by ERIN BEDFORD
Every inch of the skin that had been in contact with the pan turned a nasty shade of red. Angry blisters appeared on my palm, threatening to pop at any moment.
“I knew this would happen.” Dorian sighed and tried to reach out to grab my wrist, but Chess beat him to it.
“I’ll handle this.” Chess gave me a small, reassuring smile before he narrowed his gaze at Dorian. “Don’t you have somewhere to be, your highness?”
Every time Chess said the honorific, it always had a slight condescending quality to it. I was surprised Dorian let him get away with it. He was never one to let someone act above their station, especially a half-breed.
Crossing his arms over his chest, his silken shirt pulled tight across his muscles, Dorian returned Chess’ look with an equally haughty one. “Not as of this moment, but you do, half—” He cut off at my warning frown. “Cheshire and you better not keep your Queen waiting.”
Chess’ jaw tightened as did his grip on me. “She is not my queen, any more than she is yours.”
“Be that as it may, at one time, she was all of our queen, and unless you would like a reminder, I would suggest you make haste. I can take care of Katherine,” he said, giving me a pointed look, like I should praise him for remembering to use the correct name, “as I always have.”
Chess made a sound of disagreement before turning to me. “I won’t be gone long, and if you need anything…” His green eyes locked onto Dorian. “If you need anything at all, just call.”
I pushed him away with my good hand. “Go. Go. Don’t keep my mother waiting. I’ll be fine.”
Chess gave me one last cursory glance before turning on his heel and disappearing into thin air. I stared down at my injured appendage with a wince. My hand hurt, my kitchen was a mess, and I was utterly alone with the last person in this, or any realm, I wanted to talk to. Great.
Chapter 2
The Talk
“COME.” DORIAN GESTURED for me to have a seat at the table.
I eyed the chair, shuffling from one foot to the other. While my hand hurt like hell, I really had no inclination to sit down and hash out our issues, which I was sure he would try to do.
“You know…” I cleared my throat. “I’m fine, really. I just need to get the first aid kit out of the bathroom, and I’ll be right as rain. There’s no need for you to hang around.”
His eyes narrowed at my obvious attempt to get rid of him. “Nonsense. I am here. There is no reason you should endure on your own.”
“Really, Dorian. I’m fine. I just need—”
“Katherine. While I understand your need for independence, your measly human medicine will not suffice to heal such a Fae-related injury, and unless you want it to spread, which it will no doubt do if not treated properly, I suggest you—how do you say—suck it up.”
If the thought of the blisters spreading wasn’t enough of a determining factor, the sharp tone in his voice told me I was wasting my time trying to argue with him.
I threw my good hand up in the air with an exasperated sigh. “Fine.”
“Good. Now, sit.” With a twist of his wrist, a container with some kind of beige crème in it appeared.
I dropped into the chair at the kitchen table with a huff. So much for avoiding the awkward conversation he would no doubt try to start. What was I going to say? What was he going to say? You’d think having my memories back would make things easier, but it didn’t. Not really. I had a hard time explaining it to myself, let alone to someone else. Especially someone who wanted the girl I used to be to be real.
“I cannot treat your hand if you do not give it to me.” The laughter in Dorian’s voice was not lost on me. At least one of us thought this situation was funny.
I hesitated before gingerly holding my hand out to him across the table. It was odd to see the Dark Prince, dressed in his regal attire, sitting in one of the mismatched kitchen chairs as if it were a throne under his delightful tush. It was hard to believe he was really here in the human world.
“Why do you look at me in such a manner?” He twisted the top of the container; a sharp flowery smell assaulted my senses. Angelica? It was well known in the Fae world to counteract iron poisoning. I had always hated that smell. Wait. Did I?
I shook my head to clear the befuddlement that was my past life and met his bemused sapphire eyes.
“Like what?”
“As if you are plotting my demise.” Dipping his long slender fingers into the container, he then began to spread it across the festering blisters on my palm. The crème felt cool against my burning skin, and I fought against the urge to moan out loud.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I muttered, blushing even though I hadn’t been thinking anything close to that.
He gave an exasperated sigh, pausing his ministrations.
“I used to be able to read your expressions so well. Now…” he trailed off, the forlorn expression not making his face any less handsome.
“It’s different.”
“Yes. Different.” His voice was soft as his hand resumed stroking mine. This time, it was more for the sake of touching than healing.
I eased my hand out of his, the tension in the room became stifling.
“Thanks,” I mumbled as I stood from the table, needing to get some distance between us.
“Lynne. I mean, Katherine.” He had that look in his eyes that said my luck was out, and he wanted to talk.
“Don’t. Just don’t.” I put my good hand up to stop him as he stood from his seat. His height towered over me, making the room feel smaller.
“We need to talk about this. You cannot go on pretending like I do not exist.” He grabbed my uninjured hand, pulling it to his chest. “Like we never existed.”
His heart beat beneath my palm, and it caused an ache in my own. I’d have laughed if the moment hadn’t been such a serious one. Pretend like he didn’t exist? That wasn’t likely, especially with how he had taken it upon himself to be my shadow. I could no more pretend he wasn’t real than I could stop the memories from stalking me in my dreams.
