by ERIN BEDFORD
Wasting no time at all, I quickly stripped off my sweaty clothing and turned the water on. Once it was good and full I stepped in and sank down until I was covered to my neck. God, why hadn’t I done this before? The freaking cat had been holding out on me.
Thinking of Chess made me wish he were here now. He would know how to make this bath worthwhile. My face and chest heated up at all the things he would do to me if he were here now. I sighed deeply and sank even further into the tub. Look at me. I was supposed to be getting over Chess and moving on but everything here just made me think of him and thus miss him even more. Maybe this was a bad idea.
I climbed out of the tub and wrapped a towel around myself and then grabbed another to dry my hair. I couldn’t even enjoy soaking in the tub. I pulled out my cell phone to see that I had almost no battery left and no bars. So much for having some form of entertainment.
I growled in frustration, and I stared at myself in the mirror. What was I supposed to do now? It was too early to go to bed, but after the day I had, it wouldn’t hurt to call it a night already. Besides, the sooner I went to bed the sooner I could get out of here and go home.
Marching into the bedroom, I started for the closet. Chess and I weren’t even close to the same size, but he had to have something I could wear. I so wasn’t putting my sweaty clothes back on.
Opening the closet door, I smiled slightly at the sight before me. Who had or needed so many clothes? I swore he was worse than my sister. I could count on one hand how many pairs of shoes I had and he had at least two dozen. Not to mention, all the different pants and tops he had organized by color. Even dead I was learning things about him. I wouldn’t have pegged him for OCD. Giggling, I thumbed through his clothing. The whole closet smelled of him, a sort of spicy scent that filled my nose and made my heart ache.
Not able to stand to be in here for one moment longer, I grabbed the first shirt I found and darted out of the room. I looked down at what I had grabbed, a sheer crop top that wouldn’t cover half of my bust let alone work as a nightshirt. Shaking my head, I went back into the closet, this time taking the time to grab a half decent shirt.
Walking out of the closet, I pulled the tank top over my head. If Chess was still alive, and I somehow magically got him back, we were going to have to talk about what regular everyday clothing looked like. While looking at him prance around in tight pants and chest-baring shirts was enjoyable, it wasn’t really good for functioning in the human world.
I moved over to the bed and hesitated. Placing my hand on the top of the comforter, I frowned. Just a few hours ago I had been thinking how I would never lay in this bed but now here I was getting ready to slip underneath the covers. Trying not to think about it too much, I climbed beneath the comforter and laid my head back onto the pillow. I turned over and buried my face into the pillow. I could smell the cat here too. With the pillow clutched close to my face, I fell into a restless sleep, staring twins and a dark haired woman with way too much makeup on.
Chapter 8
Chess
ON THE POSITIVE side, dinner with the twins wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. They kept the conversation light and mainly spent the whole time flirting with Morgana, an attraction I couldn’t understand. Did they not know how atrocious she was?
Thankfully, the dinner didn’t last long and we were on the move again. I was surprised I didn’t have to let my claws out when it was time to leave. The twins had begged us to stay the night, and when I say us, I mean her. They couldn’t give two licks about me.
Morgana, though, laughed them off with a promise to stay on the way back after she got rid of her extra baggage. She looked to me as she said it, and I had the childish urge to stick my tongue out at her. I resisted the urge and waited like a patient dog for her to lead on.
Walking through the fog had become more of an inconvenience now. I followed after her, not too worried about where we were going or how we got there. I just wanted to get to the Reaper and get home. The more questions I asked the longer it would take, and I didn’t have any desire to stay longer than I already had.
“You are being awfully quiet back there,” Morgana finally broke the silence between us. “I would think you’d be talking off my ear now that we don’t have the twins to intimidate you.”
I scoffed, “They don’t bother me.”
“Really?” she glanced over her shoulder, quirking an eyebrow. “That’s not what I got from how tense you were at dinner.”
“Can you blame me for wanting to get a move on? The more time we waste with your lovers the longer it will take me to get out of here.”
“Jealous?”
“Hardly,” I laughed.
Morgana made a humph sound and turned back around, putting her nose in the air. After that, we went back to silence, which I preferred, to be honest. I liked someone who gave me a challenge and could hold their own as much as the next fellow but after a while it just got tiring.
“Here we are,” she said when she finally stopped to talk to me again. We exited the fog and entered another mirror graveyard like area, practically identical to hers and the twins, it didn’t make me feel any closer to getting to the Reaper and out of here.
“Is the Reaper here?” I asked moving around her to scan the area. I didn’t see anything that could be remotely what we were looking for and spun back around to wait for her answer.
“No, not here.” She smiled up at me expectantly as if there was a joke I was supposed to be in on.
“Then what are we here for?” I growled at her but all she did was giggle and point a finger behind me.
“Him.”
I hadn't seen my dad in centuries. He looked exactly how I remembered him.
He was an large cat about the size of a tiger with fur stripped like mine, a pink base with purple stripes. He had huge emerald green eyes and a face full of sharp teeth. Lounging on top of the rock, his tail wrapped around his hind legs, moving up and down with interest.
