by H. D. Gordon
Not alive, anyway. And the sight of him now, so obviously alive and as transfixed by the sight of her as she was by that of him, took on a somehow surreal quality.
And then she was in his arms, not even aware of having moved. Their bodies pulled together like magnets, or the way gravity holds things to the earth. With his strong arms around her, the clean, masculine smell of him filled her senses.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” he whispered in her ear, making her suppress a shiver that ran all the way from her toes to the top of her head.
They may well have stayed in that manner for eternity, wrapped in each other’s embrace and hearts beating side by side, had Aria not cleared her throat behind them. Surah had totally forgotten the girl was there, and that she didn’t know where there even was.
The Halfling girl quirked an eyebrow at Charlie. “Told you she’d come for you,” she said.
Charlie sighed in a way that suggested he’d grown used to the girl and her somewhat crass way of speaking. “That, you did, Aria,” he agreed, his eyes never leaving Surah’s face. He traced her soft cheek with his thumb, the look in the emerald of his gaze full of words unspoken.
Surah didn’t want to speak about all the things that needed addressing between them. Not yet, anyway. Not until they were alone. She pulled herself out of his arms more than reluctantly and turned to face the girl.
“Aria,” she began, “how did you come to be in possession of a wanted Sorcerer?”
Aria plopped back down on the couch, settling herself in the middle of her books. “I stole him from the Fae Forest when the Fae Queen wasn’t looking,” she said.
Surah raised a half-amused, half-disbelieving eyebrow at Charlie, who spread his hands and nodded.
“She’s telling the truth,” he said. “She talks a lot, but she sure saved me from a pinch.”
Aria rolled her eyes. “Says the guy who asks the world’s dumbest questions,” she retorted.
Surah couldn’t help a smile at this. She looked sideways at Charlie. “I think I like her,” she said.
Charlie nodded again. “Somehow, she manages that, too.”
“Uh, hello,” Aria said. “I’m right here. And if you two don’t mind, I’ve got homework due tomorrow.” She looked at Charlie. “And, again, you’re totally welcome. No big deal at all, you know, for stealing you from Tristell and all that.”
Slowly, Surah realized whom, or rather what, this girl was.
“You’re a Faevian Peace Broker,” Surah said.
Again, it was not a question.
Aria grinned. “Like I said, you’re the smart one.”
“Why haven’t your people reached out before now?” Surah asked. “Where have you been while all this mess between the Fae and the Sorcerers has been brewing?”
“I’ve been right here,” Aria replied, a slight snap to her tone. “Following orders. Don’t shoot the soldier. Besides, it’s not an easy decision to decide to counter one of the most powerful rulers in the supernatural world. The Peace Brokers had to try diplomacy first.”
She rolled her eyes as if this would not have been the way she’d have done things. She shrugged. “I guess Tristell has finally gone too far.” Aria met Surah’s gaze square, with more backbone than most people whom Surah met. “We don’t want a war.”
Surah gestured to the chair across from the Halfling girl. “May I sit?” she asked.
Aria waved a hand. “By all means, your majesty.”
“Thank you,” Surah said, taking a seat across from the girl. She crossed her legs and smoothed out her cloak. “I don’t want war with your people either, but I’m afraid it may be too late. Your queen hasn’t left me much of a choice.”
She thought of her father, lying on the pyre, of the Demons that hadn’t even allowed her the chance to say goodbye.
“Your queen enlisted the help of a Dark Lord. Demons have been attacking the Sorcerer Territory. Hundreds are dead.” Surah shook her head, removed her hood, and held the girl’s eyes. “There’s no way back now. Tristell will die. I’m going to kill her myself.”
Unexpectedly, the Halfling girl grinned, as if this was exactly what she’d wanted to hear. She gave one nod, her long, red-brown hair falling over her shoulders.
“With all due respect, your majesty,” Aria said, “Tristell isn’t my queen, and I know you’re going to kill her, because I’m going to help you do it.”
Chapter 19
Samson
For a cat that was not used to traveling by portal, the trip to the jungles of his homeland would have been a dizzying feat, to say the least.
But Samson was no ordinary cat, so he emerged in the jungle with a clear head, but an aching heart.
He had not wanted to leave her, and she had not wanted him to, either. Sam knew Surah understood that their last goodbye could be their last ever goodbye; he had seen it in her beautiful violet eyes.
He may never return from this trip, this insane agreement he’d made with the King of the Beasts.
Sam had made the deal to save Surah when she’d been captured by Black Heart and kept in a cave in these jungles. In exchange for information, he’d fought and defeated the pride’s greatest fighter, but that had been only half of the deal.
The other half was a promise he’d made to the king. A promise he was here to fulfill, or to die trying. Not particularly out of moral regard or even honor, but because Sam knew that if he’d made the King of Beasts come and find him, everyone around Sam could get hurt in the process. Surah was the only two-leg he cared about, but she was more than enough to hold the cat to his word.
There could be no avoiding it. He walked slowly through the trees, his large, padded paws moving lithely over the undergrowth. His large head and long tail were held low and still, the powerful muscles in his back rippling on his shoulders.
