Victor whined and she scratched his ears some more, not looking at him now.
A shudder passed through the group, and Bianca fainted, taking a tuft of his fur with her to the floor.
Chapter Seventeen
BIANCA DIDN’T KNOW WHAT it felt like to be broken. No one had ever held the power or ability to break her, but now she drifted in unconsciousness. She recognized this dreamscape as the place she fell into when a vision wracked her. Hel cracked her seal. She didn’t need to be present to know it. Awareness of it surged through her. She didn’t know how it started, but she could feel the hard press of Gwyn’s hand against the back of her neck before she passed out. She’d get him back for that when she woke from this, if she woke from this.
She floated in empty space. Below her lay the fractured pieces of her crown. She didn’t feel any different save the unconsciousness of course. But she needed to help with the fall out, if there was any, and get back to her body. A coziness enveloped her in the growing darkness. Sort of how she felt after they were created and waiting to complete their destiny. She thought about Victor and his soft curls and gentle smile. And, against her will almost, she thought about Gwyn, his magnificent body, and the way he knew exactly how to touch her to ignite her from the inside out. She didn’t want to fall in love with him, but part of her was coming to accept the fact it had happened. She could no longer deny it.
She considered the others. Wondering if they were able to keep her power contained or if, right now, the world was falling like a row of dominos toppled over.
Darkness pressed into her. It seized, shuddered, and then spit her back out, and she opened her eyes and found herself in her own bed in Gwyn’s realm—no, her realm. She looked around before slowly running her hands down her torso. Then flexing her fingers, toes, knees and belly. Everything seemed to work fine, but every part of her stiffened with soreness, battered and bruised, as if she’d fallen down a mountain and somehow survived it.
The door opened and Cloris entered. With a sigh of relief, she stalked to her bed as Bianca watched. She’d never seen tears in her friend’s eyes. It was somehow more disconcerting than being the one laid out in bed.
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“You’ve been asleep for a week. Even Gwyn couldn’t bring you back with his magic kiss. Victor has been here the entire time. I only just got him to go shower, but I’m sure he will be back any second.”
“What happened?” Bianca asked beginning to sit up.
“Well, Hel broke your seal. I guess now we know she is more of a psychopath than we thought. She doesn’t realize that if the world ends, so does she. With no life there can be no death and no need for a ruler in the Underworld.”
Bianca pulled herself upright before a wave of nausea washed over her clammy skin. “I feel like someone turned me inside out.”
Cloris rubbed her back gently “We felt it the second it happened, all of us, and then you just toppled over like a rag doll. Gwyn refused to allow you go anywhere but here.”
She flexed her fingers and considered her powers. She attempted to tap into her control, but it changed. The control magic was there, but dormant as if the Fairy magic had wrapped around it, cocooned it inside her. As if her Fairy magic had entwined with it. Interesting.
Cloris leaned down to get a better look at her face. “What is it?”
“Can I have some aspirin, or a shot? Something? I feel like I got hit by a bus.”
Cloris smiled and walked to the dresser to find both a bottle of pills and a shot glass filled with amber liquid. Cloris brought them to her, and Bianca tossed back two pills before taking the shot. It burned from her tongue to her belly. “Holy shit,” she coughed.
That was not normal whisky.
Gwyn trailed in and rounded to the other side of her bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Awful. How is Victor?”
Gwyn pursed his lips but answered her anyway. “Human, thankfully, but he has refused to leave your bedside.”
Part of her softened looking at him. He picked up her hand and placed a gentle peck against her inner wrist. Her heart stumbled for a moment before taking up an unnatural beat. Everything drifted in and out of sharp focus, centered on Gwyn. As she looked at him, things began to shift and he whispered in a hoarse voice, “I can’t lose you.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be the same woman you wanted before. My powers are…different.”
“We knew you would have Fairy magic once the den accepted you. I don’t need your Biblical control, I just need yours. Bianca’s. I need that fierce whip hand to keep me in check. I need you to tame me and smooth my dark edges. I need you.”
His declaration soothed the gentle ache that arose when she saw him, wondering if he would still want her without her controlling power. She considered her emotions. They were centered on Gwyn. Not even a bit of remorse for the fact that she essentially just lost her entire reason for existence. She only felt sad about losing her control because she knew how much Gwyn wanted that in her. She nodded before she said something stupid and sappy to him, and he squeezed her hand.
“How are the others?” she asked Cloris. She stopped herself from continuing. Why did she care about the others? Her brain was telling her she should, but her heart felt nothing. Not a mismatched beat, nothing.
“A little shaken up. I think Katherine would benefit from seeing you awake. She hasn’t slept in two days. She closed the shop and refuses to leave. Also, the fairies have taken an unnatural interest in her. Everywhere she goes they try to follow. She is starting to get creeped out.”
Bianca didn’t respond. She didn’t care. Confusion warred with indifference. Not only did she know it wasn’t right to feel nothing for her friends, that numb part of her was tainted. Bile built in her throat. What had Hel done to her? How could she have removed something so vital?
