by Bonnie Lamer
“Yes,” Kallen says gruffly. He’s not very fond of Garren out of loyalty to his Grandmother. Garren had been Isla’s first choice for husband but he believed a lie and left for the Dragon realm without speaking to her first. Something he obviously regrets and she has not forgiven. Yet.
Tabitha slams a plate down in front of Garren and responds to his thank you with a grunt. Her loyalty also lies with Isla. Geesh, the guy has said he was sorry a zillion times. Isn’t it time to give him a break? A little voice in the back of my head says ‘you should talk’, but I try desperately to ignore it. This situation is not the same as mine with Dagda. Before he met me, he was planning my death. Though he has bent over backwards since then to show me that he he’s sorry and that he cares about me. Still, it’s hard to shake the idea that my own father wanted me dead. But if I’m honest with myself, and knowing him as I do now, I think it was all pride talking, no intent to actually follow through with his threats. Nope, not the same situation at all as what is playing out between Isla and Garren.
“What kind of present?” Garren asks, taking his own piece of toast and spreading jam on it. He’s pretty good at refusing to feel unwelcome. Since he has no other home in this realm, he is staying here and he doesn’t seem to be looking very hard for his own place. Nor does Isla seem to be rushing him out the door despite the tension between them.
Dead silence falls across the room. If it wasn’t for the sound of sizzling bacon, I would swear I’ve gone deaf. Rolling my eyes, I say, “It’s not like he isn’t going to notice a Tasmanian devil following me around.”
Confused, he says, “Someone gave you a Tasmanian devil as a gift?” The little creatures are not known for being cute and cuddly.
Swallowing a bite, I say, “Actually, they made it my familiar.”
Now he is horrorstruck. “A familiar?!” He looks at Isla. “Is she speaking the truth? What kind of magic is practiced here?”
At least this time he gets a response. I’m pretty sure Isla wants to punch him in the face. Giving him a look cold enough to cause snow showers over the Sahara, she says, “As I am sure you are aware, familiars are not created by the intended.”
“Maybe not, but they are not given for doing good deeds either,” he counters.
Tabitha turns and stands akimbo. “You can take your accusations and shove them…”
Isla cuts her off. “Tabitha, it is not worth your breath. As we all know, Garren is known for taking things at face value, not delving deeper into the story.”
Ouch. That was a direct hit. Garren runs a hand through his shaggy hair in embarrassment and says, “My apologies. I spoke without cause.” Looking across the counter, he avoids eye contact with anyone in the room besides me as if I’m the only one who hasn’t turned into Medusa. “Will you please explain the situation to me so I do not jump to any more wild conclusions?”
I take pity on him. “I have no idea who made it for me or why. It just showed up in our bedroom today. It talks to me even though no one else can understand him and he does what I tell him to do.” My eyes narrow as something black catches the corner of my eye. “Sort of.”
I get off my chair and walk to the entryway and glare down at my new little buddy. “I thought I told you to go outside.”
He puffs up his chest and looks at me with his beady little eyes. “I did as I was told,” he says.
“You were supposed to stay outside.”
“I did, for a moment or two. You did not specify how long you expected me to stay out there so I assumed I was free to return whenever the mood struck.”
I’m tempted to pick him up by the nape and toss him out the back door, but I’m not sure of the Witch/familiar boundaries yet. As in, is it okay for the familiar to bite its Witch? I don’t think so, but I’m not willing to take the chance of my arm being gnawed off before breakfast is over. “Go outside and stay outside.”
He looks at me a moment and then mumbles under his breath. “Wankers, the lot of you.” Then he walks back towards the terrace with his head held high and proud.
From behind me, I hear Garren whisper to Isla, “Have you considered the possibility that she is imagining these conversations.”
My turn to spin around with my hands on my hips. “Have you considered the fact that I am the only one who’s nice to you in this house and that that can change in a heartbeat?”
Instead of being scared, Garren chuckles. “Crazy or not, you certainly have spunk.”
“Do not refer to my wife as crazy,” Kallen says between gritted teeth.
Garren holds his hands out in front of him, palms forward. “Calm down, son. I was paying her a compliment.”
“A backhanded compliment,” I grumble as I sit back down.
“Nonetheless, it was still a compliment,” he chuckles.
“I’m heading back towards ‘I don’t like you’,” I say, picking up my toast again.
“I get that a lot,” he says with a grin. “Especially from stubborn old Fairies who do not know how to let go of the past.”
Again, there is dead silence in the room. My eyes fly to Isla but she fixes a pleasant smile on her face as she stands up from the counter. “I have an early meeting and must prepare. If you come to my office at the palace at noon, we can have lunch,” she says to me and Kallen. She turns and walks towards the door. On her way out, she uses one of my favorite tricks. She magically pulls Garren’s chair out from under him and he sprawls to the tiled floor.