When in the Jungles of the Beasts, one had better always be on the lookout. He headed in the direction of the pride’s field, where the Great Cats spent most of their time when not on the hunt.
The closer he drew, the faster his aching heart seemed to beat in his chest. His senses were filled with the clean, pleasant smells of the jungle; green vegetation and clean water that hung in the humid air.
The sun had not yet fully risen, but the soft blue light of morning was began to scatter the shadows that ruled the jungles at night.
If not for the nearly palpable feeling of loss that had settled somewhere in his gut after saying goodbye to his Surah, Samson would have to admit that the jungle was a much better place for a cat.
Here, the air was not polluted with the stenches of two-legs, who reeked of such fear at the sight of Sam that refraining from hunting them had become a constant battle, had taught him self-control he wasn’t sure any cat was meant to have.
The only sounds were the soft chirping and clicking of insects, the occasional rustle of the trees. In the jungle, when the weather was such, one could listen to the music of rainfall for hours, could fall asleep to it and awake again to find it still gently playing. When a cat was tired, he simply found a place among the brush to rest his head. When he was hungry, he went on the hunt, and if successful, was rewarded with the inimitable taste of fresh and hot blood as he tore through the neck of a fresh kill.
He loved Surah for all the effort she put into obtaining different types of meat to sustain him, but there simply was no replacement for a good hunt in the jungle, nothing better than taking down a Great Dear—
“And sharing the spoils with your pride,” a familiar voice spoke up in his mind.
Samson’s head jerked up, looking to the thick green canopies above him.
Among the greenery, he spotted her, with her jet-black coat and bright green eyes, Mila was unmistakable.
“I didn’t think you’d return,” she said, speaking only in his mind, communicating in the way of the Great Cats.
“I gave my word,” Sam said.
Her beautiful feline head tilted to the side. “Right… tha
t and you knew my father would come after you if you didn’t. Couldn’t risk putting your beloved Sorceress in harm’s way.”
Sam did not miss the touch of jealousy in Mila’s tone, and he couldn’t really say he blamed her for it. He was her betrothed, after all, and had been long before he’d ever met Surah.
Mila hopped down from the tree limb on which she was perched, the powerful muscles in her legs catching her with ease, the pads on her paws landing silently on the jungle floor. Sam came forward, but paused when he saw the wariness in the green of her eyes.
“I never meant to cause you pain, Mila,” he told her. It was a very two-leg thing to say, to admit to such regret, but Samson thought she deserved to hear it, and it was the truth.
When he’d been a cub, he’d had every intention of honoring the marriage arranged between his father and hers… but life just hadn’t turned out that way.
“Who says you caused me pain?” she replied, ever the cat, willing to go to the death rather than admit to emotion.
Sam moved forward again, but did not stop this time. He came so close to her that their noses nearly touched. When she did not move away, but instead held rigidly still, he rubbed against her soft side, his larger body pushing against her.
He could hear her heartbeat pick up in her chest, and knew she was lying. It was odd, but he felt both glad and sad for this. He had indeed hurt her, and that meant that she really cared.
Mila pulled away at last, spinning around to face him. “How can you be so calm, so confident?” she asked, her tone taking on a snap that he suspected was there to cover the sudden harshness of her breathing. “Have you forgotten what our betrothal entails?”
Now it was Sam’s turn to grow slightly nervous, but he hid the emotion as well as any cat.
“I have not forgotten,” he replied, and that was all. There really wasn’t anything else to say.
Silence hung between the two felines, the only sounds that of the bugs and the breeze in the jungle. The sun was beginning to break over the horizon, the golden glow of early morning replacing the light blue paint of pre-dawn.
Mila broke the silence first. She sat back so that she could look him in the eyes. “Are you ready?” she asked. “I mean, do you think you can actually win?”
“Honestly, Mila, I don’t know.”
For another long moment, neither said anything. Then Sam swallowed, his tongue feeling a touch thick in his mouth, and asked the question he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to.
“Do you want me to win, Mila?” he asked.
With a silent sigh and a small shake of her head, she met his gaze. “Honestly, Sam,” she said, “I don’t know.”
He considered her a moment before heading off again toward his destination. Mila fell in line silently behind him. Neither cat said another word. Sam could not stop replaying her response in his mind, though he supposed it was not the worst she could have given. After all, what had he expected her to say?
Samson had been promised to her at birth, and then he’d disappeared from the jungles with Surah, who’d saved his life and given him a new one. Mila had thought him dead for all these years.
Then, out of the blue, he returns, asking for help in locating a woman he loves, the woman he’d essentially left her for. Now, he was all but being forced to return and fight Mila’s father to the death for the title of King of the Beasts, for Mila’s hand, for the position fate seemed hell-bent on seeing him in.
So, really, what exactly had he been hoping she would say?
When they reached the edge of the clearing where the pride waited, Samson paused before stepping out of the cover of the trees.
Mila stepped up beside him, staring out at the gathered Great Cats beyond with the same dread and anticipation that Sam felt in his own heart.
