The Immortal Queen

by Jennifer L. Hart

  “Nothing. In fact, everything just sort of stopped the way it was. No heightened senses like the fey, no superspeed or even enhanced abilities that I already possessed.”

  “Then how did you know it worked?”

  “My hair stopped growing, and my fingernails. It’s almost as if I just froze at the point when I came out.”

  That sounds anticlimactic as hell.

  “There’s one surefire way to tell if it worked.” Freda says. “Try to tell a lie.”

  I look up into the bright blue of the summer day. “The sky is purple.”

  Freda blinks. “You’re sure you went through?”

  No. I might be losing my mind though. “I sort of maybe...died first.” I hold out my rune covered hands.

  Her lips part. “How...?”

  “I don’t know. And I saw things—”

  “You can’t speak of it.” She shakes her head.

  “Why not?”

  “Didn’t Underhill tell you not to speak of it, as part of the bargain?”

  “I never met Underhill.”

  Her frown deepens. “You can lie and made no vow. To my knowledge, those are both unique occurrences. Though I am no record keeper.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason I can still lie, a reason I can talk about what happened. Maybe Underhill knows I will need those skills so she didn’t extract the price.”

  But Freda shakes her head. “You don’t understand. The gauntlet isn’t just a test, it’s an accepted truth, the cornerstone of the fey way of life. If people find out that you’re given a different set of rules to live by—that you can lie, that you can talk about your experiences, they might rise up against you.”

  I turn to face my first and put a hand on each of her shoulders. “Freda, I am standing here in my underwear, saturated from the river and half dead from cold, fatigue and hunger. Is there any way you can stop anticipating the next crisis for the night?”

  She bows her head. “Of course, my queen.”

  I blow out a frustrated sigh. “Call me Nic.”

  “All right, Nic.”

  I follow her up the steps and into the farmhouse. Jasmine is sitting at the kitchen table, a reading primer opened on my tablet. She jumps up when she sees me and wraps her arms around my waist. “Nic! You’re back.”

  “Hey, Jazz.”

  Freda clears her throat and Jasmine backs off hurriedly, though her smile remains in place.

  “I’m glad. I need you to help me pack for the sleepover tomorrow night.”

  “Sleepover?” I blink.

  “Remember, Kayleigh Hamill’s sleepover party?” She wiggles around like an overexcited puppy. “She called to say that it’s still on, even though school won’t resume until late next week. Because of the tornado.”

  At least I’d get a reprieve from homework, if not queenly duties. “Okay, kid. We’ll get you squared away first thing tomorrow. Tonight, I need a little R&R. Where are the aunts, by the way? The clinic?”

  She nods. “Chloe said we’d make mint chocolate chip brownies tonight for me to bring tomorrow.”

  “Knowing Chloe, she just wants an excuse for mint chocolate chip brownies. I’d love to stand here gabbing, but I need a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.”

  Jasmine nods. “I’m glad you’re back safe. You too, Jord.”

  “Nice to know I’m an afterthought.” Freda ruffles her daughter’s curly hair, but her expression remains troubled. “Sleep well...Nic.”

  I shuffle into my bedroom, sure to lock the door. Then, moving to the window, I slam it down and toss the locks before drawing the drapes. There will be no miscommunication tonight.

  It isn’t until I’m safely camouflaged in the shower, that the sobs break free.

  Through the Man’s Eyes

  THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG with Nic. He paces by the fairy hill waiting for something that may or may not emerge from within. Had she sent him on a fool’s errand? Why would she?

  To be rid of me.

  He thought they were past that, that she was going to accept him fully. Another circuit as his bare feet leave scorched earth where he treads. He needs to calm down before he starts a wildfire. He can’t help but think about the last time he was here, with Nic. When she wrapped herself so sweetly around him, her lips as hungry as his own.

  Not unlike the way she kissed him when he pulled her from the river. That particular kiss bordered on desperate, her eagerness due to more than simple relief.

