
“Khiara,” he whispered, giving her a little shake. “It’s Liam. Look at me.”
She tilted her head.
“Damn it.” He took her hands between his and said, “Let it go, Khiara. I’ll help.”
As they stood together, the heat within her retreated until she saw clearly once more.
“Are you with me now?” he asked.
She blinked and nodded.
“Good.” Raising his voice once more, the bard said, “I will take these, but I will leave you with this.” He tossed a small bag across the clearing, the contents of which jingled when it hit the ground. “Take the palomino,” he told Khiara, and patted the horse’s neck.
She took the reins and, as soon as she was mounted, Liam handed over her messenger bag. The bard climbed into the saddle of a chestnut steed and dug his heels into its sides. Khiara followed his example and they rode out of the clearing.
When they finally stopped in a small, grassy ditch, which was somewhat obscured by a rock outcropping, she felt normal once again. Or as close to normal as I can feel after all of that, she told herself as she slid to the ground.
“Are you alright?” Liam dismounted and approached her.
“What the fuck did he mean by ‘Your Highness’?” Khiara snapped and shoved him away from her.
“Whoa, take it easy. I just saved your ass.” Liam took a step back, but Khiara pursued him.
“Tell me what he meant!” she shouted.
“The faerie realm is full of princes.”
“Bullshit.” She poked him in the chest with her forefinger as she spoke. “You failed to inform me that you just so happen to be a prince. Care to tell me exactly what you are the prince of?” The heat rose within her once more, straining at the cracks in her self-control.
“I am exactly who I said I am. My name is Liam and I am a bard to Queen Titania. You might consider me a storytelling prince of the roads.” He turned away from her and went to the horses to unfasten the bedrolls.
“You weren’t playing at the ball. Isn’t that a bard’s job?” Khiara demanded to know, following him. “You’re supposed to be making music and entertaining people.”
“Bards tell stories. A ball is not the place for a story.” He shook out the bedrolls and laid them side by side, his gaze on his task at all times.
“If you’re Queen Titania’s bard, why are you hardly ever at her court?” Khiara insisted, standing over him with her arms folded. “Why are you following me around all the time, instead of doing your duties?”
“She has many bards. And surely you have noticed that I am not always at your side. I can come and go as I please, both at the court and with you.”
“What, precisely, is the deal with telling those thieves that I’m yours?” She was fuming now at his half-answers. “Don’t play this cat and mouse shit with me, Liam. I am done with it.”
He sighed as he smoothed the bedrolls on the ground, then turned his head to look at her. “If they believe that you are under my protection, and the word of it is passed throughout the Otherworld, you are less likely to come to any harm.”
“Is that so?” She pursed her lips and bit on the inside of her cheek, then asked, “How well do you know Ronan?” He blinked up at her several times, and Khiara was inordinately pleased to see him thrown by the change of topic.
“I’ve known him since I was born,” Liam finally answered.
“Did you grow up in the same palace as him?” Khiara glared at him, feeling that she was inching closer to the truth she sensed he was hiding.
Liam looked at her, his brow furrowed. “Yes, if you must know. Why are you asking me all of these questions?”
“Because I just want you to be honest with me,” Khiara said, unfolding her arms to prop her fists on her hips. “But if you choose not to, it will make it easier to just stop trusting you here and now, which I should probably do anyhow. No faerie has ever given me a reason to believe in them, and you are definitely a credit to your twisted, duplicitous, endangered little race.”
Liam glared at her. He rose to his feet, his expression dark. To Khiara’s surprise, she felt the fire energy in her surge in reaction to the power he exuded.
“You want the truth? He’s my brother. I’m Oberon and Titania’s son, and you would do well to remember that, trust me or not, I am the only person who has done anything to help you along in your journey. Yes, my race is in danger of dying out, and we will perpetuate by any means necessary. However, that does not mean that all faeries are as untrue and disloyal as you believe.”
“And what is it that you want from me?” Khiara took a bold step toward him, undeterred by his anger. “Why do you keep watch over me? What do you hope to gain?”
“What makes you think that I stand to gain something from you?”
“All faeries are self-serving,” Khiara insisted. “I’ve known that much for the past nine years. You make deals that are impossible for mortals to win. You set ridiculous tasks for us, because you plan for us to fail. Everything a faerie does is calculated to benefit and enrich them, and to defraud mortals. You do all of this to perpetuate your race by any means necessary, as you so succinctly put it. So tell me, what do you want to take from me?”
Liam’s fingers twitched at his sides, but he kept his hands to himself, his posture almost as stiff as Khiara’s. “I don’t wish to take anything from you.”
Khiara changed the subject once more. “Tell me about the commotion at the ball. Why did you want to get me out of there before Ronan arrived?”
“That wasn’t Ronan,” Liam said with a heavy sigh, and Khiara could hear the defeat in his voice as he spoke his next words. “That was Sean.”
“Sean? Sean who?” She stared at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
“Your Sean.”
