by C. M. Cevis
Now, Sen was in the kitchen leaning against the counter. She’d grabbed one of the staff and asked them if there was a beer somewhere nearby. He’d laughed, and told her that the King kept several kinds in the fridge down in the kitchen, and that the house had been informed that she could have whatever she wanted. That man was currently her favorite person in the house.
Several sets of thundering feet at a dead run brought her out of her head. She hadn’t changed her clothes yet, and several people gave her strange looks as she walked the house in a burned-up pant suit. Everything important was covered. Whatever.
“What happened?!” That was Onan. Seth was behind him at a light jog, with Ethan bringing up the rear. That was expected — Onan was always concerned that she’d been hurt. Seth was always confident that she hadn’t been. Ethan had most likely just followed Seth’s lead, but Sen didn’t really know. She just wanted to drink her beer in peace.
“Someone sent a message to your mother,” she said, to Ethan, clearly. Onan and Seth both turned to him.
“To Mom? Are you sure?” he asked. Sen nodded.
“There were four of us there, and she was the only one that they went after with a knife,” she replied.
“But why?” Seth asked, more to himself than to anyone in particular.
“Good question,” Sen said, taking another drink of her beer. The King had good taste. She didn’t know what this brand was, but it was damn good.
“Sen, are you down here? Someone said that you went looking for a drink,” King Geoffrey’s voice boomed down the hallway leading into the kitchen.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Sen yelled back. She wasn’t really in the mood for protocol right then; everyone would simply have to forgive her. Two sets of footfalls walked calmly into the kitchen.
“Now that my wife has very excitedly told me what happened, I have a few questions,” King Geoffrey said, calmly. Sen nodded.
“You want to know what I am,” she said. It wasn’t a question — she knew that was what he meant.
“I assume what all of you are?” the King responded, his eyes traveling to Seth and Onan.
“Only Sen and I. Onan’s mother was not… like ours,” Seth said. The King nodded.
“Ah. Then by all means, please explain,” he said. Seth started to speak, but Sen glanced his way to stop him. She was the one who had gotten them there with agreeing to the wedding, and she was the one who had roasted those thugs. It was hers to deal with.
“Short version, our mother was Faerie. Because she died so early in our lives, and because our father was too stupid to bother getting someone to teach us what that means, it wasn’t common knowledge. Seth and I didn’t know until we were teenagers, and even then, by accident,” Sen explained.
“By accident?” Queen Eve asked. Sen took a long drink from her beer, and cracked the top on another. She hated talking about this.
“A few weeks before Seth, Onan and I ran away, my father beat the piss out of me,” Sen said. She waited for someone to admonish her for the language, but no one did, so she continued the story that she’d already told more times than she’d ever intended. She felt her eyes water, and cursed internally at how many times she’d wanted to cry since she’d been in Irencia.
“Long and painful story short, I got angry, and caught on fire. That was when I discovered it. Seth told me that I had to calm down to get the flames to go out, but that was pretty much all we knew about how to control anything back then,” she said. She held her hand up, and ignited it. “We taught ourselves how to control it,” she said.
“So, you both give off fire?” the King asked. Sen glanced at Seth, just as he glanced at her.
“Show them,” she said. Seth nodded, and turned to face the monarchs as the temperature in the room suddenly dropped. The cabinets began to build frost on the doors, and the pot that had been boiling was frozen solid. The Queen began to shiver, and hunched up against her husband, as her breath escaped her lips in white plumes.
“Mine is not nearly as spectacular as Sen’s, but just as much trouble,” Seth said, returning the room to its normal temperature.
“I’m just cute,” Onan said. Sen laughed, and hugged Onan tight. He’d said it to lighten the mood, to make everyone laugh. He was so perfect, and she had no idea how she and Seth would survive without him.
“Ethan. You knew?” the King asked. Ethan held his father’s gaze steadily.
“Yes,” he said. “I found out a few minutes after I met her,” he said.
“And you didn’t tell me?” the King asked. Ethan had known that particular tidbit would probably come back to bite him in the ass, but he still stood by his decision not to.
“Sen is an adult, Dad. I thought that it was her secret to share, and not mine,” he replied. Sen sighed softly.
“I apologize, King Geoffrey. Perhaps I should have told you the moment that we arrived here, but I’m never sure how people will take it, so I often don’t bother to say anything at all,” she said.
“You didn’t think that we’d find out eventually?” the King asked. Sen shrugged.
