by Kiersten Fay
The instant the couple spotted the group, the queen hopped out of her throne with a huge grin and rushed down the steps to leap into Tristan’s arms. He caught her and spun her around with her momentum. A gloomy drizzle churned in June’s stomach. She was without a doubt the most beautiful woman June had ever seen, her strawberry hair shining in the light, her aquamarine eyes flashing with delight.
“Tristan!” The queen’s voice was like silver bells on Christmas Eve. “I’m so happy to see you. How was your trip?”
“Eventful.” Tristan set the queen on her feet but kept his hands at her waist.
For some reason, June wanted to melt into the wall and disappear. Then she registered the unsettling approach of the king, his expression forbidding, menacing, and…were those horns? spikes jutted from his hair that were visibly darkening to the color of burnt coal. A shiver raked through her and she unconsciously took a step closer to Tristan.
He glanced down and scanned her features. He looked as though he was about to say something, but another woman with straight black hair emerged from the crowd and rushed past the king to treat Tristan with the same regard as the queen had, throwing her arms around him. Tristan laughed, seemingly enjoying the attention. “Zoey, girl, good to see you.”
“The females in my life tempt me to the Edge,” the king grated darkly, going to stand near the queen and this newcomer.
The menacing king had her by two feet at least, and along with his gruff voice and wide shoulders, she instantly feared his potential aggression.
“Don’t worry, Cale,” Zoey chirped. “You’re still my favorite,” Then she went to her toes to kiss him on the cheek before shuffling off to the side.
“I demand proof of that in the form of backed goods.” Cale hooked the queen’s waist as if to drag her away, but only pulled her into the curve of his body as he eyed Tristan with something akin to contempt.
“Hello Cale,” Tristan said coolly.
“Dragon.”
Tension seemed to thicken by degrees as the two sized each other up. Even some of the Faieara appeared uneasy.
Then Cale offered his hand and Tristan took it, though, as they shook, it was obvious they were each trying to crush the other’s fist.
While that went on, the young queen faced Edel and greeted her. “Your Majesty.”
“Kyralyn,” Edel replied. “You are more beautiful than ever. The crown suits you.”
“Thank you,” Kyralyn blushed slightly. “I’m still getting used to it. Literally and metaphorically.”
“I’m sure your father would be proud.”
Kyralyn’s eyes glossed slightly. “I hope so.”
Then Edel canted her head at the two white-knuckled males and muttered, “Would you two knock that off.”
After one last squeeze in which June was sure she heard bones crunching, they released each other, neither betraying a hint of pain.
“Where is the rest of your kin?” Tristan asked.
Kyralyn replied, “We heard of a possible Kayadon outpost to the north. Anya and Sebastian took the others to investigate. They should return before the ceremony.”
“How goes it with the Kayadon?”
“It’s still not safe outside the wards. Many of my people remain in hiding, believing the castle is still under Kayadon rule. Our scouts return with new refugees daily, but it is a slow process.”
“Have you sent out a broadcast?” June asked, drawing all eyes to her. She resisted the urge to shrink away from the attention.
“June is from Earth.” Tristan informed them. His revelation resulted in shocked expressions all around.
The dark-haired woman, Zoey, eyed June up and down with blatant fascination. “What are you doing with an Earthling?”
As soon as Tristan gave them the abridged version of events, Zoey rushed forward to bear-hug June with all her might. Astonishment zinged through her.
“OMG,” Zoey exclaimed. “I’m from Earth too!”
So this was the other human Tristan had spoken of. “Nice to meet you.”
“Pardon, but, how are you able to understand everyone? Portia had to put a spell me so I could. Are you bespelled too?”
June’s gaze flicked to Tristan, whose eyes were slightly narrowed on her. “I-I don’t think so. Who’s Portia?”
With that, a pixie-like woman with delicate features and short obsidian hair pushed her way forward, shoving everyone aside to stand in front of June with a serious, stern look. June blinked at the sudden scrutiny and again glanced at Tristan for guidance or reassurance or something. He merely observed calmly, waiting for whatever came next.
