Witchbane (Book 5 in The Twilight Court Series)

by Amy Sumida

  Now that my mission was complete, my mind was turning back to Tiernan. Doesn't that sound like a love song? Turning back to Tiernan. Or possibly a blues song. I wasn't sure what genre our music would be yet. That depended on Tiernan himself. And me, I suppose. But I knew what I wanted already. Tiernan. He was what I'd always wanted. The question was, would I still be what he wanted?

  Anu didn't make an appearance when we returned. Not to chastise or congratulate. Perhaps that was a good thing. But I didn't spend too much time waiting on him either. Once I was back at the High Fairy Council House, I took a meeting with the Collective, hashed out some details over the inclusion of the new Caster Coven, and then informed them that Killian would be my new Ambassador Intermediary. They had taken the news better than I'd expected. But then, these were people smart enough to immediately see the potential in every situation.

  And Killian was chock full of potential.

  Killian had walked me to the rath and we said goodbye in the olive garden. Olive garden. Huh. How had it never occurred to me that the garden surrounding Anu's rath shared a name with a popular restaurant chain? Weird. Anyway, we said goodbye, stumbling through an awkward hug, and then Cat and I went through the rath.

  My Star's Guard was waiting for me on the other side. Everyone was there. Including Tiernan.

  I couldn't breathe for a second. I just stared at Tiernan as the others welcomed me home. He neither smiled nor frowned, just gave me a blank, neutral face that was somehow worse than scorn. I tried to speak to him, but Tiernan replied with the barest of responses. When we all loaded up into coaches for the journey back to Twilight, he chose a different carriage than mine.

  By the time we reached Castle Twilight, I'd worked myself up into a hell of a state. That's how it goes with me, if you leave me to stew. And I'd come to the conclusion that Tiernan and I were through. Done. Finished. Kaput. No more Tiernan and Seren. Just Seren and Cat from now on. Then I had climbed out of the carriage and caught another look at him.

  Damn the man and his sidhe beauty.

  I turned away from Tiernan's muscular magnificence and silver stare, his frigidly beautiful face with its delicate silver scar, and determinedly strode over to Keir. My father was waiting on the steps for me, as he usually did when I returned home. We started with a hug as awkward as the one I'd shared with Killian, but then it warmed. When I pulled away, we were both smiling. Keir kissed me on the cheek.

  “Welcome home, Daughter,” he said. “We've all missed you.”

  “Some more than others,” I sighed.

  “Yes, definitely,” my father made a pointed look over my shoulder.

  I turned to see Tiernan staring at me. As soon as he saw me looking, he swung around and strode away.

  “He still loves you,” Keir said.

  I looked at my father doubtfully.

  “He does,” Keir insisted.

  “Okay, Dad,” I kissed his cheek and eased away from him.

  I headed up to my tower, to unpack and rest. Cat followed me, and I shot her a look as we went. Her eyes were hopeful, but I had a feeling that mine were not. Yet despite this bleak attitude, I stepped into my bedroom and experienced a wave of relief. I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed home. And just how much this place had become home for me.

  I laid my bag on my bed, and inhaled the sweet perfume of night-blooming jasmine that permeated the air. It was past dusk in Twilight, and the canopy of delicate branches over my bed was full of pale green, fluted flowers. They had opened to bask in the moonlight which filtered down through the crystal dome of my ceiling. I sighed and fished around in my bag, then pulled out a tiny, silver urn, and took it to the mantle over my fireplace. We had put most of Ewan into the wall of the High Human Council House, but I'd kept just the tiniest bit of him for myself.

  “Hey, Dad,” I whispered as I put his miniature urn on the mantle. “You finally made it into Fairy. I hope you're happy where you actually are though. I hope you've forgiven Mom. I know she loved you. I'm sure she loves you still. As I do.”

  Cat whimpered, and I looked down to give her a reassuring smile.

  “I'm alright. I promise,” I turned and saw a stack of papers sitting on the sofa behind me.