  But then something had shifted. Shadows hid in her blue eyes along with a lurking suspicion. Is it directed at him? Aiden has no way of knowing. All he knows for sure is that she’d emerged from that river...changed.

  And he doesn’t like it. Neither does his wolf. It feels as though she is turning to sand before his very eyes, slipping bit by bit through his fingers.

  The ground begins to shake.

  Aiden whirls, flames blazing up in his hands, ready to face whatever emerges.

  But when the green door opens his flames dissolve, stunned at the sight of the figure before him, wrapped in a blue drape, gold cuffs on her arms. The mark of her imprisonment.

  “Hello, Aiden.” Underhill purrs.

  “You can’t have her,” he lowers his head but not his hands.

  “She’s my daughter.” She can’t cross the threshold not in form or with magic. Nic is safely out of her grasp.

  His hands clench into fists. “Nicneven was your daughter. She died. Nic belongs only to herself.”

  “She is still Nicneven. A better, stronger Queen of the Shadow Throne. Already the gods thrash about in their slumber, knowing she will be their downfall.”

  “She will do nothing to assist you. She doesn’t know who you are.”

  Her lips, so like Nic’s, curl up. “Oh, but she’s met me.”

  He shakes his head. “No, I was with her the whole time.”

  “Except when she died.”

  His lips part. Underhill—Pharaildis—to those who’d known her in her mortal life, was the first human turned immortal. For her crime against Nic’s father, she was bonded to the land of the fey, to Underhill. Essentially, she became Underhill. And like the fey that dwell there, she couldn’t lie.

  “I would have felt it....” He shakes his head. “It isn’t possible.”

  “Oh, but it is and you did feel it. You suffered even more this time, rending your clothing, hair and skin. You were wilder than your wolf because this time you didn’t just lose your mate. No, this time, the woman you loved chose to die, to leave you behind.” Her lips turn up as though savoring a treat. “It drove you quite insane.”

  Something twists in his insides, her words like a fork twirling in a plate of pasta. “Nic wouldn’t—”

  “Oh, but she did. I returned her to you before it ever happened, with the help of some of the forbidden runes.” She grins and it isn’t a pleasant expression. “If you don’t believe me, check her palms. They are etched there.”

  “You can’t have her.” Aiden shakes off the uneasiness her words conjure. Underhill is as tricky as any of the fey, she’d been watching them for millennia.

  “That’s her choice, not yours Vali Sigynjarson.”

  He flinches as his true name tumbles from her lips like water cascading down the falls. She did it intentionally, to remind him that she can wield power over him.

  Trapped as she is in the doorway to the fairy hill she smiles as though she holds all the cards. “We needn’t be enemies. We both want the same thing.”

  Aiden shakes his head. “I don’t wish that. Not any longer.”

  “Unlike me I know you can lie, wolfling. Tell me the rage doesn’t eat at you, as she shares a roof with those who have wronged you, wronged her so abominably.”

  In the mist behind him he sees a young girl, blue eyes bright with tears. “Don’t leave me. Please, I’ll be good.”

  His heart cracks wide. Nic, as a young girl, scared and facing abandonment.

  The blonde woman whose skirt she clutch
es shakes her off as though she were a gnat. “You don’t have it in you. It’s not in your nature.”

  She falls to her knees, heartbroken.

  The urge to bellow out his fury, to rend something is pure response to the frightened six-year-old he would give his life to protect. His Nic, rejected and left to fend for herself.

  He’d known it, but seeing it happen....

  His wolf is fighting, clawing for control. He can’t lose it now, not when facing down the scheming Underhill.

  He pants, “That was Lachesis—”

  Underhill’s tone is as sharp and hard as diamonds. “It wasn’t Lachesis who almost killed your grandmother. Who never even apologized. Lachesis wasn’t the only one that punished you, your brother, your mother who never did a thing wrong. You were innocent. I know that, and Nic knows that. You were all collateral damage in the punishment of your father.”

  “I have no quarrel with Addy and Chloe.”

  Underhill’s eyes gleam. “But we both know there’s more than the two of them, do we not? Those fates may be the most powerful but all of them are tethered to the same source, The Well of Urd.”