Cloris continued, oblivious to Bianca’s inner turmoil. “Victor made me promise to stay or he wouldn’t go shower.” Victor, however, was a different story. She longed to bury her face in the curve of his neck. She imagined it in her mind
Katherine poked her head around the door a moment later. “You’re awake.”
Bianca attempted to give her a smile but barely managed a wince. She tried to put some cheer in her tone. “I guess I’m no longer part of the club.”
Katherine’s forehead wrinkled, a line forming between her eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”
Bianca shrugged. “I don’t have a seal anymore. I can feel my power slipping away. I don’t have to stay with you guys anymore.” When they were first created, they stayed near each other because they feared what might happen. But once they began to slowly find their own interests, they’d become friends, sisters even. What she said wasn’t the truth, but Bianca couldn’t take it back.
Katherine jerked away, her hands catching the opposite doorframe and tears formed a sheen in her eye. “Is that it? Is that all we were to you. An encumberment?”
Something was wrong. She knew she cared for Katherine, like a sister, as well as Cloris and Scarlet. Yet she couldn’t summon that feeling now. It was as if her entire world had pinpointed to Anwyn, and she no longer had a care for anything else. Even if her brain instructed her otherwise.
“No, not an encumberment, per se.”
A tear slid down Katherine’s cheek and she exited. Bianca couldn’t bring herself to care. Not one single ounce of feeling for Katherine leaving beat inside her. Why not though?
She struggled against it, the apathy, until Cloris returned and stared her dead in the eye. “You hurt Katherine.”
Still nothing; not an ounce of guilt, even though her brain shouted at her to feel something about it, anything.
She shrugged and Cloris jerked. “Is that it then? After two thousand years you’re going to choose two men, two practical strangers, over your family?”
“What we had together was a job. What Gwyn and I share is more than that. It’s deeper,
meaningful. He is my family now.”
Cloris blinked at her, shook her head, and exited the room.
Something wasn’t right. She scooted across the bed, about to get up. Something was very, very wrong. Gwyn reached out and grabbed the nape of her neck. He drew her in, and she inhaled the forest scent of him, completely forgetting whatever occupied her mind before.
What had she been so worried about?
Victor ran into the room, clutching a towel around his hips. Her heart melted at the sight of him. He dropped to his knees in front of her and pressed the side of his face to her thighs. “I’m so glad your awake.”
She ran her fingers through his wet hair, tangling the curls further. “I’m glad to see you.”
Gwyn cupped her cheek and Victor trailed his hands across her waist, and in the moment the rest of the world disappeared. Nothing mattered but the touch of these two men and the way they held her in sway between them.
Chapter Eighteen
“There is a man who smells awful outside the door.”
Bianca sat up and regarded the servant who entered, bowing low. She scooted to the edge of the bed and stood. Then she realized it could only be one thing. And a dumb one to enter Fairy itself.
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, only that he wanted to speak to you.”
She sighed and got up. There really wasn’t anything he could do now that could be worse than what she’d endured, so she grabbed her robe and shuffled out the door to the foyer. She felt old and decrepit. Her body barely functioned the way it should. A weakness suffused her, and that pissed her off more than anything else.
She opened the door and regarded the hellhound standing beyond. He was the same one who came to the cafe once. “Do you have another message for me?”
“Yes, this time from Hel.”
He held out a cream envelope.
“How did you even carry that in dog form.”
He just blinked at her but didn’t reply. She took the envelope and eyed him while she forced a thumb under the edge and ripped the top open. She pulled out the matching stationary, and it read:
Dear Bianca,
Remember that time you made a fool of me? Well, checkmate. I have taken everything from you. You have nothing.
Hel
Bianca laughed and suddenly everything, all of it, was absolutely hilarious. She doubled over, laughing uncontrollably, until a stitch in her side reminded her she was still healing. Sobering she straightened in the doorframe.
“Who are you?” she asked the hound. She’d never cared before, but she felt a little bad for this hellhound who would have to carry her reply.
“Arwan”
“Well, Arwan. Come in and wait while I write it.”
She trailed back into her room and grabbed a sticky note from her bag. She scribbled across the pink paper and folded it in half, sticky side out of course.
“Deliver this to your mistress.”
He glanced down at it and frowned. “Before I forget, Baldr told me to tell you he is fine and not to worry about him.”
She smiled and he exited, never looking back. Most likely he would be the one to pay for her response, and part of her couldn’t care less.
Something slipped in her mind. Had he mentioned Baldr? Why would this hellhound know something about their missing sun god? She tried to focus on it, but the harder she tried the more a headache began to bloom behind her eyes. She took a deep breath, clearing her mind, and then tried to recall why she was standing by the door. A wave of hunger rolled over her.
She headed toward the dining room as the urge to eat gnawed at her belly. She entered the glittering room in her bathrobe. She didn’t care. She was queen; if she wanted to eat lunch in a robe, she would do so. Some of the guests reached out and touched her, some murmured good wishes for her health, and others watched her. No doubt waiting for some sort of weakness they could manipulate. She didn’t know if coming here in her weakened state was a good idea or a bad one. On one hand, she might seem like she didn’t care one bit, and didn’t fear for her safety, or they might think she was healed.