The pixie-woman leaned forward, her face coming so close to June that she bent backward to avoid their noses touching. Then the pixie sniffed her—literally sniffed her.
“She does that,” Zoey explained. “This is Portia. She’s a Serakian Witchling.”
“Oh. Uh, hi—” June began, but was cut off by Portia placing her hands on either side of her face and molding her skin as though trying to see into her pores.
“You have my magic in you. Why do you have my magic in you? I’ve never met you. Unless it was that time I was drunk on Uli Rings, but I don’t remember another woman being in the mix.”
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Letting her go, Portia circled her like an attack dog, poking at her as she went while everyone just looked on.
“Hey—ow—knock it off.”
Next Portia examined her hair, her hands, her elbow, for Pete’s sake. When she pried her teeth open to peer down her throat, June finally slapped her away. “Enough! What is going on here?”
“Exactly,” Portia exclaimed. “Somehow my very-specifically-meant-for Zoey spell has leaked into you. Are you a succubus? A spell succubus? How did you do it?”
“I didn’t do anything. This is all new to me.”
With a single brow arched and an intensity that bordered on fanaticism, Portia locked gazes with her and her pupils bled out until the irises were nearly full black. June felt stuck, trapped, somehow confined within her body as a sudden dizziness swarmed her brain. The room spun, and brilliant white stars began to burst in her vision. She wanted to look away, but her body seized, becoming paralyzed like prey trapped in the gaze of a predator.
“Portia, that’s enough.” June felt the warm embrace of masculine arms tugging her close, and she closed her gritty eyes, her body once more under her own command.
Tristan continued to hold her as he glared at Portia. What had just happened. And what was with the sudden impulse to rest her cheek on Tristan’s chest?
“Well,” Portia sighed. “She’s telling the truth. But that would mean…no…my spell can’t have…I mean, it can’t have gotten away from me like that.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “I am pretty powerful, but damn, that’s next level shit.”
“Portia,” Kyralyn implored. “Please clue the rest of us in.”
“Okay. If I’m right, and I nearly almost always am….almost…then the spell I placed on Zoey so she could read and understand most common space languages may have possibly perhaps seeped into all of humanity.”
Everyone went silent for a moment.
“Or at least a part of it…”
“How is that possible?” Kyralyn asked.
Portia threw her hands in the air. “Because I’m A-MA-ZING!” She cackled in a way that June could only call maniacal.
“Even if that’s true,” said Kyralyn, “you can’t really take credit for something you didn’t mean to do.”
“Sure I can. It has my signature on it. You can’t take this away from me. I am all powerful!”
Cale chimed in, “You’re all mad if you think this is a good thing. How many of your other spells have gone awry?”
“Awry is a strong word. Can we say: how many of my spells have resulted in happy endings? No, wait, happy accidents?”
“Portia,” Cale continued gravely. “What about your protection spell over this
kingdom? How can we know if it’s secure?”
Suddenly, a scream erupted from the great hall. Everyone whipped around as a delicate Faieara stumbled into the room in a panic. “Kayadon! Kayadon are coming!”
A heartbeat of stunned disbelief froze the room. Then chaos erupted.
6
The throne room erupted in a flurry of hysteria. Screeching Faieara raced for one of two exits at the opposite end of the room, tearing and crawling over each other to escape. June was alarmed, her body instinctively wanting to succumb to the display of panic for no other reason than survivor’s instinct, but Tristan and the others remained where they were, and because she was with them, so did she.
Eyes morphing to the color or red-hot lava, Cale hollered. “Kyra, take the women to the dungeon. Lock yourselves in.” As he spoke, June spotted a pair of lengthening fangs behind his lips. The sight had her heart leaping in her chest. What the hell is he?
“Ha!” Portia countered, conjuring a ball of electric flame. “You lock yourself in.”
June gaped at the show of honest-to-god power. Was this magic?