  A chill goes through him. “What does any of this have to do with Nic?”

  “You’ll see. Although it would be best if you keep this conversation between the two of us.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Because, I have a gift for you.” She reaches behind her into the dark depths of the Unseelie catacombs and pulls at something.

  An elbow. It’s attached to a woman, a familiar woman with hair the color of dried blood.

  “Angrboda,” Aiden stares across the gap to the bound giantess.

  “She broke the magic pact when she sent those Valkyries through the tear in the Veil cloaked in glamour. She is hereby banished from the fey realm. And she’s yours to do with as you will, if you give me your word that you will remain silent.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Then you’ll never get the answers you seek from the Hag of the Ironwood. For I will kill her right here and now.”

  He stares across the void to the woman who’d wrecked his life. Well, one of them. But though the Fates had played their part and others had broken his heart, Angrboda had been the first. By seducing his father with promises of power and vengeance, she had turned Loki away from his family.

  He yearns to know why, desperately. Why she had been so frantic to get him that she would barter magic with Wardon and sacrifice mortals to a nest of Valkyrie.

  But does he want those answers badly enough to betray Nic?

  Nic who’d sent him away, sent him here. Who won’t accept him, won’t let him in.

  He looks into the giantess’s dark eyes, eyes that are swollen red but too damn prideful to shed a tear and makes his choice.

  Date Night

  “Do I look okay?” I frown at my reflection, wondering if the classic LBD is all right for my date with Aiden. Or all wrong. I have no idea where we’re going and thus, how to dress for it. “He’s probably taking me bowling or something equally casual. I should change into jeans.”

  Jasmine looks up from my bed where she’d been watching me dress. “You look beautiful. Like a fairy princess.”

  “No, like a fairy queen,” Chloe says as she saunters in, smelling of fresh baked bread. “An immortal one at that. You should wear your hair up.”

  “Aiden likes it down.” I pick up a hoop earring, frown at it and set it back in my jewelry box.

  She rolls her eyes. “Which is why I said wear it up. He likes you too much already.”

  Addy wanders into the room behind her carrying a freshly baked mint chocolate brownie. “Are you all packed, Jazz?”

  Jasmine nods. She’s rolled and rerolled her pink and gray color block sleeping bag fifty times at least. I bought her a brand new pink flannel pajama set and she raided my nail polish stash and has the choicest bottles lined up neatly in a shoebox at the bottom of her backpack. That plus the chocolate fix is sure to make her a hit.

  “Jazz, go check in with your mom, let her know we’ll be leaving in about ten minutes.” This is the first time I’ve had a chance to talk to Chloe and Addy at the same time and I want to say what needs to be said in private.

  Jasmine hops off the bed, ponytail swinging.

  “What’s up, buttercup?” Chloe snitches the end off Addy’s brownie and gets a withering look for her efforts.

  “Close the door and have a seat.” I wait until they do what I’ve asked before pivoting from my makeup stool to face them. “When I was in the heart of Underhill, I saw someone. At least I think she was real.”

  “Who?” Addy asks, her dark brows pulled down behind her glasses.

  “Your sister. Sissy.”

  Chloe sucks in a breath and Addy goes still as a statue.

  As succinctly as I can, I explain what had happened, at least what I think happened. I show them the runes on my palms. In my head, I’m still struggling to figure out the details of what was real and what had been part of Underhill’s illusion.

  “I asked her if she wanted me to relay a message to the two of you. She said...that she understands.”

  Tears track freely down Chloe’s face. Addy closes her eyes and wraps an arm around her sister.

  “I’m not sure that it really was her,” I caution.

  “It’s her.” Addy whispers. “Thank you, Nic.”

  Though it goes against my nature, I move across the room, reaching out to embrace them. “I love you both, so so much. I just...need you to know that.”

  They are both still. We aren’t a family of huggers and the PDA’s can be awkward as hell. But slowly, they reach forward and wrap their arms around me until we are engulfed in a three-way hug.