“My…” Khiara felt the blaze coursing through her and she raised her clenched her fists. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m very serious. You said you wanted me to be honest with you, so I’m telling you the complete truth.”
“Shit, no!” She turned and ran back to the horse. Placing her foot in the stirrup, she reached up to grab the reins.
Liam wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her off the horse. “Where do you think you’re going?” he yelled at her.
“I’m going back to the capitol! I need to find Sean! He came to find me!”
“I know.”
Khiara turned in the circle of his arms to look at him. “You knew that he was there? When did you know?”
“I’m the one who got him into the palace,” Liam said.
“What? Why?”
“I found out he crossed over from the mortal realm in search of you. When I realized that, I tracked him down and brought him to the ball. I told him that he would be able to find you there. It was easy enough to get him into the palace. I did it so my father could keep the two of you apart. He had Sean arrested and imprisoned in the castle dungeons.” Liam looked down at her, his expression pained. “When I gave that spell to your friend Cate, I never expected anyone to actually be able to use it. It was a way to distract the Witches; nothing more.”
Khiara glared at him. “Why would you do such a thing? Sean risked his life crossing into the Otherworld to bring me home, and you got him tossed in the dungeons! You tried to deceive not just me, but my friends. I thought you were helping me!”
Liam grabbed her by the arms, his gaze so intense that she could feel it on her sk
in. The magick stirred between them and the heat within Khiara took on an entirely different configuration, tracing along her skin like a caress.
“I thought you were helping me,” she repeated, tears stinging the edges of her eyes.
“I’m helping myself,” he answered, and then pressed his lips to hers with surprising strength.
She tried to push him away, but he held her arms at her sides. All she could do was accept the kiss until he was ready to let go of her.
The problem was that the kiss was just what she had been waiting for ever since she had met him, and their shared fire energy only made it even more difficult for her not to respond. Somehow, she forced herself to stand like a statute until he was done. Her angry demand of “Get it over with” warred with her desire to beg him not to stop. She felt her resolve weakening as he refused to play into her little game of possum, as the traitorous magick warmed her until the tension drained from her arms, her lips softened beneath his, and she leaned into him.
“I will never let go of you,” he whispered, pulling her into a fierce embrace. “I listened to Ronan talk about you for over a decade as he pursued you, and then after he lost you. I finally had to see you for myself when I knew he was still going to pursue you after all of those mortal years. My brother does not deserve you and never will.” He pressed one of his hands against the back of her head to hold her even closer. “I can feel your heart racing against mine. You know you feel the same way about me.”
“You’re just as bad as he is!” Khiara cried, trying to shake off both his grip and the languorous stupor the fire energy pulsing through her induced. His kiss had been all too intoxicating, but now she recalled her initial rage at his consistent deceptions. “You misled me every moment of this journey, all to get what you wanted!”
“I did it to get you, because what I want is you,” he growled against her ear.
“I want to go home!”
“You have nothing to go home to,” Liam said. “You’ve said the same thing many times yourself, so why do you even bother?”
“I have Sean,” she retorted stubbornly. “He came here to find me, so that’s something.”
“Something you’ll never have the way you wanted.” Liam moved her back to regard her at arms’ length. “Yes, he is here now, and we can either leave him to rot in the dungeons or send him back to the mortal world. It’s your choice.”
“No! I have more than the two choices you’re willing to offer me.” Khiara shoved him away from her. As she turned back to the horse and mounted again, she felt an ache developing in her chest. Leaving Liam behind was the last thing she wanted to do, but she could not let Sean endanger himself any longer on her behalf. “He may not love me the way I used to love him,” Khiara said as she took up the reins and looked down at Liam, “but he risked everything to find me. It isn’t romantic or passionate love. I know that now. It’s the true love that two friends share.”
“And what if seeing Sean makes you think that you love him again?”
Khiara did not have an answer for that. She merely turned her mount back toward the forest. Liam reached out to take the reins from her hands and pulled her down from the horse, which was becoming skittish with the consistent mishandling. Khiara drew her hand back instinctively. As she snapped it toward Liam’s face, he grabbed her wrist, wrestling her beneath him, and pinned her wrists on either side of her on the ground. There they lay, both glaring implacably at one another.
“Let me go.” Khiara made one last, half-hearted demand as he leaned over her.
“It’s my turn to say no.” Liam kissed her again, giving her no time to catch her breath.
Chapter 13
She slept late into the morning. As she blinked up at the sky, Khiara took a moment to reflect on the events of the previous night. Goddamn it, she thought, before closing her eyes. Rolling over in the ditch, she pillowed her head on her arms and let sleep claim her again.
When she opened her eyes again, she also heard the notes of a flute floating on the night breeze. Without hesitation, Khiara rose to her feet to find out where the melody originated. The sky overhead had cleared enough for her to see the inky, blue-black sky for a change. A star or two winked down at her as wispy clouds floated along the sea of night, and the gibbous moon cast its silver radiance across the land. Adjusting her dress and gently slapping the dust from it, she walked up through the forest, following the sound and peering through the trees. What she saw as she parted the foliage of two low-lying branches amazed her.