For a moment I thought he wouldn't recognize me. I'd been nothing more than a boy when he died. Would he recognize me as a man?
Morgana sashayed right over to him without a care in the world. It was strange how even though she was wearing casual clothing she still moved as if she were dressed in fine satin and jewels. It was the kind of attitude that came from growing up in royalty. It made me wonder exactly who she really was.
“Cheshire,” she purred, her hand coming out to stroke the top of my father’s head. I half expected him to growl and nip at her, but he angled his head further into her hand, silently requesting a scratch. Granting his request, her fingers dug into the fur behind his ears, causing the large feline to purr with contentment.
After a few moments, I was beginning to feel awkward. The scratching had gone on longer than was appropriate in polite society and made me wonder if they knew each other better than they appeared.
I cleared my throat causing Morgana’s hand to stop and my father’s eyes to open. The look in his eyes had he been one with physical magic would have decimated me on the spot. Luckily for me, I got my ability to phase between the realms from him. It was the only true power he had besides his massive size.
“As weird as this is turning out to be, could you stop with the petting and explain to me why we are here?” I gestured around the hovel like area, not much different than Morgana’s, except his mirror graveyard only held a few mirrors as opposed to the dozen or so that filled Morgana’s.
“Always the petulant child. I see after all these centuries you have not changed,” my father’s voice boomed out of his chest.
Shrugging, I gave him my best fang-toothed grin. “What can I say, I take after my father.” Even as the words fell from my lips I knew they were only partly true.
There were many things about myself that had nothing to do with my father. Things that I hoped hadn’t come from my mother. The fact that I could easily let myself be convinced to make Kat fall for me fo
r the queen’s plan. Or the fact that I had been so cowardice and unable to tell her no when she kept forcing her people onto me. Now that I knew what real love felt like, I felt that my father never loved me, and if my mother even had a chance to be with me, she probably hadn’t either.
“Like father like son,” Morgana laughed, the back of her hand covering her mouth, “I knew bringing you here would be interesting.”
“Is that all this is for you? A new source of entertainment?” I growled at her, the smirk on her face at my outrage caused my anger to quicken. “I trusted you to lead me to the Reaper not drag me all over the Shadow Realm so you can get your kicks off my family drama. And you,” I pointed a clawed finger at my father, “you are a shape shifter, why must you stay in animal form? You know how that makes me feel!”
My father cocked his head to the side, curiosity in his gaze, and then he nodded his head. “I apologize. I did not realize at your age you still had insecurities about your form.”
Troll malarkey. He knew well and good I still had hang ups on my form. As half UnSeelie and half Seelie, I didn’t have the full powers of either parent. While my mother had been able to transport from one place to the other with a single thought, so much so she could go between worlds. I, on the other hand, could only go small distances and only if I had been there before. My father as he so dutifully pointed out could shapeshift between a large cat form and a Fae form that he used to mate with my mother. He told me once that he preferred the cat form because it was simpler; his mind didn’t have to focus on things he couldn’t control as much. I used to envy him but after a while, I realized I would never be like him. Always stuck in between forms, I began to resent it.
I tried not to let my interest show but as usual when he shapeshifted my eyes were drawn to his form. His whole body enveloped in light, his form shrank down from the massive cat into that of a man. The fur on his skin receded, his jaw shortened and his paws lengthened into hands and feet. Long, dark purple hair hung from his head and brushed the ground below. The only part of him giving anyone any clue of what he once was were the sharpened canines in his mouth and claws on his hands. Unlike me, he didn’t have ears on his head but pointed human ears, something else I would never achieve without glamour.
Unfortunately, with his transformation also came the lack of clothing, something that Morgana had no problem with as her eyes trailed my father’s figure with a hunger I’d never seen on her face. I wasn’t a prude by any means but seeing her watch my father that way made me a bit queasy.
“Clothing please,” I croaked out as he stood to his full height, showing off that I did indeed gain some attributes from him. His lips twisted downward as he walked into the hovel near us.
“Well, this certainly is interesting,” Morgana murmured, her eyes on the door my father had just exited. I didn’t answer her and turned away to look at the mirrors around us. I was curious to see if they showed the same as Morgana’s or if it was different for each person. If it was specific to each person’s past, then I was curious to know why the mirrors in Morgana’s area showed Kat’s house.
Kneeling down by a mirror close to me, I placed my hand on the surface. This one rippled and stirred and before long the reflection was no longer showing me and the darkness behind, but the inside of my bedroom. Frowning hard, I removing my hand from it. I moved to another mirror and touched it as well, this time it showed me my bathroom and in the reflection was Kat.
“Kat! Katherine!” I cried out gripping the edges of the mirror as my eyes widened. What was she doing in my bathroom? She had just been home not too long ago. The mirror only allowed me to see her from her collarbone and up, since she had bare shoulders and dripping hair I could only assume she had just gotten out of my bath. The thought of her in my home warmed my heart but at the same time made me ache to be home. I wanted to be the one to show her around. Before she had only been there long enough to change and then she had to take off before the shadows got her. The aspect of having her in my bed was too much for me to contemplate.
