The Pixie & The Prince

by Charity Parkerson

  Spinning her around, he forced her to brace her hands against the bed as he entered her from behind. Throwing her head back, Katrina cried out her pleasure. She moaned as he moved inside her, and she locked her muscles around him in an attempt to hold him there. A sound came from deep inside of him making her surge with pride, and she did it again so that she could hear it once more.

  In retaliation, he pinched her clit between his thumb and forefinger, and like magic, caused her to orgasm hard underneath his touch. Leaning into her, he sank his teeth into her shoulder, nipping lightly at her skin, before running his tongue over it in apology. The move had her panting as chills ran down her back. He kept up a relentless pace, refusing to let up with his fingertips until he wrung another orgasm from her.

  “I love you,” he whispered against her skin.

  His grip tightened around her, and his muscles clenched as he found his own release.

  In a moment of blissful happiness, Katrina stared down at the floor trying to hold back a bubble of hysterical laughter.

  He was still wearing his combat boots.

  ***

  Several hours of torturing Freddie later, Tam sat at the small kitchen table. It was laden with food that mirrored the mortal realm along with some things that Tam didn’t recognize. She assumed those were Astrid’s contribution to the meal. Everyone was seated, except for Freddie and the maid, who was still fluttering around the table, nervously arranging every dish. Astrid looked very regal for such an informal dinner with family. She wore a deep-red satin dress, and her dark hair was twisted into some form of fancy coiffure on top of her head. Sigurd was equally as majestic in a wrinkle-free, black suit with a tie that matched Astrid’s dress to perfection. Tam felt like a daisy planted next to roses.

  Freddie cleared his throat. It was a nervous sound that captured Tam’s full attention.

  “First off, I want to thank everyone for agreeing to join me,” he said, causing a luminous smile to light his mother’s face.

  “I’m always delighted to share a meal with my son, and you too Tam, of course,” she added, and Tam couldn’t help but smile at her tone. She sounded so much like she was afraid she’d offended Tam with her comment that Tam found herself patting Astrid’s arm to reassure her.

  Sigurd nodded his head respectfully as if he’d not been ordered to be there.

  Coming to Tam’s side, Freddie said, “I’m not going to waste anyone’s time. I’m going to get right down to the reason why I asked you here tonight.”

  He dropped down to one knee at Tam’s feet.

  “I’m not stupid enough to wait or give you time to change your mind,” he told her quietly. “I realize that when I came here, you wanted me to beg you to come with me, and I failed you on that one. However, I don’t intend to fail you in this, so will you please, please, please do me the honor of marrying me?”

  “Awwww,” Tam cried in delight. “I didn’t want you to beg, just ask, but hell yeah! I’ll be your wife.”

  Freddie made a move as if to kiss her, but in a move that belied his age, Sigurd shot to his feet.

  “Balder Frederick, you cannot marry this, this….” he wagged a finger in Tam’s direction as if searching for the right word.

  “Hottie,” Tam supplied, daring him with her eyes to choose a different term.

  His shoulders sagged, and he softened his tone. “Freya, it is not that I do not find you adorable,” he explained sounding genuine. “I really do, but our land has been in much turmoil with its heir trapped in the mortal realm. If anything should happen to Queen Astrid then Prince Frederick will be our king, so you see, he cannot marry you. He must marry someone of the royal bloodline.”

  Tam’s stomach dropped to her knees. Sigurd was right. Her breathing became shallower as her heart tried to reconcile with the truth. She knew somewhere deep down in her soul they could never be together. They had been doomed from the very start. Sometimes hope could be a very cruel thing.

  Freddie and Astrid’s eyes met, and something silent passed between them. With a wave of her hand, Astrid whispered into the ear of a nearby maid who nodded and quickly left the room. Desperation was building inside of Tam. He wouldn’t marry her now, and his face was blank of all emotion. She wanted to scream. She wanted to demand he explain why he wasn’t as broken as she felt.

  “Actually,” Freddie began, looking back at Tam and holding her gaze as he spoke. “It is Tam who should be rejecting me, as she is the daughter of a god.”