“Probably not. If we hadn’t been attacked today, you wouldn’t know now,” she replied. King Geoffrey’s gaze dropped, and he nodded.
“You’re right, we wouldn’t. And you did bring my wife home safely, and for that I am grateful,” he said.
“Do we need to leave?” Onan asked, frowning as he looked at King Geoffrey. It was a legitimate question, and Seth and Sen both watched the King as they waited for his response.
“No, that won’t be necessary. You having Fae blood doesn’t make me think any less of you, I simply… don’t like unknowns,” he replied. Sen, Seth and Onan shared a look.
“I think maybe it’s best…” Seth started. Sen knew the rest of the sentence. The King may have said to stay, but he didn’t seem to really mean it.
“Right,” Sen replied, placing her beer on the counter. The three turned together, and started off down the hallway.
“They’re leaving,” the Queen said. Geoffrey frowned.
“I just told them to stay,” he replied.
“And they just decided not to. Hell, I don’t think you really meant it, so I’d bet money that they don’t either. You really had to come down here and look at her like she’s some sort of freak for saving Mom’s life?” Ethan asked.
“I did no such thing,” King Geoffrey barked back.
“Yes, Geoffrey. You did,” the Queen said. It was soft, but it had both men’s attention. Geoffrey looked at his wife beside him, wide eyed.
“I… I wasn’t trying to attack the poor girl,” he said.
“In what world would you think that children that have lived the life that they’ve lived, been through what they’ve been through, would simply stand there and allow themselves to be looked down on? They have raised themselves, and taken care of themselves. Why would you think that they would choose to stay where they feel that they aren’t welcome, instead of being on their own again?” she asked.
“You sent me down there, against my will, to bring Sen back, and you’ve driven her away,” Ethan said. Geoffrey sighed, his gaze dropping to the floor.
“What do you want me to do about it?” he said, frustration leaking into his voice. Ethan blinked at his father, and leaned back against the kitchen counter with folded arms. “Aren’t you going to go after her?” The King almost bellowed it at his son.
“No offense meant, but I didn’t want this marriage, Dad. You wanted it," Ethan said with a sigh. "I went down to Artifice, and gave it a shot, like you asked me to, and somehow I convinced Sen to agree. You’ve single-handedly undone everything in mere minutes, and destroyed what you worked so hard to force both her and I into. I'm not chasing after anyone, not this time,” Ethan replied, before turning and walking out the small rear door that led into the garden out back.
It was a warm clear night. The kind of night that made nature lovers want to be outside, mosquitoes be damned. The moon was spotlight bright,
barely dimming the stars dotted around it. Ethan took a deep breath, smiling up at the sky for a moment before he began his stroll.
That was the moment that it hit him. The images of Sen from that horrid box, back in Seth and Onan's apartment, and his promise to help her depose her father. The thought stopped his feet, and guilt began to needle at him. What the hell did he feel guilty for? He wasn't the one that had driven her away. That was what his logic told him, but the rest of his thought process didn't seem to care. He thought back to the evening they'd spent together at her house, and how she'd asked him if he thought that his parents would like her. There had been something shocking and innocent about her question. And his father's reaction to something that she couldn't help being was probably the one thing that she'd been afraid of.
"Oh, for fuck’s sake," Ethan hissed to himself, turning and damn near marching back towards the house. He had to make it right, even if they still chose to leave. He'd never be able to forgive himself if he didn't at least try.
The door slammed back against the counter as Ethan stormed in, pissed that he'd talked himself into even caring about all of this. He'd expected both of his parents to have moved on, since hanging out in the kitchen wasn't something that they normally did, but the King still stood there, alone.
"That was quick. Where's your mother?" he asked. Ethan frowned.
"Dad, what are you talking about?" Part of him didn't really care where she was. She was a big girl, and had always been able to take care of herself, especially in a palace, surrounded by guards. He'd come inside with a purpose, and his father was slowing him down.
"She followed you outside, and said that she needed to talk to you before it was too late, and they left," the King explained. Ethan frowned harder.
"She didn't come out into the garden with me," he replied. The King matched his son's confused frown.
"She went outside seconds after you did," he said.
Ethan tried not to get annoyed, and turned back towards the darkness of the night outside. He didn't hear anything that sounded like feet on grass, or fabric brushing against the decorative bushes, and well-manicured flowers. Only the normal sounds of the night.