  They were all in white envelopes of human make, but they were tied together with a sparkling lavender ribbon which clearly came from Fairy. I picked up the pile, already knowing what they were. I'd recognize Ewan's writing anywhere. I smiled to myself, holding the stack of correspondence to my chest like it was a teddy bear from my childhood, something treasured that I'd thought had been lost. The last of my anger towards Keir melted away as I took the letters over to a bedside table and set them down. I'd read them later, when I was ready for the bittersweet memories. For now, I just wanted to unpack and unwind. So I scooped up my bag, and strode into the dressing room.

  That was when I saw that Tiernan had removed all of his belongings.

  The bag fell from my limp fingers, and I just stared at the empty space where Tiernan's clothes used to hang. I don't know why it surprised me. Perhaps I had continued to hope, despite my conviction that our relationship was over. Hope, just like movie monsters, never seemed to stay dead. So the evidence that it was dead, that there was no hope, was yet another slap in the face. If Tiernan's things had been there, I would have known that no matter how mad he was, he still loved me and wanted to work things out. This emptiness was proof absolute that he didn't.

  “Keir was wrong, Tiernan doesn't love me anymore,” I whispered to Cat.

  She whimpered, laid down beside me, and looked forlornly at the bare rod with me.

  “Tiernan doesn't love me,” I said it again, louder, forcing it to sink in. “It's over.”

  Yeah, I know I had said that already. I know I was angry and said even more horrible things than that. But I didn't mean them. I knew that now. I had never meant any of it. I wanted Tiernan back. In that moment, faced with the bare space before me, I felt the echo of it inside my heart. The place which had been Tiernan's, was now empty. I wanted him back in there. Immediately.

  But my life wasn't that kind of fairy tale, and Tiernan Shadowcall wasn't coming back.

  I'd never been one for deceiving myself. I accepted things and moved on. Really I did. I just needed a few hours to cry first. I dropped to my knees and clung to Cat while I sobbed. Clung to her, while I let go of Tiernan.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Sweet baby twin gods! Working with an ex-boyfriend was the worst. Living in the same castle as him? Even suckier. I seriously contemplated going back to HR just to escape the heartbreak and headaches that came with losing Tiernan.

  It was like grade school in Castle Twilight. Tiernan would cast looks at me all day, ranging from dark to desperate. But when I tried to speak to him, he'd clam up, blank up, or screw up. Royally. Tiernan inevitably said or did something to either piss me off or make me cry. And I wasn't a cry baby. Gods damn it. Yes, that's right, now I had two gods to damn people and things with indiscriminately. Beware Tiernan! I will find someone willing to smite you.

  No I wouldn't because I still loved the asshole.

  I had let Tiernan go and cried it all out, but that didn't take away my feelings. It didn't take away the love, and it sure didn't erase the pain. It would have helped if we'd had that final talk. The one where you both said it was over. Possibly with cuss words. But still, it would be finished. Closure. We didn't have that yet. So despite the fact that we weren't together, that I had cried my break-up tears, that Tiernan had removed himself from my personal life, and we were barely speaking, I still felt like I was in limbo. He didn't look at me like it was finished. Tiernan stared at me like he wanted to start all over again. And those looks were really screwing with my peace of mind.

  I griped to myself as I flopped down the main stairway, into the spacious foyer... anteroom... greeting hall... what the hell do you even call the big room you first go into when you step into a castle? Ugh, I was losing my mind. Whatever the room was c
alled, I schlumped my way into it like an angst-filled, pouty, grumpy teenager, and dismally drug my heels across the shining silver star set into the stone floor. I saw Tiernan lurking in some shadows on my left, and I stuck my tongue out at him. I may have been imagining it, but I could swear he smiled before he turned away.

  “Men are dumb,” I grumbled to myself. Then I stopped, “You know what? I'm tired of this shit.” I spun around and headed after him. We were going to have it out, right now, goddess and god damn it. I was woman enough to demand my closure and princess enough to get it. “Tiernan!” I called after him, but he kept walking. “Lord Tiernan Shadowcall, stop right there!”

  Tiernan froze and slowly turned to me with a furious expression. I gestured just as furiously to an empty sitting room on our right. He went in, and I followed, motioning for Cat to wait outside. She huffed and flopped down in front of the doorway to wait. And probably eavesdrop. I shut the door firmly behind me.