She sat down and the crowd followed her lead. She wondered where Gwyn was, and just as she thought about him, he walked up behind her, dressed impeccably in a white tuxedo, and kissed her neck. She reached out, grabbed him by the bow tie, and pulled him to her lips. She’d missed touching him, tasting him, and hurting him. She kissed him brutally with as much strength as she had in her, and when she pulled away a small driblet of blood pooled on the surface of his lip. She smiled as he reached out and wiped the blood from her mouth and then his own. He took the seat next to her instead of going to the other end of the table. A bell rang and food poured from the kitchen, held by servants. They served her a decadent meal of Quail, sautéed greens, and a salad. She sighed as she finished, each bite better than the last. Fairy certainly could cook.
When finished, she stood and everyone followed suit. She grabbed Gwyn by his bow tie and dragged him from the room. He wore a giddy grin on his face as they exited, and she wondered, only for a moment, what the others thought.
She pulled him into her room and slammed the door, shoving him against the back. She ripped open his bow tie and jacket and tossed them away. He picked up on her turbulent emotions and became intent on stripping her just as fast. “Are you sure you’re well enough for this?”
She growled at him in answer, popped the button to his fly, and shoved at his pants. He shuffled his feet out of them, and contentedness filled her when he stood gloriously naked in front her, cockstand at the ready. She mashed her body against him, mingling the heat from their skin and he picked her up and carried her to the bed. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling slightly, but she liked the edge of the pain as he laid her down and put his weight on top of her. She loved his heavy body covering her.
“Get inside me, now,” she ordered.
A man of few words, but he could certainly follow a directive. He lifted his hips and entered her in one fast, brutal motion. Her body fought back at first, tightening and protesting at the invasion. But, after a moment, she relaxed into him and he entered her completely. He kissed down the length of her neck and she bit his shoulder hard, calling forth a loud curse as he pulled away from her teeth.
“Woman.”
“What, I thought you like pain?”
He grinned and lifted his hips to enter her again, pressing into her hard with each thrust, and just like that the world shifted. She was no longer Bianca, Conquest and horseman. She was Bianca, queen of Fairy and Gwyn’s bride. That was perfectly fine for her as he filled her and brought her screaming to orgasm. Her nails left scores down his back, and with a few more thrusts, he came to his own end with a curse in her ear.
“Holy shit,” he said. “What was that?”
She had no idea, but she felt it too. An overwhelming need for a consumption—to prove her power, ability, and place in the world. He’d given it to her with no hesitation. As he shifted off her and rolled onto his back, she realized she no longer felt terrible. In fact, her body surged with new energy. Now that the weight of the seal’s fate and the fear of always ending the world was off her shoulders, she felt better than she had in two thousand years.
“What is it?” he asked, rolling to his side and propped his head on his hand.
“I feel great,” she said, sitting up and stretching out her muscles. She hadn’t been able to fully sit comfortably since she passed out at the cafe. Now she might not be able to sit comfortably for other reasons.
Yet something was off; there was an integral part of her missing, and it wasn’t the power her seal afforded her. It was gone, but she couldn’t quite remember why it hurt her so much to think about.
Chapter Nineteen
THE SECOND GWYN OPENED his eyes in the morning, wrapped between Bianca and Victor, he knew something was different. Everything was about to shift and change and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He peered at Bianca through s
leepy eyes. He’d known he loved her from the first moment he saw her, but he hadn’t realized how much until she lay across from him, face reposed in sleep. He leaned in and kissed the tip of her slightly-too-long nose. He loved her, without a doubt, and that was going to mean the end of them all.
He slid out from between them, neither of them waking. The sun hadn’t even begun to rise, and he sneaked to his room. He had a call to make and he didn’t want either of them to overhear. He grabbed his phone and pulled the charger from the bottom with a yank. He dialed quickly and hit enter. And with a deep sigh, he waited for the answer.
“Hello, my pet.”
He swallowed all the doubt and pulled on his mantle of King. “Hel, we need to talk.”
Her voice cut though the link coarse and grating. “What ever do we need to discuss?”
“Our deal.”
A curse followed his words, from her end. “So the little bitch has turned you against me too? Just like Hades, Baldr, and my hounds. Every man deserts me, and here I stay trying to save you all.”
He clutched his fists tight against the fear that assaulted him and waited before she continued.
“Come to the Underworld, and we will discuss this in person.”
He didn’t think that was good idea, but pushing her further wasn’t a choice. “Very well, I’ll be there presently.”
He closed his eyes and summoned a portal door in his bedroom right to her castle in the Underworld. Fairy magic had its advantages in these cases.
He entered her hall, still in his underwear. She would love that more than if he were clothed, and maybe she would listen. He’d underestimated her thirst for a man though because, the second he entered, she stood and stripped her clothes off too. She had worn a gauzy gold gown artfully arranged like a toga on her looming form. Too tall, too gangly, Hel was too everything to be considered beautiful. He only interacted with her after she’d presented their original agreement, and the second he had what he wanted there would be no further need of her.
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