"Mom?" he called, as his father stepped through the door behind him. Nothing.
"Eve, my love, where are you?" his father bellowed through the garden. His echo answered, but nothing else for a few moments. Then, an absolutely terrifying scream. Ethan felt his blood run cold as his heart rate skyrocketed, and everything else in the world fell away.
"Mom? MOM!?" he yelled, taking off towards the sound.
Stay tuned for a preview of the next book.
Noble Wound
Rime & Pyre, Book 2
Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited
on August 24, 2018. Click
HERE
for the pre-order page!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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C.M. Cevis has been writing her entire life, but has just gotten around to sharing her imagination with the rest of the world. She is a mother, a gamer, and a lover of explosions and adult language. You can connect with her on twitter at @authorcmcevis, on Instagram at authorcmcevis, or on Facebook at @authorcmcevis.
As promised, a preview of Allied Hope…
THE LIGHT IN THE HALLWAY outside of the rooms that they'd been living in seemed a bit dimmer to Sen as she and her brothers approached.
"I remember seeing a couple of hotels on the way to golf that day," she was mildly aware of Onan saying to Seth.
"That should work for at least a few days. It'll give time for Sen to decide what she wants to do," he replied. Sen stopped short, turning to face her brothers just as they skidded to a halt to keep from crashing into her.
"Sen? Are you OK?" Onan asked, taking her hand. Sen opened her mouth to say something, though she had no idea what, so she closed it again.
"Sen," Seth started, but Sen shook her head, stopping him. She knew he was about to say something warm and caring, but she needed a moment without words.
"That's fine," was what she eventually got out. "We should pack," she said, turning away. Onan and Seth shared a look before going their separate, silent ways.
It had been forecasted to be a beautiful day, so that morning she'd left the doors to the balcony open. There was something about having fresh air around her that always made her feel better. Maybe that was the Fae part of her. She sighed deeply, and shuffled into the closet to start re-packing her things.
The day replayed in her mind, over and over again. The spa, where the muscular, male masseurs flirted with all the ladies, but seemed to be just a bit too interested in her. The ladies that prattled on and on about absolutely nothing. The restaurant... The "message"… She'd done the right thing, right? Allowing the Queen to be injured and who knows what else out of fear of revealing herself would have been wrong. Totally wrong, there was no questioning that. She was pretty sure there wasn't.
Doubt began to needle its way into her logic, and she began to think that maybe what she should have done was sit there, whimpering like an idiot with the others. Then Ethan's parents wouldn't know what she and Seth were; what they were capable of. They wouldn't have looked at them like they were freaks, when they weren't — they were a product of genetics, and there was nothing that they could do about that.
Sen still remembered the looks she got the first time that her abilities had gotten away from her in public. She hadn't hurt anyone, but they looked at her like she had. They looked at her like she was a monster, instead of a person. That was what the King's words and eyes had reminded her of. That look never stopped hurting.
Sen sniffed and roughly raked her arm across her eyes, wiping away the tears that had started running down her face. She ripped her clothes off of the hangers and flung them into the suitcase. She didn't care about being neat anymore. She'd care later, when she didn't want to curl up in a ball and cry like a little b...
"What the hell was that?" Sen said out loud. She dropped the pair of jeans she'd been holding, and trotted to the balcony.
The night was almost cool, and the clouds had stayed away long enough for her to have a clear blanket of stars shining down on her. The sounds of the night had almost come to a halt, right about the time that she could have sworn that she heard someone scream. She heard a clang of metal on metal towards the outer fence of the garden, and turned as the noise evolved into a rather urgent rustling.
"That is not a squirrel," she said, squinting in the darkness, and leaning out over the railing of the balcony, as if that would help her see what the hell was going on over there. There was way too much movement for that to have been a few guards taking an extended break. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that she was watching a fight.
"Mom?!" Ethan’s voice, the panic as clear as the night that she stood under brought her attention around to the other side of the balcony, and the lightbulb came on so quickly, she felt like it should have caused her some sort of pain.
“Ethan! Over there!” Sen hissed over the balcony. Ethan looked up at the shadow, backlit by the inside lamps. He never broke stride, instead choosing to take off like a bat out of hell in the direction that Sen was pointing, and praying that she was pointing him in the right direction.
Sen forgot about packing, about her clothes in the abandoned closet, about being hurt and offended. Something was wrong. She screamed for her brothers as she tore into the hallway
, and turned towards the stairs.