In a circle of flat stones, she saw dancing lights darting around the trees and flowers. She realized there were diminutive human shapes within the lights, as well as other faeries ranging in size throughout the circle. They were dancing around a bonfire, garlands of wildflowers worn on their hair, as well as strewn about the clearing.
She stood there and watched as the faeries celebrated merrily.
“Wow,” she said, following their movements with her gaze.
That was when she noticed Liam sitting on a rock off to the side, playing a song for the faeries, sprites, and pixies that had gathered. As Khiara watched their merry-making, she found the variety of faeries in the Otherworld surprising. Some looked like vampires with their pale skin, long black hair and black eyes; there was one couple – a man in a black suit with a high neck, and a woman in a long, off-the-shoulder black gown – who looked particularly dangerous. Yet, as they danced, they seemed oblivious to everything around them and completely entranced by one another. The aura they gave off was not one of paranormal power, or even fae glamour, but of love.
Not far from the vampire-like fae were eight faeries that looked like the royal suits off of playing cards, their vibrant red, yellow, and black dresses and tunics blending into one another’s as the four couples danced a quadrille.
A group of small, slender faeries who looked like they had flowers growing from the tops of their heads capered in the glow of the fire. There were also orange orbs glowing like fire in the lush, dark green foliage of the trees. Khiara was not sure if they were faerie lights or fruit hanging from the branches.
She saw that the forest was teeming with wildlife. There was a family of white foxes watching the celebration from the edge of the clearing – a father and mother, with two kits nestled between them. A pair of owls perched on a sturdy tree branch overhead, while rabbits, butterflies, deer, and more all watched the revels from the forest thicket.
Liam’s eyes met hers, and the faerie prince’s expression invited her to join the dance. Khiara let her steps take her into the circle and move to the music. Two small, winged pixies fluttered near her ears and spoke in their shrill, unintelligible, birdlike language. Khiara curtsied to them, not sure of how else to respond. The petite pixies giggled and flew out of sight.
With her own laugh of joy, Khiara danced in time to the music, circling the bonfire and spiraling as she moved. Someone draped a flower garland over her head, and the intoxicating scent of lilacs and roses surrounded her. As she whirled, the flower faeries preceded her, daintily tossing petals on the ground. Soon, a mosaic of silken red, gold, and yellow flora hid the earth.
Something fluttered through the darkness and into the clearing to land on Khiara’s shoulder. It tickled her ear with its breath, its tail curling gently over her neck and chest. It chirped softly in greeting as Khiara looked up into the brilliant silver eyes of a firedrake, its lavender scales glistening with a glossy sheen that reflected the flames of the bonfire. With a smile, Khiara reached up to stroke its head, delighting in its softness and warmth. It was calm beneath her touch and accepted a gentle caress, before disentangling itself from about her shoulders and flying off into the forest.
The Midsummer Eve faerie celebration lasted until the moon had drifted across the sky toward the horizon, and the faeries slowly paired off to find hidden corners of the forest where they could be alone together. Their soft little giggles of pleasure wafted back to Khiara, who found herself sitting in the center
of the circle, pleasantly high on the intense magick that pervaded the air. Although her body was tired, her mind was full of energy.
Liam approached and extended his hand to her. She accepted it and rose to her feet. A group of faerie minstrels sitting on the rocks by the fireside were playing a low, rhythmic tune on drums, sticks, a single guitar, and flute. Khiara followed Liam’s lead in the dance, whirling slowly among the lush undergrowth and beneath the full, verdant foliage of the trees. He pulled her close.
He kissed her.
It was something she looked forward to now; something she craved from him more and more. His hand went around her waist and they spun once more together, before he eased her gently to the ground.
****
Khiara rode through the night, trying to fight back the sense of remorse that she had abandoned Liam after finally consenting to sleep with him. She sighed with fatigue as she dismounted during the early hours of the morning to get some rest.
When she woke and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, the palomino whickered restlessly. Determined to continue her journey and find Sean, Khiara rose to her feet, stretched, and climbed back into the saddle.
She had not ridden the way they had originally come. Instead, she had chosen a different road to head back to the capitol. She was relying on the few glimpses she got of the sun and moon to guide her journey now, as she felt familiar enough with the Otherworld’s cosmological rhythms to use the sky as her map. She would keep going until she found her way back to the capitol.
It was unfortunate that Liam felt attached to her, she thought, and even more unfortunate that she felt the same. No, she told herself with a shake of her head. That’s putting it lightly. I’m falling in love with him.
She knew in her rational mind that she could not rely on him to be consistent. That was, perhaps, worse than being played for a fool. He seemed to come around only when he thought she was vulnerable. Each time, she gave in to him more and more. Last night, she had given him everything. She knew that, if he chose to do so, he could keep her completely and inextricably bound to the Otherworld based upon her words and actions with him.
The Gossamer Gate Page 11