Chapter 3
The rest of breakfast is uneventful with just the occasional griping about Isla from Garren. We ignore him. My feelings of pity have faded because I’m figuring out that he generates a lot of what he gets all by himself. I understand that all too well.
After breakfast, Kallen and I take a long, leisurely bath in our private bathing room. The chest deep hot water and his hot body are always a good combination. The best part is that now that we are married, the others in the house are much more respectful of our privacy. We don’t have to worry about the door flying open or my parents floating through the wall. I think they all just expect us to be fooling around if our door is closed.
As if to shatter this newfound illusion of seclusion, Kegan is banging hard on the bathing room door. What the hell? “Do you have a death wish?” Kallen growls after dragging his lips from mine.
“Your familiar is killing Alita,” he growls back, sounding ready to break the door down if we don’t open it.
“Oh my god, are you serious?” I ask as Kallen and I spring to action. Stumbling out of the bath in our haste, I bang my knee on the steps but hardly even notice. Kallen has us both dressed in jeans and black t-shirts as we rush to the door and Kallen yanks it open.
“Yes, I am serious!” Kegan says. The look on his face tells me he’s more afraid than angry.
“Where is she?” Kallen asks.
“Next door.” Kegan is already at the bedroom door and we are fast on his heels.
Alita’s bedroom is just down the hall from ours. Technically, it’s a guest room, but Alita uses it so often we consider it hers until she moves in with Kegan. In the room, Alita is lying on the bed, her skin as pale as ash with a tiny bit of green mixed in.
“What happened?” Kallen asks as I rush to the bed to heal whatever is wrong with her.
“As soon as that damn beast walked into the room, Alita fell to the floor in pain.”
I hadn’t even thought about this. If my familiar is made from dark magic, of course it would trigger Alita’s dark magic sensors. I need to keep it away from her.
As I sit on the edge of the bed and reach out to her, Alita screams and scurries away in obvious pain. I snatch my hand back. “Alita, what is it?”
Kallen’s brows are furrowed as he looks between me and Alita, who looks as if she is really close to having a panic attack. Then he wraps his hand around my arm and pulls me from the bed and then across the room. “Is that better?” he asks Alita. She nods and tries to get her breathing under control ag
ain.
I look from her to my husband. “What? I don’t get it.”
His lips are pressed into the tiny little line that comes before he tells me something I really don’t want to know. I’m tempted to cover my ears. “She was reacting to you just now.”
I look up at him and shake my head. “What? That’s impossible. I’m not evil.”
Alita is still trying to get her breath under control when she says, “You…you have an aura around you.”
Okay, I always have an aura around me. We all do. “Yeah,” I say confused as hell.
She closes her eyes as a new wave of pain hits her. “It is an aura of darkness,” she says quietly.
My jaw drops to the floor and I practically trip over it in my sudden stupor. Me? With a dark aura? I’m part Angel for goodness sake. I can’t have a dark aura. Then it hits me that not all Angels practice light magic. A specific Angel comes to mind as proof. Still, I shake my head emphatically. “No, that can’t be.”
I start to walk towards her again, but Kallen stops me. “We should let her rest. Perhaps she is still simply feeling the effects of your familiar.” I look up at him and know that he doesn’t believe that at all.
“How is she doing,” Tabitha asks from behind me, startling me half to death.
“She thinks Xandra is evil,” Kegan says, almost as dumbfounded as me.
Tabitha frowns. “Nonsense.” She bustles into the room with a bowl and a compress. Sitting down on the bed, she dips the compress into the bowl and then places it on Alita’s brow. Alita tries to smile in gratitude but can’t muster it through the pain.
“We should let her be for now,” Kallen says quietly, tugging gently on my arm.
I nod and let him lead me from the room. He leads me downstairs into the main living room where he plops down on one of the sofas and pulls me down next to him. “We will figure this out,” he says, kissing my cheek.
I lay my head against his shoulder. “Can we just start this day over?”
He chuckles. “If only we could.”
We sit like this in silence until we hear Tabitha coming back down. “How is she?” I ask when she enters the room.
“She is resting,” Tabitha says. “Kegan will stay with her until she is well again.”
“She didn’t react to you being close to her?” I ask.
Tabitha shakes her head. “No, she did not.”
“Then it was just me?” Both she and Kallen look uncomfortable. Guess that answers that question.
“Come here,” Tabitha says holding out her hand.
Reluctantly, I stand up and walk over to her. I know what she’s going to do. She’s going to try to read my aura. I don’t want her to because I’m terrified that Alita is right, but I go to her anyway.
Tabitha engulfs me in a hug, pulling me close to her plump body like a grandmother would. Although I do have a long lost grandmother, she didn’t exactly live up to my expectations like Tabitha does. It helps that Tabitha has the ability to ease tension with her touch.
After a moment, she steps back. Her face does not say ‘Alita is full of crap and your aura is pristine’. It says ‘boy, are you ever screwed’.