Before my thoughts could wander into even more dangerous territory so close to Morgana and my father, she leaned in close to the mirror as if she was looking right at me.
“I’m here. I’m right here.” I shook the mirror’s frame and growled out in frustration when she simply dried her hair and then moved out of the frame. Throwing myself away from the mirror, I collapsed in a huff on the ground. She was in the Underground that should mean I had a better chance to get a hold of her, but it didn’t seem like it was going to happen.
“Is that your mate?” my father’s voice sounded from behind me, but I didn’t look up at him as I stared hard at the ground. When I didn’t answer he kept talking, the guy was as bad as I was when it came to taking a hint. “She is very pretty.”
Morgana made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat that caused me to glare at her, daring her to say something bad about Kat. I might be stuck here, but I wasn’t about to let her dishonor my woman. At my intense glare, she promptly closed her mouth and turned her eyes from me. Smart woman.
“Your mother was pretty like that,” my father continued as if I wasn’t ignoring him.
“I wouldn’t know.” I wrapped my arms around my knees laying my cheek on the top of one knee. “Kat is my mate, or she would be if I wasn’t stuck here.”
From the corner of my eye I saw him nod his head before sitting down on the ground beside me. He had found some clothing, thankfully. A plain pair of pants and dark tunic. Not something I would have ever picked but it was better than having to stare at his genitals the entire time.
“You know, prior to what you may believe, your mother and I weren’t forced into mating.” My head jerked up as he spoke, suspicion on my face. “Your mother was quite beautiful, and I was young and naive. All I wanted to do was rut and your mother was prime for the taking.”
My face twisted in disgust at the imagery, but I waited for him to continue whatever it was he seemed to need to say to me.
“It was only by luck that we fell in love.” There was a soft smile on his face as he talked about her that I had never seen before.
“So, what happened? Why did you two break up and then leave me?” I couldn’t help the words that flew from my mouth. I had the chance to ask all the questions I had ever wanted to say, and the child that wanted his parents needed the answers.
“What always happens in the Underground,” my father sighed when I gave him a confused look, “the queen got involved.”
Ah, yes. The Seelie Queen was a right bitch, and it wasn’t at all surprising that she had ruined not just her own daughter’s life but all those around her. I really hoped Kat gave her a harsh punishment for her crimes.
“In any case, I know what you are going through.” He patted me on the arm in a fatherly gestured he had never shown me in my childhood. “I still feel like a piece of me is missing now that I’m stuck here and she is the Reaper only knows where.”
I shook his hand off. “But it’s not like there is a piece of me missing, there is a piece of me missing.”
“I know it must feel like it but after a while, it won’t be so bad,” he tried to reason with me, but I stood to my feet.
“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand. We are linked by magic. I was thrown to the Bandersnatch and she saved me. Our magic, her magic is inside of me and each day we are apart it’s like I’m dying inside.” I gripped my chest where the hole in my heart sat, just talking about it made my throat clog up with emotion.
My father’s eyes widened at my story and even Morgana’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “I’m sorry,” he shook his head sadly, his hair swinging around him, “I wasn’t aware. I’ve heard of Fae who have shared magic before but never have I met someone who knew what it was like. Being here must be more than torture for you.”
“You can’t even imagine.”
There was an awkward silence for a few moments; my father’s gaze stared ha
rd at the mirrors around us. Then without warning, he slapped his thighs and stood to his feet. “Well, then we have to get you out of here.”
“How are we going to do that?” I followed behind him as he moved from where we had been sitting to the mirror that had shown me Kat in the bathroom. My eyes traced his every movement as he pressed his hand to the mirror’s surface. This time the mirror didn’t show the bathroom but somewhere I had only seen once before. It was a place that I kept pushed far to the back of my mind because if I thought too much about it I would run screaming into the night and never regain my sanity.
The Bandersnatch.
The image was blurry, but I could vaguely make out the form of a crouched woman, curled up into a ball against a wall. Her body shook as her arms gripped her knees tightly to her face. The faces that taunted and tormented me were circling around her giving her her daily dose of guilt and dismay. The woman glanced up briefly as if she could tell we were watching her and my breathing froze.
“Is that?” I started and my father traced the surface with his hand, a sad expression on his face.
“Your mother? Yes.” He sighed and removed his hand turning back to me. “The mirrors show you what you want to see most. I watched you grow up even as you were twisted up in the queen’s lies. I’d rather watch your life than watch her suffer, though it pains me to do so.”
I wanted to tell him I knew where she was but even if I could get out of here and get to her, there was no telling what kind of condition she’d be in. Kat had barely been able to bring me back to normal after only being there for a few days let alone the years my mother had been in there being feasted on by the Bandersnatch. Telling him would only make him suffer more.
“Not to be insensitive, but what does this have to do with me getting out of here?” I walked over to his side staring at the reflection of us side by side. Father and son. Both separated from their loves, both broken beyond repair. It was a sad state we were in.