  A hysterical bubble of laughter rose in Tam’s throat. She wanted to deny it and call him a liar, but the set of Freddie’s jaw warned her that it was no trick.

  She searched his face, hoping it could answer her questions, but found nothing to help her, and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to enlighten her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Tam saw Astrid wave Sigurd back to his seat.

  “You have my word that you may rest assured in the royal bloodline,” Astrid told him as he reclaimed his chair. Her words sounded as if they were coming through a tunnel to Tam’s ears.

  “Please?” she begged finally, when it didn’t seem that Freddie intended to tell her anything. “How do you know my parents?”

  The maid reappeared holding a package that she handed to Freddie. Sitting back on his heels at her feet, he dropped his eyes to the dark-yellow, over-stuffed envelope resting on his knees before asking, “Do you remember the night I returned here?”

  The memory of the knife-twisting pain of watching as Freddie stepped through the speculum without her, played across her mind, and Tam snorted.

  “How could I forget?”

  “It was a Thursday,” Freddie supplied, ignoring the bitterness in her tone.

  Tam nodded even though he wasn’t looking at her. “Thomas took me to the potion shop to visit Randall, and we stopped for beignets on the way home. Thomas had never had one before.”

  Freddie lifted his eyes to hers. “Katrina came to see me while you were gone.”

  “My Mistress Katrina came to see you?” she asked as if there could be another.

  A slight smile touched Freddie’s lips. “She handed me this.” He motioned toward the package, adding, “And said that I could give it to you as soon as we were safely married. I was overjoyed to learn that fate sealed you as my wife, but there was a catch.”

  Tam shook her head in regret. “There is always a catch when fate is involved.”

  Freddie nodded. “She said that I had to return here, reclaim my throne and you had to come with me, but you had to come with me by your own decision. I was not allowed to influence you in any manner, because no matter what fate has in store for us, we cannot lose our freewill.” A look of hurt crossed over Freddie’s face before disappearing. “I thought it was going to be so easy,” he admitted. “I thought I would say, ‘hey I’m going’ and you’d say, ‘okay let’s go’, but you know how that went.”

  “I don’t understand,” she confessed. “Why would Mistress Katrina do that? Why would she fate me to marry a prince when I’m no royal?”

  “That’s my fault,” Astrid said, capturing Tam’s attention.

  “Your fault?” Tam repeated, beginning to feel numb. Her head was spinning and no one was explaining themselves to her satisfaction. Astrid simply nodded.

  “You have heard that I am Valkyrie, have you not?”

  Tam tilted her chin in acknowledgment. Ella had told her the story of how her parents had met when Astrid arrived to lead Freddie’s father to his death. However, Astrid fell in love with the mirror man instead. Together they raised a family until they became too comfortable in their life and the other Valkyrie arrived to slaughter them. Their father had been killed but Astrid was able to shove Freddie and Ella through the mirror and into the safety of the mortal realm. She shattered the mirror behind them to keep the Valkyrie from following.

  “I was all curious, like about how you survived and why they weren’t here killing us all, but Freddie said you worked something out, so I
wasn’t worried,” Tam explained.

  “After I shattered the speculum, I returned to face my fate. The knowledge that my children would be safe was enough for me, and I was prepared to willingly give up my life in exchange for their word that Freddie and Ella would never be hunted. Unfortunately, it turned out that they did not feel as if I was much of a bargain. They already had me on my knees, so why barter?” She paused and blinked rapidly as if the memory of that night still haunted her. Clearing her throat, she continued.

  “I watched as the sword rose to strike, and I couldn’t even cringe away from it. It was still dripping with the blood of my husband, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away as I wondered if my children’s would stain it next. As the sword moved toward me, the great god of war, Tyr, appeared, and the blade bit into his back.”

  Astrid stared off into the distance as she spoke, the picture of that night played out in her mind.