Since I had come back, there was not a moment when I closed my eyes where my dreams were my own. It had become so bad that I was afraid to fall asleep at night, because I knew what I would see. It was like a hundred years of being suppressed made that part of me need reconfirmation that we were alive. So I was treated to a reel of my life as Lynne over and over again. The good, the bad, and the heart wrenching painful moments that had me jerking awake in the middle of the night. Seeing him like this was almost more than I could bear.
I extracted my hand from him with my heart in my throat.
“I can’t.” My voice was a helpless whimper that I hated.
“Cannot what?” The pleading in his voice made the whole situation even worse.
“Do this. Us.” I turned from him, wrapping my arms around myself, being cautious of my still tender hand.
“But why? Why can you not give us a chance? I know you are not the same woman, but—”
I spun around. “Do you? Because from what I’ve seen; you don’t seem to get it at all. I’m not. I can’t be the princess you fell in love with. I’m not her.”
“But she is in there somewhere. You have her memories. Her feelings.” He placed his hands on my upper arms and pulled me close. “Who is to say you cannot feel the same thing for me?”
I let him hold me close to him. The beat of his heart pounded in my ears. It would be so easy to pretend. To just pick up where Lynne had left off, but it wasn’t that simple. Not only was I human, but also I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore. What part of me was real? What feelings were mine and which ones were hers?
I swallowed hard and pushed away from him, tears pricking my eyes. “I can’t.”
“Try, please. For me,” he begged. It seemed so wrong to hear those words from him. He was the UnSeelie Prince; he shouldn’t be begging anyone, least of all me.
“I think you should go. Don’t you have a kingdom to rule?” I quirked my brow, trying to soften the blow. “Your mother must be beside herself with worry. Why aren’t you with her?”
Dorian’s jaw tightened. “I have not been to see her yet.”
“What? Why?” My mouth popped open in surprise.
From the way Mab had acted in the garden, I would have thought she would be the first person he would see once his curse was lifted.
“I did not think she would want to see me.”
I almost laughed until I saw his face. “You’re serious? Why would you think that? Of course she wants to see you!”
Dorian and his mother had the kind of relationship I had always envied. The dark and domineering exterior was just a show for their soft and warm insides. I had never seen any mother love her child as much as Mab did Dorian—unlike my mother, human or Fae, whose exterior was as cold on the inside as out.
This time, he turned from me, hiding his face from my view. “You would not understand. You were not here when they found out what happened. It is—”
“Complicated. Yeah, I know. God, do I know.” I blew out a shaky laugh.
Complicated seemed to define my life right now, and it seemed like I wasn’t the only one.
“I should take my leave.”
He moved toward the door, and before I could stop myself, I called out after him.
“Wait.”
He stopped in his tracks, and I instantly regretted speaking.
“Was this not what you wanted?” The muscles in his back tensed.
I opened my mouth but had no words. I didn’t know why I told him to wait. I had asked him to leave, but knowing he had suffered because of me made the emotions I thought were buried under a thick blanket of stubbornness billow up.
“Are you coming back?”
Coward.
His shoulders bunched up as if surprised by my words. “Do you wish me to?”
Well, that was the million-dollar question. The fact that I couldn’t answer that one question said how screwed up in the head I was. While the Fae part of me still remembered the gut-wrenching feel of his betrayal, the human part of me was solely focused on the memory of Dorian himself. I knew what it felt like to kiss him, to touch him, to be touched by him. It didn’t help that the latest dream had focused on the brooding Fae Prince with a lot fewer clothes and a lot sweatier goodness. The memory of it was enough to make my insides quiver.
A growl ripped from his throat, and before I even recognized the feeling, his hands were buried in my hair, and my face was yanked up to his.
The first time he had kissed me in my human form was in a memory. My own memory, to be exact. I had fallen through a looking glass in the Seelie Court that was used to view whatever the looker wanted. I had unfortunately been thinking of the UnSeelie Prince, and though I hadn’t known it at the time, I ended up in one of my own memories.
But unlike then, where his kiss had been long and lingering; this one was demanding, and almost punishing, yet it held an underlying uncertainty. It was that uncertainty that caused my hand to curl into the front of his shirt and kiss him back. I sank into the kiss even though I knew it was hypocritical. I’d pushed him away over and over with claims of not feeling anything for him, but it was a lie. I felt more for him than I was comfortable with, and that was reason enough to keep him at arm’s length.
Nothing good would come from this. I was human. He was a Fae prince. One that didn’t really see me: Kat, the human. He only saw Lynne, and it was that part that just wanted to give in to him.
Because it was easy. It was familiar. Even if it was wrong.
With that thought, I pushed him away from me, panting, as I looked anywhere but at him. “Please go.”
He stood there, no doubt dumbfounded at my sudden change. "But we—”
“It was a mistake,” I cut in. I licked my swollen lips and tried to keep my voice steady. “It won’t happen again.”
This time, when he grabbed me by the arms, it wasn’t gentle. His pinching grip jerked my eyes to his in a smoldering glare.