“No running away this time?” she asked, the slight break in her voice enough to make Sam’s stomach tighten.
He found he had to take a deep breath before answering, despite the fact that doing so required no air.
“No running away this time,” he agreed. “How many suitors has your father defeated over the years?” He pulled his amber eyes away from the scene before him and looked at her now. “How many have fallen in my place?”
She hesitated, as if she was not sure she wanted to tell him. She could not meet his eyes when she said, “One hundred and thirteen.”
Though this number didn’t surprise him—there was a reason her father was named King of the Beasts—there was nothing Sam could do to stop the shiver that ran up his spine, from the hair on the back of his thick neck from standing on end.
He took one more deep breath, nudging Mila with his nose, forcing her to look up at him. Cats did not cry the way two-legs did, but one would have to be blind to miss the heartache in the green of her eyes. Either way, she would lose someone she loved on this day.
Sam licked her face, catching her off-guard with the intimacy of the act, and taking a small rejoice in the fact that though he’d surprised her, she hadn’t pulled away from his affection.
He made sure to hold her gaze when he told her, “No matter what happens next, Mila, either way, I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can forgive me for all of it.”
Now the pain on her face was almost too much to look at, but her voice was strong like the Great Cat she was when she said, “If you could… even now… you’d still return to her… wouldn’t you? You’d still choose her over all of this.”
Samson stood looking at her, but found he could not bear it much longer. With one last lick to her cheek, which Mila sighed and leaned into, he turned on his heels and exited the trees, head held high as he went to face his fate, Mila’s question to him answered in his silence.
Before the sun set on this day, Samson would either take his place as the King of Beasts, or die trying.
Chapter 20
Surah
Surah came to the nearly immediate conclusion that she could trust the girl. It was so sudden that she questioned the feeling for its oddity.
It was true that the new Sorceress Queen had a knack for being able to detect lies from most people, and her gut instincts most often did not prove her wrong, but the very fact that the Halfling girl was so intensely disarming intrigued her.
She’d never met a Fae/Human Halfling before. She’d met Halfling Wolves and Vamps, Halfling Witches and plenty of Halfling Sorcerers, but never anyone like Aria. The girl had a way about her that just made one want to like her.
Surah told her as much, not seeing the need to mince words.
The girl waved a hand with short, red-painted fingernails, a gesture Surah suspected she didn’t realize was humble.
“That’s part of being half Fae,” she said. “Apparently I’ve got some sort of draw.” She rolled her vibrant eyes. “Believe me when I tell you it can be as much a curse as it is a blessing.”
“I do believe you,” Surah said, and paused, watching the girl closely. “At a time when I should be believing hardly anyone, I believe you… That’s part of this ‘draw’ you have?”
Aria shrugged, her signature grin pulling up her lips. “I guess I just have one of those faces. And on top of that, you really can trust me. My only agenda here is the objective I’ve been given by my superiors. Keep you both alive and ensure that you kill the Fae Queen,” she paused, her eyes switching to Charlie. “And her accomplices.”
By the look on his face, Surah could tell this was the first Charlie had heard of this.
“You mean my brother,” he said. It was not a question.
Again, the girl shrugged. To her credit, she met Charlie’s stare dead-on when she said her next words.
“If it comes to that, yes,” Aria said. “But the dark Sorcerer is hardly our biggest concern at the moment. The Dark Lord he’s consulting with? That’s our biggest problem.”
Her gaze went to Surah now, who had not taken her violet eyes from Aria. “We can’t have Demons running free in the Territories. The b
alance of things is already tipping. People of all races are concerned. That includes the Peace Brokers.”
Surah thought the girl said this almost as though it were recited, something she’d heard so many times that she truly believed in it. She’d had a few dealings with Peace Brokers over the years, but not much. They were an elite organization whose only purpose was to maintain the peace among the races.
The Peace Brokers were created nearly one thousand years ago, as a part of The Great Compromise. Halflings of every race made up their ranks, and their movements and activities were clandestine, to say the least. It was rare that they got noticeably involved in things, but only a fool would think they weren’t present in one form or another for most of the happenings in the supernatural world.
That was about the extent of Surah’s knowledge concerning the Peace Brokers. Sorcerers were notorious for keeping to their own kind, and staying out of the dealings of other supernaturals, so dealings with them had never been necessary.
Surah tilted her head back. “I’m aware that Demons aren’t good for business,” she said. “You can assure your people that I’m going to take care of it.”
Aria sat back on the couch, her legs folded beneath her. She nodded at Surah, her eyes going to her rich cloak, which felt horribly out of place in this world.
“Is that why you’re carrying the Black Stone?” the girl asked.
This surprised Surah, and her eyebrows shot up at the same time as her eyes narrowed. Charlie was deadly still beside her.
“How do you know I’m carrying the Black Stone?”
Aria closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I can feel it,” she said, exhaling slowly. Her eyes opened, and there was such understanding there that Surah once again felt disarmed. “It’s part of being what I am. I’m always aware of the emotions of all the life around me.”