  “We love you, too.” Chloe whispers.

  I pull away before I start crying and ruin my mascara. “Enough of the mushy crap. Where are the brownies again?”

  When in doubt, eat something chocolate.

  I just swallow the last bit of brownie when he knocks.

  “Be nice,” I warn the aunts.

  Chloe makes a snorting noise and Addy just gives me her patented droll stare.

  “Or at least, don’t be complete shrews.” Licking the last bit of chocolate from my fingers I tug the door open.

  And my jaw drops.

  The Aiden on my doorstep isn’t one I’ve ever seen before. He’s all poise and polished, his suit—suit for all the gods sake—is black on black with a black shirt, unbuttoned to reveal his tanned throat. His hair, while still shaggy and unkempt lends him a devil-may-care air.

  And he’s holding a single red rose, his lips tipped up in a small smile.

  Oh, the son of the trickster knows exactly what he looks like.

  Behind me I hear Chloe hiss like a teakettle, “Hot daaaammmmn.”

  “He’s good.” Addy agrees. Then louder, “Nic, be home by midnight.”

  “Queen of the Shadow Throne here.” The words come out sounding a bit strangled. “Besides, my house, my rules.”

  More grumbling but she doesn’t lodge any further protest.

  Aiden extends the rose to me. “You look amazing, my sweet.”

  Not my queen. My sweet. Somehow, I like that better. I take the flower from him, careful of the thorns. “Glad I decided not to change.”

  “You’re perfect as you are.” Reaching for the hand that’s not holding the flower he leads me down the steps. “Is the lady Jazz ready to go?”

  “Thank you for this,” I whisper to him. It had been my idea to drop Jasmine off for her sleepover at the Hamill’s so Aiden and I can double check that everything is on the up and up. I still harbor suspicion about Gretchen Hamill. Call me paranoid, but after all that has happened, I’m not taking any chances with those closest to my heart.

  Jasmine gives Freda a final squeeze and Aiden holds the passenger door to the truck open for her first and then for me. Nothing like starting a romantic night out with
a chattering preteen on the way to her first sleepover in the car.

  The Hamills own a large sprawling Victorian on the far side of town. I smile at Aiden over the top of Jasmine’s head and he catches my eye though his smile seems a little unsure.

  I’ve decided to tell him. All of it. Everything I experienced in Underhill. It’s too much for me to sort out on my own. I need someone to help me navigate through the confusing quagmire between real and not real. And even with the haunting words his father uttered to me, I still trust him. There is no way Aiden or his wolf will be my demise. It was just the trickster doing what he did best—stirring the pot.

  I have complete faith in Aiden. Not because his wolf sees me as his mate or because he brought me back from the dead. More than anyone else, he’s been honest with me. He’s shone a light on his deepest shame, shared his darkest secrets. Bared his tattered soul to me.

  I can do no less, not if I want this—us—to work.

  And I do. During a night filled with grief and relief, I reached a decision. I want Aiden by my side. Always. Caring about him isn’t a weakness, as I’d believed. Sarah had been right, I’d been my best self, charging into that burning building for him. He provides me with a bottomless well of strength that I’ve drawn on to help see me through.

  I can’t rule alone. And what’s more, I don’t want to.

  Aiden pulls into the circular drive in front of the Victorian and I slide out, with Jasmine hot on my heels.

  “Want me to walk you in?” Aiden offers.

  I roll my eyes. “Not unless you want a passel of twelve-year-old fangirls creeping on you for the rest of the school year.”

  He tips his head to the side and winks. “My crazy jealous girlfriend wouldn’t like that.”

  He’s teasing, yet I see a shadow of regret. He’s expecting me to deny the label as I did on the first day of school.

  “No,” I say simply. “She wouldn’t.” Then I shut the door on his astonished face.

  Do I know how to make an exit or what?

  Jasmine practically levitates up the steps and stands on the front porch, quivering with excited energy. She looks to me and hesitates.

  “You’ll do great,” I encourage her. “Better than I would.”