“I could make you, you know.” His eyes glittered with anger. “I could make you love me. You are human now. So weak. So easily manipulated.”
His magic pheromones pulsed me. My breath caught and parts of me that had been cooling off flared to life.
The press of his power might have caused a physical reaction, but the anger that flared to life brought my own magic with it. I let it rise to the surface, causing my skin to crackle. His hands loosened before tightening once more, unrelenting against my warning.
“You would not even know the difference,” he bit out through clenched teeth as his magic pushed down on me further, making the room feel like it was losing oxygen by the second.
I surprised myself, because instead of lashing out with my magic, I let it melt away.
Meeting his eyes with a level stare, I said, “Then do it. If that is all that matters to you, do it. I’ll be a mindless puppet, completely at your disposal.”
His expression softened slightly, his grip a little less pinching. I knew he wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t be real. Not really. I’d been on both ends of Fae pheromones and knew what they could do to a human. Prolonged exposure could ruin them, both mind and body. They wasted away, pining after the Fae that had exposed them. It was one of the reasons why the Fae were forbidden to use their pheromones for anything but dire situations. At least, that was the way it was a hundred years ago.
A throat cleared behind him, interrupting our stare down. “Uh, ye highness?”
Not taking his eyes from me, Dorian answered the voice I couldn’t have been happier to hear, “What is it, troll?”
I frowned at Dorian’s degrading tone. Mop was not a troll. He was a brownie. A short, little cocoa-colored Fae with a dark beard and even darker eyes. His red overalls matched his red hat, and his feet were bare. He had been my constant companion through my recent adventure in the Underground and always seemed to get there in the nick of time. This was one of those times.
“Hello, Mop.” I smiled, stepping around a perturbed Dorian.
“Lady.” He nodded at me, his gaze still on his prince. “Ye highness, I don’t be meanin’ to intrude, but ye mother be askin’ for ye and sent me to relieve ye.”
“Relieve him?” I cast an irritated glance back at Dorian. “Why would you need to relieve him?”
“Uh…” Mop looked to Dorian for an answer, seeming to not want to give away more than the prince had let on.
“So, your highness.” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. I used his title for the sake of the others in the room. Names have power, and you didn’t want to give the wrong person that kind of power over you. Not that I didn’t trust Mop to keep his mouth shut. It was better safe than sorry. You never knew who could be listening, though.
“It’s for your own good.” His voice was short and left no room for argument, but I was never one to let that stop me.
“So you’ve what? Been babysitting me? I’m an adult. I don’t need a keeper.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder with more flair than required.
“As I can see.” He looked me up and down in a salacious enough way that even Chess would have blushed. Mop gave an uncomfortable cough. “But the fact of the matter is, you‘re the Seelie Princess. The only heir to the Seelie Court and now that you are back, you have to understand that your mother—everyone—is reluctant to let you go again. Especially with Alice on the loose and the shadows gathering forces.”
That had my attention. I had only been gone a few days and already things in the Underground were falling apart. Fuck me.
Chapter 3
Falling Apart
THE SHADOWS. IN my time as the Seelie Princess, I had only heard whispers of them. The Fae so monstrous, so corrupted that even the Seelie Queen didn’t trust them to be thrown into her mirror prison.
I’d been told
the Shadows were exactly that. Shadows of their former selves made from the black abyss they had been exiled to so long ago.
Sheltered as I was before, I had never stepped outside the palace walls, except for the times I snuck out to meet Dorian in the Orchard. It was easy to pretend there wasn’t pain and suffering in my kingdom when I didn’t have to see it. But as a human that all changed.
The Shadows were no strangers to me. I knew their plea. Their wants and desires. Me being one of those primary ones.
I could still feel their burning touch on my skin. Their promise to give me everything I ever wanted. To make me their queen. I had promised I’d think about it, but when you are facing down pure evil, you will swear just about anything to get away.
“What’s happened?” I targeted my question toward Mop and hoped it came across curious and not at all nervous.
Mop glanced at Dorian as if asking for permission.
“Yes, tell her, troll. Tell her how her actions have consequences.” His dark eyes narrowed at me. “Rules are rules for a reason. Even for you.”
“Pfft. Rules are meant to be broken.” I cocked my hip to the side, trying to seem confident and not at all guilty.
“I do not remember you being so cocky before. It must be the human in you.” Dorian sneered before he whipped his arm around, transforming into the beautiful barn owl.
“Hey, you better not poop on my floor!” I hollered after him as he swooped through the kitchen and out the open back door.
Marching over to the door, I slammed it shut and locked it for good measure. “Good riddance.”
“Ye really shouldn’t treat his highness so poorly. Ye don’t know what he went through after ye left.”
Guilt gnawed at me from Mop’s chastising. The thought of causing Dorian pain still made my insides ache and the thought that he was punished because of my irrational thinking made it even worse. I felt bad for the guy, but he still irritated the shit out me.
“He started it,” I pouted with a childish tone.
“Ye don’t need to be lettin’ him rile ye up. Nothin’ more than children, ye are.” Mop muttered the last bit to himself before plopping down in a kitchen chair.