“Tabitha?” Kallen says rising from the couch and walking to me. He puts a comforting arm around my shoulders. “What did you sense?”
Tabitha shakes her head as if trying to shake things up in there hoping the right thing to say pops up. Finally, she says, “It is the strangest thing.” It is amazing how many conversations about me begin that way. The price I pay for being an enigma.
After several heartbeats, I say, “Tabitha, you’re killing me here. What is the strangest thing?”
With a sigh, she says, “I can feel the darkness that Alita speaks of, but it feels to me as if it’s a layer on top of your aura. Almost as if it was painted on.”
If someone was going to take the time to paint my aura, I sure wish they would have gone with a sunny yellow or maybe a ripe peach color. “Is that even possible?” I ask.
Kallen speaks first. “No. Aura’s cannot be changed.”
“But they can be hidden,” Tabitha says thoughtfully.
“Do you think someone is trying to hide my real aura?” I ask. Why would someone do that?
Tabitha shrugs and shakes her head. “I do not know. I can see no purpose for that.”
“Unless it is to throw Alita’s sensors off,” Kallen says thoughtfully.
My brows crawl together. “What do you mean?”
“If someone wants to attack the King with dark magic, then the first thing to do is get rid of his dark magic detector,” he says.
I get it. “And since I’m her best friend and she’s around me a lot, I was the best candidate.”
Tabitha snorts. “You may be around her a lot, but Kegan has you beat in that. He is with her most of every day. They are almost as difficult to keep apart as you and Kallen were.”
My cheeks pink, but I ignore her comparison. “Then why me?”
She shakes her head again. “I simply do not know.”
Kallen looks down at me. “We should go to the palace. Both to do research on familiars and to let Dagda know that Alita is temporarily incapacitated.” Also, that he might be under a death threat, but that is left unsaid. At least it runs in the family; that makes me feel better somehow. I am sure Dagda will see that differently.
I nod. “Okay, let’s go.” Feeling like a thousand pounds of darkness is weighing me down, I teleport us to the front steps of the palace.
Chapter 4
Stumbling on a step and nearly falling, Kallen frowns at me. “A little warning when you are going to do that would be nice.”
I smile at him sheepishly. “Sorry.”
The front door of the palace swings open and a doorman I don’t recognize steps out. “Princess,” he drawls. I could scrape a pound of distaste off his tongue and there would still be some left. “How nice to see you.” I don’t believe him.
“Yeah,” I mutter, “you look thrilled.”
Ignoring me, he inclines his head towards Kallen, “Prince Kallen, always a pleasure.” There was only a small amount of distaste spewing from that sentence. A lot of Fairies don’t like the fact that Kallen, a full-blooded Fairy, married me.
Kallen is a little taken aback by the use of the word Prince. This is the first time he’s been addressed as such and I’m not sure he’s any more comfortable with it than I am with Princess. Without missing a beat though, he says, “Thank you. We are here to see the King.”
Looking at me like I’m a sight he would like to scrub off his retinas with bleach and a steel brush, he says, “The King has a full schedule today and is not receiving.”
Enough of this crap, I think as a rush of adrenaline hits me. I step forward and get right in the Fairy’s face. His dull green eyes open a little wider and I can feel his fear as I step closer. Apparently, he’s only tough when I’m not standing nose to nose with him with my blood boiling. “I don’t know you, but already I don’t like you. I’m a very bad enemy to have, so you might want to make this right before I hit you with so much magic you won’t be able to stand for a week.”
A firm hand grasps my upper arm. “Xandra, we should attend to our business.”
Kallen’s soothing voice brings me back from my trip over the macho edge. What the hell? Yeah, the guy was rude to me when I didn’t deserve it, but lots of Fairies are rude to me. I don’t normally threaten them, though. Well, sometimes I do, but only if they really piss me off. It’s not usually because of a look and one rude comment. I look up into Kallen’s bright green eyes that have filled with both love and concern and I nod. We walk past the Fairy and step through the open door.
This is one of my favorite parts of the palace: the little balcony area right inside the door that looks down upon the great hall. It’s a great view of the tree that grows in the center and the river that splits around it. It’s beautiful and serene, like a Princess’s castle should be. I smile slightly at that thought and
then let Kallen lead me down the stairs to the great hall.
We walk next to the calm river and pass by the bench that is great for reading or simply watching the water flow. I haven’t been here often, but I do like that spot. Kallen opens a door on the other side of the hall and we leave the serenity behind as we enter the King’s receiving room. The doorman didn’t lie, Dagda’s time is being monopolized and we’re definitely not alone. A sea of black hair and green eyes greet us. There is a crowd of Fairies milling about and murmuring quietly, and Dagda is sitting on his throne speaking to someone. Sindri, his assistant, is standing at a podium in front of him taking notes.