  “I've had enough of this, Tiernan,” I growled at him. “I need you to make a decision right now. To tell me once and for all. Are we going to try and fix this or is it definitely over between us?”

  “I don't know,” Tiernan sighed.

  “You don't know?!” I growled. “What do you mean, you don't know?”

  “I don't know if we can get past this,” he clarified.

  “How can you not know whether you want to even try?” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Damn it, Tiernan, I should be the one angry with you. The things you said to me,” I shook my head. “I can't even believe they came out of your mouth.”

  “I've made my apologies, Seren,” Tiernan said gruffly. And he had. He had actually knelt before me and begged me to forgive him for striking me. He asked for my forgiveness for a lot of things that he'd said. But he never apologized for the whole Danu thing. “What more do you want from me? I can't keep apologizing to you.”

  “I don't want any more apologies,” I sighed deeply. “I want you to make an effort to fix this.”

  “What?” Tiernan's jaw clenched. “Fix the fact that you left when things got bad between us? I made a mistake, yes, but you didn't give me the chance to fix it then. You left Fairy entirely! You abandoned me, which means you abandoned us.”

  “I had to,” I hissed. “Ewan was in trouble and Keir wouldn't let me help him.”

  “And you disobeyed our king,” this was another thing Tiernan kept bringing up.

  It wasn't that Tiernan hated the thought of refusing a monarch's order. He'd defied his own queen once. No, it was Keir in particular whom Tiernan couldn't conceive of disobeying. He was blindly loyal to my father because Keir had taken Tiernan in when Tiernan had been banished from Seelie. In Tiernan's opinion, Keir could do no wrong. I had tried to tell him of what Keir had done with Ewan, hiding their correspondence from me, and guess whose side Tiernan took? That was one of those times he'd really pissed me off. I had said a lot of bad words to him that day.

  “Yes, I disobeyed my daddy,” I rolled my eyes. “So spank me.”

  “This is why I can't make a decision yet. I can't even talk to you,” Tiernan huffed. “You went to the Human Realm as a princess and came back as an obnoxious child.”

  “I'm an obnoxious child?” I snapped. “Me? You're the one skulking around the castle, staring at me like a puppy, and then running away when I try to talk to you. How mature is that?”

  “I feel guilty!” Tiernan shouted.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because first I struck you and then I left you in the Human Realm, to fight Uisdean and Rue without me. I betrayed my vow to you as your guardsman because you hurt me as your lover,” he sighed and crumpled into a chair. “I was so angry, Seren. I saw you there, with that witch, and you said horrible things to me. You revealed intimacies to him. To Raza. I just couldn't... I...”

  “I forgave you,” I knelt by his chair and laid my hand over his. “I told you that.”

  “But don't you see, Seren?” Tiernan's silver eyes looked bleak. “I haven't forgiven you.”

  “What?” I pulled away like he'd hit me again.

  “I keep running through it over and over in my head,” Tiernan rubbed his temple with his elegant fingers. “That witch, Raza, you, the words, all those hurtful words. They're still with me. Here,” he rubbed at his chest. “I know it's wrong. You forgave my offenses, but I haven't granted you the same courtesy. That's why I feel guilty. And every time I look at you,” he swallowed hard and looked away.

  “What?” I eased forward again.

  “I hear you say his name,” Tiernan whispered.

  “Tiernan,” I pulled him into my arms. “I'm so sorry. I was dreaming. It's not like I can control a dream. I love you.”

  “You know it was more than that,” Tiernan growled and pushed me away. I fell back onto the floor in a heap of skirts, gaping up at his aggressive display. “I know what's happening between the two of you. Don't try and deny it.”

  “Nothing is happening between us,” yep, I tried to deny it.

  “To use a human expression that you're sure to understand, that's bullshit, Seren,” Tiernan stood and glared down at me. “There is more than desire between you and Raza. You're in love with him.”

  “I...” I floundered. That denial just couldn't make it past my lips.