  “His face was inches from mine, and his green eyes showed not even a hint of pain. He merely smiled.” Astrid waved her hand as if waving away the picture. “He said, ‘Your son is a prince, is he not?’ and I nodded, still in disbelief at what I was seeing. I mean, here this great longhaired god kneeled bare-chested before me, a sword in his back, and everyone in shocked awe of his presence while he inquired about our bloodline. It is just like men to worry over those things at the most inappropriate times.” She shot an accusing look at Sigurd who blushed under her stare.

  “Anyhow,” she continued. “At my nod, Tyr said, ‘Then I decree that your life and the life of your children shall be spared so long as your son makes my daughter into the princess she deserves to be’. Well, of course I agreed. Not only were we under the protection of a god, I’d also get to welcome that god’s daughter into my family. What more could a mother want?”

  Tam had no idea what more a mother could want, but she still had no idea what any of this had to do with her. Now, not only was she not the princess that Freddie needed, she was also not the daughter of a god. Things were only getting worse.

  “Bloody freaking hell!” Tam exploded. “I can’t compete with Tyr’s daughter.” Her wings drooped. “Why even tell me any of this?”

  Astrid’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But, Tam, you’re Tyr’s daughter.”

  Tam shot from her seat. “What? I am not Tyr’s daughter. I’m a freaking fairy.” Turning on heel, she showed Astrid her back and fluttered her wings to emphasize her point.

  Astrid blinked as if she didn’t understand Tam’s point. “Dear girl, if a god says you are his daughter then rest assured, you are his daughter.”

  “The daughter of a god. Oh, dear me. How exciting!” Sigurd clapped his hands. “I just knew that Freya Tam was special. Yes I did.”

  Tam ignored his words and tore open the seal of the envelope. Astrid, Sigurd, and Freddie all leaned forward to get a better look.

  Freddie’s eyebrows rose. “It’s empty,” he said dryly.

  “No. It’s not,” Tam argued.

  Shrinking down to pixie size, she climbed inside the envelope, retrieving the thumbnail size sliver of paper and speck of gold at the bottom before crawling out again.

  When she snapped back to five feet, the miniscule paper became letter size and the gold became a normal size brooch. It was a wolf’s head with two emeralds for eyes.

  “It’s fairy magic,” she explained at their dazed expressions before inspecting the jewelry. It was very beautiful, and for some reason she didn’t understand, she wanted to cry looking at it. It was as if she was seeing a piece of her own history that she had been missing her whole life.

  Unfolding the letter, she tilted the paper so that Freddie could read it along with her.

  This is a gift from your father. Wear it proudly.

  “I have to talk to Katrina,” Tam said as she came to her feet, allowing the letter to flutter to the floor.

  “Why?”

  Tam stared at Freddie’s confused features. “Because she is my momma.”

  Grabbing onto Freddie’s hand, Tam flashed them from the Mirror lands directly onto Katrina’s balcony. Katrina intentionally kept the balcony off-limits so that Tam could freely visit.

  Taking note of the change in scenery and realizing what had just happened, Freddie felt baffled. The incandescent clouds of the heavens and miniature balls of light floated around the stone balcony they stood upon. It was peaceful in a muted sort of way, as if everything had been stripped down to its most basic form.

  One glaring detail stared Freddie in the face greater than any other.

  “You could have done that at any time, couldn’t you?”

  Tam glanced away guiltily.

  “You were never trapped in the Mirror land or tied to my side, were you?” he asked her.

  Katrina snorted, pulling Freddie’s attention in her direction, and making him realize they were not alone. “My daughter trapped? As if I would ever allow such a thing,” she said derisively.

  Katrina was curled into Thomas’ side on a cushy, ivory-colored settee. Their bodies were covered with a burgundy blanket, and it was obvious they were both nude beneath it.

  “Awww and Ewww,” Tam cooed at the sight of the pair, ignoring Freddie’s question.

  Katrina chuckled at her daughter’s reaction.

  “Don’t look so horrified,” she chided. “How do you think you got here?”

  “Apparently by you getting busy with a god,” Tam snapped, waving the paper at them. “Although, I’m very happy that your tastes have improved,” she added, causing Katrina and Thomas to exchange an odd look before bursting into peals of laughter.