Kyra addressed the terrorized Faieara, bottlenecking at every exit. “Everyone, listen to me! Remain calm. We will handle this.” The Faieara settled slightly, looking to their queen with hope, though pure dread remained etched in many of their expressions. Kyra grabbed the woman who’d started the panic. “Where are they?”
June spotted them first, slipping into the room through the main entrance: three vile, grotesque creatures with milky dead eyes and putrid gray skin that was tight against stringy muscles. Gripped in their gnarled hands were weapons that looked like rifles but were definitely not of Earth.
As they raised their weapons, June cried out in warning. “Tristan!”
Tristan was still holding her. At her outcry, he spun them around, seeking the threat.
Cale snarled and leapt at one of the Kayadon. The creature’s gun fired, hitting him in the shoulder, but it didn’t stop him from tackling the creature and ripping its throat out with his…claws.
I’m going to retch.
Portia hurled her ball of blue fire and an explosion of flame licked up one wall, catching one of the Kayadon in the blast. He lit up like a Griswold Christmas tree.
Belinda and Orik ushered Edel away. Kyra’s skin began to glow as she chanted, “Not now. Keep it together. Keep it together” while Tristan’s entire body began to vibrate with an intensity that had June’s teeth chattering.
“Stand back,” Tristan snapped at her, and then shoved her away. She fell to the ground mere feet from him, her gaze trapped by the transformation that was taking place. His skin thickened and grew darker, harder. His muscles bulged, growing bigger and bigger, deforming in a way that her mind couldn’t comprehend. Then suddenly his entire body exploded outward.
Too close to the action, what she would later realize was a wing slammed into her and sent her hurtling across the room. She landed on her side with a sickening crunch, but didn’t stop there. Her momentum sent her into the wall with a nauseating flood of pain. She might have blacked out for a moment, but mentally resurfaced to the hellish sounds of a mighty roar. Head swimming, she forced her eyes open.
A dragon now stood in Tristan’s place, nearly as tall as the room itself.
The dragon let out another vicious roar and the sound, sonic and deafening, pained her ears to the point that she worried one of her eardrums had ruptured. Then, with bared teeth and snapping jaws, the dragon attacked the final Kayadon, lifting it in its razor-lined mouth and thrashing it around the room like a rag-doll and slamming it against the floor, only to pick it back up to repeat the assault. The cry that ripped form the Kayadon’s throat was the wail of a being who knew death was imminent and was helpless prevent it. And even when the other two Kayadon had been dispatched and the creature in the dragon’s violent grip went quiet, the dragon continued to thrash and tear at flesh, shredding the carcass with malevolent glee.
At some point, the room had emptied but for the dragon and those who had fought. June pulled herself up on shaky feet. As she did, she registered the familiar pain of a dislocated shoulder and subsequent bruises from her brutal flight. Meanwhile, the dragon continued its abuse of the now deformed remains.
She didn’t know if it was the head wound or the maddening display of violence, but she jeered at the dragon, “You think you got it?”
The dragon dropped the carcass with a sickening splat, licked its lips clean, and then brought its great snout down to her level. Her eyes locked with wild gray irises the size of her head.
She gasped.
Tristan’s eyes.
She barely breathed as the creature studied her, its hot breath gusting in and out all around her.
“Pretty sure it’s dead, big guy. Good job,” she muttered nervously, wincing at the fresh pain sizzling up her arm.
The dragon’s gaze shifted to where she held her shoulder in place. Then he wriggled back as though it was she who frightened him. When he began to thrash in a different, less violent manner, his body shimmering all over, she realized he was shifting back to his normal form.
Sure enough, a moment later Tristan rushed toward her to assess her wounds. Several expletives left his mouth. “Dammit, June. Why were you standing so close?”
‘Scuse me? “Oh no you don’t! You don’t get to blame this on me. How was I supposed to anticipate a massive dragon would appear in my vicinity and knock me into next Tuesday? If anything, this is your fault.”
He backed away as if she’d stuck him. “You’re right. I should have never let you come here.”