  “And the truly horrendous part is, I understood,” he growled. “I accepted it. Danu convinced me that I was being selfish, and so I tried to convince you to be with us both. I was willing to put aside my jealousy and share you. My unfathomable jealousy, which I've never felt for another woman. I could have easily shared Cliona, but you,” he shook his head. “I don't understand why Danu made me feel so strongly for you, when she had always intended for me to be your consort, not your husband. Still, I pushed aside those feelings to be true to both Danu and you. Yet you didn't want that. You had the audacity to be angry with me for being willing to allow you to love us both. Angry over my sacrifice!”

  I got to my feet and faced off with him, “Because I wanted you to love me more than that. Fuck your jealousy, Tiernan. I wanted something more profound from you, something strong enough to last us a fairy lifetime. A love that couldn't be swayed by Danu. I wanted you to want me, love me, more than her.”

  “It's a different kind of love, Seren,” Tiernan ground out. “You can't compare one to the other.”

  “The hell I can't,” I pointed at him. “This is it, Tiernan. I'm done swinging back and forth with you. My heart can't take it. Tell me right now, and then we can finally put this behind us. Is it her or me?”

  “You want me to choose between you and the Goddess?!” Tiernan was horrified. “She's our goddess, Seren. I can't make that choice.”

  “You just did, Tiernan,” I was suddenly tired, a heavy weight crushing my chest. “It's over. Thanks for the closure. I appreciate it.”

  I walked out.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Three days after Tiernan and I had our closure, I offered to excuse him from the Star's Guard. You'd think I had threatened to have his mother executed, he was that horrified.

  “The Goddess herself blessed my position on your Guard,” he said in his utterly calm voice, which meant he was utterly furious.

  “Back to Danu again,” I rolled my eyes. “Tiernan, don't you think you'd be happier if you didn't have to follow your ex-girlfriend around?”

  “I still love you, Seren,” he growled. “Our split had nothing to do with my feelings for you. I still want to protect you.”

  “It had nothing to do with...” I gaped at him. “You're fucking insane.”

  “Stop using those human profanities,” he snarled. “You sound like a commoner.”

  “I sound like a soldier,” I shrugged, “which is what I am.”

  “No, you're not,” Tiernan pointed his pale finger into my face. “Ewan's death has been hard on you. You want to act more human so you can feel closer to him. You want to be the woman he raised you to be. I see that now, Seren, and I even u
nderstand it. But you're not a soldier anymore. You're a princess, and with that title comes responsibilities. You do your living father a disservice by acting in this manner. It's repulsive that you would disrespect him like that.”

  “Well, it's a good thing you don't have to fuck me anymore, if I'm so fucking repulsive to you,” yes, I deliberately dropped two F-bombs.

  Tiernan cringed with each detonation.

  Then something seemed to snap inside him. Tiernan grabbed me and shoved me down onto his bed. I had gone to speak with him in his chambers, so we could have a private conversation, and now I realized that had been a bad idea.

  “You want to see how repulsive I find you?” Tiernan growled.

  He crawled over me, shoving up my skirts and wedging my thighs apart. I tried to push him off, but he just covered my mouth with his. Tiernan's kiss was bruising, punishing, not a damn thing romantic about it, but I found myself responding to it anyway. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him back just as ferociously. Tiernan groaned, one hand working at his pants. I felt him start to slide into me, and froze. No, I couldn't do this. I had just gained some peace. Sleeping with Tiernan would literally fuck me up all over again.

  Tiernan felt my tension and pulled out of the kiss, dropping his forehead to mine with a groan. With a deep inhale, he pushed off me and turned to face the wall, adjusting himself back into his pants. I took a few calming breaths myself, and slipped my panties on. Then I stood on shaky legs and smoothed down my skirts.

  “Tiernan-”

  “Just get out, Seren,” he sounded tired. “Even looking at you hurts right now.”

  “Are you sure you don't want me to release you-”

  “Get out!' Tiernan roared.

  “Fine,” I snapped, heading straight for the door. Before I left the room, I glanced back at him, “I still love you too. I was only trying to make things easier on you.”