  Tam bowed her head and Freddie could tell from watching her profile that she was blinking back tears. It couldn’t have been easy for her to learn her father’s identity after years of thinking he was some unknown fairy. He wrapped his arms around her and she buried her face into his chest. Thomas and Katrina immediately fell silent.

  Tears soaked through the cotton of Freddie’s shirt. If he’d learned anything from raising his sister from childhood, it was how to read when to keep his mouth shut and simply be there.

  “I don’t know who I am,” she whispered into his chest.

  “Don’t know who you are?” Thomas asked, proving that his hearing was amazing.

  Tam’s eyes latched onto Thomas while Freddie stared at Tam. She was the important one here, and if she showed any sign of needing him, he didn’t want to miss it. A tear ran down her cheek, and Freddie reached out, brushing it away with his thumb. He’d be here even if that’s all he could offer.

  “How can you say you don’t know who you are?” Thomas asked, making a move as if to stand.

  “Noooo!” Tam cried as Thomas slid from beneath the cover. He paused with one leg stuck out, looking confused at her panic. With a shrug, he stood, and Tam snagged hold of Freddie’s arm, feigning going weak in the knees.

  “Oh, thank the gods! He’s wearing his kilt. I thought he was naked.”

  Thomas shook his head at Tam’s antics while Katrina chuckled.

  Marching to their side, he muscled Freddie out of the way and placed his hands on Tam’s shoulders. The guardian angel was one huge dude, but Freddie was prepared to hand his ass to him if he hurt Tam’s feelings again.

  A radiant light surrounded the angel, and his appearance changed into that of a longhaired god as he stared down into Tam’s face. Freddie’s his jaw dropped at the sight, and Tam began to cry in earnest.

  “I’ve been right here the whole time. Have I ever made you feel like less than the daughter that you are?” Thomas asked.

  Tam shook her head, but words seemed to fail her as she opened her mouth, but no sound emerged.

  Finally, after a few tries, she asked, “Why?”

  Personally, Freddie thought that ‘why’ could’ve meant a thousand things, but Thomas seemed to understand.

  “This is the only way I could be with you,” he explained, and his form returned to the Thomas they all knew.

 
Tam looked past him to her mother. “Did you know?”

  She shook her head. “I did not, but he was right to do this. I went to great lengths to keep you hidden, so I cannot fault him for his extremes.”

  Tam shook her head as if she still didn’t believe it, even in the face of such overwhelming evidence. “But I’m a fairy,” she argued, but with no real heat behind it.

  Thomas moved back to sit with Katrina, lending her his strength, and Freddie was grateful to have the path clear to hold onto Tam once more. He tucked her into his side as Katrina explained, “You look so much like your father. It’s a bit uncanny.”

  Freddie silently agreed with that assessment. He’d noticed when Thomas had shown his true form that they were a near perfect image of each other.

  “I began to fear, as you got older, that it was becoming too apparent who your father is. I panicked,” Katrina confessed. “We’d already spread the word that you were found near the wall during a battle in which it was widely known that Tyr was present for. What if people had begun to suspect that you were his daughter? I had to do something. I couldn’t risk anyone attempting to use you for their own personal gain because you are the daughter of a god, and I had already sacrificed being able to openly claim you as my own for that very reason. Therefore, I did what I had to. I weaved the hair of a fairy into your life thread.”

  It was Katrina’s turn to cry, and Thomas held her closer while shooting Tam a pleading look over the top of her head.

  “We both wanted you so badly, Tam,” Thomas said. “It wasn’t ideal or fair for anyone involved, but we kept you safe the best way we knew how.”

  “Why tell me this now? All this time spent lying and hiding, but now, since I’m marrying Freddie, everyone in the Mirror lands is going to know.”

  Katrina sniffled, but lifted her chin as if ready to take on the world. “I’m very proud that you are my daughter, and you have grown so powerful. Everyone in the Mirror lands will know you as Tyr’s daughter, and his rule is supreme there. You will be much loved by your people,” she switched her gaze to Freddie, adding, “and your husband.”