She was awash in a sudden wave of guilt, as if she’d hurt him, but she shook the feeling away, entirely sick accepting guilt over things she’d had no control over. Her brother. Her mother. None of it was her fault. She told herself that often, though she rarely believed it.
“How did they get in?” Cale demanded, turning toward Portia for answers.
Baffled, Portia replied, “I don’t know. They shouldn’t have been able to cross the boundary.”
Kyra chimed in. “We need to search the kingdom. There could be more.”
“My people and I will help,” Tristan offered, no longer making eye contact with June.
“We’d appreciate that, Tristan,” said Kyra. “Your dragons can survey the area faster than we can on foot. Once Anya returns, she should be able to sense if any are near, but until then I must ensure the safety of my people.”
“The human needs a healer,” Tristan added.
It didn’t slip her notice that she’d been degraded from first a name basis to the human.
“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just my shoulder. It’s out. I need someone to help me get it back into the socket.”
“I got it,” Cale said, and then reached for her.
Tristan’s arm snaked out to grip Cale’s wrist, a warning in his gaze. They glared at each other for a moment, and then, as if some unspoken conversation passed between them, Cale seemed to soften. “You’ve no need to worry. I know what I’m doing. It will hurt, but she’ll be in less pain than she is currently.”
Tristan’s gaze snapped to her face. She tried to conceal the severity of her pain. “Be quick, then,” he ordered.
With zero bedside manner, Cale lifted her arm and then slammed the joint in place. She cried out both from the pain and from the alarming speed in which he’d accomplished the task. She’d barely tracked his movements. Seconds later, more pain registered and her head swam with renewed nausea. She teetered on her feet. Color seeped from her vision. Someone lifted in her off her Jello-y legs and the motion made her want to heave. She heard voices muttering, muffled and distant, yet not. She struggled to hear them clearly.
“Right in here…” someone said. “…on the bed. I’ll fetch a healer.”
At some point her brain stopped spinning. When she regained her faculties and was sure the danger of hurling had passed, she braved a peek at her surroundings. The first thi
ng she saw was Tristan’s face, hovering over her. The concerned seemed out of place in his features.
“Did I faint?”
Tristan nodded. “I could kill that demon.”
June sat up and took stock of her wounds. Her body ached, but she’d been in worse shape than this before. There were some scrapes and bruises, some dried blood on her leg. She noted the cut on the back of her knee then. She lightly touched the throbbing bump on her forehead. Her shoulder was sore yet working. She moved it around to test it, sighing when she achieved a blissful fluid range.
“Don’t be mad at him,” she said to Tristan. “My shoulder does feel better now… Wait! Did you call him a demon?”
“Aye. That’s what Cale is. Merciless demon bastard.”
“Surely you don’t mean he’s an actual demon. Like from hell?” She recalled her natural fear of him, the angry red eyes and horns protruding from his skull. But…demons were not meant to be attractive.
“I’ve heard of the demons from Earth’s storybooks. It is no’ the same. Like me, he and his kind are from another planet.”
“A whole planet of demons?”
“Unfortunately, their planet was destroyed by the very beings that attacked us today.” Tristan reached out to gently run his long fingers down her arm next to where a particularly long scrape marred her skin. His touch made her shiver.”
He took it as a wince. “Do you hurt much?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Really. I’ve had worse.”
He blinked at her, his gray eyes turning curious, but he didn’t press. “Kyra is fetching a healer for you. They should return soon.”
She glanced around the room, seeing it for the first time. It was marvelous and grand, with an ornately decorated hearth and a set of elegant double doors that led to a large balcony beyond which she could see a horizon of green rolling hills.
Hesitating, Tristan asked, “Will you be all right on your own? I should go and help in the search.”
A jolt of unease shot through her at the idea of being left alone in this strange world, even for a moment. Uncertainty-fueled dread crept up her spine, so familiar and distressing that she almost begged him to stay with her. But lives were at stake, so instead she smiled and made her tone easy. “I said I’m fine, didn’t I? Thanks for helping me up here, but please, there’s no need for you to make a fuss.”
